And now it's winter
It's winter in America
And all of the healers have been killed
Or betrayed
Yeah, but the people know, people know
It's winter, Lord knows
It's winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your souls
From Winter in America

Now and Then: The Poems of Gil Scott-Her... I'm so glad I own a copy of this one. I was thinking of keeping this read for Black History Month but recently I've been listening to a lot of Gil Scott-Heron's music (which is excellent, by the way) and decided I couldn't wait to read his poetry.

This was a great collection. From his writing you can tell that Scott-Heron was many things. As well as being a musician, he was a social activist, a pacifist,an advocate for education, a person who strove for authenticity etc. Some of his poem's topics include the media, poverty, racism, family, drugs and HIV (which he calls Henry IV). There is definitely a passion in his words.

The majority of the poems in the book were written in the 70s and 80s so there were a lot of historical and political references to that time period (Watergate, Nixon, Reagan, Vietnam etc). To me it seemed ironic that decades later, Gil Scott-Heron's words still ring true, it's just the players that have changed.