a poem i am sure everyone has seen but i’m still going to share anyway
as well as this other poem inspired by giovanni’s
and this beautiful tweet
sorry to bitch but every time i see these (certainly beautiful!) poems circulating online i get so frustrated that they’ve both been completely divorced from their original contexts. both of these poems were written by prominent BLACK poets who wrote them about POLICE VIOLENCE. these are metaphorical, it’s not just about bugs (though i do believe in pacifism for all things).
nikki giovanni is a black woman and educator who has written about black liberation, culture, and struggles for decades now, and also a mother, and rudy francisco is a young black man and poet. you’re meant to read between the lines of these poems, not take them at face value, with that context in mind.
these are not about spiders.
[ID: a green-ish spider against mostly black background. Beneath it, white text that reads, “i’m sorry for scaring you but i didn’t know being seen would cost me my life”]
[Text ID: “Allowables” / by Nikki Giovanni // I killed a spider / Not a murderous brown recluse / Nor even a black widow / And if the truth were told this / Was only a small / Sort of papery spider / Who should have run / When I picked up the book / But she didn’t / And she scared me / And I smashed her // I don’t think / I’m allowed // To kill something // Because I am // Frightened" -end ID]
[Text ID: “Mercy // after Nikki Giovanni // She asks me to kill the spider. / Instead, I get the most / peaceful weapons I can find. // I take a cup and a napkin. / I catch the spider, put it outside / and allow it to walk away. // If I am ever caught in the wrong place / at the wrong time, just being alive / and not bothering anyone, // I hope I am greeted / with the same kind / of mercy. // -Ruby Francisco” -end ID]
[ID: a Tweet from @/KaylaAncrum that reads, “I had a dream that I was commissioned to write a poem from a bug to god, and I do not remember any of the poem, except for the last line which was: I pray nobody kills me for the crime of being small.” -end ID]
