DC Places Issue
Volume 7:3, Summer 2006
Montana Terrace
(progression to natural)
In my neighborhood
mothers were mountains
their jagged hearts climbed by children
& husbands seeking elevation
men, weak with selfish intentions
chipped away at their souls
blasting caps of hatred
shook their foundations
bearing the load of family
they carried a race on their backs
a steep ascent to destiny
In my neighborhood
mothers were mountains
i have seen them crumble
& become women.
& love them still.
Kenneth Carroll is a native Washingtonian. He is the author of a book of poems, So What! For the White Dude Who Said This Ain't Poetry (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 1997). As the former director of DC WritersCorps, he created the country's first Youth Poetry Slam League, which was honored by the President's Commission for the Arts and the Humanities in 1999. He is the past president of the African American Writers Guild, has served on the board of directors of the Poetry Committee of Greater Washington, and was a founding member of the 8Rock Writers Collective. Carroll's poems are included in the anthologies In Search of Color Everywhere, American Poetry: The Next Generation, The Lion Speaks: An Anthology for Hurricane Katrina and Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC. To read more by this author: Audio Issue, Memorial Issue, Carroll's Tribute to Gaston Neal, Four poems, Volume 1:2, Spring 2000