______ FEATURED POET |
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| Bearing the load Bridled by the fruit of her labor She bends with the wind. HAIKU POEM ROSALIENE BACCHUS |
Her roots are deep
Many bloods cruise through her veins
Yet she can trace with certainty
Her beginnings
She comes from a long line
Of strong women
The spirit of goddesses runs through
Her
The spirit of earth and
Sun goddesses
Spirits of the elements
The forces
Of life
Rest in her
Spirit of Oya
Yoruba goddess of winds
And Tempests
Oya
The strong protectress of women
Yes, she comes from a long line
A long line of strong women.
She springs from survivors
From enslaved women
From women
Who struggled to be free
Now,
Made stronger by this history
Bathed in the power of her ancestors
Strengthened by the faith
And works of sisters
She shapes the world.
Poem from Facing the Wind by Cicely Rodway,
New York, USA, 2007.
Many bloods cruise through her veins
Yet she can trace with certainty
Her beginnings
She comes from a long line
Of strong women
The spirit of goddesses runs through
Her
The spirit of earth and
Sun goddesses
Spirits of the elements
The forces
Of life
Rest in her
Spirit of Oya
Yoruba goddess of winds
And Tempests
Oya
The strong protectress of women
Yes, she comes from a long line
A long line of strong women.
She springs from survivors
From enslaved women
From women
Who struggled to be free
Now,
Made stronger by this history
Bathed in the power of her ancestors
Strengthened by the faith
And works of sisters
She shapes the world.
Poem from Facing the Wind by Cicely Rodway,
New York, USA, 2007.
ROOTS For Women of the African Diaspora Cicely Rodway |
| WOMAN |
| SOLOMON VANDY AFRICAN MUSIC COMPOSED BY JAMES NEWTON HOWARD |
| REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION |
Cicely Rodway, a
Guyanese-American
living in New York, is
an educator, clinical
social worker, and
addiction counselor.
Her first poetry
collection,
Sunstreams and
Shadows, was
published by Africa
World Press in 2002.
Facing the Wind and
Women Who Laugh
at the Wind followed
in 2007 and 2009
respectively.
Guyanese-American
living in New York, is
an educator, clinical
social worker, and
addiction counselor.
Her first poetry
collection,
Sunstreams and
Shadows, was
published by Africa
World Press in 2002.
Facing the Wind and
Women Who Laugh
at the Wind followed
in 2007 and 2009
respectively.
Cicely Rodway's poetry "reflects the commonplaces of
domestic feeling struggling out of the commonplace,
much like the confessional women poets of the
American Sixties, its simplicities deceptive..."
Professor Anthony O'Brien, English Department of Queens
College, New York.
