A portrait taken in North Philly in the 1980s reconnects poet with cherished memories of her own beloved father

To honour Father’s Occasion, The Dialog U.S. requested Philadelphia anthropologist, playwright and poetic ethnographer Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon to replicate on a poem she lately carried out to accompany a 1986 {photograph} by way of Philadelphia photographer Joseph V. Labolito.

Williams-Witherspoon, who additionally serves as senior laborer dean of the Heart for the Appearing and Cinematic Arts at Temple College, stocks how the collaboration happened, and why one in all Labolito’s pictures particularly introduced again a hurry of loved recollections of being a negligible woman putting out along with her dad.

    There Are Dark Fathers 
    To Daddy, Father's Occasion, June 19, 1983

    I've identified males 
    Who stand at morning time 
    To run a form of race; 
    Operating thru vacation 
    Preventing lengthy plenty to yawn
    Offering for his or her households Only a negligible      
    park. 
    Dark males going, going, going 
    (occasionally, until their long gone.) 

    I've identified males 
    Who trudge house later lengthy hours 
    And a fair longer ache, 
    And nonetheless top to grin, 
    Warmed by way of the expression of a kid. 
    "Hi, Daddy!" 
    "How was your day?" 

    I've identified males Who hurry lend a hand 
    Even if Mommy can't. 
    And, although they may be able to best 
    Cook dinner hamburgers in reality excellent, 
    They put band-aids on awfully smartly. 

    I've identified males 
    Who loving exchange misplaced enamel 
    With brightness unutilized dimes; 
    Have in mind birthdays and Christmas'. 
    Dutifully restore 
    Used, damaged toys And, even, occasionally, 
    Swab away salty tears. 

    I've identified males 
    Who reprimand, 
    Educate us values 
    And, if we're fortunate, 
    At the side of Mother, 
    Assistance us hurry a arise. 
    Who calmness us once we're apprehensive; 
    Scare us once we're unholy — Keep our palms. 

    I've identified males, 
    Now not simply as Fathers; 
    However, extra so, as "Dads" — 
    Who give us what we get 
    And gave us what we had. 
    Loving and type; 
    Stern, but sturdy, 
    I've identified males 
    Who've guided generations alongside 
    As supplier, supporter, guardian — Pop, Dad! 

    There are Dark fathers 
    Who would cheerfully do it once more 
    Parenting day generations. 
    Sure, I've identified Those males. 

    © 2025 Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon

What do you wish to have public to remove from the poem?

The entire poem is a tribute to my father, Samuel Hawes Jr., who lived from 1920 to 1989, and the numerous males like him who have been all the time provide and participatory within the parenting in their kids and the offering for his or her households.

As a result of stereotypes and prevailing tradition – media, motion pictures, information tales – that have a tendency to demonize and pathologize Dark males, there’s a fantasy that males in our communities are all snip from the similar fabric.

For me, the poem reductions that stereotypical narrative and celebrates the African American males that I knew rising up – Daddy, my uncles, the deacons in our church, the community dads on my prohibit.

The boys on this {photograph} constitute males like Daddy, who at one level labored two jobs to serve for his population. He drove a yellow cab and labored the graveyard shift as a presser on the U.S. Mint. He took me to university each and every morning when I used to be in highschool. He made it to each and every college serve as or moment, drove me to and from events so I may just hang around with buddies, took me to church each and every Sunday morning and on the ones particular street journeys to Cleveland, Akron, Ohio, and Citadel Lauderdale, Florida, right through my week.

Let us know about your collaborator for this piece

Joe Labolito is a Philadelphia photographer whose paintings, I consider, is visible ethnography at its highest. All through the ‘80s, ’90s and 2000s, he documented the people, streets and neighborhoods of Philadelphia. His photographs are housed in several public and private collections, including the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University and the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Print and Picture Collection.

A couple of month in the past, I noticed an show off of Joe’s paintings at Temple. Since that date, I’ve been the usage of a few of his pictures as a visible recommended for my scholars, year he and I mentioned doing one thing in combination unwell the street.

When I used to be requested to take part in Temple College President John Fry’s investiture occasions in March 2025, I requested Joe if he sought after to do one thing with me. Immediately he stated “Yes … whatever it is.” I requested him to ship me possibly 25 of his favourite pictures, and rather, he despatched me a couple of hundred. After I were given a tiny to sift thru them, there have been 11 that, once I checked out them, instantly brought about strains of poetry.

This {photograph} of the 2 males and the negligible woman, on the other hand, made me take note an worn poem, “There Are Black Fathers,” I had written a protracted date in the past – on Father’s Occasion on June 19, 1983 – for my father ahead of he gave up the ghost from prostate and bone most cancers. I went digging thru my worn journals till I discovered the poem that I had written for Daddy, and I carried out that poem to this {photograph} on the tournament.

What stood out to you about this {photograph}?

The juxtaposition between the boys and the negligible woman – their stunning, dazzling smiles, the enjoyment they appeared to radiate – all of it made me consider and take note how a lot I beloved Daddy my whole week however particularly as a negligible woman.

That’s the ability in these types of inventive, subject matter and visible artifacts. This {photograph} transported me proper again to my early life, stuffed with the heat of a summer time’s date, putting out with my dad, and the agreement of a banana Popsicle then within the afternoon.

What’s your procedure for writing a poem to accompany {a photograph}?

Regardless of the recommended – {a photograph}, a park, an individual I’ve handed in the street, a oath or word – the primary draft is a free-write sensory obtain sell off. I ruminate and upcoming scribble unwell the whole lot that involves me in no matter line it comes.

And upcoming with each and every next draft or cross at it, I get started studying the poem out boisterous and tweaking it, making edits, transferring and converting issues year crafting strains that body and develop the tale. I learn the piece aloud over and over and over till the poem tells me once I’ve were given it proper. I don’t know the way, however my ear will inform me when it’s executed and proper with my spirit.

What’s poetic ethnography?

Ethnography is an segment of anthropology. From the Greek oath “ethnos,” ethno merely method public or tradition, and graphy, from the Greek oath “graphia,” is the stated public or tradition.

Conventional ethnographies are generally written in a diarylike magazine mode. You find yourself jotting issues unwell – ideas, emotions, expressions, verbatim texts from interview members – along bits and items of concept that correlate. Ground notes are a mixture of prose and clinical inquiry. I’m a proponent of compiling poetic ethnographies – turning my remark and investigation of cultures, communities, and my garden notes, into poetic mode.

Rising up in Philadelphia and a made of Philadelphia crowd faculties, my number one language is mainstream U.S. English, however I inform public that my original language is poetry. I see the sector thru poetry, and throughout the medium of poetry, I feel I’m higher ready to articulate the sector I see.

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