[Mark McDonnell]

Hey Julie,

It's time for us to go at it again:

"I'm sick of older white men who unapologetically admit to still being racist and sexist assholes, and then seem to expect applause for having been so brave and honest as to admit it. And it's even more nauseating to me when they actually receive such applause."

Leaving out sexism, I can't think of many occasions where this (white men unapologetically admitting to racism and expecting applause) happens and is accepted by polite, liberal society. Certainly I can't think of many poems where a white person explores ambivalent feelings about race, and when they do they inevitably meet controversy and sometimes censure, rather than applause. See the Michael Dickman poem that caused Don Share to resign as editor of Poetry Magazine.

"He repeatedly signals that this ridiculous personage will only win his resentment, never his respect"

I don't read this in the poem at all. The only character who seems to be presented as ridiculous is the "little pink judge (who)
had to climb up on a box
to put the ribbon on her neck"

The black tennis player is presented as intimidating and powerful certainly, but this is from the N pov and it is surely the N attitude which is held up for questioning and examination here.

When he describes her

"cornrowed hair and Zulu bangles on her arms,
some outrageous name like Vondella Aphrodite—"

I think any intelligent reader will understand that this focus on the outward signifiers of the player's blackness, and the N seeming irritation at her "outrageous" name which he deliberately, sarcastically, gets wrong, are to be read as expressions of his small-minded prejudice and pettiness, not something he "expects applause for".

"I couldn't help wanting
the white girl to come out on top,
because she was one of my kind, my tribe,
with her pale eyes and thin lips

and because the black girl was so big
and so black,
so unintimidated,

hitting the ball like she was driving the Emancipation Proclamation
down Abraham Lincoln's throat,
like she wasn't asking anyone's permission."

The "I couldn't help" is important. It is an admission of a dark impulse toward tribalism. That "she wasn't asking anyone's permission", similarly, dramatises an attitude that white liberals are often accused of having. That black people should be somehow grateful for white people's help and allyship. I think all of this is very carefully and deliberately designed to make white readers uncomfortable. I can't imagine many people reading these lines and simply cheerleading the N.

Of course, Hoagland's poem could have made it more explicit that the N is "in the wrong" or have him more explicitly embracing and welcoming of the changes he acknowledges are happening. But this would have been polemic not poetry. The poem is deliberately designed to be uncomfortable, provocative and ambiguous. It seems to exemplify Auden's definition of poetry as the "clear expression of mixed feelings".

To play devil's advocate, doesn't the modern anti-racism movement rest on the idea, as exemplified by Robin DiAngelos "White Fragility", that every white person is inherently racist and that only by admitting this can one move forward? That to claim to be above or outside of racism, to not "see colour", is itself evidence of racism? In this case, Hoagland's would seem to be exactly the sort of poem this movement wants to see. Surely this movement can't have it both ways: on one hand to insist that racial animus permeates every aspect of social interaction and that every white person is unconsciously racist but then be outraged by a poem which explores these ideas.

I don't particularly like the poem because I can't relate to it. I never feel this kind of tribalism, whether racial or nationalistic, on the rare occasions when I watch sports. I just can't muster it up. I've no doubt it exists though, for both black and white people. I imagine there were black people in the European country where the other tennis player came from who were cheering for their "tribe" rather than their nationality.

[Julie Steiner]

Mark, I think the best that can be said for "The Change" is that it sparks thoughtful responses like yours. If Hoagland's own response to Claudia Rankine's open letter had been as thoughtful, instead of breathtakingly condescending, I could view the poem and its author's intentions for it more charitably.

Yes, "The poem is deliberately designed to be uncomfortable, provocative and ambiguous." And yes, those qualities have the potential to make a poem far more effective than polemic in inviting readers to examine their own attitudes.

I just don't think that this poem really does "explore" those attitudes with the assistance of discomfort, provocativeness, and ambiguity. Instead, it uses those tools to present racial biases as perfectly understandable, even inevitable, so why explore them further than that? If someone else finds them offensive, too bad. In that context, I see the phrase "I couldn't help wanting" as a total cop-out: Don't blame me for my racist feelings, I'm not responsible for them, they just happen to me, and I couldn't give them up even if I tried, so I won't bother to try.

And yes, I get that that may be intentional, to provoke exactly the sort of negative response I have to the poem. But Hoagland's own comments on the poem certainly suggest otherwise.

Anyway, I prefer the universality of this more empathetic sports poem by Tony Hoagland, who was indeed a brilliant poet, even though "The Change" is (for me and conny, at least) a swing and a miss.

(BTW, Happy Valentine's Day!)

[conny]

I don't think it is ambiguous at all. He doesn't like black
people, because they are different. Again, the poet thinks
that they are other. That's the problem right there,
openly stated in L.31. No equivocation.


he likes the white girl

because she was one of my kind, my tribe

meaning the black girl is not one of his kind. sub-human
i suppose, and other. I downloaded the poem and
changed half a dozen words. Try changing the word black
to the word Jewish. I invite anyone to try it and to see
how it looks. great poetry? i think not.

[Roger Slater]

Don't poets get to write persona poems anymore? WD Snodgrass wrote a thick collection of poems in the voices of various Nazis, and needless to say they expressed some pretty horrifically hateful points of view. The question here shouldn't be do we like the speaker of the poem, but is the speaker coming across as an authentic example of a person we don't like. If somehow the poet is inviting us to side with or sympathize with the speaker's outlook, then we are in the land of offensiveness, but as I read it (only once, which was enough for me) I didn't get the feeling that the views of the persona were being endorsed.

