Strike a Prose: #? Poetry about Dark Truths

Strike a Prose: #? Poetry about Dark Truths

Inspired by Un/Seen, an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery by Titus Kaphar and Ken Gonzalez Day, and prompts and poetry chosen by Willona Sloan. 

Beautiful Words About Ugly Truths

Last week, I attended the first of three in a series of Strike a Prose workshops focusing on the UnSeen: Our Past in a New Light exhibit. This exhibit addresses race, gender, history, nation-building, museum studies, and is basically the sum of my graduate work in one, jaw-dropping exhibit. Ken Gonzalez-Day examines racial difference by placing statues in conversation with one another. Another selection of Gonzalez-Day erases the victims of lynchings, forcing the viewer to look at those in attendance. Titus Kaphar changes the conversation around national myths by deliberately changing, altering, reflecting, marring, etc., portraits. They are both stunning. Please go see this exhibit, at the National Portrait Gallery, or pop in online.

For one piece, I sat across from this piece, by Titus Kaphar and wrote. We were given a poem (They Tell Me I Am Lost) by Native poet Maurice Kenny to consider.

Stories
They tell me that our stories are worthless
Be good girls
Repeat our myths
Smile, be pleasing to the eye and ear.
Don't disturb.
Don't alter.
Don't make waves.



They tell me our stories take away
from the noble words spilled from the mouths of men,
that for generations, sculpted a nation,
like a potter sculpts a vase,
but with a hammer.

Their shallow vision,
willful ignorance,
closed eyes, 

do not change our truths.

That when we tell our stories, our poems, the truths etched on our souls,
pain laid bare, 

wounds pulled open,
souls ripped apart, 

We find that we are not pleasing, not noble,
That we have our own truths.

Some the same,
some not.

We find that our collective hum is deafening,
that shame set free can no longer hold us back,

that we are brimming over with worth.

They feed us lies because they are afraid of those they have silenced. 

Secrets
Secrets are currency
She with the secrets, holds the purse, 

and the secrets of others are light,

dollars.

Our own are coins, heavy like lead.
a weight we carry, 

pooling in our stomachs,
on our shoulders,

a burden.

Some feel like shame,
like damnation,
like fire ants eating us, from stomach to skin.

A secret given breath,
to a friend,
a lover,
the world,
yourself,

is like alchemy,

turning lead into helium,

that floats away easily,
returning to the atmosphere.

No longer a burden,
not shameful.
A gift, 

to the universe.

I am America
Inspired by I, Too by Langston Hughes 
I am America.
I came from little and accomplished much.
Hopelessly devoted, endlessly stubborn.
Wielding unwavering faith in truth and equality as my weapons.
Casing a golden glow over struggle and strain and stress.
Sometimes making it look easy or noble, even.
Purposefully acknowledging,
picking apart our own hagiographic myths.

I am America.
Not its architect, but an ideal nonetheless.
Delicate mind, to be sheltered from the evils of the world.
White skin, worthy of protection from threats, real or simply perceived.
Atrocities committed in my name to defend the "honor"
of having blonde hair and blue eyes.

I am America.
The daughter of working class parents, not of excess nor impoverishment,
raised under the dueling values of tenderness and violence.
A child without innocence, too early introduced to ugly truths.
One whose privilege could not protect her from harm.