Poetry Matters: “(America Never Was America to Me),” by Rick Benjamin

A Riff on Langston Hughes by the Former Poet Laureate of Rhode Island

Thu Apr 29, 2021 | 10:02am

 a riff-off of Langston Hughes

but it was to you?
& him, too? Who

am I to say what
was, wasn’t, or, 

for that matter
what is or isn’t

true? I will say
nothing’s new,

that freedom’s
just for a chosen

few, also that it
won’t do, this

promise long
past due, & so

many singing
the blues, bop,

Bach & Bessie
too. You, me,

then America
will be.

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