WEBVTT - Living, Breathing Poetry 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.520 Hey, y'all, Eve's here. I know you're ready to get 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:05.640 into this episode, but really quick. We have been loving 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.080 connecting with y'all over black storytelling, and if you've really 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:11.600 been loving the show, then we would really appreciate it 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.200 if you would leave us a rating and review, subscribe 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.840 to the show, and share it with your friends. Thanks y'all. 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:21.520 Now time for the episode. On theme is a production 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:31.840 of iHeartRadio and fair Weather Friends Media. You are. 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:44.120 Katie here in Atlanta. 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.200 Spring has sprung and I love this time of year 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:52.120 because of all the reminders of life. The days are longer, 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.720 the festivals are popping, the grills are firing up. 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.560 Basically, we back outside. 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.480 And I love it. And you know what, it feels 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.000 like a good time for an ode to black nature poetry. 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:12.200 I'm Katie and I'm Eves. Today's episode living Breathing Poetry. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.360 In the United States, black people's relationship with nature is 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.080 fraught with stories of human danger. Nature has often been 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:25.240 a site of violence, dispossession, and exploitation. Think about lynching 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.920 and its association with trees. About the horrendous trips that 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.760 so many kidnapped Black Africans had to take across the 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.880 ocean in the Transatlantic slave trade, and think about Jim 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.440 Crow laws that prohibited black people from enjoying public beaches 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.240 or limited them to dirty, remote beaches. We could go 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.319 through a million more ways that people intentionally made nature 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.800 inhospitable and hostile for black people. Of course, nature has 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.840 also often been a site of refuge and a source 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:57.200 for survival, but so many Black Americans experiences in nature 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.440 have been rooted in exclusion and othering, so that relationship 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.480 has been tainted. We've been forced to interact with the 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.480 land as laborers and refugees, but we've also been torn 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.400 apart from the leisure and beauty of nature in so 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:12.200 many ways. 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:17.160 We are haunted and we're healing. A lot of people 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.560 around the world are organizing black outdoor groups and reclaiming 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:22.919 their right to be present and feel happy outside. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.840 Definitely, and I am one of those people who loves 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.560 to frolic outdoors. But I do still have a lot 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.880 of conflicting feelings about nature, and a lot of them 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.639 are expressed so beautifully in nature poetry by black writers. 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.919 They write about the awe, the trauma, the inspiration, the love, 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.400 the fear. Black poets have written a lot about their 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:50.160 relationships with their physical environments. Those hard to parse emotions 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.040 that I have when I'm hiking or camping can be 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:55.400 summed up in a page or two in a poem, 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.120 and Black Nature poetry helps me process those feelings, even 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:01.880 if the contentment I find only last for a moment. 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.560 As many Black scholars have pointed out, black writers are 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.160 often left out of collections of American nature poetry, and 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.040 nature poems are often left out of collections of Black 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:16.520 American poetry. The book Black Nature, Four Centuries of African 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.400 American Nature Poetry, edited by Kamil T. Dungee, was the 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.359 first anthology to center nature poetry by Black American writers, 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:26.960 and it was published in two thousand and nine. 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:31.040 It's pretty telling that it covers four centuries of work. 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.280 Yeah, because obviously, just like writers of other races, Black 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.200 people have a ton to say about the world around us. 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.160 We have thoughts about the land that supports us and 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.400 challenges us. We speak about the animals we care for 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.960 and the disasters that destroy our homes. Black folks poems 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.760 reflect the range of experiences that we have in our 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:51.880 physical environments. 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.280 When I think of nature poetry, I think of poems 0:03:55.280 --> 0:04:00.560 that exalt nature and emphasize its divinity and benevolence. It's 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.680 usually positive, full of awe and wonder. But is that 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:04.520 what you're talking about? 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:07.840 That's part of it, but that's not all of it. 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.920 As scholar ev Shockley explained in her essay Black Nature, 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.960 Human Nature, there was a lingering perception that Black American 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.000 poets did not write about nature, and that was propped 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.840 up by black poetry's association with urban environments throughout part 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.000 of the twentieth century. But poems that explore the darker 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.800 side of nature, not just its glory and magnificence, can 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.599 also be considered nature poems. