Each Fall the graves of my grandfathers call me, the brown
hills and red gullies of mississippi send out their electric
messages, galvanizing my genes.

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. The Idea of Ancestry (l. 22-24). . . Norton Introduction to Poetry, The. J. Paul Hunter, ed. (3d ed., 1986) W. W. Norton & Company.)

This yr there is a gray stone wall damming my stream, and when
the falling leaves stir my genes, I pace my cell or flop on my bunk
and stare at 47 black faces across the space. I am all of them,
they are all of me, I am me, they are thee, and I have no sons
to float in the space between.

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. The Idea of Ancestry (l. 35-39). . . Norton Introduction to Poetry, The. J. Paul Hunter, ed. (3d ed., 1986) W. W. Norton & Company.)

Black Poets should live?not leap
From steel bridges, like the white boys do.

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide (l. 1-2). . . Introduction to Poetry, An. X. J. Kennedy, ed. (6th ed., 1986) Little, Brown & Company.)

Let all Black Poets die as trumpets,
And be buried in the dust of marching feet.

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide (l. 13-14). . . Introduction to Poetry, An. X. J. Kennedy, ed. (6th ed., 1986) Little, Brown & Company.)

Hard Rock was "known not to take no shit
From nobody," and he had the scars to prove it:

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane (l. 1-2). . . Norton Introduction to Poetry, The. J. Paul Hunter, ed. (3d ed., 1986) W. W. Norton & Company.)

He sees through stone
he has the secret
eyes this old black one

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. He Sees through Stone (l. 1-3). . . Made Thing, The; an Anthology of Contemporary Southern Poetry. Leon Stokesbury, ed. (1987) The University of Arkansas Press.)

The WORD was that Hard Rock wasn't a mean nigger
Anymore, that the doctors had bored a hole in his head,
Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricity
Through the rest.

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane (l. 7-10). . . Norton Introduction to Poetry, The. J. Paul Hunter, ed. (3d ed., 1986) W. W. Norton & Company.)

convicts rest
Like lizards on rocks.

(Etheridge Knight (1933-1991), U.S. poet. Eastern guard tower (l. 2-3). . . Treasury of American Poetry, The. Nancy Sullivan, ed. (1978) Doubleday & Company.)