Rap is poetry:
Words bestowed to me
In school
Real cool.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Got me hooked on phonics.
The king’s English I learned
But I kept the Ebonics
I earned 
In the hood 'cause it's all good.
I speak two cultures to be understood.
It is no mystery
In American history
Phillis Wheatly's poetry 
Did not resound sweetly.
In courts she'd defend
That which she penned
On her own as her own,
Written without assistance.
With resistance her works were published.
To some founding fathers,  

Who could not be bothered
Her words rang as rubbish.
Rap is poetry:
Words that spoke to me:
Loud, Black and Proud,
Speak to me!
Eric B.
Move, move, move the crowd.
Rap is poetry…
And I hope to see
Tales of Crispus Attucks, Frederick Douglas and Nat Turner
That sit on the back burner
To stew and simmer, 
Shimmer and glimmer
The glamour of hope 
For more than a few… 
Who, too broke
For a dictionary or luxury of the literary
Live lives in a hurry,
View through a blurry scope
Have their say via this  
Vehicle and cycle farther than any bicycle 
Or car could take them…
Afford focus Unforesaken,
Share their life experience
Not Shakespearean 
Comparable and incomparable none the less…
…Hummed, rattled, sung and tattled.
Prose for a people by a people,
Herded bought and sold like cattle,
Verse coerced unrehearsed ready for battle:
With wisdom as weaponry,
Militant intelligence.
It is no accident,
That,
I did not get my 40 acres and some cents
Owed to me stole from me…
Yet and still I have the sense
To see clearly. 
Hear me, feel me.
Realize, recognize
Ripened resilience,
Brained brilliance
As I advertise my flow to ye.
Be quick not slow to see
Rap Is Poetry!

********

I wrote this as a rebuttle 
to those dispell and dismiss 
rap as a literary art form.