This Is Not a Small Voice
As many of you have already discovered, I was recently out of the office for a week, having taken my first truly unplugged vacation since we opened our doors.
Returning from the airport on March 29th, Qian Julie Wang and I were soon back out the door and on our way to the annual gala for Poets & Writers, a nonprofit organization in support of creative writers.
I was honored to hear a reading by Sonia Sanchez, whose poem I would like to share with you:
This Is Not a Small Voice
This is not a small voice you hear this is a large voice coming out of these cities. This is the voice of LaTanya. Kadesha. Shaniqua. This is the voice of Antoine. Darryl. Shaquille. Running over waters navigating the hallways of our schools spilling out on the corners of our cities and no epitaphs spill out of their river mouths. This is not a small love you hear this is a large love, a passion for kissing learning on its face. This is a love that crowns the feet with hands that nourishes, conceives, feels the water sails mends the children, folds them inside our history where hey toast more than the flesh where they suck the bones of the alphabet and spit out closed vowels. This is a love colored with iron and lace. This is a love initialed Black Genius. This is not a small voice you hear.
Although the summer of 2020 feels like a lifetime ago, the systemic injustices we so eagerly protested back then still continue unabated. Let the memory of the victims, the determination of the survivors, and the voices of the silenced be a blessing.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY, 11201
Marc@GottliebFirm.com
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