Feedback request

[judecorp]

The final project for my Race and Ethnicity class is due soon. My professor is very flexible and basically said we can create anything in the universe that has anything to do with Race and Ethnicity. So I scribbled the beginnings of a poem, while I was at work, that I'm thinking about cleaning up and handing in. I'd like thoughts, friends.

Thanks in advance!


When I was small enough
to sit in the tiny wooden desks that
we scrubbed each June with pads of steel wool,
I believed that racism was a thing
of the distant past; as old as my father.
I knew that Rosa Parks had refused
to give up her seat on the bus
and I cheered.
I knew that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
had a dream
and his dream was that one day his
children would be judged not by
the color of their skin, but by
the content of their character.
My heart soared.
The Civil Rights Movement had come and gone.
We sang "We Shall Overcome"
and "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel" at recess,
skipping over yellow jumpropes.
We said that it didn't matter what color you were,
that God loved you anyway,
even if you were Black!
It was eight-year-old fact:
we were not judged by the color of our skin,
we were not denied housing or employment or seats.
Row after row of little, wooden desks
scratched with generations of hot pink Brillo.
Row after row of little White children
blinded by Caucasian and middle-class privilege,
socialized to segregate, to separate, to stand aside.
Dr. King had a dream,
and Ms. Parks has a seat on the bus,
but it would be up to me,
once I had grown out of my wooden desk
(maybe even when I was as old as my father!),
to overcome,
To Change the World.

Comments

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Jude,

I love it. I think you've said what you wanted succinctly and beautifully. Wow.

The only line that doesn't quite ring for me is "maybe even when I was as old as my father." But, hey, it's your poem, and I think it still works.

All in all, I'd give you an A+

-Lori

Re:

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

You know, I added that one on the recopy, and had been hemming and hawing about it.

Thanks.

[michael622.livejournal.com]

I love it. Hands-down, no changes.

I am no poetry critic, but that moved me. Bravo!

[juliann.livejournal.com]

I'm a little bit muddy at the ending babe. Maybe because I just woke up. :) But I think you are trying to say that you were taught racism was over, yet you were in a middle class all white caucasian universe? So it was all nice in theory but you had no idea of how it worked practically? I dig the sentiment but I am not sure it is as strongly and clearly expressed as it could be. And then the ending, "but it would be up to me..to change the world" Is that the eight year old you realizing that racism was still real, or is that the now-you reflecting on how wrong you had been at eight?

(Oh and silly nitpick, Brillo isn't international, so non-north americans might not get the reference. But that's me being anti-ameri-centric again :) )

Re:

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Heh, I hadn't even thought about the international flavour of the thing (and the Brillo), mostly because I was handing it in to my american professor in my american university. ameri-centric, yup. I just /love/ the word Brillo. Heck, I was poor, we prolly used the store brand Brillo anyway. ;)

I am now muddy at your muddiness. So maybe after I've schlepped through work and volunteering and have my night-brain on, I will go through this again and see if I'm understanding what I wrote only because I wrote it.

Thanks!

[dch4.livejournal.com]

Very good use of imagery and the viewpoint of middle class white america (I especially like the 'even if you were Black!' line give its implications of institutionalized racism in America. Harkens back to the cry of 'I can't be racist! I have black friends!'

I would suggest dropping the '(maybe even when I was as old as my father!)' line. It simply doesn't sync with the rest of the poem to me and was something on the order of stepping on a rake right at the finish line of a footrace. Sort of brought me up cold, so to speak, and lessened the impact of the last two lines.

Part of me also wants to say drop the last line, but I'm not 100% sure on that bit.

Damn you for making me exercise my Literary education! Damn you, I say! ;-)

Re:

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Thanks, C. I have smart friends. The two big parts I was completely uneasy with are the same two big parts that my nerdybright friends are uneasy with.

Yay!

(p.s. I hate those 'I have 'X' friends!' defenses. Yar.)