Evan's language ("laws, structure, foundation") emphasizes the systemic nature of the racism Black people face.

Black nationalism, which took hold in the late 60's and early 70's with some Civil Rights activists, is advocacy of or support for unity and self-determination for Black people, sometimes in the form of a separate Black nation.

With the obstacle identified, they can then work to elevate Black entities -schools, children, minds, love, impregnability - with the ultimate goal being, "to BUILD a strong black nation."

"Fantasy," encapsulates escapism which, to Evans, is what keeps Black people "enslaved."

Evans demands that all people need to be informed of the truth so they can empower themselves. Such truth-telling, Evan’s call to action, requires “Love and Courage for their Being."

Allusion to the painting.

Sour herring, or Surströmming, was a common German dish at the time.

Rasha, the woman from Madagascar, has a boa constrictor around her neck in the freak show to further the appearance of her "freakishness".

"Their" is most likely referring to the spectators of the show, as mentioned in line 4.

The Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin is Europe's largest university clinic, affiliated with Humboldt University and Freie University Berlin.

Madagascar is an island republic in the Indian Ocean, off the East coast of Africa.

Hardenbergstrasse is a street in the center of Berlin.

The point of view changes here, now the poem is from the perspective of the artist Christian Schad.

Reference to parsley.

Translation of Spanish from previous stanza.

Dehumanization of Haitians; calling enslaved people "parrots" or "apes" was common way of dehumanizing them and justifying slavery; here same logic is being applied to migrant workers.

“my mother, my love in death” in Spanish, except without the R’s, as the Haitians would have pronounced it

Same knot referred to in previous stanza.

Here it is confirmed that his mother is dead. There is a shift from the thousands dead described in the first part of the poem to the singular death of El General's mother.

The "knot of screams" seems to be the grief/anger/sadness that he experiences that is alleviated by killing people.

Could be a reference to wealth and/or the fact that he is a four-star general.

Allusion to dying

spanish word for "parsley"

These Haitians were killed for not being able to pronounce the letter R in “Parsley”, because it gave away their Haitian heritage. Here, "we" is referring to the Haitians, so the speakers of the first section of the poem are murdered people.

El General refers to the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo who famously ordered the execution`of tens of thousands of Black Haitians in October of 1937. During the massacre, he used the word parsley, or perejil, as a shibboleth to distinguish native speakers from Haitians.

The speakers are migrant Afro-Haitian cane field workers.

Sugarcane is grown in lush tropical climates and was the major crop of slave plantations in the colonial Caribbean.

It seems that this ins not only a prayer from Hattie to God, but it carries a doubly meaning. Hattie will also likely be the maidservant for her new master, and her purchase and servitude will be signs of witness "to this sale of womanflesh," giving constant evidence of the inhumanity of slavery for the master to bear.

Kendrick seems to also point out the conflict that many slaves faced. If they were to unleash their own wrath, whites would feel that they "can recover from their own" participation in slavery, using it as an excuse for the buying, selling, and abuse of other humans.

Hattie seems to be sure that, although her physical state would likely remain intact if Carrie is sold, every other aspect of her being down to her soul would be damaged. Kendrick brings up an often unrecognized effect of slavery, as enslaved persons endured abuse on every level. The physical torture inflicted was just as painful for enslaved persons as the emotional trauma involved.

This may be a comment on the subtle trap that materialism presents. Kendrick may not only be referring to the monetization of human life during slavery in the context of the poem. She may also be commenting on the prevalence of materialism over time, including the present. This line, along with the one before it, stand out as clear statements that live beyond Hattie and Carrie's time on the auction block, suggested by the line breaks that separate them from the body of other stanzas.

Kendrick's use of irony through Hattie's words seems to comment on the irony, hypocrisy, and absurdity of slavery. People dressed in fine clothing to do quite evil things like the purchase, division, and abuse of enslaved families.

Hattie and Carrie are on an auction block as slaves about to be sold. This context is continued through the spoken word of Hattie describing what is actually going on.

The use of both the italicized and non-italicized text are used to signal the thoughts and spoken words of the mother in the poem respectively. The mother is Hattie, and Carrie is her daughter.

