Browse Items (23 total)

This poem is titled with a racial slur to elaborate that it not only depicts slavery, but also speaks for black people generally. The poem is a description of enslaved blacks which calls them a "dead race." In discussing slavery, it contrasts their…

The title of this poem uses a derogatory racial slur to describe its main character. The narrator of this poem relays the time he saw a black man in heaven. This black man is dressed in "crimson satin things" with "golden teeth" and with "jeweled…

This poem reinforces ideas of hopelessness and permanence, repeating many lines and ultimately lamenting, "but you are trapped, hung in one spot / dangling over water, lost / to one world, lost in the other[.]" "Bugger" is a homophobic slang term.…

The narrator of this poem expresses his identity as part of a "colossal being" of black people, preferring the collective 'we' to the singular 'I.' He explores slavery as "the torture that was endured for years and still / Silently exists today"…

This sketch (a brief, abstract descriptive poem) begins with the "fear of a black" that is then related to the prevention of typhoid, which "results in the American Army." The three words of "Negro / Mister / Coffee" follow the words "They mystify."…

This "Old Piedmont Negro dialect" poem was written by a white male student masquerading as a black storyteller. Its title refers to the fictional central character, Nias, an enslaved black man who is characterized as an unintelligent, unhygenic, yet…

The author of this poem claims that she is "an Asian who wants to be white" and begins the poem with the choice, "I want to be more American." When asked what's stopping her, though, she responds, "That's not who I am." The root of her desire to be…

This poem from the Spring 1990 issue of the Messenger features an assumedly French female student who corrects a classmate's pronunciation of the word 'femme fatale.' Another classmate then reminds her that they aren't in France. The narrator then…

This poem by a white student tells of the race dynamics of a public bus. It contrasts young students from St. Catherine's with black riders as the bus enters a poorer section of the city. The narrator claims that she is the only one who acknowledges…

In this poem, the narrator claims that Jewish people always live in sukkot (plural form of sukkah), defined at the end of the piece as "a small tent built for a week of meals and prayer to celebrate the Jewish harvest holiday of Succoth." It…