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about

Cleveland poet, Mary Barrett was a 17-year-old high school student when she wrote the poem "Blackwards" in response to the racial and economic disparities she saw between the Cleveland neighborhoods of Glenville and Bratenahl. In the poem, Barrett discovers how these disparities are intentional. "Hard to find your voice in the midst of Cleveland", Barrett writes. And yet, the poem also serves as a guide for how to find your voice despite the disparities encoded within the social structure.

lyrics

Cleveland
Where the real mysteries are hidden
Dark magic
Teleportation devices
like the portal
Separating
St Clair from MLK
University Circle
Spitting a uni-verse in circles
On loop even when shit hits the fan

We know how to resist the flow,
I learned in Twelve
Bricks breaking
vocal cords; sore throats

Hard not to lose your voice in the
midst of Cleveland
Hard to find your voice in the
midst of Cleveland
Hard not to mimic someone else's voice and mistake it for yours in the
midst of Cleveland
Hard to do any of those things without catching a cold in Cleveland
in chaos
That's the realness
The illness

Cleveland always got the flu
Even in the summertime blues
clueless caress of mama
nature under stress
Cleveland:
Where you experience 4 seasons in 24 hours
Where people stay salty all winter
yet there's still all this ice on these streets
Where construction fixes white smiles
And skips over frowns
Claiming we couldn't be seen with our hoods over our heads
“Aye that's the hood up ahead.
Thank the Lord for the freeway protecting Bratenahl”

It ain't never been this cold
It ain't never been this cold in the home land

This is Cleveland on fire
Ground yourself to this earth
Cleveland on Earth

This is not our Hell

There are 4 seasons
4 elements
4 directions;

And we all integrate into Twelve Literary Arts
For Cleveland

credits

from In Search Of The Land, released June 19, 2021
Poetry written and performed by Mary Barrett
Personnel:
Alto Saxophone, Chris Coles
Drums, Dan Fernandez
Keyboards, Eli Hanley
Bass, Dave Rhoades

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Twelve Literary Arts Cleveland, Ohio

Twelve Literary Arts is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) literary arts and education organization founded by Executive Artistic Director Daniel Gray-Kontar in May 2016. Twelve Literary Arts provides literary arts instruction and leadership development to elementary and high school-aged youth, adult poets, writers, and storytellers. ... more

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