Poem by Unnikrishnan E

[Unnikrishnan Es]

sorry, but your poem can't be accepted for the following 2 reasons:

1. as expressly stated, the topic ('terror') relates to terrorism. Your beautiful poem is about a heinous crime, the murder of an innocent teen, as the result of an abhorrent act of racial hate, not because of terrorism.

2. deadline was July 31st : I've already forwarded the poems to the editorial board, and my American coeditors are already editing them.
Regarding this 2nd point: Ivan and Seema --who sent their poem to the forum after that date-- had already submitted the poems before deadline, although they sent them to me and not to the Forum. Plus, in July, Seema had joined the wrong Forum (= the old "terror 1", opened in 2015, instead of "terror 2", opened more than two months ago, for the present project), so she had posted there her poem.
F.

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Mother of Emmet Till

Unnikrishnan E S/05.11.2016

Emmet Till

A little boy of fourteen

A little black boy of fourteen!

Now on his mutilated head

He wears a Yoruba crown.

 

The mother of Emmet Till

Decided, his last journey

Shall be in an open coffin

So the whole world would see

What they did unto him.

 

Emmet on his black skin bore

The sweat, hunger and pain

And the blood spilt by the workers

Of his clan, all mercilessly slain

 In the cotton farms of Georgia

The tobacco fields of S. Carolina

The sugarcane fields of Louisiana,

Where black skin was a sin.

 

 

From every drop of his black blood

There arose a thousand Emmets.

A Martin Luther  King

A Harriet Tubman.

 

But

Tallahatchie River still weeps

And her pale green eyes shed

Blood; cold black blood*.

 

Notes:        

1.      Emmet Till was murdered by two white men in 1955 in Mississippi, for speaking to a white woman, shot in the head; his mutilated body buried in Tallahatchie River. His mother Mamie Till insisted that his last journey would be in an open coffin, so the whole world saw what they done to him.

2.      An all-white jury acquitted both the murders of the crime and lived free until their natural death.

3.      The little coffin is now displayed the new museum on the African-American history in Washington (the Smithsonian National Museum of African History and Culture). The museum is designed in the shape of Yoruba Crown. Yoruba is a West-African tribe famous for their exquisite traditional sculpture.

4. *On October 22, 2016 the memorial sign marking the spot where Emmett Till's mutilated body was discovered back in 1955, was found riddled with bullet holes.

[Mukul Tyagi]

Excellent heart touching poem.

Savita Tyagi

[Birgitta Abimbola Heikka]

Well written.  Brings tears to the eyes.

Birgitta.

[Mukul Tyagi]

Just for clarification the excellent poem Mother of Emmet Till that you and Brigit Linder are referring to is written by poet  Unnikrishnan and yes he is on PH.

Regards,

Savita Tyagi

On Sat, Aug 12, 2017 at 1:12 PM Saadat Tahir wrote:

    hi dear mukul
    very touching and troubling too...much appreciated...
    well written and has the desired effect..

    i congratulate you for this nice poem..and ...sure i ll have to read about this....

    i wonder if you are on poem nunter...i would refer you to one of my poems on the slave trade....
    best

    dr saadat

[Richard Deodati]

A raw, graphic poem by Unnikrishnan Es illustrates the pain and sorrow that an entire race must endure as a result of a vicious terroristic attack against them simply because of the color of their skin. Akin to the Jewish holocaust, these horrors can never be erased, but must always be remembered no matter how terrifyingly disturbing they become, not just to those involved and to their friends and relatives and kin and the like, but to every human being on Earth who is part of the human race, and who must now acquiesce to feeling a twinge of guilt for what their fellow human beings have done! Nicely done, Unnikrishnan!