#Clint Smith

[affixjoy]

I can’t stop thinking about this poem today.

[iamktb206]

“Nostalgia is a well-intentioned wound.”

— Clint Smith

[enerdsout]

IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH MOTHER FUCKERS (in the US)

lemme tell you about one of my favorite people,

Ida B Wells -

1862-1931, sounds like a long time ago right?

WRONG SHE WAS ALIVE AT THE SAME TIME AS MY GRANDMOTHERS SILLY BILLIES

investigative journalist well known for documenting and reporting on lynching, women's rights activist, posthumously awarded a motherfucking PULITZER, LET'S FUCKIN GO .

first if you like videos, the crash course black American history video on her is clutch (11 minutes). highly recommend the entire series. it is subtitled.

a longer (an hour) video from Chicago public television

she was born into enslavement in Mississippi, the next year would be the emancipation proclamation.

she eventually moved to Memphis and taught public school for a time, while becoming more involved in writing and journalism, while going to college, while raising 6 of her siblings.

she had to move north from Tennessee for several reasons, one of which was the lynching of three of her friends and her subsequent writing about it. this led to a bad case of people threatening to kill her all the time since she would not shut up about lynching, white economic anxiety causing black death, and just in general being a black person who told the truth. in fact she had been out of town during a mob raiding her news office, and never went back to Memphis. she settled in Chicago.

among her many activities:

was at one point fired from teaching after writing about the state of black schools; she just went hard in the paint on more journalism after that

owning her own newspaper after buying out her husband and other shareholders

traveling domestically and internationally and spreading the truth about lynching

helping set up the UK anti-lynching society

helping found the national association of colored women

founding the largest black women's suffrage organization in Illinois

walking next to white suffragettes in the D.C. march even though black women were asked to walk at the back

publishing "the red record" about lynchings since emancipation with data painstakingly gathered over many years

going undercover at one point????

she's so fuckin cool you guys

she's about 30 in this picture, and she lived to 68.

[wishwars]

When people say, “we have made it through worse before”

By Clint Smith

all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones

of those who did not make it, those who did not

survive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who

did not live to watch the parade roll down the street.

I have grown accustomed to a lifetime of aphorisms

meant to assuage my fears, pithy sayings meant to

convey that everything ends up fine in the end. There is no

solace in rearranging language to make a different word

tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe

does not bend in a direction that will comfort us.

Sometimes it bends in ways we don’t expect & there are

people who fall off in the process. Please, dear reader,

do not say I am hopeless, I believe there is a better future

to fight for, I simply accept the possibility that I may not

live to see it. I have grown weary of telling myself lies

that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left

standing after the war has ended. Some of us have

become ghosts by the time the dust has settled.

— Clint Smith (X)

[travelingasafamily]

"When people say, 'we have made it through worse before'" by Clint Smith

all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones of those who did not make it, those who did not survive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who

did not live to watch the parade roll down the street. I have grown accustomed to a lifetime of aphorisms meant to assuage my fears, pithy sayings meant to

convey that everything ends up fine in the end. There is no solace in rearranging language to make a different word tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe

does not bend in a direction that will comfort us. Sometimes it bends in ways we don’t expect & there are people who fall off in the process. Please, dear reader,

do not say I am hopeless, I believe there is a better future to fight for, I simply accept the possibility that I may not live to see it. I have grown weary of telling myself lies

that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts by the time the dust has settled.

Art: Adam Pendleton’s “Black Dada Drawing (A)” (2024).

[jaynehat]

When people say, “we have made it through worse before”

— Clint Smith

all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones of those who did not make it, those who did not survive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who did not live to watch the parade roll down the street. I have grown accustomed to a lifetime of aphorisms meant to assuage my fears, pithy sayings meant to convey that everything ends up fine in the end. There is no solace in rearranging language to make a different word tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe does not bend in a direction that will comfort us. Sometimes it bends in ways we don’t expect & there are people who fall off in the process. Please, dear reader, do not say I am hopeless, I believe there is a better future to fight for, I simply accept the possibility that I may not live to see it. I have grown weary of telling myself lies that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts by the time the dust has settled. (x)

[hallohartje]

- Clint Smith, in Wildness issue 10.

[julesofnature]

The redwoods are on fire in California. A flood submerges a neighborhood that sat quiet on the coast for three centuries. A child takes their first steps and tumbles into a father’s arms. Two people in New Orleans fall in love under an oak tree whose branches bend like sorrow. A forest of seeds are planted in new soil. A glacier melts into the ocean and the sea climbs closer to the land. A man comes home from war and holds his son for the first time. A man is killed by a drone that thinks his jug of water is a bomb. Your best friend relapses and isn’t picking up the phone. Your son’s teacher calls to say he stood up for another boy in class. A country below the equator ends a twenty-year civil war. A soldier across the Atlantic fires the shot that begins another. The scientists find a vaccine that will save millions of people’s lives. Your mother’s cancer has returned and doctors say there is nothing else they can do. There is a funeral procession in the morning and a wedding in the afternoon. The river that gives us water to drink is the same one that might wash us away.

Clint Smith, ‘Above Ground’

https://www.clintsmithiii.com/

[lovedripdrop]

[iamktb206]

[maiathebee]

Once, a long time ago, your grandmother escaped a war and your great-grandfather fought in one--you come from good fortune--you come from a history that is arbitrary and cloaked in luck--you come from a land mine that was two feet to the left-- you come from children who shared their bread when they didn't have to. You come from the parachute that didn't open, then did

from By Chance in Above Ground by Clint Smith

[purewavelengthsoflight]

Theres a new hack going around on discord where they pretend to be your friends and tell you that your account will be banned... My sister fell victim to this and got her account taken sadly, if anyone knows how to recover a hacked account let me know.

Stay safe yall.

[missedstations]

“When people say, “we have made it through worse before”” - Clint Smith

all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones of those who did not make it, those who did not survive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who

did not live to watch the parade roll down the street. I have grown accustomed to a lifetime of aphorisms meant to assuage my fears, pithy sayings meant to

convey that everything ends up fine in the end. There is no solace in rearranging language to make a different word tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe

does not bend in a direction that will comfort us. Sometimes it bends in ways we don’t expect & there are people who fall off in the process. Please, dear reader,

do not say I am hopeless, I believe there is a better future to fight for, I simply accept the possibility that I may not live to see it. I have grown weary of telling myself lies

that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts by the time the dust has settled.

[kellymagovern]

"Oh, man, you lyin'! You ain't never met Martin Luther THE KING!" 😂😂😂 --Coming To America

[smashing-yng-man]

[libraryleopard]

Poetry

Explores fatherhood, personal lineages, and history

African American author

Favorite poems: "All At Once," "When People Say “We Have Made it Through Worse Before" "For Willie Francis, the First Known Person to Survive an Execution by Electric Chair, 1946," "The Drone," "Coming Home," "After the Storm They Attempted to Identify the Bodies," "Deceit," "The Andromeda Galaxy is the Closest Galaxy to Our Milky Way," "Punctuation"