Categories: JournalWillawaw JournalWillawaw Journal Fall 2021 Issue 13

Ellen June Wright

In Praise of Those Winter Sundays

I thought this is a black poem and then I thought no
this is an American poem and then I thought no
this is a universal poem. This is Marxist at its best.
This is the struggle of the underclass: the poor ennobled,
elevated—a father monumental in all our memories.
With me through the last forty years—rooted in me
the way some tree roots can run miles underground.
Hayden’s father is the father I mourn I never had
or is my mother who alone made sure the heat was on,
who worked oxen hours finding strength I never did.
I can only sing praises for those winter Sundays:
the ones when I was warm in bed, the ones when I
was poor but fed and the sonnet carried not in my
pocket but with which I was never without.

Ellen June Wright was born in England of West Indian parents and currently lives in New Jersey. She has consulted on guides for three PBS poetry series. Her work was selected as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week in June 2021, and she is a founding member of Poets of Color virtual poetry workshop.

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4 years ago

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