{"id":25,"date":"2008-06-20T17:52:21","date_gmt":"2008-06-21T00:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25"},"modified":"2012-01-15T16:47:09","modified_gmt":"2012-01-15T23:47:09","slug":"gore-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25","title":{"rendered":"Gore Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Inspiration<\/em>: Gore Island was inspired by a picture of former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, that appeared in the Washington Post many years ago. It showed them standing in<em>&#8211;the door of no return&#8211;<\/em>on Gore Island. It was at a fort where captured slaves were kept until they were loaded on ships to the Americas.<\/p>\n<p>I say the picture and feelings, sights and sounds filled my mind and body. My DNA vibrated with a special kind of chill. I tried to give it voice. I know 60 percent of my DNA comes from ancestors who were slaves, 20 percent from Europeans and 20 percent from Native Americans. This poem honors my African Ancestors.<\/p>\n<p>I invited their spirits to tell their story and this is what they said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Stripped from the bosom<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Which held, where planted<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Which nurtured, where grew<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Stolen in the darkness<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">When no one knew<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Until the break of dawn on a new day&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Play poem below.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/gore-island-1-accent-blog.mp3\">Gore-Island<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class='st_facebook' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><span class='st_twitter' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><span class='st_email' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><span class='st_sharethis\r<\/span>' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inspiration: Gore Island was inspired by a picture of former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, that appeared in the Washington Post many years ago. It showed them standing in&#8211;the door of no return&#8211;on Gore Island. It was at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class='st_facebook' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><span class='st_twitter' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><span class='st_email' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><span class='st_sharethis\r<\/span>' st_title='Gore Island' st_url='https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/?p=25' displayText='share'><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartofapoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}