In this episode of Poetry on Page, NIU English professor Amy Newman discusses a poem that uses imagery of flowers and other things that grow from the ground. But the true meaning of literature speaks on an issue that his far less appealing.
YB:
Hi, Amy, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Poetry on the Page. How are you today?
AN:
I'm fine. Yvonne, thank you for having me.
YB:
All right. So, what do you have brewing for us today?
AN:
So, today I have two poems, specifically some poems about George Floyd, and I'm here to talk about Jericho Brown's poem “The Tradition” from his book of the same name, which was published by Copper Canyon. It considers the various traditions we share in this country, including, for example, cultivating the ground and also including systemic racism. The poem “The Tradition” is a pretty wild poem. It's, first of all, a sonnet, which is a poetry tradition all its own. The 14 lines and the iambic pentameter with a specific rhyme. And he's naming a lot of flowers in the first few lines, because he's describing the way he and his brothers would work the dirt to create something, to create a beautiful garden. That's seemingly the way the poem goes, until we hear in the tone a consideration of something else, kind of growing into fullness. The last two lines of a sonnet traditionally have something called a volta, which is a turn of the argument, the emotional sense of the whole poem. And here Jericho Brown turns to the images. Those flowers become cut down before they should be. And what he does is he recites the names of men who have been lost at the hands of violence against Black men. So, it's a pretty terrific poem, and I'll read it for you now.
The Tradition
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought
Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning
Names in heat, in elements classical
Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.
Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will
Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter
On this planet than when our dead fathers
Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.
Men like me and my brothers filmed what we
Planted for proof we existed before
Too late, sped the video to see blossoms
Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems
Where the world ends, everything cut down.
John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
YB:
I like that analogy. To take the flowers and saying that they were cut down too soon, and to compare to what we have to deal with in the Black community. How does that poem speak to you?
AN:
Well, you know, as in, in much, in a lot of the same ways that it speaks to you as an American and, in some ways, as a student of that history. And what, what I admire that Brown does there is that he is writing a sonnet, ostensibly talking about gardening, but actually talking about the, the cultivation of something beautiful that, not through its own devices, is cut down too soon. Political poems are hard to write. You know, they're they come off as propaganda, and they can be clumsy, but to write a beautiful poem that that teaches us history and gives us the emotional sense of it with this image of gardening is pretty amazing, I think.
YB:
Yeah. Now, is there anything else you want to share with our listeners?
AN:
When you think about Black history, it wouldn't be correct to think about it without thinking about what's happening in the world that's related to Eric Garner, to Mike Brown, et cetera. Another poem that I think is very moving is Juan Felipe Herrera's poem for George Floyd called for “George Floyd Was a Great Man.”
YB:
Well thank you so much for sharing with us today and highlighting these poets that a lot of our listeners may have never heard of. You have a great day. Amy, thank you.
AN:
You, too. Yvonne, you.
