The Saturday New York Times is on the table in front of my laptop. The color photo: a boy throwing a hunk of concrete into the burning rubble in a protest in Burundi. The boy’s skin is black, and although he is not himself on fire, the perspective of the photo makes it appear as if he is. I see the metaphor instantly and explain it to my youngest son, Rudy, who wants to know if the boy is burning.
Rudy is the youngest of my five children: three Caucasian males, one Asian female, one Asian male. They seem to all be cisgender. Three came to me through my biology, two through transnational adoption. I am ashamed that three of my children—the boys--have been genitally mutilated, and that we still don’t see circumcision as such. I am ashamed I don’t know where Barundi really is and that I had to look up the details of the failed coup and the assassination of the opposition leader last week.
I am not really ashamed. Just startled. Always. At the things humans do. At the things humans endure. I am sorry for it all, all of my own failings, the world’s, but I do not apologize for this striving.
This is why I conceived of and edited an anthology, A Sense of Regard: essays on poetry and race just out from University of Georgia Press following the much discussed PoBiz AWP explosion about race ignited by Claudia Rankine some years back over her interpretations of some of Tony Hoagland’s poems. I had already been a part of the poetry-race discussion when Amiri Baraka read his poem “Somebody Blew Up America” at the Dodge Poetry Festival by co authoring (with Michael Broek) an editorial for The Star Ledger supporting Baraka’s free speech. I felt then, and I feel now, that Baraka should not have been removed from his position as NJ Poet Laureate (they kicked him out and did away with the position). And I can remember when I first read Major Jackson’s essay, “A Mystifying Silence: Big and Black” (which first appeared in American Poetry Review and is reprinted in A Sense of Regard; in fact, it was the very first essay I thought of in the early stages of wanting to do the anthology), the final paragraph of which rings as relevant now as it did when Major wrote it:
Writing about race has to be so much more than writing about race, and moreover, race in poetry is not a mere discussion between black and white peoples of the United States, or a visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, or some poeticized contraption set up to ensnare an overly sensitive group of readers who passionately believe in equity, justice, racial harmony, and change. It bears repeating again: for us to actualize as a country whose ideals and documents profess the value of a diverse ethnic and racial populace, we must begin to pen a body of poems that go beyond our fears and surface projections of each other to a fuller account of the challenges and reaches of an ever-evolving democracy.
Major’s words struck me when I was soliciting essays, new or already in print, because many people reacted defacto as if an anthology on poetry was going to be about Black and White, period. It was a crucial aspect of the project to represent a more complex diversity of race and related identity factors, and the title of the anthology came from my sense that poetry, successful poetry—to my mind a singular aspect of poetry—is that it moves the reader from one sense of regard to another, and that, of course, the word ‘regard’ connotes respect. I wanted to make a space within which we would listen to each other about poetry and race, listen and consider, perhaps expand our sense of regard, and, specifically, I wanted to understand how many people and poets I respected (and even loved) had very differing views, passionately held and often very thoughtfully articulated. How could these people see things so very differently?
I once heard Martin Espada say that we are a nation full of people screaming to be heard, but that very few of us are listening, and this has seemed true to me. I wanted to make an anthology that promoted listening—not necessarily agreeing, but in the spirit of civil discourse, one in which we would promote considered thought and non-reactionary debate.
Since Ferguson, I felt I had gone wrong with the anthology. It was far into production, but I couldn’t help thinking I’d been too muted, too fair-minded, too soft in this harrowing year of black men dying at the hands of police in a system our own government has admitted (see the Ferguson Report, light version here at The Daily Kos) in a report I think everyone should read, that our police forces nationwide are built on racial bias that, combined with economic class bias, has targeted communities like Ferguson for income generation: theft, period. Watching the events of this year, I have to wonder how I might have curated this project differently if I were doing it now, since I am one of those Major refers to as “passionately believ[ing] in equity, justice, racial harmony, and change.” It is hard not to be angry. Insanely angry. It is hard not to apologize. For everything, and to everyone. But I don’t apologize for the anthology as it is: it is about asking questions of ourselves; it is about listening; it is about empathy.
Rudy is interested in books, and as I have done with all my children, I read to him what he is interested in. Right now, it is a series of books that had its first film adaptation out this winter. Reading to him, I can not help but notice that the main character is written about this way:
- He picks up a rock and hurls it.
- Another character: The dark-skinned boy picks up a rock and hurls it.
- Another character: The Asian boy picks up the rock and hurls it.