Singer White pens poem about Detroit

Detroit – Singer-guitarist Jack White has penned a poem expressing his strong feelings for Detroit to clear up any misconceptions about how the White Stripes frontman feels about his hometown.

White said he was frustrated by a sense that his thoughts about the Motor City were misrepresented since he moved to Nashville two years ago. So White wrote a poem titled “Courageous Dream’s Concern” that was published Sunday by the Detroit Free Press. He says it asserts his “feelings about the city itself, and how strong I believe it to be.”

Part of the poem reads: “Detroit, you hold what one’s been seeking, Holding off the coward-armies weakling, Always rising from the ashes not returning to the earth.”

White, also a member of the Raconteurs, told the Free Press that the poem represents his true feelings about the city.

“The … poem is the Detroit from my mind,” he said. “The Detroit that is in my heart. The home that encapsulates and envelops those who are truly blessed with the experience of living within its boundaries.”

Magic Johnson’s wife takes on HIV campaign

Los Angeles – Magic Johnson’s normally publicity-shy wife, Cookie, is emerging as a spokeswoman in a campaign urging black women to get tested for HIV.

Cookie Johnson is appearing with the former LA Lakers star in a five-year, $60 million public service campaign with ads directed by moviemaker Spike Lee.

She was two months pregnant when her husband tested positive for HIV in 1991.

The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation says almost a third of cases diagnosed among blacks in 2006 were women, double the rate for white women.

Cookie Johnson, who tested negative for the virus, says part of the community still has the attitude that “it can’t happen to me.”