On music and freedom…Three poems by Daniel Warren Brown

September 17th, 2026

photo by Peter Pettus/via Picryl

Nina Sang

Nina sang Mississippi Goddamn

because
everybody knew

black folks couldn’t vote
everybody knew
the murder of civil rights workers

who disappeared

for registering people
for human rights and dignity

no one knew of a future
where each person
had skin like morning sun

in unashamed brightness

a world void of shadows
wearing colors of equality

a view of heaven where
people black red yellow
picnic together on lime green grass

singing soul songs

the skies harlequin swirls
never seen this side of
the freedom chasm

where being human
without fear is a joyful dance

and white supremacists
are not allowed
to block schoolhouse doorways

safe on Martin’s mountain top

feeling what it means
to be free

this was Nina’s song
as old as Nefertiti’s beauty
just out of reach

Nina sang Mississippi Goddamn

because everybody knew
the kingly dream

if she with anger’s voice
could only cast a spell of love
on everything.

___

A Dream On My Mind

In 1947 Three famous Bluesmen
(as famous as Bluesmen can be)
Memphis Slim, “Big” Bill Broonzy
and “Sonny Boy” Williamson sang the blues,
pitched boogie and told bleak funny stories
about their early years;
having to call white horses “Mr. Horse”
or buying tobacco by asking for “Mr. Prince Albert”;
hidden back rooms where blacks
sat silently reading the negro newspapers
with a guard at the door. And levee camps,
where after working from dawn to dark
a guy at the table yelled, “hey, there’s a worm in my greens”
and someone else yelled like a call and response
“Hey, brother, give me that meat”

Three famous Bluesmen
(as famous as Bluesmen can be)
recall sundown towns,
where you didn’t get caught after dark,
oh, no no no. And about black folks
who fought back and were
massacred, lynched, their houses burned,
women raped.

Three famous Bluesmen
(as famous as Bluesmen can be)
were terrified, in fear of their lives and
especially for their families in the south,
asked that the record not be released.
Because of their plea,
the album Blues In The Mississippi Night
was first released by Alan Lomax
in England 12 years
after it was recorded
and in America years after that.

Three famous Bluesmen
(as famous as Bluesmen can be)
became on the record, “Natchez”, “Leroy” and “Sib”.
Three Bluesmen
(as invisible as Bluesmen can be).

“Big” Bill Broonzey
played Carnegie Hall in 1938,
standing straight and tall, singing the blues
in his own humorous jazzy way
billed right up there with
Benny Goodman and Count Basie.
In 1947 he was cast as “Leroy”,
his big frame bent over
and diminished in a folding chair.
“Another Man Done Gone”.
Perhaps a last stanza to his signature song
“Just A Dream” should have been added:

…..“I dreamed I made a record
…..told the story of my life
…..and all the white folks understood
…..southern blues and strife

…..But it was just a dream
…..a dream I had on my mind
…..And when I woke up
…..no understanding could I find.”

___

This Little Light Of Odetta’s

This little light o’ mine, I’m goin’ let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Ev’rywhere I go, I’m goin’ let it shine (repeat)

Yes.
Let it shine, let it shine, like Odetta let it shine.
With her commanding voice
it lit up the state of Alabama
it lit up the state of Mississippi
it lit freedoms path
it even lit the soul of our nation when she sang it
on national television after 9/11.

Odetta held the light cupped like a lantern
in her mighty black hands
so little it found its way through
the crevice of hatred
under the door blocked by bigots
it shone where needed
and it has never stopped shining.

Odetta was large in every way;
Large in body
Large in soul
Large in volume
Large in dedication.

She’s gone now but not
the incandescence of her voice
and the spirit of the tiny flame
she left us.

And nothing not even the North Star
sings as powerfully while casting such
little light.

___

Daniel Warren Brown has loved jazz (and music in general) ever since he delved into his parents’ 78 collection as a child. He is a retired special education teacher who began writing as a senior. He always appreciates being published in journals and anthologies. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. Daniel writes daily about music, art and whatever else catches his imagination.

Watch the 1965 film of Nina Simone performing her composition “Mississippi Goddam”