Post Black? 5 Poems And 3 Notes On Culture, Craft And Race, by Evie Shockley

I love Evie Shockley. Also check out the Douglas Kearney poem in here.

Our panel description reminds us that black poets are sometimes “accused of limiting the scope of [our] poems to race.”

1) Accused

We could also accuse U.S. poets of limiting the scope of our poems to America, or accuse Polish poets of limiting the scope of their poems to Poland, or accuse well-educated and more-or-less financially comfortable poets of limiting the scope of their poems to the concerns and perspectives of the middle class. These accusations would be equally true, equally false and misleading. Indeed, to call them accusations in the first place suggests that there is something inherently wrong with a poet writing poems that reveal her imaginative engagement with the material of the cultural worlds in which she finds herself located, with which she is most intimately familiar or to which she is most inextricably bound.

Marriage equality is just a sliver of equality. Should not those who are single and those who choose not to marry also be entitled to the same full benefits and protections as anyone else? (Every time I feel outraged that I’m not entitled to domestic partner health insurance due to Virginia’s evil ban, I have to remind myself that I should—we all should—be entitled to health insurance, whether paired up or not, employed full-time or not.) Partnership is wonderful but it’s not the only way to live a worthy life, nor should it be hallowed as the be-all end-all. I sincerely hope for marriage equality, but as another leg of the marathon, not the finish line.

NOIR/REFUGEE

Do you think that there is something particular about being a refugee that makes imagining home and being home very crucial? Does being a refugee call into question the idea of home?

I’m writing a bit of a crime novel right now. It’s a noir novel, right. The thing about noir fiction is that it’s usually about people who are always looking for something and knowing that they’re not going to find it. And to the degree that at some point they just are in that default mode, and obviously with noir fiction that’s like a dark worldview and a dark approach to living when you constantly feel like you are looking for something even though you don’t know what it is. I feel like in some ways being a refugee is kind of like that. Because home will never really be home. Because the home that you grew up in is not home in the sense that it is for everyone. Because you belong there only because you are physically there and you are raised there, but it really doesn’t belong to you in the same way it belongs to someone who white and American, and was born and raised there with white and American parents, right. And your other home, the home that you were taken from, will never be home to you in the real sense, either, because you didn’t grow up there. So it’s like, you know, when people say they are looking for something, if they’ve found it, then they have it—they possess it. But I think with us, as refugees, even if we find it, it’s not really ours in the same way as it is for other people. It’s not like finding a lost key—oh my god, I found my key, now I can open the door.

—Vu Tran, in conversation with Julie Thi Underhill 

http://diacritics.org/2011/the-art-of-memory-without-pyrotechnics—an-exclusive-intervu-with-vu-tran-2

theparisreview: “The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege.” —Marilynne Robinson.
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theparisreview:

“The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege.” —Marilynne Robinson.

tayarijones: This 1950 jailhouse photo really shows that there is no excuse for retelling the same old stories. Here is the caption: “Masculine jail clothing was substituted for feminine attire worn by these three youths after they were nabbed early today. They said they had been employed as female… domestic servants in the fashionable Wilshire district. Physical examination by police showed that ‘Tisha Porter’ actually is Queque Malpress, 19; ‘Rita Porter’ is Frank Porter, 21, and ‘Mary Lee Porter’ is Willie Moore, 21 (left to right).” As writers and readers we must be open to the possibility that human beings have — for the entire course of history- engaged in a wide range of behavior.  To be open to possibility is to be open to the humanity of our subjects. Can you imagine if Aibileen was born Albert?  And I am not envisioning The Help as a Madea vehicle. I am thinking about a full on interrogation of race, class, and gender.  Let’s take a story that we think we already know and make it into a story that teaches us something. Yes.  This is a novel I want to read. (source: Standing Up Before Stonewall)
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tayarijones:

This 1950 jailhouse photo really shows that there is no excuse for retelling the same old stories. Here is the caption:

“Masculine jail clothing was substituted for feminine attire worn by these three youths after they were nabbed early today. They said they had been employed as female… domestic servants in the fashionable Wilshire district. Physical examination by police showed that ‘Tisha Porter’ actually is Queque Malpress, 19; ‘Rita Porter’ is Frank Porter, 21, and ‘Mary Lee Porter’ is Willie Moore, 21 (left to right).”

As writers and readers we must be open to the possibility that human beings have — for the entire course of history- engaged in a wide range of behavior.  To be open to possibility is to be open to the humanity of our subjects.

Can you imagine if Aibileen was born Albert?  And I am not envisioning The Help as a Madea vehicle. I am thinking about a full on interrogation of race, class, and gender.  Let’s take a story that we think we already know and make it into a story that teaches us something.

Yes.  This is a novel I want to read.

(source: Standing Up Before Stonewall)

(via roxanegay)

Source: tayarijones