Peggy is escaping the reality of her life, she feels a sense of relief knowing that her children don't have to live in slavery.

In this verse, Kendrick compares the drowning of Peggy and her family to a baptism - the boat, intending to take them back to slavery, instead leads them to glory through death.

Many slave mothers believed that death was a better option for their children than living as slaves. Margaret Garner, the women who inspired Kendrick to write this poem, killed her two-year old daughter and attempted to kill her three other children because she held this belief.

Philadelphia was supposed to be a safe haven for Peggy and her family, instead they were captured again.

The repetition of this phrase, "Cain't be no slave forever," throughout the poem serves to reinforce the idea that anything, death included, is better than slavery.

This is a comparison of the life the white children on the plantation live versus that of the life her children have to live.

The italics within this verse indicate that these are the words of Peggy's masters.

Peggy exhibits a sense of hope as they travel to Philadelphia, "Lord, here I come!" indicates the relief she is feeling as she approaches freedom.

This is a foreshadowing of events that are to come and a sentiment that appears frequently in slavery-era spirituals such as "Steal Away to Jesus" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." These narratives point simultaneously to the possible freedom of escape from slavery and the comparative 'freedom' of heaven/death.

The boat is transporting Peggy and her children to Philadelphia where they will be free.

Kendrick chose to write "Peggy in Killing" in an African American vernacular, engaging in a poetic tradition pioneered by Paul Laurence Dunbar and other writers of the vernacular tradition, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Sterling Brown. Her use of this dialect can also be seen as an indication that the subject of the poem, Peggy, has not had a formal education.

The persona may have gone through a break-up with their lover, but still feels attached to them. thus, they would like to find a way to come back together to "re-love" one another eventually.

Strictures are things that limit or constrain the breathing passage. This loving persona seems to be suggesting that, by taking their love away from their lover, they lose their ability to live or breath. They become still and practically nonliving, like "a drunken lizard" in the noon sun.

Limbo is an allusion to the Roman Catholic concept of an intermediate space after death between heaven or hell. Redmond uses this reference to illustrate the uncertainty and wandering the speaking persona would be in if they could "unlove" their lover.

Apparition is another word for a ghost of ghostly figure.

Redmond's unconventional use of the negative seems to mirror some of the works of Shakespeare and Robinson. In Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, the persona is in love and works against the Elizabethan tradition of describing a lover's beauty in hyperbolic fashion. In Sonnet 130, the persona directly goes against this norm and uses the negative to essentially "humanize" his lover. In one of Robinson's most famous songs, "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" (1962), the lyrics use the negative in a way that is unusual for love songs. For example, the first stanza contains the lines "I don't like you but I love you/ Seems that I'm always thinking of you/ Oh, you treat me badly/I love you madly".

Redmond ends his poem by showing America in a larger sense 'plead the 5th' and avoid responsibility for its cruelties. The 5th Amendment of the American Bill of Rights states, "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury..." Fourteen officers were eventually charged for the events at My Lai, but only Lieutenant William Calley, the platoon leader of Charlie Company, was actually convicted. He served three and a half years under house arrest.

This use of simile comparing the clitoris to "a young girl" may be a way of describing the female persona's newfound confidence. She "must be coaxed by tenderness" to move away from the aforementioned shyness.

In line with the theme of royalty suggested through the color purple, taffeta refers to a ruffled or feathered dress made of fancy fabric.

White is a color often used to represent purity and innocence. The use of a berry suggests ripe and sexual nature. So, the phrase "white berry" creates a tension between the pure and sexual, much like the tension the speaker is battling in this intimate experience with a lover.

This line is an allusion to the anatomy of the clitoris, which has approximately 8,000 nerve endings on it.

Purple is often a color used to represent royalty, suggesting the speaker's celebration of her body.

This implies that this encounter is a second or repeated experience.

The poem begins with a shift in the speaker's sense of self away from self-doubt a lack of confidence in her body towards a newfound confidence and belief in herself.

These lines may have multiple meanings. 1) The definition of love is dependent on some factor like what kind of love it is or the people involved. 2) This friend may being saying that love itself depends. That is, love requires dependence and trust that it's real. Love in this case is trusting your partner enough to not doubt their love for you, sexually and romantically. Less optimistically, though, she might be saying that traditional love/marriage promotes dependence in line with the sort of subservient "my pleasure is less important than his" attitude that Peacock's speaker possesses.

