Like fruit loops and hula hoops
Like lemonheads and roller skates
I am down for you rights and I will not give up the fight
I am down like black girls killing double-dutch on any block
Like Fred Flintstone in Bedrock
Like Barney Fife being a good cop
Like new hip hop won't ever stop
I'm down like Q Tip and his Tribe
Like Digable Planets and the Pharcyde
Like Frankie Beverly and Maze
Back in the good old days
When family mattered most
I'm like Celia Cruz and BB King's blues
Like Funkadelic and Atomic Dogs
Like Dukes of Hazzard and Deputy Dog
Like sitting in park way past dark
Funning in the sunshine
Like Fire and Desire
When love songs were strong
Filled with emotion
Like ain't no mountain high enough
Or don't stop till you get enough
I'm down for a phone call
Ask me for a real date
Don't text me no stupid emoji when it's late
I'm still old school and you can keep your fast lines
I like quality time, hold my hand
Let me know you understand
Never a happy meal
I am a main course
I like a gentle caress, strong hands
From foreign lands and masterful hands
Treat me like a Queen and I'll be around
Give me R E S P E C T because
I'm down
From: Uptown Déjà Vu
Summary
“I'm Down” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on love and relationships, family, music. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
A personal, first-person speaker combines recollection with direct emotional address.
Style and form
The poem is musically inflected, line-driven, compressed, first-person. The poem moves by accumulation: images, references, and tonal turns build on one another, so meaning emerges from their relationships as much as from narrative sequence.
Themes and imagery
Its strongest thematic currents include love and relationships, family, music, identity. Concrete images give those abstractions physical weight, while changes in diction and pace keep the poem from settling into a single emotional register.
Reading the poem
A productive way to read “I'm Down” is to watch how its images change function as the poem progresses. Details that initially establish scene or memory become emotional evidence. The result is a poem whose argument is carried through association, rhythm, and image as much as through explicit statement.
Explore this poem
Source & rights
Source: Uptown Déjà Vu
Rights: Copyright controlled by the rights holder. Published here with permission.