"The Radical" a poem by Waring Cuney

February is Black History Month. All the public domain poems I’m sharing this month are by black poets.

This Waring Cuney poem reads to me like a cathartic relief valve for hopelessness—especially when that hopelessness is tied to political machinations actively working against our wellbeing. He wrote this during the Harlem Renaissance, when Jim Crow laws sought to control the day-to-day actions and movements of black Americans.

Unfortunately, our current regime wants to return to a strictly hierarchical society with white cis heterosexual capitalist Christian men ahead above the rest of us. Don’t lose hope; that’s what they want.

Go read Cuney’s poets.org bio and more of his poems. Also, if you don’t know the heart-wrenching Nina Simone song “Images,” which uses Cuney’s poem “No Images” as its lyrics, you should.

Cuney’s poem is below, followed by my reading.

💜Miranda📚

Men never know What they are doing. They always make a muddle Of their affairs,They always tie their affairs Into a knotThey cannot untie. Then I come in Uninvited. They do not ask me in;I am the radical, The bomb thrower, I untie the knot That they have made, And they never thank me.