I come from the rented earth.Mud, grit, dirt.Sorrow and corn maidens.African Amazons separating their sisters’placenta from each salty seed.I come from creeling peachseed nightits pit the same color as my skin.Rode the pulsing Catawba River out of my mother.Slipped on her jewels on my way outand knew I looked good with her historyaround my neck.I come from a RedBlack road song.Pappies slapping their knees becausethey couldn’t afford guitars.Indian grandmas boiling squirrelswhen they couldn’t afford fine people’s meat.I come from Daddy Divineand my reverend mamaknitting survival songsin sun-laced southern summerskissed by invisible cicadas,a deluge of wood smoke,and starving lightning bugs who ate their young.When I sing, I am no longer Eunice.No longer Nina.No longer a preacher’s daughter.I am God’s hot breathtaking her revenge.
Preacher’s Kid
Shonda Buchanan explores Nina Simone’s personal history, heritage, family, music, artistry, and trauma while revisiting many of the themes that run through Buchanan’s previous work: historical injustice, cultural representation, identity reclamation, and the interplay of spirit, survival, and creativity.
Feature Date
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
“Preacher’s Kid” from THE LOST SONGS OF NINA SIMONE: by Shonda Buchanan.
Published by RIZE Press on May 26, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 by Shonda Buchanan.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Shonda Buchanan is the award-winning author of three collections of poetry: Who’s Afraid of Black Indians?, Equipoise: Poems from Goddess Country, as well as the award-winning memoir Black Indian, chosen by PBS NewsHour as a “Top 20 books to read to learn about institutional racism.” An Associate Professor in the Department of English at Western Michigan University and Alma College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing, Shonda’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies as well as the Los Angeles Times, AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle, Indian Country Today, Sisters of AARP, and others.
In The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, Shonda Buchanan weaves a prism of language, sound and light around and through the life of concert pianist, singer and Civil Rights activist, the incomprehensible Nina Simone. With this book, Buchanan is declaring this The Century of the Black Woman, providing a realistic glimpse into not only Simone's life, but the lives of Black women in America, past and present, and their choices in a myopic, unforgiving country.
A grandchild of enslaved Africans, American Indians and Irish migrants, born into poverty as Eunice Waymon in a traditionally large family, Nina Simone lived a life few Black American women lived during the Jim Crow era in the South, yet rose to impact the world with her creative genius and determined spirit. This book is an emotional and historical excavation of an artist's life, capturing the rise and descent of that life, including Simone's family history, her childhood and young womanhood, as well as the addiction, mental health struggles and abuse. The Lost Songs of Nina Simone embodies the rich legacy—the pleats between the cloth—of Simone's artistry, beauty, self-immolation and rage.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
