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From New Poems (2000), "jasper texas 1998" Summary
This poem is subtitled "for j.byrd," shortened name for James Bird, a fifty-year-old black man who was fastened to a logging chain to a pickup truck and dragged three miles in Jasper, Texas. During the ordeal, Bird was torn to pieces, including his head being torn off. This was an unspeakable crime that took a long time to punish the perpetrators. Calling him "j. byrd" is a tender naming, sounding like a nickname, "jaybird."
The first verse speaks from the point of view of first person, the man's head, chosen to speak for all the other torn members of the body, such as the arm that was torn off, still pointing toward the head, such as the hand that "opened once" in agony and was torn off. The second verse has Bird speaking directly, asking the important questions about racism: why should we continue to make relationships with those who...
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This section contains 444 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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