Again, there is the use of enjambment here works to convey multiple meanings. When read solely as "a survivor," the reader is brought back to the constant wondering of the speaker. As she is unsure of this experience, the speaker is simply a survivor of the interaction between her and her lover. When read with the following line, the speaker seems to describe marriage as a challenging experience that she has endured.

This seems to recall Gwendolyn Brooks' famous poem "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon". The poem is about the woman whose husband murdered Emmett Till, and slowly realizes that he is not the fine prince she imagined him to be and had used to justify Till's murder.

This reference to a prince seems to bring to mind a fairytale-like character, a 'Prince Charming' who is the personal savior for the woman. This pairs with the cult of true womanhood: the 19th century ideal that women should be religiously devout, virgins, domestic, and submissive. When these underlying concepts are put together in the context of the poem, Derricotte may be referring to this prince as the savior of this woman's sexual livelihood, her 'second coming'.

The words "dry" and "ice" are opposites of wetness and heat, both terms that are often associated with actual sexual pleasure. With this opposition in mind, the speaker again seems to be uncertain of the romance in this sexual experience.

This is a biblical allusion to the second coming of Christ where, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ returns to earth to rule. Derricotte likens an orgasm, "coming," to the return of Christ, being magnificent and spiritual.

The repetition of wonder may indicate the excessive uncertainty and self-doubt of the speaker in Peacock's poem.

Derricotte is referring to Peacock's poem "Have you Ever Faked an Orgasm?" which was published in the Paris Review in 1994 according to a citation of the poem in a journal.

Derricotte's use of enjambment here layers the meaning of the two lines. When stopped at "come" without the following line, 'come' refers to the experience of an orgasm, already giving the poem a sexual tone.

The Paris Review is an English literary magazine established in Paris in 1953.

Molly Peacock, born in 1947, is an American - Canadian writer, poet, and biographer from Buffalo, NY.

In his introduction, Jackson ends by saying, "You come to understand that yeah, your neighborhood is kinda absurd, but people like Steve are family," implying that Steve's community of believers are those living in the North Philadelphia neighborhood where he grew up.

These words are all colloquial indicators for the word "crazy." "Touched" can also be used to indicate that somebody has been blessed or "touched by God."

Jackson references religious imagery in the poem, comparing Steve to a preacher earlier, in order to imply that the community where he lives understands him.

"Can you see him?" indicates a shift in tone as Jackson asks the reader to take the imagery of Steve from above and visualize him in the car instead of as the car.

Jackson is from North Philadelphia and mentions streets and stores from the area.

Jackson is comparing the movements that Steve makes to that of a car. In his movements, his feet become the wheels.

Through his use of religious imagery, Jackson implies that Steve has a following of believers within his community.

In the published version of the poem, mentions of cars are written in capital letters.

In introducing "Some Kind of Crazy," Jackson explains that "there was this guy named Steve who used to walk around like he was driving a car" - the imagery used in the poem is designed to compare Steve's actions to that of someone driving a car - specifically a 1985 Corvette.

Jackson mentions the concept of Theatre of the Absurd when introducing this poem at the 1994 Conference, indicating that the poem is written from a distanced perspective, looking down on the actions of the people described.

“Code” may be in reference to The South African Police (SAP) which was the national police force and law enforcement agency in South Africa from 1913 to 1994; it was the de facto police force in the territory of South West Africa and they enforced several policies to maintain an oppressive social structure. By referring to Winnie as the “Code” Brooks is subverting the oppressive power of the government.

Blackness in this instance signifies a collective consciousness, and Brooks is looking at the dynamic of those in solidarity and those who “dance on the brinks.”

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He and Winnie were married from 1958–1996.

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture which encouraged state repression of Black Africans for the benefit of the nation's minority white population.

Winnie Mandela once said during her struggle with apartheid: "I have ceased a long time ago to exist as an individual. The ideals, the political goals that I stand for, those are the ideals and goals of the people in this country."

