One of things that came up on the FB discussion was the poem
The last time I used the N-word by Tony Gloegger which was published in Rattle last year (Winter 2014, issue #46).
I'm interested in people's views on this poem. Is it racist (and even sickeningly and disgustingly so) as appeared to be the dominant response during that Facebook discussion. Is Rattle racist for publishing it, as was suggested? Or is the poem addressing/exploring racism by depicting it -- as I understood Tim and the author to be claiming?
When I first read the poem -- back in March when it was Rattle's daily poem -- I was of the latter view. Actually, I still believe that this was the poet's
intention. However, the strength of some of the responses on FB has made me wonder if good intentions were sufficient here. Being white, like Tim and the author, I don't have a history of being to subject to racism, so perhaps I'm missing something offensive here that would be obvious to others. So, I'm interested, and a little confused, and I have yet to come to a clear conclusion.
I do also find it worth noting that back in March the poem was emailed out to many thousands of people as the Rattle daily poem and then posted on Rattle's Facebook page (and so appearing in many people's feeds) to no outrage or objection. In fact, it got just two comments: one from the author, and one, positive, from a reader. One would hope that a sickeningly racist poem would garner at least some objections when it appeared to such a large number of people. So I do find myself wondering to what extent the more recent responses stem from an atmosphere in which people were already angry and upset, and hence already polarised into them-and-us mode -- never the best time for the appreciation of subtleties and nuances I've found, and I do think a poem like this requires a certain degree of trust on the part of the reader. Incidentally, I think that it is this kind of polarisation, this them-and-us mind, that the poem addresses. Of course, I also can't ignore the possibility that people were offended by the poem because it is intrinsically offensive. Hence my post.
-Matt
Threaded Mode
