The poem Don't Know What Love Is by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers can be found in the ringing ear - Black Poets Lean South: A Cave Canem Anthology. From the back cover of the book: "The South: to render all that it means to an African American takes someone with acutely tuned senses, someone with a patience, a passion even, for the region's history and contradictions. It takes a poet. In this anthology, the first of its kind, more than one hundred contemporary Black poets laugh at and cry about, pray for and curse, flee and return to the South."
The poem by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers seemingly does all of the above. The narrator recalling a story her mother can barely recall herself, even though it was her story to tell. She and her teenage friends had " ... sneaked out to an official joint
in the middle of the woods to listen
to Dinah Washington sing their favorite
love song..."
The segment that hit me the hardest, as one that is either being told by one who was there, that is, spending many an ight in one of these official joints, or by one who paid damn close attention to the stories her parents and other elders used to tell:
"She's sniffing the perfume of homemade
cigarettes, chitlin plates, hair grease one
grade above Vasoline, and the premature
funk wafting up from the rowdy kids
with no home training."
Reading this poem reminded me that I have a full collection somewhere around here by Ms. Jeffers. I believe it's one that I will be digging out soon.
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