1: Of Poetry & Protest

I want to write about the beginning, the first few pages before the table of contents, with the photo of a protester in Oakland who has #BlackLivesMatter underlined on their cheek. It's taken close to the protester's face, calling the reader in. Following this, the dedication "To all those who have died because of the color of their skin", rings with tragic history and losses alongside the more current photo in action with a hashtag in focus. The text of the dedication itself is large and small and then largest, and my breath sort of came and went with that expansion. So, the beginning of this book interfaces with the reader really powerfully as a moment to experience. To me, the photos and documents alongside or in between poems solidify this experience by creating pauses. These pauses allowed for words, sounds, emotions, textures, and voices to have a moment to sink in to my brain and body.

One way the anthology allows for the stories in each poem to expand beyond their specific references is by putting the author bios right alongside their work. This to me, is one really concrete way that all the poems seem to deal with the past and present and with nonlinear inheritances -- themes that I noticed in many of the poems were with parents and children, with history and protest as a kind of then and now like the part of the title, "from Emmet Till to Trayvon Martin".  And still, just like Camille Dungy's memorable "Half the time I can't tell my experiences apart from the ghosts'" (44). Many of the authors write about their parents, their grandparents, their educational histories and their personal histories before their poetry. Also, Philip Cushway writes "It was 2013 when I started this book and a new iteration of the Civil Rights Movement was taking place. From the streets of Ferguson, Cleveland, Baltimore and across the country, young people marched, questioning and confronting the continued murders of black youth. Oscar Grant, Tamir Rice, and Trayvon Martin became today's Emmet Till" (Preface). So stories are linked from past to present, but there's a certain heavy space in the reading. Again, I got this from the extra-textual materials in the beginning of the book, the document on page 2, "A Partial List of Racial Murders from 1963-1965" and then a 50 year space before the list of 2012-2015. The pause between the two incomplete records hold gravity and frames what comes next, poetry that is a process, poetry that is introspective, and poetry that runs through Black histories, narratives, and lives.

So the poem that I read the closest was Wanda Coleman's "Emmet Till". There are methods she uses and conventions she ignores that I found myself wondering about, especially the alphabetized river names. Why are some capitalized and some aren't? With that said, what do the capitalized words and not capitalized words do in this poem? I found the list of river names both mournful like flowing water, or whispers, or moments of silence between brutality and horror, but also filled with the energy of repetition. The beginning of section 4 is a similar instance, "at my mouth forking", the italicized "voice" goes on to say "murder" and "on that third day/he rose". I had to take a step away from reading at this point, but I'm still left trying to figure out why close reading this poem feels like there are strong dualities, or things in pairs, that happen alongside each other? Like, there seems to be an urgency to move in the moving river water and in the rain "spill tears/nimbus threatening downpour/sweetwater culls into its soulplain" (24), but then also the sinking and seeping water, "works its way underground/scarred landscape veined by rage/sanctified waters flow" (22).