In this week's list of readings, I felt like I could relate to most of the voices in the poems. Particularly, I felt a strong pull towards Anaid Carreno's piece, "Snake Tongue: Lengua de Culebra." I felt the voice in this poem was a victim to colonialization and forced assimilation. The poem is very telling on what the sentiments were: loneliness and segregation as well as an obvious difference: "Only the echo replies" (55) showing that there's a sense of vulnerability in not being heard and not being taken into account.
The strongest point made in Carreno's piece is the last line: "My snake-like tongue has no mercy and will not cease until I see dignity and peace" (55). This line told me that the voice will fight to be heard and fight to make peace. It's a consolation to feel like those who feel shackled by the systems overpowered by racism, stereotypes and unjust. However, I question what is the instrument? Is the voice a part of the instrument because the poet decided to write the poem and message in a very specific manner?
The instrument question continues to linger for me as I read the other poems like Anthony A Lee's "No Moon in LA' and "William Archilla's "Three Minutes with Mingus". In Lee's piece, I questioned the relationship of the voice to the focal character of the poem. What is his/her relationship to this man? A viewer? A actual physical/intimate relationship? Or...? What makes Lee's piece powerful is the typography is made so that it feels like a recollection so that it feels realistic to the readers. I felt this was a real retelling and that the voice has a close relationship to the man who is burdened by the culture of L.A. and distraught with drug/alcohol addictions.
Similarly, William Archilla's "Three Minutes with Mingus" gave me a similar impression.
"I want to go/ back to my childhood, back to war,/ rescue that boy under the bed, listening/ to what bullets can do to a man"32.I felt the pain reading this line and the horror and terror. War torn territory bringing the worse fears in people and causing human nature to react in certain ways - the boy hiding under the bed and witnessing via sound and sight the death of his adult role models.
Again - what is the instrument? I can't seem to pinpoint. Is it the recollection itself? Is it the way it's written? I feel like it is. Words are the strength in these poems and the personalization makes me feel like it's real and means something.
I really feel like Smith and's pieces really represents protest poetry in that it clearly states the wrong doing and ripple effect of the horror and destruction wrought on to the citizens of America and people coerced into the American culture. "No one kills the black boy" is reference to how easily black characters are murdered in movies just as in real life. Why is the character who represents anything other than white easily dispensable to the cinematic culture? And now look at what's been happening through history left and right with police brutality and hate crimes all over the country.
I cannot find a better way to end than the last two quotes in "Dear White America" by Danez Smith.
"Take your god back: though his songs are beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent...
We did not ask to be a part of your America."
Nicely done Tien,
ReplyDeleteyou nail Carreno's voice and the fierceness with which she takes on the images of her folks (like Smith) What's most interesting are the questions you ask of the work, particularly Lee and Archilla. The Pain that is communicated seems to be underlying the images and the music. Your pointing to the boy under the bed, is very close to the central image that moves this along.
e