Kwame Alexander was the keynote speaker of Saturday’s Black Ink, a gathering of four dozen writers celebrating African American writing in a six-hour book festival that filled the main library.  The festival, now in its second year, reportedly did very well, with writers selling two or three times as many books to hundreds of attendees.

In a poignant talk about memories ranging from a boyhood spent selling books for his father to his mother’s recent death, Alexander kept his audience spellbound with his passionate, strong voice.

But an extended version of a relatively new poem, “Take a Knee,” cut to the core.  It showed how a rat-a-tat-tat of common-day phrases starting with the word “take” can generate real emotion and lead, perhaps, to new ways of considering issues.