By reminding the audience of childhood, Brooks emphasizes one of the tragedies of racism; the extent to which it has foisted struggle on Black people and how Black children have almost never been unburdened by it.

Brooks depicts Winnie Mandela both as what she was (the “ointment at the gap of our wounding”) and a more idyllic image of what she might have wanted to be (“a young woman, flirting, no cares beyond curl-braids and paint and effecting no change”).

Though Winnie was, "a sumptuous sun for [the country’s] warming” Brooks implies that she is aware and sometimes burdened by her responsibility; she, “would like to be a little girl again,” weary of struggling against racism. Through this poem, Brooks wants to recognize the sacrifices Winnie made for the benefit of a nation.

Winnie Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, wife to activist Nelson Mandela. She used her voice in support of meaningful transformation in South African society and demanded social justice for the poorest and most vulnerable.

The word "Jazz" could convey several meanings: unsubstantial or empty talk, sexual intercourse, or jazz music. The first two meanings could contribute to the pathos of idleness and rebellion, with “June” acting as a reference to the endless summer time the boys delude themselves into believing they’re living. Brooks has also described “June” as representing "the establishment," referencing how the boys “Jazz” or subvert the system.

The last line of the poem, harshly discontinues the alliteration and rhyme scheme to jerk the reader back to the reality of the group’s vulnerability to systemic and racist violence.

The group "sings sin" in celebration of neglecting any moral or social obligations. If young Black men are going to be demonized regardless of their actions, the boys can at least enjoy comradery in their own marginalization.

To strike straight could mean striking a pool ball with precision or the strike of a fist. This ambiguity and duality reflects the tension of the lifestyle of these players.

The negative connotations of "lurk" implies that the group is aware of how they are perceived and how that endangers them. However, with that fear, there is also a sense of smug pride and bravado at their deviation from mainstream acceptance.

"I wrote ['We Real Cool'] because I was passing by a pool hall in my community one afternoon during school time, and I saw, therein, a little bunch of boys – I say here in this poem, seven – and they were shooting pool. But instead of asking myself, 'Why aren't they in school?' I asked myself, 'I wonder how they feel about themselves?' And just perhaps they might have considered themselves contemptuous of the establishment . . ." -Gwendolyn Brooks

The poem is delivered in four stanzas, each one a rhyming couplet. This, and the five instances of alliteration (Lurk late; Strike straight), give the poem a musical, almost percussive rhythm.

The Golden Shovel is the name of the place where they play pool. The golden shovel also implies that the boys may be trying to escape or “bury” the issues they are avoiding with pool. It also alludes to the last line, “we die soon,” with its associations of death and burial.

The woman and man described in the poem are complex figures. The removed, third-person narration obscures the intention of the characters or what they think about their predicament. The poem goes from the focalization of the woman to the focalization of the man back to the woman. It obscures who is the focalized and who is the focalizer of this poem.

"His Hands" appears in the second section of Trethewey's collection Domestic Work. Kimberly Wallace-Sanders notes in her article on this collection that the second section "describes a series of life moments throughout history for seemingly ordinary people" (267). Of this collection, Trethewey says, "I first got interested in writing poems about domestic work because I was looking at a kind of documentary photography. I was interested both in the images themselves, as well as in the language that would often accompany them in the form of captions. Together, those two things were working to frame a kind of reality."

This suggest that the woman could be demanding, but it is because she is cautious. She is cautious and wary in her current relationship due to the abusive or neglectful relationships she has had with men in the past.

Throughout the life of this woman, she only had men who would take from her. The man (in the first line) is not enough to replace these men or make up for what she suffered from these men.

This complicates the scenario--she has been married before, to a soldier, an honorable patriotic figure who is guilty of a sort of double life or infidelity.

The poem then focuses on the woman. This added line suggests that it is her perspective that he is not good enough. In his face, she sees her absent father, and he is a sort of replacement for her father.

No matter how hard he tries to provide for the family, he will never be enough.

Here, we learn that he is not just a physical laborer but a low wage laborer. Working on the docks is not a prestigious or high paying job. His pay twice spent represents that he is overworked and underpaid for this hard labor.

She is done with her work and the house is dark and the kitchen empty, which demonstrates that he works late. The screen is hooked, so he is locked out.

