american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
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42 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY<br />
which is an especially important assertion of blackness given that<br />
Harper’s wife is white. In <strong>the</strong>se cases, <strong>the</strong> speaker’s experiences are<br />
heard from <strong>the</strong> voices of two perspectives, both as <strong>in</strong>dividual fa<strong>the</strong>r<br />
and as archetypal fa<strong>the</strong>r, a tactic that serves to create a collective space<br />
of shared experience with readers as (black) fa<strong>the</strong>rs and parents.<br />
Joseph A. Brown once wrote that for Harper “no moment or<br />
matter is too private to be exorcised <strong>in</strong> a heal<strong>in</strong>g song” (215).<br />
Though “Deathwatch” elegizes a sad private event, it also <strong>in</strong>dicts<br />
and exorcises U.S. racist history. The first two stanzas comb<strong>in</strong>e <strong>the</strong><br />
poet as fa<strong>the</strong>r’s experience with <strong>the</strong> poet’s knowledge of medical term<strong>in</strong>ology<br />
learned as a premedical student. The cold, impersonal<br />
terms “episiotomy,” “placenta,” “adrenal<strong>in</strong> holes,” “autopsy,” and<br />
“disposal papers” convey a measured distance from <strong>the</strong>ir human<br />
implications. Jahan Ramazani, discuss<strong>in</strong>g ano<strong>the</strong>r Harper elegy,<br />
writes that Harper’s <strong>in</strong>teraction with his son “has been mediated and<br />
mutilated by <strong>the</strong> impersonal, objectify<strong>in</strong>g discourse of <strong>the</strong> hospital”<br />
(Poetry of Mourn<strong>in</strong>g 257), and so it is here. When <strong>the</strong> poem connects<br />
discrete personal experience to broader sociocultural contexts,<br />
it is subtle but pragmatic. The leap is necessitated by events—when<br />
<strong>the</strong> speaker and his wife “sign <strong>the</strong> autopsy / and disposal papers,”<br />
<strong>the</strong> event is symbolically framed by <strong>the</strong> implications of dy<strong>in</strong>g black <strong>in</strong><br />
a white-controlled country. The papers are “<strong>in</strong> black <strong>in</strong>k / on white<br />
paper / like <strong>the</strong> country” <strong>in</strong> which <strong>the</strong> speaker’s son was born. For<br />
Harper, personal experience is <strong>in</strong>separable from politics and, as<br />
Ramazani po<strong>in</strong>ts out, “death and mourn<strong>in</strong>g are bound to a grid of<br />
blackness and whiteness,” which gives <strong>the</strong> speaker no choice but to<br />
view <strong>the</strong> loss “through <strong>the</strong> lens of his racial experience” (258–259).<br />
Harper also explores an idea <strong>in</strong>terrogated <strong>in</strong> depth by Leslie<br />
Ca<strong>the</strong>r<strong>in</strong>e Sanders <strong>in</strong> her book on <strong>the</strong> development of African<br />
American drama (The Development of Black Theater <strong>in</strong> America:<br />
From Shadows to Selves 1988): African American artists and citizens<br />
exist largely on white cultural ground. Although this condition may<br />
be chang<strong>in</strong>g with <strong>the</strong> popularity of African American cultural<br />
forms such as hip-hop and with <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g Lat<strong>in</strong>a/o population,<br />
Harper’s l<strong>in</strong>es suggest that this country has been written by, built<br />
by, and made visible by <strong>the</strong> arts, lives, deaths, labor, and blood of<br />
African Americans, with little official, <strong>in</strong>stitutional recognition for<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir efforts apart from death certificates and disposal papers. The<br />
implication is a lament that African Americans are most visible <strong>in</strong><br />
<strong>the</strong>ir deaths, which has certa<strong>in</strong>ly been true for rap stars Tupac<br />
Shakur and <strong>the</strong> Notorious B.I.G., both of whom ga<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> celebrity<br />
after <strong>the</strong>ir murders.