[R. S. Gwynn]

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswi...VA8U8jJ1YGSLcU

Ashley M. Jones wrote a provocative poem called Slurret. "It's a Shakespearean sonnet which is comprised mostly of slurs used against black people, " she explains. "It's also sort of a retaliation against the literary canon, and the traditional sonnet form."

Slurret

You a spade, a spook, an open-mouthed
black pickaninny. Ashy Aunt Jemima,
Americoon, you blue-gummed Beluga,
you cotton-picking jigaboo. You, drenched
in chicken grease, you watermelon head,
you tar-skinned porch monkey, ain’t never gonna
get a job, you yes suh shuck and jiver,
you hanging tree baboon—for years, we watched
you bleed beneath our skin-splintering whip,
we watched your eyes embolden, swell like veins.
You turned your begging hands to thick brown fists.
What are you made of? What fabric sustains
its fibers, stays elastic despite rips—
embossed with flame, but a brocade remains.

Jones says the poem uses "all the trappings of the oppressor "— iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme.

"It's a sonnet in every way, except it's not talking about the fair maiden, or a rose, or any of the other non-political white subjects that sonnets were written about in the past. Instead, it's attacking racism and elevating the black experience to this level of art."

[James Brancheau]

Oh, Sam, you're just making trouble now. I'll just say that I think it's about 50-60 years too late.

(Too late poetically...)

[Susan McLean]

I wholly endorse using any kind of form for any kind of content, but anyone who thinks a sonnet oppresses him or her is not aware of the sonnet as a form or of its history. This is not a Shakespearean sonnet, so I don't see what would be gained by calling it one. Ironically, the sonnet has been the form that oppressed minorities have historically turned to in order to express their complaints, since the form usually incorporates an argument of sorts. And it helps an argument to have something else that it is clearly arguing against, such as a long tradition, common tropes and conventions, and even "masters" who have set a standard that a writer is competing against. Certainly, writers like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gwendolyn Brooks, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Allison Joseph, and many others have found it a congenial form for protest and for staking their own claims. It's fine if Ashley M. Jones wants to join the crowd, but she should be aware of the crowd she is joining.

Susan

[Catherine Chandler]

Totally what Susan said.

[James Brancheau]

Limericks for sure are more oppressive than sonnets.

[Mark McDonnell]

Yes, well, there's no doubt that the poet's explanation of her poem comes across as a bit daft – the idea of IP and rhyme as tools of oppression, the notion that all sonnets from 'the past' were non-political and about love and flowers (Apart from the writers Susan mentioned, Shelley anyone?) – and this, I assume, is why Sam posted it: look at the silly, hysterical identity politics on display, everyone! Fair enough. Sometimes it is silly and hysterical.

But if (as we should) we just trust the poem and not the poet, who may have been misquoted/heavily edited/taken out of context or simply naive, it's actually fairly powerful. Particularly after L8 when it gets beyond the 'shock value' of the racist slurs. Well, I think so.

[R. S. Gwynn]

The poet seems unaware of the distant past, the past, and the not-so-distant past. From 1967:

https://genius.com/Galt-macdermot-colored-spade-lyrics

The poet's remarks are from "A Bouquet of Poets for National Poetry Month" on NPR.

http://www.playbill.com/article/hair...rding-registry

[Aaron Novick]

I'm with Mark. The idea that the sonnet is inherently oppressive, or that love poetry that isn't overtly political is "white", is very boring and unimaginative, but the poem itself is quite good. Some of the metrical substitutions in the last few lines are kinda dodgy, though.

[Mark McDonnell]

Well, I didn't say her ideas about poetry (assuming we take them at face value) were boring and unimaginative, Aaron, I said they were daft. 'Boring and unimaginative' could suggest there is a truth to them almost too obvious to need stating. Daft is the opposite really. The 'provocation' of the racist language in the poem, rather than her ideas about the sonnet, is boring and unimaginative if anything, or at least unoriginal. But it succeeds at the level of righteous truth and passion, I suppose.

So, the rationale is daft, the poem isn't great and its shock value is dated, as Sam and James have pointed out. I like the last four or five lines though.

[R. S. Gwynn]

The aim of "elevating the black experience to this level of art" is curious in that the voice(s) speaking in the poem are white and racist and that "this level of art" is reached by using an oppressive and supposedly racist form. There's something contradictory there. McKay's great poem gets its anger and power from Milton, and Cullen's draws on the many sonnets--Donne, Herbert, Hopkins-- addressed to God for an answer.