Sapphire

Sapphire Poems

I think everything in me has been broken. The shiny ceramic red heart
lies on the floor in shards, its light that used to flash electric now glows
steady in the dark. Outside the window I watch the souls of my mother
...

My sister tells me it was just an ordinary evening, but evening is never
ordinary is it? Once the sun has started to climb down the sky things
change. You and she were sitting in the den—the olive green vinyl
couch, sports trophies, new color TV, pictures of Kennedy and King we
...

I the ancient kingdom of Benin water was the realm
of the ancestors; it was seen as a mirror reflection
of the land of the living. So where is my father?
Is he waiting for me under the water.
Will he approve of me or beat me or love me,
...

Hate, black teeth, half an
eyeball, torn light, green grass, dirt
wings. Sick, blind angel.
...

„The dead," the doctor says, „are speaking to us."

some skeletons will be enclosed in a glass case
inside the church as a permanent reminder
...

6.

Today is the day you have been waiting for
when you would finally begin to live
when you would at last open the door
...

I

She asks why we always
read books about black people.
(I spare her the news she is black.)
...

Sapphire Biography

Ramona Lofton (born on August 4, 1950), better known by her pen name Sapphire, is an American author and performance poet. Early life Ramona Lofton was born in Fort Ord, California, one of four children of an Army couple who relocated within the United States and abroad. After a disagreement concerning where the family would settle, her parents separated, with Lofton's mother "kind of abandoning them". Lofton dropped out of high school and moved to San Francisco, where she attained a GED and enrolled at the City College of San Francisco before dropping out to become a "hippie". In the mid 1970s Lofton attended the City College of New York and obtained an MFA degree at Brooklyn College. Lofton held various jobs before starting her writing career, working as a performance artist as well as a teacher of reading and writing. Career Lofton moved to New York City in 1977 and became heavily involved with poetry. She also became a member of a gay organization named United Lesbians of Color for Change Inc. She wrote, performed and eventually published her poetry during the height of the Slam Poetry movement in New York. Lofton took the name "Sapphire" because of its one-time cultural association with the image of a "belligerent black woman," and also because she said she could more easily picture that name on a book cover than her birth name. Sapphire self-published the collection of poems Meditations on the Rainbow in 1987. As Cheryl Clarke notes, Sapphire's 1994 book of poems, American Dreams is often erroneously referred to as her first book. One critic referred to it as "one of the strongest debut collections of the 1990s". Her first novel, Push, was unpublished before being discovered by literary agent Charlotte Sheedy, whose interest created demand and eventually led to a bidding war. Sapphire submitted the first 100 pages of Push to a publisher auction in 1995 and the highest bidder offered her $500,000 to finish the novel. The book was published in 1996 by Vintage Publishing and has since sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Sapphire noted in an interview with William Powers that "she noticed Push for sale in one of the Penn Station bookstores, and that moment it struck her she was no longer a creature of the tiny world of art magazines and homeless-shelters from which she came". The novel brought Sapphire praise and much controversy for its graphic account of a young woman growing up in a cycle of incest and abuse. A film based on her novel premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. It was renamed Precious to avoid confusion with the 2009 action film Push. The cast included Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, who won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Precious' mother Mary, Mariah Carey, and Lenny Kravitz. Sapphire herself appears briefly in the film as a daycare worker. Sapphire's writing was the subject of an academic symposium at Arizona State University in 2007. In 2009 she was the recipient of a Fellow Award in Literature from United States Artists.)

The Best Poem Of Sapphire

Broken

I think everything in me has been broken. The shiny ceramic red heart
lies on the floor in shards, its light that used to flash electric now glows
steady in the dark. Outside the window I watch the souls of my mother
and father wrapped in black shawls ride down the river, weird water, in
strange boats. They are without hearts, liver, feet—except soles, they
are all souls now. I am here in my time, lit, broken, fire burning, full of
holes. Vibrating, at last, light, life, mine. At last, broken.

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