Haki Madhubuti: Honored worldwide except in his home state of Illinois

Haki Madhubuti. | Sun-Times file

It’s disheartening that, as the country is reflecting on racial inclusiveness, this cultural and literary treasure did not make the final cut to become the next Illinois poet laureate.

Most voices are seasonal.

We hear them for a generation, then they fade into the wind.

That’s not the case with Haki R. Madhubuti.

Known as Don L. Lee in his youth, some might remember him as a tall, skinny, high-yellow brother who peddled his poems on the same South Side streets where brothers sling drugs.

Many more will remember him as the dashiki-clad poet whose poems helped give birth to the Black Arts Movement, a cultural revolution that turned the South Side into a mecca for Black writers and artists in the 1960s.

If it was happening to Black people, Madhubuti spoke on it.

Assassination

it was wild.

the bullet hit high.

(the throat-neck)

&from everywhere:

the motel, from under bushes and cars,

from around corners and across streets,

out of garbage cans and from rat

holes

in the earth

they came running

toward the king—

all of them

fast and sure—

as if

the King

was going to fire back.

they came running,

fast and sure,

in the

wrong direction.

His poems became more than hashtags and slogans. Madhubuti turned Black thought into Third-World Press, the largest and oldest Black-owned publishing company in the country.

His poems became the Institute of Positive Education, New Concept School, Betty Shabazz International Charter School and the Barbara A. Sizemore Academy, all schools and cultural institutions he founded or co-founded.

Last month, Madhubuti, 78, published his 15th book of poetry. He also has published more than 30 books and contributed poetry and essays to more than 100 anthologies and journals.

“Taught by Women — Poems as Resistance Language” pays tribute to the female activists, poets, artists and writers who shaped him as a husband, father, activist, publisher, institution-builder and poet.

In a review by Patrick T. Reardon for Third Coast Review, the writer pointed out that, “unlike many 1960s radicals, white and Black, Madhubuti remains a leading Black artistic, political and social revolutionary — a poet who still writes for other Blacks about the Black experience from deep inside the community.”

For instance:

The Damage We Do

he loved his women

weak & small

so that he would not tire

of

beating them.

he sought the weakest & the smallest

his rage of boxing

their heads up against refrigerators,

slamming their hands in doors,

stepping on them like roaches.

kicking them in their centers of life,

all of his women

were

weak and small and sick

&he an

embarrassment to the human form

was not an exception in america.

So it is particularly disheartening that, at a time the entire country is reflecting on racial inclusiveness, this cultural and literary treasure did not make the final cut to become the next Illinois poet laureate.

There have been just three other poets to be given that title since Howard B. Austin was honored in 1936. Carl Sandburg served from 1962 to 1967, Gwendolyn Brooks, the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize, held the title from 1968 to 2000, and Bradley University professor Kevin Stein served from 2003 to 2017.

After a search committee sifted through numerous nominations, Madhubuti was among five semifinalists.

“The search committee will select three finalists, based on the video responses to be submitted to the first lady and governor for final consideration as the next Illinois poet laureate,” Madhubuti was advised in a communication from Lee LoBue, deputy chief of staff for Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Madhubuti was not among the three.

LoBue and the committee chair, Norah Brooks Blakely, the daughter of Gwendolyn Brooks and president of Brooks Permissions, didn’t return my call regarding this matter.

After so long a journey — from a 43rd Street corner selling books out of a box to New Delhi, India, in 2006, as the only poet chosen to represent the United States at the International Valmiki World Poetry Festival — Madhubuti is understandably disappointed.

Poetry saved his life. Through it, he has tried to save the lives of others.

You can’t do any better than that.