The poets in Poetry and Protest craft with the raw ache of writing openly about their lived realities: realities marked by the violent oppression of Black bodies, Black thought, and Black resilience. To bring the current #BlackLivesMatter into fuller understanding, the collection swings back and forth through time as each poet brings another angle of context into view. As readers we switch focus from Muhammad Ali to Emmett Till to Barack Obama, broadening our awareness of the historical within personal renderings of these politically charged figures. Of the poems in the first 62 pages of Poetry and Protest, I would like to focus on Jeanne Amber’s and Elizabeth Alexander’s responses to the anthology’s call for a poetry engaged with the contemporary #BLM movement.
Alexander’s portrayal of Muhammad Ali is fast, the lines are short and kept close to the body, like a jab. Ali is the speaker, and he gives us twelve rounds of quick thought, image blur, and reflection. In the section "Training," Ali discusses the physical stresses he puts his body under in order to become "The People's Champ" and the "fistic pariah" (29). When I read this poem cycle in relation to the poems and essays that surround it, I read Alexander’s focus on Ali’s endurance as a conceit for the stresses exerted on the black body through systemic oppression, and how one stands up to resist against that challenge. In relation to my reading of Jeanne Amber’s "The Talk," I read Ali's statements of scarring and healing, the notion that his “bones absorb the shock” (27), in comparison to the shock and recalibration the parents of black sons had to go through when George Zimmerman walked free after killing Trayvon Martin.
Ali's emotional resilience is in a reciprocal relationship to the leaning out of his flesh and peeling away his scarred skin. He maintains his determination through the specific, methodical steps required to survive: "three speed/ bag, three jump rope, one- / minute breaks, / no more, no less" (27). This repetition reminded me of the lists of specific requirements the mother gives her son in Amber’s "The Talk": "Do not reach for your wallet. Do not grab your phone. Do not raise your voice (15)." But, whereas there is urgency and fear in the warnings to the son, whose agency will be stripped away by a cop, Ali's determination to survive in a ring of violence demonstrates his mastery over a domain where he in complete control.
In conversation with one another, the two pieces bring to the forefront the necessity of quick decision, the physical and mental toll constant navigation takes, the close calls with violence and/or its possibility on the daily. And many of the pieces throughout the book touch on similar themes--though, as Wanda Coleman’s poem and the haunting list of racial murders on 16 and 17 convey, even quick thinking, even complete cooperation, does not spare lives. In moments, one can take solace quiet and beautiful connections with the body, such as Camille Dungy’s speaker when, for just a minute, “The baby is sleeping on my back again. When I stand still, / I can feel her breathing.”
The conversation between these two writers about the historical thread is very on point and the relationship to the current movement undeniable. I appreciate how you intertwine the content and the style and show the emotional resilience of culture and of language. There are some phrases, grad students, that Avren uses that may go into the evolving glossary! Elmaz
ReplyDeleteWhat an excellent way to receive these poems and the context of the text. The book itself is a conducted conversation among Black poets and your direct connecting of two of them made the context even clearer. The Black body and the battle over the Black body is never more blatant than through the parading of "perp walks" on the news. The American media's racism continues its churn by always identifying a suspect as Black and never identifying a suspect as White. This perpetuates the fundamental separation racism is designed to reinforce. Your blog isolated two examples through the Black body and made it come alive as a dialogue. I appreciated this technique and experienced the written intention even more directly in my own body.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy your close reading of Alexanders poem and how you related it to another poem in the book because that is what anthologies are all about, bringing together the work of multiple poets in conversation, and I think all together these poems have a strength they wouldn't on their own.
ReplyDeleteAh! Great connection! I went back to both these poems and sat with them a bit differently. The comparison between building up physical muscle and peeling away scars as a athletic routine to that of parenting black boys is dead on. It's crafted through lists, the sense of repetition and solidifying.
ReplyDeleteWith these two pieces, I definitely kept thinking about the concept of enduring pain to hopefully lessen it later, about what strengthening look like, and at what point the black body is human with emotional/physical limits all while being resilient/strong.
Thanks for your analysis!