Marvin X poem: Fetus

Mama, please don't kill me
don't you see
I got your eyes
Mama, please don't kill me
don't you see
I got my daddy's hair, head feet
Mama, please don't flush me down the toilet
I might be a prophet
come to save the world
Mama, please
don't kill me.
--Marvin X

from Liberation Poems for North American Africans, Marvin X, Al Kitab Sudan Press (Black Bird Press), 1983.

Marvin X poem in Arabic/English: The Origin of Blackness, translated by Ali Sheriff Bey of BAM West, 1966

The Origin of Blackness


Sudan la al lawn
black is not a color
lawn kuli min sudan
all colors come from black
sudan al harakat
black is a rhythm
al marna tambura
a drum beat.
anata.
ancient
assi
primitive
al awwal sudan kalam
the first word was black
al awwal rajuli sudan
the first man was black
Allah sudan
God is black
Sudan ilmi akhi
black knows its brother
anta mufail mashay min sudan
you can't run from black
anta mufail ghaybaw min sudan
you can't hide from black
ka umma sudan
your mama is black
ka abu sudan
your father is black
ka burka sudan
your shadow is black
al atum ra'a wa sami sudan
the things you see and hear are black
al atum mufail ra'a wa sami sudan
the things you can't see and hear are black
sudan al asil
black is reality
wahabi
unity
hurriya
freedom
adil
justice
musawat
equality.
--Marvin X, 1966
from the collection Woman--Man's Best Friend by El Muhajir (Marvin X),  Al Kitab Sudan Press (Black Bird Press), 1972, San Francisco. The translator, Ali Sheriff Bey, was Marvin X's first Arabic teacher who gave him the name Nazzam Al Sudan. Bey was the chief Islamic, Arabic and Urdu instructor at Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966. Of course the guru of BAM West was the Muslim career criminal Alonzo Harris Batin, immortalized in a play about Batin and Eldridge Cleaver by Earl Anthony. Batin recruited most of the BAM West players into the Nation of Islam, including Hillery X. Broadous, Duncan X. Barber, Ethna X. Wyatt and Marvin X.

Is Burn, Baby, Burn, Marvin X's Greatest poem, written shortly after the Watts Rebellion, 1965?

Burn, Baby, Burn

Tired.
Sick an' tired
Tired of being
sick an' tired.



Lost.
Lost in the wilderness
of white america
are the masses asses?
cool.



said the master to the slave,
"No problem, don't rob an' steal,
I'll be your drivin wheel."


Cool.
And he wheeled us into 350 years
of black madness



to hog guts, conked hair, covadis
bleaching cream and uncle thomas
to Watts.
To the streets.
To the kill.
Boommm...2 honkeys gone.

 
Motherfuck the police
Parker's sista too.
Black people.
Tired.
sick an' tired.
tired of being
sick an' tired.
Burn, baby burn...
Don't leave dem boss rags
C'mon, child, don't mind da tags.
Git all dat motherfuckin pluck,
Git dem guns too, we 'on't give a fuck!
Burn baby burn
Cook outta sight



Fineburgs
whitefront
wineburgs
blackfront
burn, baby, burn
in time
he
will learn.

--Marvin X (Jackmon)
1965
from Soulbook Magazine, Fall, 1965

The works of Marvin X now available from Black Bird Press

Titles by Marvin X currently available from Black Bird Press

$19.95

 I welcome reading the work of a "grassroots guerilla publicist" who is concerned with the psychological/intellectual freedom of his people. I think of Dr. Walter Rodney as the "guerilla intellectual" who was organically connected to the grassroots. Key book here would be The Groundings With My Brothers (and sisters). Or Steve Biko's I Write What I Like. I think though that Dr. M is closely affiliated with Frances Cress Welsing's Isis Papers: Keys to the Colors (along with Bobby Wright's thesis...). Of course we need to also consult Dr. Nathan Hare's The Black Anglo-Saxons and Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie. What I am most impressed with is Dr. M's Pan Africanist perspective.

--Dr. Mark Christian, PhD., Professor of Sociology and Black World Studies, University of Miami

(Ohio)

$19.95
 If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland. --Ishmael Reed, author, The Complete Muhammad Ali

This 18 page pamphlet is Marvin's most controversial piece of writing, yet probably the most healing for young and old. He cares nothing about political correctness but when one gets beyond the cover, we see a liberator of men and women from patriarchal mythology and other forms of white supremacy domination in male/female relations and all gender relations. $5.00

A DVD version is that is a rough cut of a dramatic reading  filmed at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway,  during Occupy Oakland is now available. $15.00

Unfortunately, his memoir of Eldridge Cleaver, My Friend the Devil,  is out of print. FYI, Marvin X introduced Eldridge Cleaver to Black Panther Party co-founders Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Introduction by Amiri Baraka.

CD of Marvin X reading in Chicago, May 23, 2015

$15.00

CD of Marvin X reading in Chicago while in town to participate in the Sun Ra Conference at the University of Chicago. He was invited to record at a studio on South Shore: left to right Marvin X, Eliel Sherman Storey, alto sax (producer and owner of studio), David Boykin, alto sax; Tony Carpenter, percussion, Lasana Kazembe, poet.

 To pay by credit/debit card, call 510-200-4164.


Other writings  and thoughts of Marvin X  appear in the following books

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