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Racism 4 (Free verse) by Dovina We hold a sound foundation,
sad if for well-being, that
God created man in His own image,
male and female, black and white,
butcher, baker, potter, poet.
Believing makes it so.
Encounter God, if still tuned in,
through god-words of a poet.
I am neither blind
nor willfully unkind,
admit to nothing new.
This has come to us,
and not to me alone.
I am every race and every sex,
all artists, tradesmen, killers, punksâ
and every time I raise a hand,
âtwas put there by a will and tendon
provided by Most High.
Since color, race and sex are moot,
it only matters why.
That hand is up to strike someone
or render someone high.
Up the ladder:
I love to see the sunrise
Down the ladder:
Temptation Stings, Midday Nashville
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 6.428571
Posted: January 17, 2006 2:30 PM PST; Last modified: January 17, 2006 2:30 PM PSTWeighted score: 5.384202 Overall Rank: 3242 Comments:
....
"I must Blake you."
so????
William Blake
"The Little Black Boy" From Songs of Innocence (1789) My mother taught me underneath a tree, And, sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissèd me, And, pointing to the East, began to say: 'Look at the rising sun: there God does live, And gives His light, and gives His heat away, And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday. 'And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love; And these black bodies and this sunburnt face Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove. 'For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear, The cloud will vanish; we shall hear His voice, Saying, "Come out from the grove, my love and care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice."' Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me, And thus I say to little English boy. When I from black and he from white cloud free, And round the tent of God like lambs we joy, I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear To lean in joy upon our Father's knee; And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, And be like him, and he will then love me.
Blake has a good attitude for a time of slavery in England. I wonder why you left out the first verse:
My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but oh! my soul is white. White as an angel is the English child, But I am black as if bereaved of light. In today's culture that can be taken in a negative way that Blake must not have meant.
I must have missed it in the cut and paste process. Not intentional.
I'm glad you know what he meant because folks have been arguing about the meaning of this poem since it was written. But maybe that's the point. Maybe racism like this poem is not a matter of definition but a matter of personal opinion drawn from the need to not feel inferior. In the end the black boy feels superior to the english boy. He imagines he is superior and that in his superior ability to absorb God's light he wins the love of the white boy. At least that is another way the poem can be read.
Yes, there are many shades of potential meaning, all to be taken in the writer's time. I speculate on what Blake might have meant and see him thinking blacks and whites are of moreless equal value, an unpopular opinion in his time.
That and the Rocky 4 reference.
A recent competition on The Gazebo was to use as many of some done-to-death words as possible in a single poem. The list included heart, soul, mortality/immortality, morn, beautiful, hallowed, awaken, lament, wholly, anguish, dwell, futile, void, abyss, ablaze, cherish, longing, and yearning.
- Bob Charles, editor of The Gazebo
Leaving out "the"
We were tempted to give an example of what we're talking about but decided against it. There's enough examples of this kind of writing on the poetry newsgroups. Someone, somewhere, decided that leaving out the "the" articles in poems somehow made them sound more heartfelt and meaningful. It doesn't. All it does is make every piece written this way sound exactly like every other piece. It isn't clever, it isn't creative. It isn't even original. It's merely another sign of bad poetry. - Bob Charles
He's probably been to this site then.
My God man, you left out some of the best parts:
http://www.alsopreview.com/gaz/lessons/p I think he nails all our asses at least once with the many cliches he exposes.
Me thinks this site should be added to the suggested sites on the "about" page or something.
Cool, I scored 72.5% likelyhood of having a bestseller.
What was your title?
Dreamescape
"Why Can't I Ejaculate?" only gets 10.2%.
"Let's Hear It for Homos" - 20.1%
"My God's got a bigger cock" - 20.1%
Dovina's Day Off - 100%. (no, 14% actually)
Dovina on my weena -14.6%
I think I will drop my next poem which also deals or doesn't deal with racism here before I drop it "over there".
Yes, I think I'll do the same. It's a hard decision - but yes.
Stanza on eand three very solid. The end borders jerry springer final thought though.
I also like stanzas 1 and 3 better than 2 ansd 4. But is a Jerry Springer ending bad?
Tons of cliches, some lines make no sense ("sad if for well-being"?), unnecessary and incongruous archaism ("twas"), weak verbs, nothing really original or interesting.
The first three could be reworded: We hold a sound foundation, and it's sad if we hold it for well-being, that God created man in His own image.
Foundations hold people, not vice versa. That's their only purpose.
When I hold a foundation, I believe it it. Like, "We hold these truths to be self-evident" A foundation can hold a person, or a person can hold a foundation as truth.
I sort of see it. In any event, you'd have to say "hold a foundation as truth"; you couldn't only say "hold a foundation" any more than you could say "hold a truth".
Even then, it would be better to say you hold a bunch of things to be true, thereby making a foundation (that holds you.)
Okay, nitpicking is better than name calling.
"Dovina's face hold at least 3 pounds of foundation."
See, it works.
It would have worked with one gram :(
I didn't say you needed it. If you call yourself Dovina you have to be either beautiful or a transvestite.
Did you see my homepage explanation for Dovina?
OMG your real name is sharon.
Racism is a theme not a poem title. Yeah I'm really deep. :(
Okay, deep one, consider these racy racisms as variations on a theme â views from various temperaments. Or is there only The Temperment.
It would be more scholarly to write a poem with a place and a voice and the theme of racism in it. That way your poem would not be wrong. It would be a poem in which something happened and the reader could examine its significance. There is far too much telling in your poems. Of this series I like the first one best but the end spoils it by saying what the black people are thinking.
I agree that itâs better not to tell everyone what a poem is about with a title like Racism (and more scholarly too). Itâs better to let them figure it out from the story. I did it this way on Poemranker to draw the series together and to build on No. 1. Your point is well taken.
For bad grammar and generally taking silly things for granted - 5, sadly.
Well said, well put
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#2. http://poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?i
#3. http://poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?i
To pre-answer the burning question, i.e., Why, other than for her usual inanity, does Dovina continue this dimtard (a passé word) series?:
1. Teaching myself how to be alone.
2. For the insult it delivers to the myriad tastefully correct exposés, with their race-is-nonexistent glitz, that clutter the internet.
3. To use the dross along Passé Road, whatever Popular Prudence drops, to make trinkets for sale on the sixties market.