Kwame Dawes
Build me a house of light,
stretches of emptiness glaring
into an open sky calling
the colors in; but mostly
the white light that consumes
shadows, that turns this body
of riverbed brown into something
transparent like an ochre-
colored piece of cotton flapping
in the air; build me a house
of new light, the daily whisper
of dialects crawling across
the cedar and tamarind
woods; build me a house
where the rain beads the glass
panes over us, the fragile
membrane separating
us from the chaos
of the other side; furnish
our cabin with the white
and sepia brown of things—
the dull pewter of ancient
lead; the gleam of decanters,
hundreds of them, lining
the walls; build me
the house for my musty
eyes; the house where
faces, illuminated, reveal
themselves to be familiar
as a plain book of poems
opened out—call it splayed—
on the table, my desk,
the scene of such terrible crimes.
from the journal  SOUTHERN INDIANA REVIEW 
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A few years ago, I discovered that for many, many years, the motif of sight and the anxiety of blindness, has haunted my poems.  This makes sense.  My sight has been an almost hereditary challenge for years, and light is a practical gift for me, as long as it holds.
 
Formal color photograph of Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley Jones and Governor Kay Ivey
"Alabama's First Black Poet Laureate Honored"

"Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama presented Jones with a commendation for her work and her prestigious appointment....'I’m hoping that through my position I can continue to spread that message and show that when we actually confront the truth it’s good for everyone. Hiding things doesn’t help at all. It actually hurts more than it helps,' said Jones."

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Cover of Jayne Cortez' book, On The Imperial Highway: New and Selected Poems
What Sparks Poetry: 
Evie Shockley on Jayne Cortez' "There It Is"

"Cortez’s trademark use of enumeratio—a rhetorical device that builds the force of an argument by offering detailed lists of the parts, causes, or effects of an issue—drives home the ruthlessness of this class of people: “They will try to exploit you / absorb you    confine you / disconnect you     isolate you / or kill you.”  Enumeratio forms the poem’s fundamental structure."  
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