Poetry 1
They say Dominicans can do the best hair.
The speaker confronts her mother and other women in her community who tell her to "fix", i.e. straighten, her hair. She reclaims the beauty of her curly hair and its connection to her African ancestry.
"everyday something has tried to kill me / and has failed"
Clifton invites the reader to celebrate her ability to give her own life meaning despite all the odds being stacked against her as a Black woman. Her survival against the forces of racism and sexism is a triumph.
"Was that joy? Probably not. But it mimicked joy's conditions pretty well."
What is: Joy by Zadie Smith
Smith questions whether the effects of drugs counted as authentic joy. She reflects on how joy is a complicated emotion that includes both euphoria and fear/pain.
"It's time we go up to the house," I said.
"Could be past time, Grandbaby."
What is: My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
Naisha talks to Ma Violet about how they finally have to seek shelter inside Monticello. She has been avoiding entering the house, which is a metaphor for her avoiding her own personal history as an ancestor of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.It takes the salonist hours to bend the snakes around the rollers,/make them still beneath the hairnet.
what is: La Negra Takes Medusa to the Hair Salon by Elizabeth Acevedo
The poem describes a dark skinned woman going to a Dominican hair salon. The stylist fights with her curly hair to straighten it. By comparing her natural curls to Medusa's snakes, the speaker implies how these women have internalized the idea that her natural hair is dangerous/a problem that must be defeated.
To spin/on our hands and backs To bruise/elbows wrists and hips to Bronx-Twist
what is: B-Boy Infinitives by Patrick Rosal
Rosal describes the coming-of-age of b-boys who use their dance to become the sort of men they want to be, powerful and not limited by any boundaries.The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us- the poet- whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.
What is: Poetry is Not a Luxury by Audre Lorde
Lorde defines poetry as the long-suppressed emotions of women, particularly women-of-color. She thinks that unearthing and expressing these emotions is a tool women can use to resist patriarchy.
When George Washington wore Solomon’s tooth, he dreamed of a place of golden spires and colorful glass domes, where Negroes flew through the sky on metal wings like birds and sprawling cities that glowed bright at night were run by machines who thought faster than men. It both awed and frightened him at once.
What is "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" by P.D. Clark
This story imagines the lives of the enslaved people from whom Washington took teeth. Clark gives the enslaved people magical powers so that when Washington wears their teeth, he is haunted or punished for his role as an enslaver and is reminded of the true power and worth of Black people.
"For those of us / who were imprinted with fear / like a faint line in the center of our foreheads"
What is: A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde
Lorde describes people who live their whole lives afraid and silenced, who are born learning to be afraid of their oppressors. By the end of the poem, she urges the oppressed to speak out anyway because what the oppressors want is to terrorize them into submission.
It's about filling the floor/with the manic/language of dance
What is: Turing the Tables by Joel Dias-Porter
Porter speaks from the perspective of a DJ instructing the reader on what it really means to do his art. The speaker enjoys the power of compelling his audience to lose control and totally let go.
Therefore we must fearlessly pull out of ourselves and look at and identify with our lives the living creatures some of our great-grandmothers were not allowed to know.
What is: In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker
Walker describes how Black women have always found ways to express their talent and creativity, despite not having the outlets to do so. Just because there is not always clear "proof" of these contributions does not mean that Black women today haven't inherited their "grandmothers'" hidden talents.
Oh friends - I most love who you become when there are cards in your hands.
What is: A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib
Abdurraqib traces the history of the card game spades and reflects on how the game is a metaphor for the ways people of color have had to both live by other people's rules and revel in the joy of making their own rules.
You want the exit code from the tenement, the penitentiary
What is: emcee by Terrance Hayes
The speaker of his poem is an emcee who loves the power that emceeing gives him over his audience. At first, it seems like he just loves the power trip. But this line reveals his deeper desire to escape the forces of oppression he feels trapped by.
What is: Renegades of Funk by John Murillo
Murillo writes from the perspective of the hip-hop youth who use dancing, rapping, graffiti, and DJing to defy their oppressors. He connects hip-hop culture to a long history of Black music in America that has been a method of resisting oppression.A people cannot only see themselves suffering left they believe themselves only worthy of pain, or only celebrated when that pain is overcome.
what is: A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib
Abdurraqib writes about why the show Soul Train was so important because it depicted Black people as joyous and talented at a time when they were almost exclusively depicted as suffering.
As I write, I imagine men gathering below us, somewhere beyond our stone-covered bridge.
At the end of the book, Naisha switches to present tense. They are preparing to defend Monticello from the white supremacists. The ending is ambiguous, but Naisha implies that even if they die in the fight, she has reclaimed her place on the land.
an imaginary engine propelling you away/from the soft, pliable furniture of your boring,/ suburban nest.
What is: If You Don't Know by Adam Falkner
The speaker of this poem is a young white man who loves hip-hop. He longs for a struggle that will make him feel like he has a sense of culture and community, and not just privilege.
"Nothing fuels artistry like rage"
What is: Bronx Bombers by John Rodriguez
Rodriguez describes the graffiti artists in the South Bronx who went "to war" with the oppressive authorities trying to stop their art. Graffiti is the weapon they use to resist their government's efforts to erase them.
...the new generation, to whom so much had been given, from whom so much was being stolen, for whom so little would be promised--would not settle for the things previous generations had been willing to settle for.
What is: Necropolis: The Bronx and the Politics of Abandonment by Jeff Chang
Chang outlines the social, political, and economic forces that shaped the South Bronx in the late 70s and that lead to the creation of hip-hop culture. The hip-hop generation were the disaffected youth who had witnessed the destruction of the Black Power/Civil Rights movements.
How do you price a country? How do you value its mountains and lakes, the scent of its trees, the colors of its sunsets? What's the markup on the shapes of fruit in the dreams of its people?
What is: Migritude by Shailja Patel
Patel traces the history of the pattern ambi and how it was remained paisley by the processes of British colonialism. She reflects on how colonialism not only robs societies of resources but also of history and a feeling of self-worth.