Let me go back to my father in the body of my mother the day he told her, Having black children won’t save you when the revolution comes. Let me do more than laugh like she did.
Let me go back to my mother and do more than roll my eyes when she tells me, I think deep down, in a past life, I was a black blues singer.
My mother remembers the convent where she worked after I was born; the nuns who played with me while she cleaned.
My father remembers the bedroom window of their first apartment; his tired body climbing through. It was best,
they agreed, if she signed the lease alone.
Scholars conclude the myths of violence that surround the black male body protect the white female body
from harm. I conclude race was not not a factor in my parents' attraction. I am the product of their curiosity, their vengeance, their need.
They rescued each other from stories scripted onto their bodies. They tasted forbidden and devoured each other whole.
Let me build a house where their memories diverge.
I tried many times to write about the hunger of my parent’s relationship and failed. It is one thing to carry my parent’s truths inside me, as flawed as they may have been. It is another to make a poem, to find the right language with which I could situate their desires within the complicated history of American racism, a history that keeps bringing us all to our knees.
Join us this evening, February 19, at 8pm ET for the continuation of our series of conversations with poet-translators, featuring Margaret Noodin, Raquel Salas Rivera, Jeffrey Angles, Laura Marris and Tracy K. Smith.
"For in creating this virtual presence Barrett Browning went further than just building a form of personal freedom. In 1844 she published Poems, the book that consolidated her reputation and would lead to her nomination for poet laureate....It also ushered in her modernising style, with its conversational language, story-telling drive—and ethical imperatives."
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"Working on the poem, I saw clearly how the recurring image of black hair signifies within the specific context of Asian femininity, and yet in my hands—in my mouth—the phrase 'black hair' began to make space for a second set of values and vulnerabilities as informed by my racially specific experience."
