Sam Cornish

Sam Cornish

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Sam Cornish was born in Baltimore in 1935 so has had travelled miles and years to grace us with his poetry. He is a recient of a National Council of the Arts Grant in 1976 and his breakthrough full length book Generation was published in 1971. The Mayor's Task Force named him Poet Laureate and he will share his work with us May 17. His poetry is terse- sharp and cuts to the point

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Folks Like Me

In the unemployment line

with those early morning

economic blues

at home on my feet

the president

said the economy is doing fine

( I guess it's just taking its time getting

down to folks like me)

Renters

Their feet knock

the floor

the bathtub gurgles

the windows brittle

and the water runs gray

and thick but I hear

is the landlord's

got the blues.

His language is spare. In a piece writtten on the death of Dr. Martin Luther King we are given these words-

we are mourning

our hands are filled with bricks

a brother is dead.

Come hear Boston's Poet Laureate.