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.400 So basically anything dealing with the outside. 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:36.599 Yeah, I think so. 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.039 And this is one of those things that I go 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.360 back and forth on because nature really can have like 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.480 so many definitions, and I think different scholars and at 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.960 different times have considered nature different things. And whether they're 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.360 considering it from like a more environmental perspective or they're 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.760 considering it from an ecological perspective, then nature can mean 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.200 different things. It can mean human's relationship with nature, It 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.239 can just mean things that are outside of the human 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.440 body and the human scope, which humans' hands have created. 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.279 But then there are other people who take nature to 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.880 also include the human because we exist on this earth, 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.080 and that would include the human form and things that 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.760 we do in the built environment in nature. So I 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.839 generally like to think of nature as things, and I 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.200 think for this episode as well, things outside that are 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.400 things that are not human created. 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.360 Because even like here in Atlanta, there's Piedmont Park which 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:34.719 is full of a lot of you know, trees and 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.840 animals and water and you know fish and all that, 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.760 but it was designed by a man. 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.320 Yeah, I think the concept of a park is human. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.800 But the grass is still nature, the fish is still nature. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.360 All of those things were not created by humans. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.960 So so you're talking about the park, it's not nature poetry. 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.600 But if you're talking about the grass in the park, 0:05:58.640 --> 0:05:59.960 it is nature poetry. No. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:01.440 Well, I think if you're talking about the park, it 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:05.120 still is nature poetry because the park includes nature. But 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.320 if you're talking about like a skyscraper, then is not nature. 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:11.640 I think the lines do get pretty fuzzy because you 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.040 can talk about stepping outside your door and you live 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.680 in an urban environment and there's a green space that 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.600 uses turf instead of real grass. But I think you 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.599 can still talk about nature because there might be trees there, 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.279 still there might be birds that are living there. And 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.560 also like there are pigeons, those are still part of 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.560 nature too. So if I write a poem about interacting 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.800 with the pigeons and I'm sitting on a bench on 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:33.960 a street corner in the middle of a very busy 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.039 street in a city, You're still talking about nature. So 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.840 I think even in this book Black Nature by Kameilite Dungeee, 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.800 she really takes an expanded view of what nature is 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.240 and that often includes the urban environment. So from my 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.320 experience and reading all the different scholars takes on what 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.039 nature poetry is, there is a lot of leeway, Like 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.479 there's a lot of wiggle room. But the way that 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.159 I'm thinking about it today and for the purposes of 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.760 our conversation today, I'm thinking about nature as things that 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.560 are not part of the human made, human built environment. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.040 In the book Black on Earth, author Kimberly N. Ruffin 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.840 talks about what she calls the ecological burden and beauty paradox, 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.720 which quote pinpoints the dynamic influence of the natural and 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:23.520 social order on African American experience and outlook. She goes 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.720 on to say quote, and the combination of the burden 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.600 and beauty resides a story the world should hear. So 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.920 put on your sunscreen, grab your hats, get your allergy 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.760 medicine if you needed, because today on the show, we're 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:52.480 going to spend a little time outdoors. Part one, Fear 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.800 may live here. It's hard to ignore the relationship between 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.440 nature and horror. In the Black American imagination and in 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.240 black creative expression. There are the dangers that we all 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:09.480 face in the natural world, for example, territorial creatures, unpredictable weather, 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.760 and toxic plants. And then there's the terror we feel 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.160 when we remember that in this world, our interactions with 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.960 the natural world have often been hostile and ugly. Even 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:26.040 when everything looks beautiful, even when everything seems peaceful, that 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.800 encoded fear reminds us that it's not. There's a reason 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.960 Dungee opens her book Black Nature with an untitled poem 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.400 by Lucille Clifton. In it, Clifton questions why she can't 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.440 write a poem about nature and landscape without there being 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:43.319 some sinister subtext beneath it. So I think it's appropriate 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.720 to start with the nature poetry of a man who 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:59.560 was enslaved George Moses Horton. He was born in North 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.440 Carolina in seventeen ninety eight, and when he was a child, 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.320 he taught himself to read and began composing poems in 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.160 his head. He sold love poems to students at the 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.000 University of North Carolina, and he used the money he 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.679 made from selling them and working as a laborer at 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.400 the university to purchase time from his enslavers. But he 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.080 also composed his own poems, which were about slavery and 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:22.400 rural life in the South. