What is Love by Marvin X

Graphic design 

by 

Emory Douglas

Black Panther Party Minister of Culture

With respect to Marvin X, declaring Muslim American literature as a field of study is valuable because recontextualizing it will add another layer of attention to his incredibly rich body of work. He deserves to be WAY better known than he is among Muslim Americans and generally, in the world of writing and the world at large. By we who are younger Muslim American poets, in particular, Marvin should be honored as our elder, one who is still kickin, still true to the word! READ MARVIN X for RAMADAN!

--Mohja Kahf

Associate Professor of English and Islamic Studies

University of Arkansas-Fayetteville

graphic design

Adam Turner

Poets Felipe Luciano and Marvin X

photo Risassi

Black folks, many of them “educated” are embarrassed by Marvin’s unadulterated honesty. Along with Amiri Baraka he’s never backed off from criticizing America’s treatment of us and our cowardice in confronting it. Marvin is a gift to us. We’d better appreciate him now!

--Felipe Luciano, The Last Poets

In happier times, Oakland City Council President Lynette McElhaney and Marvin X

photo Adam Turner

The Tragic Moor Othello and Desdemona, aka Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf

photo Jahahara Alkebulan Ma'at

Marvin X and his coy muse, Fahizah Alim

"His love poems will resound as long and as deeply as any love poems ever written by anyone, e.g., Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou or any others."

--Fahizah Alim, Editor Emeritus, Sacramento Bee Newspaper

What is Love

What is love
only kisses hugs
what is love
only meetings of minds
what about times
when minds
do not meet

is love
not present
in the air
in the blood
of loving souls
too ignorant
to know the test
of love
the many ways
it strives to be and not be
yet
is always and forever
not always tender
sometimes
rough and sharp
like a razor
cutting to the heart

love is pain
we take to grow
be strong again
tears in the night
alone again
we find ourselves
wondering if love
was even real
yet it was
if we see
if we look
beyond romantic notions
of everything is cool
always with love
but we know
the blues of love
when we miss the words
from lips so tender with truth
but we miss them
in haste to be the authority on love
yet love has been around
since eternity
and will stay
when lovers have gone away
it will stay
in spite of all the tears
fights
verbal bouts
come backs
gimme my keys
why don't you call
don't you still care
why did you go
do you really love her
or really love him
after all the time we shared
how could you do this to me
after all I did for you in the night
what is love
sometimes we must enjoy the hurt pain
to grow
be wise again
do it better next time
correct mistakes
try again this time
with God
in the center of things
but try
for love is precious
time is short
life must be lived
with joy
somehow
through it all
let joy arise
take control of love.
--Marvin X
8/3/04
from Land of My Daughters, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 2005



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