The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children
this poem details how harmful rhetoric can be, but a poet's job is to act as a sacrificial lamb, to lay their emotions up on an altar so that the audience can understand what it's like to be in their skin.
Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.
This seems like a pessimistic way of looking at the world, but actually it's realistic. If the world if half-terrible (although Smith says that's a conservative estimate), it is also half-good. We all have the ability to add to the good in the world.
I can't leave. I want to, but you grow inside of me. And as I watch you, before I know it, I'm too heavy, too full of you to move. Maybe that's what they meant when they said you shouldn't love a country too much.
the comparison from patriotism to pregnancy is apt: both leave you vulnerable, caring for lives that are not your own
What does it mean to be older? Maybe a house with- out doors can still survive a storm.
being older means to be more vulnerable. Hence the house without doors that is still expected to whether a store
Who needs to be at peace in the world? It helps to be between wars, to die a few times each day to understand your father's sky, as you take it apart piece by piece and can't feel anything
Peace here is equated with numbness, because true peace isn't an option. We aren''t at peace, we're "between wars."
Where trouble was brewing. Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter. Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred. Where most were women and children. Riveted bramble of passive verbs etched in wood— stripped hands breaking up from the dry ground to pinch the meat of their young red tongues.
the passive voice takes away from who is doing the attacking. white folks are to blame for the genocide of native americans. The second stanza I've highlighted shows how this still affects native americans living today.
They storm the scrimmage line and clear-cut bran and germ We want the petal unto itself, the unalterable vessel
Here, the oppressor is taking away the seeds "bran and germ" before it can grow into something, cutting off potential. "we" however, want something that cannot be altered, who's growth cannot be circumvented.
We still live in an America where the same sun that once invigorated your passion continues to provide us with the beauty of life worth fighting for We still live in an America where America still lives in us
surprisingly optimistic ending, indicates that there is still hope for america despite all the problems mentioned in the poem
We still live in an America where books cannot prevent war and the sick and wounded need healing
education and creativity cannot stop greed or hatred. Also, until we have universal healthcare the sick and wounded will always need healing
We still live in an America where Christ and Dracula provide both excitement and fear for restless lives longing for a simple touch
Christ and dracula are both figures who have a lot to do with blood. We're all longing for someone to touch us but fear it will hurt or change us (as both christ and dracula change people with blood)
Otherwise, we still live in an America where the audacity to openly enjoy the pleasures of sex and being respected for wisdom are contradictions without reconciliation
We live in a hypersexualized yet sex-negative culture where anyone who enjoys sex for pleasure is treated as less than (both in intelligence/ wisdom and inherent worth)
You are not presumed to be innocent
often, POC are treated "guilty until proved innocent" by cops instead of the other way around
Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude. You have no rights we are bound to respect. Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible for what happens to you.
this reminds me of how POC are expected to remain calm, still, and polite when treated like subhumans by cops otherwise the cops will murder them. They are essentially treated like they have no rights, simply because of the color of their skin
We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives. We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions. We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.
This reminds me of the concentration camps for latin american refugees, innocent citizens murdered by the police, mistreatment of homeless folk, etc. Powerful stuff
because in times like these to have you listen at all, it's necessary to talk about trees.
here, Rich indicates that people will read poems about nature but not poems about injustice, so in order to slip in references of injustice one must work with the framework of a nature poem
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
Here, images of death and decay are present in a dilapitated place. Like almost any place, it is available for consumption to the highest bidder. Again the word "disappear," echoing earlier themes of impermanence in places as well as people
at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear.
here, her dread combines with the country's dread, indicating that the personal is not separate from the political
meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows.
could refer to quakers who hid people in the underground railroad
The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn and he names the sky his own But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
rhyme scheme shifts again, probably to highlight the intensity of the description, especially in the second stanza I highlighted, when things get really dark: "a grave of dreams," "a nightmare scream"
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
rhyme scheme shifts in second stanza