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:24.319 Here's part of. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:28.000 One of his poems, called The Southern Refugee. The verdant 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.000 willow droops her head and seems to bid a fare 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.760 thee will the flowers with tears, their fragrance shed alas 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:40.040 their parting tale. To tale tis like the loss of paradise, 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.439 or Eden's garden left in gloom, where grief affords us 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.960 no device, Such is thy lot my native home. I 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.160 never never shall forget my sad departure far away, until 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.599 the sun of life is set and leaves behind no 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.600 beam of day. How can I, from my seat remove 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.720 and leave my ever devoted home and the dear garden 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:05.400 which I love the beauty of my native home. In 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.720 eighteen twenty nine, Horton became the first Black American man 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:10.760 to publish a book in the South, and he wrote 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.160 the first known poem by an enslaved person that protested slavery, 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.040 a poem called Liberty and Slavery. Horton also published books, 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.360 and he saved money from the books he published with 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.480 the intention of buying his freedom, but his enslavery didn't 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.280 go for that, so he remained enslaved until the end 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.119 of the Civil War, when he went to Philadelphia, then Liberia, 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.400 and eventually back to Philadelphia. In the poem The Southern Refugee, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.880 Horton laments leaving the South, the place where he was enslaved. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:42.040 The horror of chattel slavery enforced displacement set the stage 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.880 for this story, but it's also the story of a 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.840 broken heart. His images of gardens, willows, flowers, and paradise 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.720 paint a picture of a welcoming, idyllic environment, But nature 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.559 mourns for him. It mourns his departure, and he grieves 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.720 losing the land. He knows and loves us such a 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.920 connection with the land that it speaks to him as 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.160 he leaves, and as a refugee, Horton is fleeing a 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.640 familiar environment and entering into unknown territory. So there's this 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.560 connection and disconnection with land and environment that is a 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.920 through line from slavery to all of its offshoots. 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.760 Well, I think his work is more of the camp 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.920 that humans are a part of nature, and just thinking 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.240 about his position in the world. I think he was 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.120 definitely closer to the land than a lot of us are. 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.760 The way we live. Even being born in North Carolina 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.480 in the late seventeen hundreds, the expectation is that you 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.680 work the land. But then I imagined that there were 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:47.040 people he was in community with on those plantations that 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:53.040 did remember Africa or had stories from it, and you know, 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.680 in a space that isn't like trying to be like 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.959 so industrialized and isn't trying to like extract so much 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.360 from the land, but you're just like working in community 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.600 with it. So I think his poetry like speaks to 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:04.840 that relationship. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.880 Yeah, and that might be Well, I don't know if 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:12.160 it's why he expressed such a love for the land, 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.160 but I do still think in reading his work it 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.760 kind of I don't know if surprised me, but it 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.360 definitely had an emotional effect on me. Of how emotional 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.880 he felt about it. He really didn't want to leave 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.520 this space where he probably saw so many other people 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.320 face terrible things, and he too himself also probably had 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.240 a lot of difficult times. I do know that in 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.480 the story of his life he sold his poems, he 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.880 did he was like a handy man at the university, 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:42.960 but all the while he was trying to buy his freedom, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.080 which is very intense and to be told no. So 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:52.440 I am still very taken aback by the expression of 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.880 the love that he had for the land without overtly 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.480 mentioning the horror at the same time, because as we 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.920 mentioned early, there was