Ekphrasis on Elizabeth Catlett Mora's Homage to Black Women Poets

Ekphrasis

"Elizabeth Catlett Mora (April 15, 1915 – April 2, 2012) was an American born Mexican sculptor and printmaker." Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s.

Homage to Black Women Poets

You know us as we are you

creating because impelled

by earth oath and bird cry

womb tie and navel mark

as sure as our parents’ pain

our inherited hurt and strength

always Forged by fire, ever constrained

and free, if we understand the certainty 

of exclusion from power palaces to which we

will never belong,  how our pegs are shaped

differently always, and so ever denied,

there Is  much to Affirm and ever excluded,

there is much to Gather and the Raised fist

asserts and the arm over head protects

and the sturdy big legs, wide columns below

globe-spanning hips, are Rooted

as eyes large with want and wonder, look

sky ward, searching for what over arches,

for all that transcends