Of Poetry & Protest Reflections

So many of these poets take a single event, like Emmett Till’s murder or Rosa Parks’s remaining at the front of the bus, and pull them apart, stretching the moment to reveal the calculated preparations or the reverberating implications. So many illustrate the connectedness of racism to America, of history to the present.

Many of these poets wrestle with questions of what it means to be “American,” playing with familiarly patriotic language and asserting that racism and pain are intertwined with “Americanness.” This is particularly apparent in Wanda Coleman’s “Emmett Till.” Coleman intersperses parts of “America the Beautiful” and the National Anthem into her poem, and each time the lines take on new meaning. In “1,” she writes “the front page news amber fields purple mountains / muddies.” A line meant to illustrate the beauty and diversity of American geography transforms here; the news of Till’s murder complicates the supposedly uncomplicated beauty of “America” presented in “America the Beautiful.” Coleman also deftly manipulates the language of the National Anthem with the line, “oh say Emmett Till can you see Emmett Till,” addressing the reader and compelling her to say his name and see his humanity. The critical importance of seeing Emmett Till and saying his name (a way of reasserting power and dignity), intertwined with the beginning of the national anthem, is a call to readers to acknowledge and do something about ongoing racism.

Another major theme is the fluidity of time, and the assertion that the roots of this country have informed the present, just as the present will inform the future. This is particularly apparent in Kwame Dawes’s “New Day,” in which he presents the complexity and thrill of Obama’s very presence as a black president, alongside present and historical figures. Within the poem, we jump from Obama’s first inauguration to election night in 2008, to present anticipation, Obama’s persona, and finally to Lincoln’s presidency. All of these things come together to shape Obama’s legacy and the world’s perception of him as both a person and a historical figure. The first two lines begin with “Already,” then “Before,” illustrating the contrast between Obama in his early presidency and his pre-public service life. Davis even gestures toward the future; in “Punch-line,” the speaker asks others “if you can remember a time / you believed even you could take the presidency,” alluding to the past (“remember”) and potential future presidential candidates (though he does not present those who think they can run particularly flatteringly, suggesting they are but “a dreamer, a liar, a clown, a madman”). Playing around with time is one of many ways that Davis lends complexity and nuance to his examination of Obama’s presidency, and one way that he seems to suggest that we cannot divorce our present from our past.

Both of these themes (“Americanness” and the fluidity of history) are also present in “Conspiracy” by Camille T. Dungy in the line, 

Last week, a woman smiled at my daughter and I wondered 

if she might have been the sort of girl my mother says spat on my aunt 

when they were children in Virginia all those acts and laws ago.

This line showcases the enduring pain and confusion associated with racism, as well as the transformation of racism itself (from more frequently outright to more frequently overt or systematic). There is always room for that wondering, for that uncertainty, which once again illustrates the impossibility of decoupling this country's history with the present. 

These observations don’t even begin to get at the complexity, beauty, pain, and optimism so many of these poets express in these pages, and I so look forward to reading others’ blog posts and discussing these poems further. I also want to end with a quotation that particularly resonated with me from Tori Derricotte: “Great art has the power, not only to transform the present, but to transform the past, changing our ancestors’ oppression into triumph” (46). This really speaks to not only why I want to study poetry but also why I want to teach it to my students – and help them find their own voices.