that burden and beauty paradox. So 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:07.280 a lot of the time we'll see black authors talking 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:12.160 about their struggle between feeling so in alignment and connection 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.040 with the land and at the same time feeling alienated 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.520 by it. So in this poem, we don't see as 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.880 much of that alienation from the land. We just see 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:24.120 his connection to it. And so I don't know if 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:28.160 that's a compartmentalization or if it's just an honest expression 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.840 of how he felt, and it's just my projection and 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.560 my viewpoint from this point in time of thinking he 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.640 has to always talk about the terrors, because you know, 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:38.719 they don't. They lived their lives, They loved a lot 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.960 of things in their lives. The earth was still beautiful. 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:44.360 Why shouldn't they enjoy that and be able to talk 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.760 about it in that way without always reverting to their trauma. 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:48.959 Yeah. 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.400 I do think it's interesting because I feel like black 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.440 people are obsessed with like black first. Yeah, and he 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.839 said he was like the first known person to like 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.480 write poems denouncing slavery, which I think that's just like 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.360 a very interesting first to be why, just because you 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.480 would think if there were poets like that would be 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:08.840 like the first thing that you would write about, I think. 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.280 But of course it's very dangerous to be writing while 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.720 you're enslaved. A lot of people couldn't write in English, 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.000 and you know their mother tongue was taken from them, 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.920 so probably not like the highest priority to be writing poems. 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.000 But it is interesting to have that like first documented. 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.600 To me, it is interesting, and I think that there 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.240 may have been other people who had oral poems who 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:32.680 didn't write them down right. 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.840 Yeah, even the spirituals their songs, and you know, songs 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:39.240 and poems are like very. 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:40.240 Like it's still verse. 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.640 Yeah, so they were condemning slavery and like telling people 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.560 how to get the fuck own in a very covert way. 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:48.320 But like you. 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.040 Said, they might not have been written down and they 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.160 might have been like who actually wrote these or like 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:53.880 are they just like a community song? 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:54.320 Right? 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:55.400 We all made together? 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.840 And Horton he at first he spoke his poems as well, 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:02.840 and he remembered them in his head and he spoke 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.480 them and he had somebody else transcribe them who was 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.360 able to write, because he wasn't able to write. But 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.200 he was doing this as a child. He started doing 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.600 this when he was young, and it wasn't until much 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.000 later after that eighteen twenty nine publication, I believe when 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.560 he learned to write himself. So it's you know, illiteracy 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.800 also plays a factor, and unable to write also plays 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.400 a factor in this first for him. But as we 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.400 know first, there's always some context around first. Yeah. So 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.880 the other thing that struck me about this poem is 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.080 his use of the word native, because I feel like 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.080 that word native can have so many layers to it. 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:39.640 In the end of the part that we read from 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.640 this poem, he says the beauty of my native home, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.440 So he uses that word native, and I think that 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.560 can be a heavy word because I mean, people were 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:54.000 kidnapped from Africa and had to come overseas to get here. 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.480 And he still considered not just this soil, but the 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:03.680 southern United States his native home because he could have 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.400 just at home, but he chose to add the qualified 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.360 native on top of it. So that shows just how 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.400 strongly he felt that is the place where he belonged, 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.920 is the place he loved, and how much of a 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:16.440 connection he had with that land. 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.080 Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to just 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.920 like Black Americans being like very nomadic people and being 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:28.800 like forced nomads, right, like we were taken from Africa. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.560 But then you know, like we're here, we're born here, 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.600 we have family here, we make culture here, and so 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.160 at some point, for better or for worse, this is 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.320 like our home. And he even left and went to 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.440 Liberia and then came back to the United States. So 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.080 I feel a question people still have today like can 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.520 we go back or is this where we're supposed to 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:51.360 be at this point? 