Of Poetry & Protest

These poems share the same marrow— together they capture that dimensional, transhistorical nature of blackness, as a social construct, as a social class, as a sound, as a sense of shame, as a resistance, as an anxiety, as a culture, as a shared experience, as a suffering, as a creativity, as resiliency … 

It’s as if these facets collapse onto one another: you cannot breathe in one without the other. You cannot relate to one specific time without it evoking the memory (or downright feeling) of another. 

There is an inescapable thematic link of time, hence grounding us in the question as to how these poems expand beyond their specific reference and make themselves shed light on other historical, political and social moments. And yet, this question immediately has me take on a sociological lens in order to grapple with it. I want to get into the talent and craft of these poems, but also note that none of these poems are indirect or ambiguous about their transhistorical nature. They narrativize events that inform and further define blackness as an experience. And those events then become part of that deep process, that involuntary and almost gut-reaction process, of making sense of blackness and defining it. Just as blackness can arguably only be defined through its relationship to whiteness and relationship to the social world, it is often defined through its relationship to itself, comparing the past and present. Particularly, blackness is the constant comparison of events in black history, and it is hinged on informing and further defining blackness as a experience and as a condition. 

These poets give us that dimensional landscape of blackness, weaving those aforementioned facets and layers of blackness and so many more. But also, they notably do some excavating and unearthing of those layers to speak out on how blackness is a bundle of experiences of a lower caste, a caste maintained by violence and proximity to death. Black literature keeps that vibrant tradition going, so I’m not saying anything new, but I do think these poets show something new. They show “black-time” masterfully, attached to not the event but the structure. I think it’s why it’s possible to read and experience these poems in such a way, the event that is focused on is not the beginning of the story being told nor does it have an end. It pretty expressly tells us to look back onto these past events in black history, to take heed of similar experiences or similarly evoked emotions, such as black suffering and grief. 

Like a coiled snake, time periods touch each other, it doesn’t fit into western linear storytelling or even that of creation stories. I’m not intending to just make up a phrase “black-time” but truly can’t fully the language that adequately describes this social phenomena. It is that time warp that happens in Baraka’s poem where we may feel situated in multiple times in black history, anchored by language and objects reflecting vastly different timestamps, effectively shifting us through time as we move from the big house to tvs, nigras to negros, and into field hands’ quarters. 

It’s Kwame Dawes’ showing of how “black-time” bent upon itself is a deliberate disruption as well as a beauty, a magic, that in relationship the first Afrikan slave brought to these stolen lands there was a first black president, at all, to usher in the insincere gesture that black people, too, are players and part of the colonial project. Or Derricotte, who has us sit with the black achievement of light skinned children out of safety (forcing readers into the ugly truths of colonized eyes and romantic taste and sexual organs out of sheer safety to survive and avoid Black Death). It is brutal, and time collapses on itself quickly, the tabooed discourse around avoiding having deep dark kids is directed to a picture of a charred black body. 

As I read it, blackness gets understood as a trigger itself. Can’t look at ya baby without it flooding in, can’t celebrate athletic wins without it crushing you down, can’t even take a smile in without spit on your face.  Although I will highlight the craft in another poem, I want to spend some time with two poets before doing so. 

Elizabeth Alexander’s poem hit an emotional tone that I admire. “Couldn’t sleep because of thinking, Emmett Till,” shows how Alexander made the craft choice to use Emmett Till’s name the exact way people experienced his murder— as a symbol, a warning, a name said with respect and also as a placeholder for what we don’t always have the language for. Particularly, it makes space to show a shifted consciousness, a very human experience, when something disturbs and changes our very being, weighs on our chest, keeps us up late into the night, thinking, Emmett Till. That deep black separation then becomes a universal experience, something Toni Morrison does oh so well.

Alexander does what many of the other poets do, this inclusion of dialogue and scene, which is a snapshot captured through showing and telling, and leaves this imprint of the narrator’s emotion felt, and that I believe successfully transfers over to us in the reading process. I have a particular love for Kwame Dawes, despite New Day not being my favorite work (I have loved his journalism, his work around HIV/AIDS, and the diaspora discourse he brings to the table). However, I want to lift up that this man writes a damn good sonnet! Often political poets either shy away from European forms because they have been pushed onto everyone else. Often, we learn the craft in order to better break free. Dawes is one of the few contemporary black poets that really inspired me to migrate to these forms and own them as my own. 

And the craft award goes to: Amiri Baraka, who has tons of writings about his writing process and there are two (that I know of) Baraka readers full of his work! Wise 5 is a part of Wise Why’s Y’s Afro-Modernist epic poem, in the tradition of Harlem Renaissance poets. You can feel it, too, in the language, in its sound when spoken outlaid, there is jazz and blues and rhythm, that shows itself in his sentence structure. Wise 5 is written with intentional pauses, the repetition, the movement of words across the page; arguably the essence of the time period he studied/embraced. If you need inspiration, he is one of those writers who speaks to his process of obsession, research, drafting, revision and more. I got better at the meticulousness of writing because of his work. And he produces magnificent volumes of stories and poetry that we support your deepening of writing!

Although we only got a taste of Baraka’s work here, it truly embodies the ways in which Baraka aims to narrativize the genocide of slavery, points to it being a near-genocide (this brink of death, that happens without the intent of exterminating the bodies intended for labor), lifts readers from the Great Migration to urban squalor and then back to the plantation, combs through time to show the motherlessness and fatherlessness and resistance and assimilation of black history. For me, as someone who studied English Literature from Europe to colonial Americas, I found Baraka’s take on the classical epic so refreshing (similar to my admiration of Dawes’ use of the sonnet). But further, Baraka flips the classical epic on its head. The wandering “adventure” doesn’t have one hero or one home to make it back to. The hero is black people as a whole, wandering the diasporas in search of home when there is none. I still get chills whenever I encounter Baraka’s work, and I look forward to hearing how others experienced his work.