The poem is made up of imagined “false-starts,” each avoiding what might be an inevitable turn toward violence, given the violence enacted on Black folks. It quotes several lyrics from the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” attempting to complicate the kind of “singing” that is often the expectation of poems. It is a poem about the euphony of inertia as it were. Steven Leyva on "A Poem Avoiding Its Own Tour of Force" |
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"How Much of Yourself Do You Reveal in a Poem?"
For award-winning poet Roger Reeves, the answer is complex. "Any time one is choosing language, one is telling on oneself, revealing something. Of course, there are moments in my life that I don’t write about, but if I choose to use a moment from my life in the poem then I do. However, I would also like to note that poetry is not nonfiction. It’s ultimately a fictive art, which means poets are often embellishing and changing details to make a better poem."
via TORONTO STAR |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Tiana Nobile on A. Van Jordan's M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A: Poems
"By juxtaposing the MacNolia narrative poems with snapshots of historical figures, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A considers the ways in which racism shaped Black daily existence and one individual’s life’s trajectory. Thus, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A is not only a story of one disenchanted woman or crushed little girl; it is the story of a generation. Jordan pushes me to think about how language impacts history, meaning, and people’s lived experiences." |
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