First Place - Te'Nia Richardson
“I Have Had My Own Dreams”
Poem by Te’Nia Richardson
I have had my own dreams
Too many to count
Ideas bouncing around in my skull
Without stopping
Sometimes I think I got that from you
We aren't related
But when you think about it
Aren't we?
Bled from the same cloth of slaves
I heard you
I saw you
There
You were in the cotton fields
With me
In my own dreams
Whispering me to push forward
Brighter days
Sunny days
Are on the horizon
Waiting for me
Those wistful dreams
Never died
I can't afford them to
I shall save our world
You were supposed to
But like a flower caught in a storm
You died too soon
But you are still within me
Just like all of our family
Our ancestors
They bred us to be
All and more
We work to please you
Appease your desire
For our success and flourishment
And we shall answer your prayers
We
The next generation
Shall be the ones
To continue your legacy
Unimaginable horrors
Our people have endured
Unimaginable feats
Our people have climbed
Unimaginable futures
Our people will create
Poem Explanation
One of my favorite things about Dr. King is how important his personal ancestry and dedication to the Christain faith was to crafting his beliefs with civil rights activism. I already write a plethora of poetry that describes my own personal relationships with my ancestors, so I knew that I would want to incorporate that into my piece.
Arguably his most famous speech, “I Have A Dream”, is one that is easily synonymous with his ideals for the future of race relations in society. I used dreams as my starting inspiration and the words poured out from there. Dreams of my ancestors, representing past sufferings and tragedies, and dreams of the future, full of hope and promise. Same as Dr. King, my past affects how I view the world and what I want to do to change it.
I have always been critical of the world we live in and my generation has been given the pressure from previous generations to fix it. We are our ancestors' hopes and dreams, their pride and joy, and I do everything in my power to make them proud of me and our people.
Dr. King’s use of repetition in his speeches also inspired my repetition of “Unimaginable ___” and “Our people ____”. The main message of this poem is to describe how far black people have come from our days of enslavement, and how every advancement we make in our life is dedicated to honoring our ancestors and the sacrifices they had made for us to be where we are today.