[Julie Steiner]

Given how insulting Hoagland's response to Claudia Rankine was, it's very hard for me to see this poem as simply a persona poem.

Mark, I don't think N expects applause for the small-minded prejudice and pettiness itself, but for the supposed courage in admitting to such unflattering aspects of himself. He knows that confessing to harboring such thoughts will probably not be met with applause, particularly by the friend he is addressing in the poem (who didn't share N's attitudes even in the flashback).

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by conny

I don't think it is ambiguous at all. He doesn't like black
people, because they are different. Again, the poet thinks
that they are other. That's the problem right there,
openly stated in L.31. No equivocation.

Conny, aren’t you confusing the narrator with the poet? I don’t think the voice is the poet’s (Hoagland’s) voice. The N is (as Mark said) small-minded, petty, and prejudiced. The reason I think it’s a great poem is precisely that it causes readers (including myself) to feel uncomfortable.

As I said in my original comments about the poem, there is an allusion to tribalism. People are inherently tribal. But civilized and enlightened people have overcome and have transcended their tribal impulses so they treat others with respect. (Tribalism, by the way, has been ingrained by evolution. But we are not tribal. We are civilized, so have overcome and transcended those primitive instincts.)

I have a feeling that the poet, Hoagland, knows these things. Furthermore, he probably also knows that race is a hot-button topic.

The poem is not to my taste. I don’t even watch sports very often, nor do I care much who wins. (I did go through a period where I watched a lot of table tennis, because I used to play in clubs and compete in tournaments, even won some trophies. I didn't care what the athletes looked like, what country they were from, if they liked dogs, were meat-eaters or vegans, or wore glasses, or how old or young they were, or wore a baseball cap on their head. All that mattered was the game, how good or bad the players were, their style of play, the kind of paddle they used, improving my technique, and having fun.)

So, like Mark, I don’t relate to Hoagland’s poem and don’t much care for it. But I do think it is, if not great, at least a very good (in part because it’s controversial) piece of writing. (But maybe it isn't. Who am I to judge the quality of a poem?) Yes, the N (not the poet!) is small-minded and seems reluctant to admit that societal attitudes have, for the most part, changed.

[W T Clark]

The poem is prosaic and boring until it reaches the tennis match. Its style is half of the problem, it presents a persona yet uses none of the poet's apparent poetic skill to undercut that message linguistically. There are so many poets of colour exploring language, discovering the horror as well as beauty innate in it; in the easy approach of simply writing a poem in a so-called persona, without manipulating his lexicon to undercut or interrogate this view, the poem is both lazy and privileged. the views of the narrator are disgusting and based totally on a tribalism defined only by sight. I find the entire thing sub par, not even written well enough to truly accomplish anything.

Rankine's response is interesting. The author's response to her is immature.

[Martin Elster]

I was just reading (didn't get very far, though I think I've read it before but didn't remember much of it) Hoagland's response. Here is a quote:

I want some of my poems to alarm people with their subjects and attitudes. I think poems can be too careful. A poem is not a teddy bear.

Isn't that just what he did with "Change" (alarm the reader with the topic, main character, and the N's attitude? But perhaps you are right, Cameron, in the poem not going further. I really don't know now. But, as Sam said, it is certainly very controversial. Whether it's a good poem, I honestly don't know anymore. I think it includes some interesting poetic techniques and some rhymes at least.

[conny]

I did consider it at first, but I think It’s fairly lame to claim this
particular poem is a persona, that the poet is making a point
directly opposite to the one that the words actually say on the
page. I’m not against that as a device in any way; far from it.
But I can only go with the poem as it’s presented.

It has no hint of satire. Nor is it in any way ironic. Nor does it seem
In any way a parody. There’s no suggestion anywhere that the sentiments
expressed are not sincere; the opposite in fact is true.
For that reason I’m afraid to say it comes across as a pretty vile
piece of work, which is something I don’t say lightly.

Skilful obviously, thoughtful, and honest in its way, but vile.

[Yves S L]

Hoagland! Good grief! What is the man doing! I adore Europeans, as much as I as I adore various aspects of folk from African and Asian lineages, and I say this as someone who has been an ethnic minority relative to different ethnicities all my life, but sometimes I think Europeans twist themselves into fashionable affected knots when the topic of race comes into play. Here, I think the evocation of "tribalism" is an affectation of the 21st century European whose history includes enslaving and elimination of actual tribes with actual tribal kinships not a generalised "you sorta have the same bone structure and skin shade", and I find it affected because one of the background themes throughout that history was the civilised European against the uncivilised other tribal people, and any evocation of the theory of evolution runs into the history of that same theory as historically somehow making scientific the inferiority of the non-European peoples;

so when I read the fellow saying stuff like "pitted against that big black girl from Alabama,/cornrowed hair and Zulu bangles on her arms,/some outrageous name like Vondella aphrodite", I do not think he is being clever or knowing or whatever, even if he was to use all the linguistic tricks in the tool box to "undercut" or "examine" or "whatever", but just having jollies using his social cachet to put out blatant racism in the public sphere, because it is not like that particular pungent flavour of blatant racism has not been heard many, many times before in many different media.

Heck! Check out Uncle Ruckus character : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4fnbxVZlLE