I chose American Dreams by Sapphire to be in my collection of readings because I half blind-folded read Push by Sapphire. I felt reading her poetry might help me gain access to the theme of rape culture. I am challenging myself to read the hardest things for me to read. While I can identify with being a victim, I have chosen to live my life as a survivor. There is a lot at stake for me in reading this (as was Lolita), the average person is not torturing themselves with things that tear at the very essence of their strongest belief. I believe children should remain innocent as long as possible. I am reading this not because I want to just blindly agree with Sapphire’s views of an unjust world. But more to challenge the person in me who is uncomfortable with the raw, direct, un-hidden pain of her words. American Dreams is a collection that looks at sexual abuse, domestic violence and urban violence. This weekend, an editor told me my own work was socially important, I never considered myself “that writer.” It made me think about why I had not seen myself as even “socially conscious,” in my writing. It also made me realize that I had made the right choice in examining a socially important piece of work. This work has sent me in part on an urban dictionary search (What is Blue Syphilis? Urban dictionary doesn’t know.) Is it different than regular syphilis? Or Black Syphilis? Oh I see she means that it is the syphilis that could hypothetically happen to blue eyes—who has blue eyes? White women who “you can feel he wants you, you tear his eyes out with blue syphilis from the backdoor man ‘cause you know you a woman…” Sapphire is a master of language: “I put that record on-- When I’m in the black hurt It goes thru my soul” I love the phrase black hurt. Because she could be referring to the darkest of pains. She could be referring to the pain of the Black American Experience. To me this is what is so vividly raw about Sapphire, she will say things that are so incredibly profane in one line followed with an eloquent line, “Your father smeared his d**k with ice cream & entreated you to suck it. The world sleeps.” value graphingAmerican Dreams (Excerpt from the poem) Suspended in a sea of blue-gray slate ↓ I can’t move from the waist down ↓ Which brings visions & obsessions of & with ↓ Quadriplegics and paraplegics, ↓ Wondering how they live, smell, ↓ Why they don’t just die ↓ Some people wonder that about blacks, ↓ Why they don’t just die ↓ A light-skinned black woman I know ↑ Once uttered in amazement about a black black woman↑ “I wanted to know how did she live↑ Being as black as she was!” ↓ I don’t quite know how to get free ↓ Of the Karma I have created↓ But I can see clearly now ↑ That I have created my life. ↑ My right ankle has mud on it ↓ I’m in debt, ↓ I need dental work ↓ & I am alone. ↓ Through “Donna Reed” & “Father Knows best” eyes, ↓ If I don’t see the friends, ↓ People who care, ↑ Giving as much from their lives as they can. ↓ If you live in the red paper valentine of first grade ↑ In 1956 ↑ Then you are alone. ↓ If you live in the world of now ↑ Of people struggling free ↑ Then you are not. ↑ |