Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great American poet who, as a child, fell in love with words and turned that love of words into a life's work. On Mother's Day, Sunday, May 12, 2019, my dear friend, Shirley Bradley Price…
Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great American poet who, as a child, fell in love with words and turned that love of words into a life's work.
On Mother's Day, Sunday, May 12, 2019, my dear friend, Shirley Bradley Price LeFlore passed into ancestry. She was 79. Her passing gave Mother's Day ``a new meaning,'' one daughter said in a local media report. A Celebration of Life and Homegoing Service was held on Friday, May 17 at Christ Church Cathedral, in St. Louis, Mo., where many came and paid loving homage to her life and her works. The visitation and service included numerous speakers, musicians, dancers, family, friends and fellow poets.
To her dear daughters--Hope Lindsay of Silver Springs, Md., Jacie Price of St. Louis and Lyah LeFlore-ltuen of St. Louis--the depths of my sadness at her loss moves me beyond the ties of friendship. She was like family. I pray for heavenly grace for her family: her daughters, a niece Karen Bohr and four grandchildren--Noelle Lindsay-Stewart, Jullian Price-Baez, Jordan Lindsay and Bella Grace Ituen--and all who loved and honored her.
Shirley has been interwoven into the fabric of St. Louis, Mo., this nation and the world. She has shared her love of poetry, writing and many talents with the rest of us, and we are better off because of her.
On November 9, 2018, Shirley LeFlore was named St. Louis' second Poet Laureate. She was the first African-American and woman so honored. The event was held in St. Louis City Hall, with Ms. LeFlore surrounded by family, friends and admirers.
At the time Poet Michael Castro, St. Louis' first Poet Laureate called the honor ``the capstone'' of a long career; a career The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that spanned some 50 years of ``performing, mentoring and teaching.'' As her story was told and retold, one discovers that not only did she find poetry in everything, she lived a poetic life.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered the City Hall event and on November 17, published a story about her appointment. Reporter Jane Henderson noted Ms. Leflore's' life journey and how she was led by the power of words to international fame. ``As a girl,'' Henderson wrote, ``she listened to women in her mother's beauty shop as they told stories. She listened in as strangers gossiped on streetcars, when churchgoers talked and when female relatives chatted at the kitchen table. Young Shirley would make up plays about some of the people she'd overheard and started writing in grade school. As an adult, she turned talk into an art, becoming a pioneer in spoken-word poetry in St. Louis.''
At City Hall, President of the Board of Aldermen Lewis Reed presented the honor to Ms. LeFlore. And Castro, who has known Ms. LeFlore since the 1970s, called her an ``iconic
and loved figure.'' He told the Post-Dispatch: ``Her performances were very memorable. She had a strong presence and charisma. She read her poems kind of with a jazz beat. Her poems were not like anyone else's, full of rich imagery.''
Madam Speaker, that career includes more than 50 years of performing, mentoring and teaching. Some call her a ``wordsmith'' and others call her a ``word warrior,'' noted Alderman Terry Kennedy, a longtime friend. He read part of her poem ``Rivers of Women'' noting that her writing cause people to ``think differently.''
Born, Shirley Bradley Price in 1940 in St. Louis, Ms. LeFlore graduated from Sumner High School and attended Lincoln University before graduating from then Webster College and later from Washington University with a degree in psychology. Among her many achievements, she is founder of the Creative Arts and Expressions Lab, was an original member of the Black Artists Group (co-founded with her late husband, jazz musician Floyd LeFlore) and another underground activists poetry organization called Harmony.
An artist-in-residence at University City public schools, she taught at several colleges including Lindenwood University, Webster University, Harris-Stowe State University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. As an assistant dean of students at Webster she inspired students such as ``Black-ish'' actress Jenifer Lewis, who credits LeFlore with having ``saved my life,'' the Post-Dispatch reported.
Though getting on in age, ``She's always had an intergenerational perspective,'' said her daughter, Lyah LeFlore-Ituen, in the news article. ``She wants to inspire young poets.''
``The fire is still there,'' and as poet laureate, LeFlore can be an inspiration to young people, her daughter added.
A TV producer and writer, her daughter directed ``Rivers of Women'' for the Missouri History Museum. She called her mother a ``living legend'' and is working on a documentary about her. Also, she helped compile her mother's 2013 book, ``Brassbones & Rainbows.''
