Robert Hayden's poem "The Whipping" (re: child abuse)

[tblue37]

The Whipping

Robert Hayden

The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged—
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.


- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/The-Whipping#sthash.DUBvLkI0.dpuf

[Kalidurga]

1. Excellent the poem covers an entire issue succinctly

That entire books sometimes fail to cover.

[nolabear]

2. Absolutely nails it. Poetry at its best.

Thanks for posting that.

[tblue37]

3. Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" is one of the first poems I teach at the beginning

of my "Introduction to Poetry" class at KU. He is a marvelous poet, but unfortunately, too many American readers know only a couple of our black poets, like Langston Hughes (if they know of any at all), so they are unaware of Hayden's poetry.

KU is in Lawrence, Kansas, which is also where Langston Hughes spent part of his childhood, so we have a Langston Hughes Elementary School and a Langston Hughes poetry contest. But when he lived here, that child was not allowed to use the public swimming pool or drink at the "whites only" fountains.

But at least now his poetry is recognized for the treasure it is. Unfortunately, though, too many people stop at Langston Hughes when they think about black poets--that is, if they think about black poets at all. And even then, they tend to know only a couple of his most famous poems, like "A Dream Deferred" (which is where the phrase "a raisin in the sun" comes from). My favorite of his poems is the deeply symbolic "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," which packs layers upon layers of meaning into such a few words:

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Other black poets that I wish more Americans were familiar with are Countee Cullen and Paul Dunbar.
Here's one by Countee Cullen:

Incident

Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

One by Paul Laurence Dunbar that contains another famous line:

Sympathy

Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

[vanlassie]

4. Thank you for posting these.

[tblue37]

5. You are very welcome! Powerful, aren't they? nt

[vanlassie]

6. Indeed.

[woo me with science]

7. Just adding, "Those Winter Sundays."

since you mentioned it. Thank you.

"Those Winter Sundays" - Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.


I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,


Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

[tblue37]

9. Thanks. I suppose I should have done so in my OP. nt

[woo me with science]

12. Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that you *should* have included it.

Your OP was wonderful just as is, and fits in with the ongoing discussions.

It was just that your mentioning the title reminded me of how much I appreciated that poem when I learned it in school, so I thought I'd just add it on.

We need poetry now, and we need these sorts of discussions. Under corporate rule, we are turning into a very harsh and punitive nation, a nation that is starving out compassion and thoughtfulness and the sort of liberal education that teaches poems like this and encourages us to think about our impact on one another.

Thank you for this thread.

[tblue37]

13. Oh, I didn't think you were chastising me--I was just chastising myself.

Since I had mentioned it anyway, it was an obvious opportunity for me to share it with other DUers, but I dropped the ball and missed the opportunity. I am just glad you recovered my fumble.

[treestar]

11. Thank you

Wonderful post.

[nolabear]

14. Oh yes, I know Hughes and Dunbar well. Didn't know Cullen though.

There are some marvelous modern African American poets. Ysef Kumonyakaa is one of my very favorites, as are, of course, Lucille Clifton and Natasha Trethewey, and a host of the modern more traditional poets. I happen to love spoken word, too, so Patricia Smith and Saul Williams and Kurtis Lamkin all make me very happy.

[tblue37]

15. I love Kumonyakaa's work!

This is one of his best known poems:

Facing It

Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn’t,
dammit: No tears.
I’m stone. I’m flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I’m inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet’s image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I’m a window.
He’s lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.

[nolabear]

16. I got to have dinner with him one night. He's a very nice man.

I know (more friend of a close friend but I know her) Colleen McElroy, who used to edit The Seattle Review, and when he was in Seattle years ago got to go out with them and a few other folks. I hadn't known a lot about his work before then but I quickly became a great fan.

[tblue37]

17. You are soooo lucky! nt

[nolabear]

18. True dat!

[shanti]

20. that was lovely

thank you.

[AverageJoe90]

8. A touching poem, IMHO. Thanks for posting. nt

[tblue37]

10. One of my poetry students, who had a strained relationship with his father,

had a copy of that poem prepared by a skilled calligrapher on fine paper. He rolled it up and tied it with a ribbon and gave it to his father for Father's Day the semester he had my poetry class. He told me that it helped him bridge the divide between them.

His father was a ramrod strict military officer, and the kid had done a year at The Citadel, but he had dropped out because he was a sensitive young man and not at all suited to that kind of inflexible macho culture. His father was deeply disappointed in him for dropping out, but the kid had only gone there in the first place under pressure from his father and because he was desperate to do something that he hoped would make his father proud of him.

That poem helped him to understand that some men find it hard to show their love in ways that their sons can recognize, whereas they find it all too easy to behave in ways that their kids find scary and unkind.

FYI, these poems are based on Haden's own life, and the man described in "The Whipping," like man described in "Those Winter Sundays," is based on his father*.

________
*An interesting point, though, the man who raised Hayden and whom Hayden considered to be his father was actually a neghbor who unofficially adopted him and raised him as his son.

[tblue37]

19. Kicking so a few more people might discover excellent poets they don't already know. nt

[Heidi]

21. Kick!

[tblue37]

22. Thanks! nt