For Dudley - Poem

African American Review, Fall, 2002

For Dudley.

Sterling D. Plumpp


He is the only/Steel
born to live.

Builds a press to promulgate
books his folks can
get back change from five
dollars after buying.

Mimeographs his efforts and
gets a literary history, revival
of Africa in Africans.

He is silhouette crouched
in postures of lifting. Though
he speaks softly
I hear Jacob's Ladders,
reinforced with alloys of will
and spirit, march upwards

for his utterances.

His Specialty: broadsides,
bacon for break
fast of hungry minds.

He is a "poet's poet": naming
poems I will write
in harvest paths

He yields

Sterling D. Plumpp, who has long served as Poetry Editor for African American Review, is Professor of African American Studies and English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Among his recent books are Blues Narrative, Ornate with Smoke, Homman, and Johannesburg and Other Poems.