seeking redemption


SEEKING REDEMPTION



( for Stefan M. Wheelock )







Parents of recovery

sleep in the snow

with pearls of wrath and swine.

Truly, in a barbaric culture,

as a wise man saw while inspecting locks of law,

"the possibilities for excellence

may come from anyone," or anything

or anywhere --- a rotten apple

in a diamond, a trump card in a tower,

a body beheaded and splayed on an underground railway.



Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

August 28, 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog2.14.2021

  Blog2.14.2021   The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6   Humble yourself and follow the lead of the child, but first teach the child to read.   Reading narratives to the child while it is still in the womb is a project for preparing children who will be born in the 21st century for what they are condemned to expect:   the heavy burdens of history as narrative prior to history's becoming equipment for daily life, instruments for probing inevitable uncertainties.   Always discuss with the child the centrality of narrative in the state of being human.   If this sounds to you like dream-work and   platitude your hearing is accurate. As what we once knew as American democracy slowly becomes a fascist desert, we must arm ourselves and our children to do battle with inconvenient truth. ...
Read more

CLA paper

CLA,   April 6, 2018 Jerry W. Ward, Jr. PHBW:   Negotiating the Ideas of Seven Writers [1]                 Founded in 1983 by Dr. Maryemma Graham, "The Afro-American Novel Project" (AANP) had the initial goal of identifying all published novels written by African Americans from the nineteenth century to the late twentieth century.   AANP became The Project on the History of Black Writing (PHBW) in 1990 to reflect an enlarged vision and a more ambitious aim.   PHBW want to make a substantial contribution to what we then spoke of as our "Profession" by organizing bibliographic information and databases, sponsoring institutes and seminars, and by encouraging our colleagues to have rigorous engagements with all genres of black (African American) "writing" within   frames   of historical inquiry.             ...
Read more

DuBois and Black Reconstruction

  PROPAGATION OF HISTORY AND FAITH   DuBois, W. E. B.   Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 . (1935; New York: The Free Press, 1998).   Dr. DuBois knew what was problematic about his revisionist history in Black Reconstruction .   He made his intentions clear in his note "To The Reader" (December 1934).   His ideal audience consisted of people who believed a black person in America "and in general is an average and ordinary human being, who under given environment develops like other human beings…"   DuBois was not trying to convince those who regarded " the Negro as a distinctly inferior creation, who can never successfully take part in modern civilization…"   Indeed, the Negro, in my mind at least, is the chief architect of civilization.   Is it only a matter of accident that Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro was published   two years before Black Reconstruction ?   No.   It wasn't an accide...
Read more