We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,749,805.95 | Books Available: 731,078 | Members Online: 31

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Mockingbirds at Jerusalem: A Poetic Memoir

Mockingbirds at Jerusalem A Poetic Memoir
Author: Rudolph Lewis

Mockingbirds at Jerusalem: A Poetic Memoir By Rudolph Lewis Introduction This poetic memoir recalls the place of my childhood, which was informed by a life of integrity and dignity, character qualities of maternal grandparents who taught me a respect for words, stories that shored up life diminished by ideas of separation and inferiority. It ... more »was a rural hamlet, named Jerusalem, founded in 1870, in Virginia?s poorest county, Sussex. It offered grudgingly little in fields and forests, vision warped by slavery and Jim Crow. This distorted place could and will never be one of permanence for a smart black boy. He will always seek to fulfill his self in other spaces. Jerusalem generates exiles. Beginning mid-1960s, I sought housing with indoor toilets and tap water, and joy in America?s urban centers, and in a neo-colonial Congo, in New Orleans with poets, artists, musicians, educators, and priests. I worked as porter, teacher, journalist and librarian, studied modern art, listened to jazzmen, and passed out words against war and injustice during the American war against the Viet Cong. When my exiled world became too cold and depressing to bear, I returned home to my grandmother?s voice?her stories and songs. Most of these poems were first written in 2006 and have been in revision for seven years. They begin with a poem to my grandfather, William ?Tinka? Lewis, who raised me as his son and died in 1970. There are many poems that call up my grandmother, Ella Lewis, whom I called ?Mama? and from whom I learned our family history. In poor health she was suffering loss of weight and dementia. Her daughter Annie made her comfortable in that home she and Tinka built in the late 1950s. The last family member of her generation, Mama had seen two of her daughters pass before her, and in the spring of 2008 both her son-in-law and then the daughter that bore me also passed. She was too ill to travel to Baltimore for either funeral. And in 2009 I became ill and she passed that December, a month after I married Yvonne Terry. I attempt to capture some of that disruptive beauty in these poems. I owe an eternal debt to my maternal grandparents and their Jerusalem and all that made it live?our kinfolks, the dirt roads, the church community, Creath school, our neighbors, the gardens; barnyards and their pigs, mules, and chickens; the weather, dark purple nights with its stars. In this memoir I?ve tried to translate that beauty, horror, and wonder (and its end) into a contemporary idiom others may know. I spent much of my time at the woodshed with Bobo Cat if not chopping wood, meditating, reading, and taking notes. I read the Autobiography of Amiri Baraka, Aldon Nielsen?s Black Chant, and Nina Simone?s I Put a Spell on You. Some of the poems reflect those readings, like ?Showdown at the Five Spot? and ?I Put a Spell on We.? The memoir recalls also Nathaniel Turner, the prophet of Southampton, who among others began the continuing tradition of the week-long August revival. Several poems sketch out the tragic death and funeral of Carter a multiracial child, the sadness of his mother and stepfather. ?Ode for Walls,? an ironical/symbolical poem, brings the memoir to a close.

ISBN-13: 9780878310418
ISBN-10: 087831041X
Publication Date: 11/14/2014
Pages: 100
Edition: 1
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Black Academy Press, Incorporated
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> Poetry >> Regional & Cultural >> United States >> Black & African American

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Mockingbirds at Jerusalem: A Poetic Memoir

Loading...