Here, no longer is it just his hands, but her hands as well as the two hands intertwine, showing a sort of intimacy.

The hands are represented once again, the cracked sore hands represent the grueling hours of labor. She is in a sense performing a labor of love as she works through the pain in his hands with her hands to alleviate him of his pain.

This line alludes to line 5 “men who would only take.” however, it is now the woman doing the taking, not being taken from. This suggests that the man might be more generous and loving than the previous men as “his hands” will work to provide for her. THis could suggest a cruelty of the woman, highlighted in line 7 (“the sharp edges of her words), as she takes from him by taking whatever his body is able to produce for her, no matter at what expense. However, here the woman is “taking” from his hands through the rubbing “soreness” from his hard labor. This suggest what she receives from the man is a sort of pain or she sacrifices her comfort to alleviate his pain.

During a discussion with Askia Toure, Baraka said "You can not even fight for equal rights successfully unless you have something to struggle with," referencing how we must create art and establish institutions in order to find a place in America.

The grandmother plays an important role in the African American family and evidently is an important figure in the speaker's family. This could suggest that despite how often the cousins leave, they always come back to where they came from.

Young plays with the auditory imagery through taking the sound of "cuz" and "buzzes," playing off the title "Cousins," and comparing it to the sound wasps make.

"Buz" connects to "cuz" through assonance. The blood refers to blood relation (as in cousins). "Blood" also refers to bloodlines and the importance of ancestral relations in the African American community.

"Cuz" is slang for the word "cousin." Cousin can refer to extended biological family, but also as a term of endearment. This might suggest "cuz" is used to refer to the kinship or connection between African Americans because of a shared history.

The speaker no longer addresses his cousins in third person, but directs the poem's address to Jamie, but then shifts to address other cousins in third person once again in the following line.

Here, the poem expands from the focus of his family to members of the African American community. He makes the shift clear through this allusion to the slave trade.

Popular seafood in Louisiana.

Compare these lines of Jamie's grief to Nikki's childlike sympathy.

His grandmother still keeps the paintings of her dead grandchild. This demonstrates the longing and grief that remains with the family after Keith's death.

This line compares Keith's death to his artwork. This demonstrates a talented, artistic boy who "hanged" himself like his paintings that were hung by his grandmother. They are not mere drawings but he "masterpieced" them, which eulogizes him through the elevated diction.

Indiana Jones's fictional "hero" status and impossibility for death is contrasted to reality and the suicide of his cousin Keith.

This evokes child-like grammar to characterize Nikki and the innocence of her kindness and compassion.

Biblical reference to Jesus being born in a manger, who's birth is celebrated at Christmas. Here, the secular image of childhood becomes holy through the simile.

Kevin Young grew up in Kansas, but his parents both grew up in rural Louisiana, which was segregated at the time.

The poem starts with a cousin learning to ride a bike but progresses in seriousness through aging and the inevitable loss of innocence, as they go from learning to ride a bike, to flirting with girls, and, finally, to suicide.

Rice is cooked in salty water, but also represents the tears after waking up from the dream. To begin again represents the continuation of a dream or the continuation of her life without her father. In context to the previous line in the stanza that alludes to Genesis, it could be suggesting a new genesis or beginning after her father's death.

God is mentioned again. This is an allusion to Genesis: "then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." This line is this biblical image in reverse, with breath being sucked back in and life being sucked out. This could represent her father's death, the opposite of creating life and beginning (Genesis).

Once again establishes her need to serve. Filling the pot is a sort of suspenseful building, suggesting a slow death when contextualized with the ending of the previous stanza ("Will I die").

Rice is a very mundane dish and could represent the monotony of a recurring dream and the need to come to terms with the death of her father.

Refers to the feeling of being submerged in a dream. Could hint at the feelings of grief, which is often described as being in a haze, much like in a dream.

She has a repeated dream.

This line continues the magery of a wedding with a bride's veil. However, the veil could have a double meaning with W.E.B. DuBois' Souls of Black Folk, where the veil represents the process of racialization or being seen through stereotypes. This could represent the intersectionality of black women. She has to suffer another veil even within her own family as a woman, and is subject to both racism and sexism.

