Poemranker [Replying] Thu Nov 21 16:12:53 PST 2024

Replying to a comment on:

Middle-Aged White Woman (Free verse) by Dovina

Maybe itâs time. You look at me and see a symbol of conservative acts that hurt you. My kind abused your kind. Now with your freedom, your authority, your power, itâs time for retribution. Go ahead, ignore me, donât hire me belittle me in your verse skip over me at your readings. My ancestors did it to your ancestors. You have the right. Itâs a new experience for me, thatâs all. Maybe itâs time.

zodiac

18-Apr-05/10:06 PM

1) Yes and no. For one thing, they don't say "oppression... in this particular case." They call that, a bad day. Oppression is bad days forever. For instance, at any point during this reading, did you lose your right to get up and LEAVE the motherfucking reading?

2) You think I'm not listening to you and pulling interpretations out of my ass. Now you listen. I am listening to you. But there are things you don't know, because you have to learn them in college classes, or you have to live and work for a long time among African-Americans, or you have to spend a long time actually working towards greater freedom and equality for African-Americans, or you have to have a lot of common sense. You've got none of these things. I do. So, pay attention: These are not zodiac's wild-haired out-of-the-blue interpretations; these are the STANDARD INTERPRETATIONS for writing of this kind, taught on the first day of any literature class.

To wit, I showed this poem to my wife - who, by the way, is nothing like me and only took two semesters of literature as an undergrad. She said EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Incidentally, if you'd made this poem about women instead of blacks, I'd be saying the same thing.

3) Great, and we both know this poem's only about one individual, because you've really only met one black individual, haven't you? Oh... but wait. You've posted this poem on a public website, where we readers read poems and try (since this is the point of poetry anyway) to somehow relate them to our lives. But, then, we don't know your one black disser, so we start thinking about other black people WE might know. AND IT COMES ACROSS AS MOTHERFUCKING RACIST, GODDAMMIT. Is that how you want to present yourself to the world? No, you say, just to zodiac. Bow'ls. If you were on a real poetry site you'd have been lynched the first day, no explanations. At least I'm trying to explain what's going on here, preferably before you go saying it to the SECOND black person you meet in your life.

4) If I told you "Dovina, go ahead, post 25 comments on poemranker today", what would you think?

5) Then it's not making up. The suggestion that it's even in the same category is racist.

To wit, consider if instead of "ignoring, not hiring, etc" you'd said to your black reader, "go ahead, my people deserve it, take this Nerf foam bat and go wild on me." It's simply silly.

6) So I'm supposed to be giving constructive advice and all. Here goes: Re-write this poem so it has nothing to do with white ancestors and black ancestors (incidentally, the trouble comes when you start grouping whites and blacks, even ancestors). Make it about a guy that dissed you, but it was okay because while driving to the reading you hit all of his children with your Volkswagen. You'd been powerbrokering on your cellphone at the time.

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