Every April 16, D.C. celebrates Emancipation Day — the date in 1862 that Abraham Lincoln signed an act freeing over 3,000 slaves in the district (nine months before the broader Emancipation Proclamation).
In the spirit of newfound freedom, today’s poem comes from Tyehimba Jess’s collection Olio (2016), which includes a crown of sonnets about the Fisk Jubilee Singers — a group of young people who, upon being freed, sought an education at the newly founded Fisk University and there formed a successful traveling a cappella group that popularized Black spirituals. For me, the poem has a feel of not being written by just one poet, but a whole chorus of voices — just like emancipation is not attributable to Lincoln or any one person, but to generations of people, and continues to be the work of generations of people.
In Olio, the top and bottom of the pages with the Fisk Jubilee Singers sonnets contain the names and years of Black churches that burned, adding context to the poems about the environment in which this a cappella group and the Black spirituals they sang flourished.
Tyehimba Jess comes from a slam poetry background, so I’m sure he would very much appreciate you listening to him explain and read this poem on YouTube much better than I ever could — instead of or in addition to reading the printed version below.
Fisk Jubilee Proclamation
(Choral)
O, sing…undo the world with blued song
born from newly freed throats. Sprung loose from lungs
once bound within bonded skin. Scored from dawn
to dusk with coffle and lash. Every tongue
unfurled as the body’s flag. Every breath
conjured despite loss we’ve had. Bear witness
to the birthing of our hymn from storied depths
of America’s sin. Soul-worn psalms, blessed
in our blood through dark lessons of the past
struggling to be heard. Behold—the bold sound
we’ve found in ourselves that was hidden, cast
out of the garden of freedom. It’s loud
and unbeaten, then soft as a newborn’s face—
each note bursting loose from human bondage.
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(Choral)
O sing unto the Lord a new song… (Psalm 96)
O, sing…undo the world with blued song
born from newly freed throats. Sprung loose from lungs
once bound within bonded skin. Scored from dawn
to dusk with coffle and lash. Every tongue
unfurled as the body’s flag. Every breath
conjured despite loss we’ve had. Bear witness
to the birthing of our hymn from storied depths
of America’s sin. Soul-worn psalms, blessed
in our blood through dark lessons of the past
struggling to be heard. Behold—the bold sound
we’ve found in ourselves that was hidden, cast
out of the garden of freedom. It’s loud
and unbeaten, then soft as a newborn’s face—
each note bursting loose from human bondage.
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