The motif of rice continues. In wedding tradition, rice is thrown at the bride and groom when they leave the wedding reception.

The speaker continues to do domestic work for the man, fulfilling traditional gender roles.

Here, the speaker’s father is equated with God. This could represent both how she idolizes or views her father and her father’s power over her. Notably, she is cooking, a domestic duty traditionally viewed as the woman’s responsibility. This represents the patriarchal relationship of this family.

Strange explained that she wrote this poem from repeated dreams after her father's death, who she did not get to say goodbye to before he died.

When Sharan Strange read this poem in 2005 for NPR Poet's Moment, she had this to say about the poem:

"I wrote the poem 'Offering' upon waking up from a dream. And the poem deals with the complicated relationship that I had with my father and the imagery in the poem concerns the series of nightmares that I had following my father's death. In a way, I defied my father by leaving home early and striking out and seeking my own independence. Ultimately, I became something that my father never imagined me being, and that's an artist. So I think of the poem as a tribute to the creative process. But I also feel that the poem was a step towards forgiving my father and healing that disconnection that we had."

After some humorous lines, the stanza suddenly turns serious at the end of the poem. Birds fly together in a flock in the shape of a V, so that the weakest birds can fly at the end of the V formation, yet remain with the group. This also gives birds a chance to rest and take turns being in more exhausting positions in the V formation. This implies that the speaker is dreaming of community that she likely did not receive in her privileged yet high-pressure childhood. She dreams of a community that will support her even as a weaker bird, when she needs a break and is not constantly striving for achievement.

Here, the tense shifts to the present again. As referred to at the beginning of the poem, she is finally getting sleep. However, her sleep is not a sign of sloth but of necessity, as she is searching for creative inspiration in her dreams.

The preoccupation with weight and health seems to have troubled the speaker, as it is an outward manifestation of control and lack of overindulgence. The “fat people” who “woke up/dead” seemingly just for eating “fried chicken” is almost humorous, as it takes on a dramatic viewpoint that to eat fattening foods is a death sentence.

This hyperbole adds a humorous tone to the poem, as it seems to suggest she did not sleep at all but "avoided" it. This could perhaps be a critique of how sleep was even seen as a sign of weakness. The speaker is so affected by her upbringing she tries to exemplify ambition and a strong work ethic into her young adulthood, even at the risk of her own health.

“Burn to a wick” evokes the metaphor of a candle burning until theres nothing left of the candle. This could suggest a high-pressure attitude to work hard to the point that you can you can never relax or take time for self care.

This line brings up the Seven Deadly Sins once again. However, this line emphasizes slothfulness over any other sin. In fact there is “no sin” except for “sloth.” This suggests the speaker's childhood was filled with pressure to work hard and the most sinful or disgraceful thing to do was show any sign of laziness.

This suggests the speaker grew up burdened under the legacy of what her parents and ancestors had to pay for her place of wealth and opportunity. She is in a privileged position in the African American community and is expected to be a representation of her family, both honoring them and taking advantage of every opportunity she gets. This could be referring to the pressure Alexander may have faced as an upper middl-class African American, as she had to not only represent her family well but her entire race.

Alexander's father, Clifford Alexander, Jr., was a lawyer and the first African American Secretary of the Army and former Chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Slant rhyme refers to a rhyme scheme where ending consonants match. Full rhyme refers to more traditional rhyme scheme where they perfectly rhyme. Once again, Alexander is trying to evoke a sense of laziness through the less formal constrains of her poetry.

Syllabic poetry is where each line has a certain amount of syllables. Iambic is where the lines the same units of stressed syllables, which is often perceived as harder. Alexander’s poem is being very intentional with free verse and less formal constraints on the poem, but it is to create a sense of laziness that is carefully constructed.

Here she becomes metatextual and goes from her body's appearance/behavior to her poetry's appearance/behavior, which mirror each other in this poem.

Sloth is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Alexander mentions slothfulness or laziness after listing fattening foods she overindulges in, which could be a connection to gluttony, which is another one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

In African American vernacular, "telling lies" is also known as storytelling, as seen frequently in the work of Zora Neale Hurston.

