Citizenship
The prose-poetry format caught me off-guard at first, which makes sense. This whole lyric is supposed to throw us out cheap jerseys of our typical analytical skills for poetry that have been burned into us through many years of training, so we can see true moments of racism. And it works. “He has just referred to the boisterous/teenagers in Starbucks as niggers./…/Come on, no need to get all KKK on them, you say/Now there you go, he responds/…There I go? you ask/ feeling irritation begin to rain down” (p. 16). Like Brian said, I cannot connect and access emotions of being profoundly damaged by racist remarks and hate that have affected African Cheap Football Jerseys Americans for centuries. However, I feel like I can see that moment playing out as if I am in line at that Starbucks. I don’t know; Rankine picks the right words that just fit each person’s intentions and emotions without outright having to label everything.
I was talking to one friend of gorgeous mine the other day. He asked what was the difference between poetry and storytelling. I had to think awhile for an answer. I told him that poetry is very hard to define, and many poets have defined it in many ways in each’s Ars Poetica. But you know poetry when you read it. You just do; it’s a cryptic kind of way to show a personal yet sometimes universal truth (in my opinion). Citizen confounds me by bringing up that question again: how is this poetry and not just really good storytelling? Is poetry just another form of storytelling? If so, should we start looking at poems and prose in similar ways and try oakley outlet to bridge the gap in perception between the two? These are questions for people much smarter and experienced than I, so that fake oakleys is why cheap oakleys outlet I am asking all of you.
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