by Stazja McFadyen

It has been said that poetry is food for the soul. Diverse Arts Little Gallery's poetry presentation on Saturday, September 20, had the recipe. Take two Austin catfish poets (must be the Dr. Marvin G. Kimbrough and Floyd Freeman variety), sweeten with the smile of Patricia Inyang, spice heavily with the "Unprotected Poetry" of Los Angeles raw poet lgjaffe, and stir to the Brazilian and African beats of percussionist Awys, for an afternoon banquet of poetry that nourished the spiritual palate.

Dr. Kimbrough's Beat the Drum, an entreaty to teach boys to hit drums, not women, along with jaffe's Mommy, I Can't, a poem spoken by the voice of an illiterate child, stirred the social consciousness as perhaps only poetry can.

A full course of racial delicacies was served, with Freeman's litany of the ships' names that carried African slaves to North America, Kimbrough's raucous Cockroaches and jaffe's take on the Nazi "racial cleansing" in Cattle Car and the lighter Hello, leading one to wonder, as the poet proposed, whether "racism is more about taste buds than color."

If life were to imitate the art of each of these fine poets, we would be well-fed.