Davis had admitted to beating his wives, yet many tend to gloss over this in order to preserve his contributions to jazz. Davis was married to Betty Davis for a brief period of time--the marriage eventually failing due to his temper and accusations that she was having an affair. Betty Davis was a singer in the 1970s, known for her open display of sexuality in her songs.

Miles Davis went through many drummers, but the drummer of his "first great quartet" was Philly Joe Jones (1923-1985). Jones played with Davis from 1955-1958. After playing with Davis, Jones went on to play with numerous other musicians, eventually putting out records of his own in the late 1950s. Jones died of a heart attack in 1985.

When there is a poem about a famous musician, we typically expect an elegy. This poem, however, has a more playful tone, using slang and free verse as a way to lighten the mood. The speaker describes how amazing Davis was for the fact that he could tell lies and get away with it.

Bud Powell has an album called "Tell It to the Rain" and a song "September in the Rain".

"Twelve string" is a reference to the guitar, and probably to Lead Belly as before. Together with the blues, this is most likely referring to the old blues of the Mississippi Delta, which were derived from African spirituals.

A chain gang is a group of convicts chained together while working outside the prison. In the early 1900s, news of the wretched conditions of convict laborers began to be publicized, and the violence and corruption of the system began to turn public opinion against convict leasing. Though many citizens and politicians wanted to abolish convict leasing, the problem of the expense and difficulty of housing convicts remained. Chain gangs developed as a popular solution to that problem.

Lead Belly, or Huddie William Ledbetter, was an American folk and blues singer, known for his use of the twelve-string guitar in the early 19th century. Lead Belly is often credited with setting the standards for modern American folk music. The blues is a music form known for taking the painful and making it beautiful, which is what this poem is doing.

A hook is a boxing term for a punch thrown with one's arm at a 90 degree angle, usually aimed at the jaw. This is a play on words, since "hook" is also a music term for a part of the song that "catches the ear" of the listener.

There is am important connection here between the musicians and boxing. On September 23, 1952, a jazz concert at Massey Hall in Toronto featured Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, pianist Bud Powell, bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach. Each of the performers was a towering figure of jazz's first century, and this was the only time that they ever played together. However, their concert was held at the same time as the World Heavyweight boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott, which resulted in the attendance of the concert being so small that the venue could not afford to pay the musicians.

Dizzy Gillespie was another major figure in the develpoment of bebop. In 1952, Parker and Gillespie released an album called "Bird and Diz."

This could be a reference to Powell's arrest for marijuana possessionin 1951.

This is referring to prominent bebop musician Charlie "Bird" Parker.

This is for jazz pianist Bud Powell, who was a leading figure in the development of modern jazz, or bebop.

The poem moves back and forth between music/beauty and violence.

Smith was known for being outspoken.

Martha's vineyard was a popular vacation destination for middle class Black families during this time, especially the area Oak Bluffs.

Probably a reference to the song "I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird" by Louis Armstrong. Smith recorded with Armstrong during her career. Also, the blackbird holds a racial connotation.

"Stacked deck" is possibly alluding to the unfair circumstances for Black people in the South during the 1930s in relation to opportunities for whites.

Smith died at age 43.

The refrain of the poem is an allusion to the first four lines of the song "My Last Affair" sung by Billie Holiday:

Can't you see What love and romance have done to me I'm not the same as I used to be This is my last affair

Holiday recorded the song with Teddy Wilson and His Orchestra in 1936, the year before Smith's death. Smith and Holiday were two of the most famous blues singers in the 1920s and 30s.

"Last Affair" is a reference to Smith's death.

This holds a double meaning, referring to both the medical bands taping up Smith's bleeding arm and the fact that her career was during a time when large jazz bands were composed of white musicians.

Sanchez switches to all caps here, recording orality and adding performance to the written form of the poem.

In this line, Sanchez employs vernacular and uses slashes, a device often used by Black Arts Movement artists to disrupt traditional poetic verse forms and traditional spelling.

Nelson Mandela, South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election.

Malcolm X, American Muslim minister and human rights activist known for his work during the Civil Rights Movement, a popular, if controversial, figure. Malcolm X served as an inspirational figure for many writers of the Black Arts Movement, including Sanchez.

