Camille Dungy:

 Margaret Walker, “Sorrow Home,”

My roots are deep in southern life, deeper than John Brown
             Nat Turner or Robert Lee. I was sired and weened
             in a tropical world. The palm tree and banana leaf,
             mango and coconut, breadfruit and rubber trees know me.

Warm skies and gulf blue streams are in my blood. I belong
             with the smell of fresh pine, with the trail of coon, and
            the spring growth of wild onion.

I am no hothouse bulb to be reared in steam-heated flats
             with the music of El and subway in my ears, walled in
            by steel and wood and brick far from the sky.

 I want the cotton fields, tobacco, and the cane. I want to
            walk along with sacks of seed to drop in fallow ground.
            Restless music is in my heart and I am eager to be gone.

Oh, Southland, sorrow home, melody beating in my bone
            and blood! How long will the Klan of hate, the hounds, and
            the chain gangs keep me from my own?”