Nina Simone’s Three-Room Childhood Clapboard House enduring A-frame house: ashen overlap, splinter after splinter, livid brick legs bowing beneath the sagging hips of worn wood, algae crusted steps, a bare porch rocker, the dingy front door – a cuboidal mouth opening to frameless rooms, frangible floors, handstitched pastel quilt squares draping a rusting iron bed, just past the blue shiplap room, cold, dark, wood burning stove, a silenced kettle, sheer pushpin curtains, curled windowsill paint, still-shiny Jesus, the cross, the wall mounted phone, its hand crank, near a starless window: the piano, the standing sheet of bold-font Bach, timeless, engraved, curvy pump organ: defiant and relentlessly Black.
©2023 by Cherryl T. Cooley
Like activist and musical genius Nina Simone, Cherryl T. Cooley is a native North Carolinian. An advocate for the restoration of Nina Simone’s childhood home, she’s published two single-author poetry collections under the name Cherryl Floyd-Miller. She makes a living as a Narrative Strategist for a social change and public health organization. Cherryl loves, lives and works from Woodbridge, Virginia.
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
Evocative and visual, culminating in a strong social statement. I love the sagging hips and open mouth descriptions. The house is anthromorphized. Bravo!
Thank you, Terry! I joked that this was an anthropomorphizing ekphrastic ode. I appreciate you diving into it.
Wonderful language. Descriptive. The poem “Nina Simone’s Three-Room Childhood Clapboard House” takes me into and around her house, looking at objects. I like “silenced kettle” and “starless window.”
Thank you, Liz! I’m so happy what I intended with the poem is landing and that you and others are getting even more than I intended. I appreciate your kind words here.