Dear Mr. Wonder
Who will play you
in the Hollywood
bio-drama,
the way you do
you do you
you do
How could Hollywood
dramatize you,
Stevie Wonder,
with your trajectory
that climbs and climbs and climbs
and boogies
the way you do
you do you
you do
Hollywood only wants
black heroes
dead
or falling—
then rising from ashes
on their white screens.
They know you store
a blast-furnace fire
in your master vaults
of yourself unreleased,
an ever-living boogie,
jams beyond their ears--
you doing the way you do
you do you
you do
In the mid-sixties
you came through the static
and six transistor
AM radio I held to my ear—
out to the redlined suburbs,
a black kid
rescuing this white
kid confined to bed
by his rheumatic heart,
through the songs,
the way you do
you do you
you do.
From Hitsville
to hicksville: I
didn’t know it was you
singing with the Funk Brothers
in that Detroit garage.
You had no more identity to me than
I had an identity to you,
one of a million tuned
and programmed for you
the way you do
you do you
you do.
I only knew bits of song.
Martha and the Vandellas told us
you were coming.
All your Motown brothers and sisters
called to us, called to our better selves
“with a brand-new beat.â€
You sway and sing and we should follow.
Stevie, if you came driving up
in a red Lamborghini
shouting “hey! climb in!†while
fiddling with the car stereo,
I’d like to believe I’d slip into the
passenger side
while you shouted
“fasten your seatbelt†over
the chorus of “Master Blaster.â€
I believe we’d boogie
through a Technicolor America
that not only listened to Motown
but heard
and heard
and heard Marvin
and heard The Temptations
and heard Curtis and heard
James Brown and heard
Nina and heard
Otis and heard
Aretha and heard
The Staples Singers and heard
the way you do
you do you
you do.
So, what’s holding us back?
--David Robinson
