I am an older white man who writes poems
about myriad topics—about my first plane trip,
a harrowing flight to see my mother,
a poem about the Beatles,
one about book buying idolatry,
another whimsical one about the moon.
This white man went to an inaugural
celebration of a new Black poet laureate.
He listened to her beautiful lyricism.
She wrote of her life, her people, her history:
racial childhood experiences, fear for black children,
school trauma, civil disobedience, gun violence, water fountains,
police encounters, Black beauty, sexuality, lynchings, sit-ins,
inequality, language, Tulsa, etc. etc. etc., across centuries.
I marveled at her wonderful poetry.
But a strange question sneaked in.
Was she trapped by her history?
Did that almost totally define her subjects?
Two young black poets followed,
spoke only of their Black lives.
These Black poets wrote mostly of oppression
from slavery through Jim Crow,
Civil Rights, Black Lives Matter,
the exigencies of their current lives
and how every speck of those lives
was affected by their history and culture.
It was not only for now—the history
of Black poetry is rife with
the pain, the courage, the longings,
the faith, the ever battle.
Ever a choice?
How much freedom do Black poets
have to write of Nature, silliness,
an exciting vacation,
the ill-treatment of animals.
Oh, I know Black poets write on many subjects,
but I’ve never heard that variety at these readings.
None of the poems read that night reflected
on anything but race. In my own poems,
I understood the dimensions of freedom
and what it truly means. I understood
the depths of white privilege.
Originally published in Valiant Scribe