The Black Feminine Mystique
A Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award Finalist
by
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There Was a Message in the Music The first music we heard was what our parents liked. Listening closely, we knew if there was domestic bliss Or marital strife. I search the music chambers of my mind for that love song, Hear Ray Charles singing the blues instead, wailing about A rainy night in Georgia. And Gladys Knight not wanting to say good-bye first. There was this musical exchange between our parents As they danced around each other and what they needed to say. There were too many rainy nights in Georgia; there were too many unsaid good-byes. When the record starting playing static I tip-toed into the living room. The window was open and the rain had invited itself in. I shut it before I went to shut Ray Charles up once and for all. I'd decided to drop the record, shatter Ray's blues. Daddy's snoring stopped when the record was in my hand. "Boy, put Ray back on!" "It's a rainy night...."
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About the Book
The Black Feminine Mystique is a collection of poetry that celebrates women of color. It draws from mythology; from the many Black women heroines from history; from women living and dead; and from writers, artists, athletes, and women from the author’s life, including but not limited to his four sisters and his mother. The Black Feminine Mystique paints a broad stroke from Isis to Ida B. Wells, from Hagar in the Wilderness to Winnie Mandela, and from the so-called Hottentot Venus to Venus Williams. One writer said that miscegenation created fifty-five shades, which is part of the Black Feminine Mystique.
About the Author
William E. Waters is an award-winning poet, playwright, and author. His poetry has been in a number of anthologies and magazines, including Rattle and AIM. In 1998, he was the cowinner of the Edwin Mellen Poetry Prize for his epic poem, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present, published in 2000 by Edwin Mellen Poetry Press. He reissued this book in 2013 through AuthorHouse. He is also the author of Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, a National Poetry Series finalist, a collection of poetry about law enforcement excesses, which was published by AuthorHouse in 2013. Waters has a master’s degree from New York Theological Seminary and bachelor’s degrees from SUNY New Paltz and Albany University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.