Red Letter Poem #261

 The Red Letters

 

 

I

In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters.

To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.



––Steven Ratiner





Red Letter Poem #261



The Two Liberations of Crispus Attucks





First from his master who had

This to say about



The Mulatto Fellow, about 27

Years of Age, named Crispas.



How his hair was short and curl’d

His knees nearer together



Than common, and his bear-skin

Coat light-colored. That his



Britches were made of new

Buckskin, his yard stockings



Blue, his woolen shirt checked.

What he did not see



Is what he did Not See.

The empty space of Crispus.



How like smoke, like nothing,

Like dust he disappeared.



So to write him in—to restore

The It of him, the ad and mug-



Shot payed-for and run. October

2, 1750, Boston Gazette:



Whoever shall take up said

Run-away, and convey him



To his abovesaid Master, shall

Have Ten Pounds, old Tenor



Reward, and all necessary charges

Paid. And all masters of Vessels



And others, are hereby

Cautioned against concealing



Or carrying off said Servant

On Penalty of the Law.



For the weight of him,

For the worth of him,



Who stands presently

Martyr and master



Of his wounded and full

Self, first among men



Before enslavement,

Among them the actual



Unconceptually detained.

Crispus taking the first



Bullet like a 21st century

Black man, like a Black



Man in a car to convey

Him up the freeway.



The way to free.

The way from tyranny.





––Danielle Legros Georges








"What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?" That was the title of a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. Douglass was, of course, the American abolitionist, social reformer, compelling orator, writer, and statesman nonpareil––an acclaimed figure at a time when the vast majority of his fellow black men and women living in these United States would have been considered the equivalent of a horse or carriage: property. If you think about how outraged many in Donald Trump’s America would be by the tone (let alone content) of this address, imagine how utterly revolutionary this would have seemed, eleven years prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. Invited to deliver this Independence Day speech, organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass began to respond to his own query this way: “I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy––a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”



It is always a challenge for any chronicler to make use of centuries-old documentation in such a way as to preserve its historical potency without leaving contemporary readers too much in the dark. Most poets shy away from attempting this. But Danielle Legros Georges did this often, and with unusual efficacy and grace––especially in Acts of Resistance to New England Slavery by Africans Themselves in New England––the small chapbook from Staircase Books published posthumously this year. That word, posthumously, hits especially hard at those who associate the poet with her vibrant spirit, commitment to community, and seemingly bottomless reservoir of energy––even when (we would find out only belatedly) Danielle was suffering from a slow terminal illness. She was determined to live her life on her own terms and with her unique sense of imaginative imperative. In these final poems, she explores the history of enslaved people in the liberal enclaves of New England colonial states, making extensive use of newspaper accounts, slave papers, legal documents, and contemporaneous historical writing. The unusual spelling and syntax she borrows make us feel both distant from these sources and also strangely intrigued––as if we were eavesdropping on some alien world which, it turns out, was situated upon the very ground we presently inhabit. If your memory of high school history class is somewhat a blur, I’ll remind you who Crispus Attucks was: sailor and whaler from Framingham, MA; a man of African and Native American ancestry; and, like Douglass a century later, an escaped slave. He was also part of a rowdy protest in March of 1770 that resulted in British soldiers firing upon the crowd. Attucks was thought to have been the first to die––perhaps the earliest casualty of the approaching Revolutionary War. Contrast this pivotal role in history with how his former ‘owner’ saw him: a sketchy list of clothing items and physical traits. But then the poet illuminates the situation by saying: “What he did not see// Is what he did Not See./ The empty space of Crispus.”



Poets know how language conveys the overt meaning of the speaker while also betraying the covert intent. How easily the mind ricochets from “run” (as in a notice in a newspaper) to “runaway” (with visions of slave-catchers and manacles.) If the stance throughout much of the poem feels like that of the historian, nearing the conclusion the incendiary intent of the poet is revealed: “Crispus taking the first// Bullet like a 21st century/ Black man, like a Black// Man in a car to convey/ Him up the freeway.// The way to free./ The way from tyranny.” The contortions of language reveal just how hard the struggle has been to assess the distance between those antebellum slave days and our (supposedly) ‘post-racial’ 21st century America. Douglass’s rhetoric and the magnitude of its righteous indignation function like a sledgehammer. But Danielle’s language is more elliptical, subdued––right up until she places a needle into the center of the wound, shocking us with the reminder of how slowly the racial landscape has changed across the two-and-a-half century arc within this poem.



I will not spend my remaining sentences here detailing Danielle’s accomplishments (though I hope you’ll explore them further online.) I will only hint at the mark a poet can actually make upon this world, represented simply by some of what has been planned in her absence: France’s Ministry of Culture posthumously awarded Danielle a Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; the newly redesigned Copley Square Park will feature her poem “How many kinds of love,” carved into the stone; a scholarship in her name is planned for students of Boston Public Schools; and the New England Poetry Club’s biannual fellowship for young writers of color will be titled in Danielle’s honor. These will now themselves become historical facts. And who, in the unscrolling years, will be moved by them and incorporate such reflective moments into poems?

 

 

 

 

The Red Letters

 

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https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices

 

and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

 

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And coming soon:

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