Martin Luther King Jr., American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968.

Women's and voting rights activist, co-founder and vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, organized Mississippi's Freedom Summer along with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus.

African-American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor, as well as a founding member of the NCAAP. Known for his writings on race in America, including the foundational Souls of Black Folk (1903).

Marcus Garvey; political leader from Jamaica who was the first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, commonly considered the father of the "Back to Africa" movement.

Enslaved preacher known for organizing a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831.

The 17th-century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in Angola, commonly referred to as the great queen of Africa.

This may reference the hip-hop writer and producer Imhotep, who took his stage name from an Egyptian historical figure.

This line references the multiple forms of protest utilized during the Civil Rights Movement.

Prepared food made out of the less desirable parts of stock animals, originally created from the ears, feet, and neck bones given to enslaved peoples for food after slaughter.

Jazz as a music genre that originated in African American communities in New Orleans. It was inspired by roots in Blues, a genre that came from African musical traditions, African American work songs, and spirituals.

This is a reference to surviving The Middle Passage, the part of the triangular trade where millions of Africans were packed into ships as part of the slave trade with extremely high death rates.

This line references the Egyptian pyramids as a sign of great African civilization preceding Western civilizations, emblematic of the poem's Afrocentric themes.

This may be a reference to what Bill Cosby was assuming about Black youth.

In this stanza, Sanchez uses repetition and variation to illustrate the importance of passing the fight for freedom and equality through generations.

In her reading at the Furious Flower 1994 Conference, Sanchez stated that this poem came from a phone conversation with Bill Cosby in which he was asking Sanchez "where's the fire of these young people?" and she replied "Bill, they have a lot of fire, sometimes it gets misdirected."

Literary scholar Yoshinobu Hakutani describes this poem as a rejoinder to Brooks's poem "the mother," which is about the ways in which poverty makes it impossible to bring children into the world--to be a mother--whereas this poem is all about creation, sisterhood, and life.

While Gwendolyn Brooks, whom the poem is dedicated to, grew up in Chicago and was dedicated to her community, her work attracted national acclaim and she taught and spoke across the country, hence restringing her words from city to city.

Literary scholar Yoshinobu Hakutani argues that the use of this line as a refrain suggests Brooks as a symbol universal motherhood. Sanchez's use of motherhood is rooted in African tradition, likely talking back to western patriarchal christianity's view of Mary as a symbol of universal motherhood.

A type of necklace.

In several African religions, Olukun (often spelled Olokun) is the orisha (meaning God) of great wealth and of the bottom of the ocean. Olukun is revered as the ruler of all bodies of water and for the authority over other water deities.

This poem might be inspired by or working within the genre of African praise poetry. Praise-Poems exist in many different parts of Africa and are intended to praise the character and achievements of an individual.

At the Furious Flower 1994 Conference, Furious Flower founder Dr. Joanne Gabbin asked Sonia Sanchez to say something regarding Gwendolyn Brooks and Sanchez wrote this poem right then and there at the conference to honor Brooks.

Gwendolyn Brooks was an American poet, author, and teacher. Already a prolific and nationally-acclaimed poet of the mid-twentieth century, in the late 1960s Gwendolyn Brooks would become a central figure in the Black Arts Movement and an inspiration to younger poets such as Sonia Sanchez. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950, making her the first African American to receive the Pulitzer, with the name of the conference--Furious Flower--coming from a line in Brooks's poem "The Second Sermon on the Warpland."

In comparison to "Nikki-Rosa," Giovanni's famous and frequently anthologized poem about how her childhood was happy in a way that white people cannot understand, this poem differs, possibly because it is specifically intended for a Black audience.

Gospel music is also representative of the American south and rooted in the African American religious experience.

Barbecue, buttermilk, and homemade ice-cream are also emblematic of southern cooking and food, especially in summer.

Giovanni's references to food are also specifically related to the culinary tradition of enslaved peoples. Buttermilk, for example, was an after product of making butter and drank by enslaved peoples to gain as many nutrients as possible. Okra, also, is believed to come specifically from Africa.

Throughout the poem, Giovanni uses staples of Black southern life as imagery. Okra and Greens, for example, are staple vegetables in southern cooking.