Among the greats she performed with include saxophonist Oliver Lake, trumpeter David Jackson and singer Fontella Bass. People flocked to hear her read at St. Louis' Duffs restaurant as part of the River Styx artist series. Her mentors and influences include poet Margaret Walker, writer Gwendolyn Brooks, poet Sonia Sanchez, playwright and poet Ntozake Shange and author James Baldwin.
In New York she performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and at Weill Hall, a part of Carnegie Hall. And her works have been presented as plays, including ``Deliverance,'' a production centered on HIV/AIDS.
Poet Amina Baraka has called Ms. LeFlore a ``literary griot, writing and telling stories, creating lyrics we can sing and dance to.'' Other honors include: the Warrior Poet Award, a board member for Word in Motion, featured in another documentary ``Word Warriors III'' and other anthologies.
Her activism of the 1960s led her to March on Washington and to join the Poor People's Campaign. Politics became a part of her poetry. But it was the voices heard in her youth that set the stage for the rest of her life and career.
Last fall Poet Laureate LeFlore was featured in The St. Louis American newspaper, and later reproduced by St. Louis Public Radio. The article noted she toured the world, playing venues both large and small, from Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis to ``quaint . . . tiny . . . churches'' or a ``hole in the wall'' nightclub or lounge.''
``Some of the places I've gone, you wouldn't want anybody to know you went there to read poetry,'' Leflore said. ``But if people asked me, I would go.'' ``If you're serious about what you do, keep doing it, keep studying it, keep mastering it and let it live inside you.'' And ``Listen--especially when you first start out. You need to listen.'' It was her listening--her eavesdropping on her mother's beauty salon clients--that caught her ear and helped shaped her poetry in the years to come.
``They thought I was sitting around playing jacks, but I would be listening,'' to the way they talked, what they said, LeFlore told the American. Later, she would go home and write in her black and white composition book, noting that often the way they said things was more striking than what they said. Over time she would note that black people have a ``special way with language--in every part of the world-- but especially in St. Louis.''
Of her funeral on May 17, 2019, the American reported the near- capacity homegoing service for ``Saint Shirley'' at Christ Church Cathedral ``stretched nearly four hours.'' Accolades and memories were offered from speakers from far and near, among them poets, actors, writers and politicians. Actor and writer Kevin Powell called her a ``supernatural word warrior'' created from ``black girl magic.''
Poet Laureate of East St. Louis Eugene Redmond said LeFlore ranked among the great jazz poets for her ability to turn musical form and history into ``the cross-fertilization'' of literary musical forms and techniques, he said. ``She eloped with language and stayed married to music all her days.''
And while people of faith offered words of tribute, LeFlore's own poems, spoken by the living meant LeFlore ``essentially eulogized herself,'' the American's Kenya Vaughn wrote.
Daughter Hope Price-Lindsay said she grew up wanting a mother more like television's ``Leave it to Beaver's'' June Cleaver but instead got Ms. LeFlore, an Afrocentric artist who remained true to her craft, whether life served her ``caviar and champagne'' or ``bone soup.'' We learned that LeFlore inherited her poetry from her mother, who inherited it from her mother, who inherited from her mother.
Retired 18th Ward Alderman Terry Kennedy spoke again at her funeral, having grown up with Ms. LeFlore and calling her ``a mighty spirit amongst us'' who was ``small in stature, big at heart.'' He comforted guests with Ms. LeFlore's own words from her poem, ``Breathprints.''
``Light a candle for me,'' he recited. ``Say a prayer. Whisper me into the wind. Lay a love wreath on the altar of your heart and remember my good days amongst you. Weep if you must. It's good to unburden your tears, but make brief your grief.
``Let the joy of my laughter comfort you,'' Kennedy continued in her words. ``My spirit will be the music above your head, my love like the wind beneath your wings to lift you in your weary years so that you may see the sunrise. All is well with my soul.''
Madam Speaker, today I give to Congress and the people of America, a glimpse into the life and times of a world-renown and respected poet from St. Louis, Missouri, and her vision for seeing, touching, feeling the world around us--St. Louis Poet Laureate Shirley LeFlore.
I urge members of Congress to join me in honoring the life and career of St. Louis Poet Laureate Ms. Shirley LeFlore and her art of language and her expression in words, of our life and times. May she rest in peace.
