Sonewen My Hood Poem by Ivan Brooks Sr

My Sonewen gave me the very best of both worlds
Soccer for the moment and for my future, school
So when things turned, we never became warlords
The options were there, nobody ended up a fool.
My hood gave me the street education and the tool
I remember At seventeen years we still got whopped
The streets gave us knowhow and made us look cool
It taught us to respect elders and never tripped.
We were raised at home but mentored on the streets.
We played with criminals but became good leaders
Everything was coded, one misstep you got the beats
Discipline instilled, ended up good, not drug dealers.

We had to make passing grades just to play football.
That was for playful kids our first real life hustles
We had to sit, study and deliver or no tabela at all
That meant for us playful kids our first struggles.
Life for many was hard, some had little or no food
At six we scaled the stadium walls to watch football
But such was the life in our complexly beloved hood
By God's grace and resilience, Sonewen will never fall.
Around us young girls in their teens became mothers
But they all persevered and fought to raise their babies
They had to bounce right back and serve as role models
To raise their young sons to become better baby daddies.

Thanks be to God Almighty for love and his benediction
For blessing the very roots of where the legend began,
For the Sonewen ghetto and the streets and education
The place I call home, is the place you know as sonewen.
The epic tale of this place is infamously notorious
Not like Harlem, lagos, Kingston, Mogadishu and Soweto
All because her impoverished children became prosperous
A pride for those who hailed from this blessed ghetto.