This is Poetry Moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
Welcome to Poetry Moment. I’m Marjorie Maddox.
Today’s poem by Yona Harvey, “Segregation Continuum,” acknowledges "Civil Rights activist Ella Baker, whose archive Harvey engaged at the time [her poem] was written.” Commissioned in 2017 by the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, Harvey’s ekphrastic poem also responds to Glenn Ligon’s painting, "Prisoner of Love #1(Second Version)," one of forty works featured in the "20/20" exhibition at the museum.
Yona Harvey is the author of the poetry collections You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love, Hemming the Water, and Season One, Episode Seven, forthcoming in fall of 2026. Harvey has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry and was among the first three Black women to write for Marvel Comics. She lived in Pittsburgh for over twenty years.
In a recent trip to Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, I was able to view Glenn Ligon’s thought-provoking piece. At the top of the canvas appear these words, as if created by a giant typewriter: “We are the ink that gives the white page a meaning.” As the viewer’s eyes move down the painting, spaces disappear, words blur, and letters merge into one large mass. Both the painting and Yona Harvey’s powerful poetic response make unforgettable statements.
Here’s “Segregation Continuum” by Yona Harvey:
Segregation Continuum
after Ella Baker and Glenn Ligon
layered in black on black on white canvas
we who believe in freedom cannot rest
looking at the way we look looking forward
stepping back by way of upturned neck by way
of three steps back looking black coded by way
of black modes by way of reconstruction by way
of insurrection by way of colored fountains by way
of elected democrats or elected aristocrats
it is obvious we are a presence
though we have been discomforted
at school gates at rental offices at museum entrances
even we cannot rest who believe in freedom
we are to some an irritant an ire some tire some lot
we do not subscribe just because something comes
out of a leader’s mouth out of the mouth of a tyrant
so we are too difficult we are much too difficult
we are much too aware we are much too marked
we are all that matter to us that matter
we are the most comforting presence by way of
nod by way of pound by way of sup
we are always fashionable when we do not try
we do not try to insult except when we do
but we do not hesitate to speak of the things
about which we agree or disagree we participate
at the level of our thinking by way of our thinking
by way of our mass expression
we who believe in freedom cannot rest
where once hundreds and even thousands of we
ordinary people had taken a position —that made us—
very uncomfortable when we decided for instance
to walk rather than take the bus
“Segregation Continuum” from You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love (c) 2020 by Yona Harvey. (appears, printed, recorded) with permission of Four Way Books. All rights reserved.
More information about the 20/20 exhibition and Ligon’s painting can be found here: https://www.studiomuseum.org/exhibitions/20-20 and here: https://collection.carnegieart.org/objects/9dd890a9-f0c8-4ed1-9a09-f6c382e654bd
In 2017 the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh commissioned Yona Harvey to write a poem in response to one of forty works featured in in the 20/20 exhibition at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. 20/20 was a collaboration between the Carnegie Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem, featuring 20 works from each museum. Yona chose Glenn Ligon’s painting, “Prisoner of Love #1 (Second Version),” and “Segregation Continuum” was the result. The commission was made possible by the Carnegie Museum and City of Asylum Pittsburgh with direction from Eric Crosby and Silvia Duarte.
That was “Segregation Continuum” by Yona Harvey. Thanks for listening.
Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox, Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can view more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
