“Yes, I, I hate it when the blood starts flowing / But I’m glad to see resistance growing. . .”
—Gil Scott-Heron, Johannesburg
September 28th Kétu Oladuwa begins a 14-month sojourn to poet in cities thruout the U.S., meeting & working with other poets who innerstand the power of poetry to raise consciousness & unite people’s resistance & desire for liberation. I intend to bring self-publishing poets together, networking collectives that harness the agency of healing, surgical language.
Admission is a FREEWILL OFFERING – No admission will be charged for any event on this 14-month tour. I have faith in the power of the word & the resonance of the spirits who hear it, to unite people in collective work & responsibility. Our support will come thru freewill offerings & donations at the events & thru our GoFundMe campaign. Peace, Luv, Respect, Liberation!
Each August I silently renew gratitude for the Ancestral presence in my life. August 17th was the 53rd anniversary of my being released from a death sentence & walking off deathrow, at the behest of my Ancestors. That day marked 5-years, a month & five days from my arrest, & two & a half months after when, hearing that a jury of my peers had found me guilty of murder in the first degree—a murder I don’t commit—a judge hammered his gavel & pronounced, & may God have mercy on your soul. Shocked, yes, but I was not alone that October in 1966.
That same year W.L. Nolen & George Lester Jackson founded the Black Guerrilla Family in California’s infamous San Quentin prison, an interned wing of the Black Panther Party. For the next five years at Walpole, like the brothers Jackson’s & Nolen’s tutelage, I schooled mySelf in the politics of Black Power & historical analysis, minting a liberation consciousness. I found free while behind steel bars, the thick of concrete walls, & the finality of a death sentence. I found free in self-education, resistance, & the cultural integrity & wisdom of my Ancestors. They freed me long before August 17, 1971.
Black August is sacred if you’re living in the reactionary shadow of white supremacy, struggling to define free from behind the walls of the English language & police state laws, consumer culture & the capitalist economics that drive all things here. What does it mean to be a free inmate in this prison? Free is not simply moving from one spot to another without being restrained. It’s more than speaking your truth in opposition to democracy propaganda. Freedom begins with identity, cultural continuity; begins with a relationship with Ancestors who paved your way. Free means sovereign. Funkadelic say: Free your mind, & your ass will follow; the kingdom of heaven is within.
Free requires strategic vulnerability; requires tactical resistance regarding policies, laws, & principalities that order society to their design in violation of your interests, while expecting your respect & obedience. My addiction to America ended in mid-October 1966. I was once imprisoned for a murder I did not commit. August reminds me of my debt to the Ancestors, Elders, & Community. I am the product of Eldercare & Ancestor guidance. Poetry gave me voice in 1967 & I continue to sing these 5 decades later.
August 24, 2024
