CloseImageViewView image “For Young Blacks, the Lost Generation (Newsweek, 8/14/78) (3 of 3)”For Young Blacks, the Lost Generation (Newsweek, 8/14/78) (3 of 3)Uploaded June, 2025Tags listtagspoetryyouthtraumacommunitysurvival
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CloseImagePreviewPreview image “For Young Blacks, the Lost Generation (Newsweek, 8/14/78) (1 of 3)”For Young Blacks, the Lost Generation (Newsweek, 8/14/78) (1 of 3)Uploaded June, 2025Tags listtagspoetryyouthcommunitytraumasurvival
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CloseImageViewView image “Draft, A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKS”Draft, A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKSUploaded August, 2024Tags listtagsmilitarywarsurvivalmemorylawtrauma
CloseImageViewView image “A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKS”A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKSUploaded August, 2024Tags listtagsmilitarywarsurvivalmemorylawtrauma
![First ideas for Lost Generation poem, rue du Midi, 17 Aug. 1978. We have stopped whole machines to get the silence needed to hear if you are still breathingDon't you believe us? We were lying lying LYING to you:Get up get up get up get up YOU Larry, who....Get up get up get up get up YOU so-and-so, who.... image of needle dangling from arm + other "machines" dragging, maiming, confusing the Black teenagersThe noise you hear: it is the sound of our feet, the sound of our bands, the sound of our jaws... we are coming to get you get you get you... we will do anything ANYTHING to wake you up, to bring you back... we need you... wake up wake up wake up WAKE UPwe have planes to bring you back, we have bombs, yes, bombs, to blast you out of those holes if you try to hide...we have computers to tell us all, yes, ALL we need to know...we can even teach you, even you, to run them run them [computers]we have jobs oh jobs, and you have the skills: can't you plant the trees again, scoop out the rivers, repair the feathers on the birds... (Movement of poem maybe goes from beginning irritation and blame to final almost-plea to "save us" or "save me")](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/7/3/a/73a5a59e-4b10-4542-98ca-1f9b4db5d393/attachment/72d9b8ae46757a204ee7ed5444c9c6dd.jpg)
![Poem begun at Le Barry, 1 Aug. 1985, 11:20 a.m.—12:37; 4:40 p.m.—5:05
A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKS
by J. A. Emanuel
I was born militant,
screamed
when the world first [*leave 5 spaces*] touched me,
slapped me into life.
Measles, mumps, and scarlet fever
dug [was like trenches to my bedroom door,]
foxholes near my schoolyard,
[tried an tough tested me at fighting back,]
[blood tested
[while words my father hated]
[toughened my hands]
[to the schoolyard,] to my inkwell,
[sank] dragged me home
to [for] test[s at] my fighting back.
Retilo Remos taught me how to [swear curse
like Mexicans pushed [who had to live] in boxcars homes [across the] across [beyond] the railroad tracks,
while words my father always hated
[toughened my hands, like cracked marbles toughening gripped] toughened my hands
like the grip of cracked marbles.](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/3/0/b/30bbc15c-2790-434e-bd8c-1e2755707614/attachment/7a6711ded94ed9322a4b9d66f6f91496.jpg)
