Natural Hair Poetry

Below is a peom written by a college professor of mine. Really great work, Check it out!

Like My Hair

By Chaz Kyser

I spent years despising it

this kinky, dark, unruly mass upon my head

I spent years wishing it were different and trying to make it so too

I got my hair pressed in my grandma’s kitchen

to make my hard-to-comb mane more manageable like the Black girls at school

who like me, sometimes sported burns on their ears, forehead and neck

along with their jazzy flips, bobs and slicked back ponytails

I got the wave nuevo to turn my tightly coiled strands into

naturally curly ringlets like the mixed girls I so envied

I bought the African Pride perm kit—no lye

so my motionless hair would blow in the wind like the white girls

When I decided I didn’t want to abuse my hair anymore

and let my self-hatred show so freely through trying to alter it

I stuck some braids in my head

this way, I reasoned, I could look afrocentric

but still hide the stuff on my scalp God in all his kindness and wisdom gave me for hair

Yes, I know it’s not the politically correct thing to say

particularly among Black women happily wearing their hair

in styles that are only made possible through torturing their hair follicles

but, like so many sisters, I have hated my hair

ever since I first learned what the word “nappy” meant

But, oddly enough, through all my hating, I have always admired it too

knowing that if only I could be more like my hair, I would be such a better person

Resilient like my hair

for despite me chemically trying to kill it over and over again

and bend it to the will of others who said natural hair just isn’t pretty

and it surely doesn’t look professional

like a boxer it just won’t stay down when it gets knocked out

it always comes back to have the last laugh in the last round

and wins the fight in the form of new growth

Versatile like my hair

for it can be twisted and locked and braided and straightened

to rock a hundred styles with ease

but can always go back to its original form with a quick shampoo

or a little too much humidity

Confident like my hair

who laughs at models with fake hair running down their backs

who just shrugs when someone calls it nappy

who breaks rattail and wide-tooth combs without embarrassment

who doesn’t even give a damn about what I think and how I wish it were

Invincible like my hair

for despite my somewhat light skin

that probably comes as a result of a master’s rape of an ancestor

my hair refused to let go of the dominant genes of those who came before me

and doesn’t show any sign that a white person once touched it

Yes, if only I could be more like my hair

Unbreakable

Unyielding

Uncompromising

Un-brainwashed

then I know I would be a much better person

one who adores her hair

and loves what it stands for

Chaz Kyser is an editor/writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She is also the author of Embracing the Real World: The Black Woman's Guide to Life After College (www.embracingtherealworld.com).