The poems here are reflections on my journey during moments of Barack Obama's presidency. Take the extended moment of obstructionism questioning the legitimacy of "Number 44.' And doing so under the claim that "it's good politics to oppose the Black guy in the White House." There're the moments when one "Black Man Walking" is shot and another "Black Boy Riding and Gliding" is shot "in the White Man's Privileged Public." A later moment signals "The Dying Days of the 2nd Reconstruction."
Then the moment of recalling how a group of teenagers got "Ears to Hear All that Jazz" and have lately "become the old folks /we knew we'd never be." Old death framed a moment for my own tearful mythmaking, composing, "On the Passing of a Friend." No less disorienting was the moment of discovering all that is being done "In Our Good Name." Other moments throbbed.
Theodore L. "Ted" Lockhart is a retired United Methodist minister who served congregations in Massachusetts during portions of the years between the 1960s through the 1990s. At various times during those years, he also worked at Boston area institutions of higher education, including Boston College, Andover Newton Theological School, and Emerson College.
Since his retirement from the active ministry of the UMC, he has served congregations on an interim part-time basis in his hometown, St. Petersburg, FL. He has served as Treasurer, Vice Chairperson and Chairperson of The Board of Directors of the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum in St. Petersburg. A graduate of Gibbs Junior College, St. Petersburg, FL, and two schools of Boston University - Arts and Sciences, and the School of Theology, he served four years in the United States Air Force (two of which were in Japan) after finishing high school. He is the author of two earlier volume of verse, In Search of Roots, Dorrance & Co., 1970, and, Before Blackness, Lying After Truth, In Rabbitude & Other Poems, Dog Ear Publishing, 2013.