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.760 And there's the act of claiming that's happening in this 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.960 poem as well, which is also another thing that comes 0:16:59.040 --> 0:16:59.480 up a lot. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:01.520 So he went back to. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.080 Liberia for a minute, there is evidence of that happening, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.720 and then he came back, so there was something pulling 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.199 him back. I'm not sure if anybody knows what happened there. Yea, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.000 they have records of him getting on the ship and 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.320 going over there, and they have records of him coming back. 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.840 But the reason is why we don't have We don't 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:19.879 have diaries from this man that I know of that 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:43.840 tell us that. So that's unknown. Part two. But we 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.080 must work. So we've talked about this tug of war 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.159 happening in the consciousness. 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.760 Of black people. We've talked about how. 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.879 We see nature's beauty and duty only to itself, while 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.760 also realizing that we have been divorced from our connection 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.680 to it. The fear, alienation, and pain that we feel 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.359 and relation to nature sometimes shows up in nature poetry 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.280 in scenes where rich and wonderful landscapes are interrupted by 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:12.119 illustrations of or allusions to violence. But another thing that 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.040 black nature poetry helps me think about is labor in nature, 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.080 the kind that we must do because our survival depends 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.840 on it, or that we choose to do because it 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.320 fulfills us. Because I'm a twenty first century girl in 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.960 the US of A, I have relative privilege. I don't 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.800 have to toil the same way my ancestors did, just 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.240 to put food on their plates. And I have enough 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.480 money to pay for the labor I might otherwise do 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.080 if I had an economic status that didn't afford me 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.439 those luxuries. So as I enjoy nature, and as I 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.520 realize how much I don't know about it, I think 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:50.400 about how much environmental knowledge and practical experience my forebears 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:51.280 had to have. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.439 We have sown, we have reared, and we have grown. 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.840 In some nature poems, we get to see black people 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.359 loving the earth, using tender hands to touch soil and 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.240 water gardens, and using calloused hands to dig dirt and 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:11.679 harvest vegetables. It is difficult, but it's our duty. I 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.280 can think about how. In the Palm Sorrow Home by 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.280 author Margaret Walker, the speaker longs for southern land. She 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.040 says this, I want the cotton fields, tobacco and the cane. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.600 I want to walk along with sacks of seed to 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.800 drop and fallow ground. And I can think about Anne Spencer, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:33.399 a poet, activist, and gardener, and everything she said about feeling, seeing, 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.160 smelling and touching and speaking of Anne, there's the poem 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.200 to a Certain Lady in her Garden by Sterling A Brown, 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.879 which was for Anne Spencer. Here are a couple of 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.800 stanzas from that poem. Surely I think I shall remember this, 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:52.320 you and your old rough dress, bedaubed with clay, your 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:57.680 smudgy face, parading happiness, life's puzzles solved. Perhaps in turn, 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:01.960 you may, one time, while clipping bush tending vines, making 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:06.080 your brave sly mock at dastard days, laughed gently at 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.160 these trivial, truthful lines, and that will be sufficient for 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:10.919 my praise. 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.879 He really saw her. Yeah, to be seen in that 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:17.439 way lovely. 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.000 Yeah, I really enjoyed that. It felt so celebratory. I 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:23.919 was like, I want somebody to write a poem for me, 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.200 and a good one. I love the joy that I 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.320 feel like he felt in writing it, and the joy 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.879 that he saw in her, and not just in her gardening, 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.520 but also like in the messiness around her gardening. So 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.080 he appreciated all the flaws that came up in the 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.560 act of her like tending to the land. And I 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.399 think that also feels like an image that I seen 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.960 so many black women do, is like them working in 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.320 their gardens and kneeling down in their gardens and getting 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.520 their hands dirty or maybe wearing gloves. You know, it 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.320 can be nostalgic, but also very typical pastoral image that 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.359 is typical of a lot of other nature imagery in 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:09.960 nature poetry of people gardening and these blooms and flowers 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:11.200 and greenery. 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.040 It's very verdant. So I really liked that about this. 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.639 It felt very simple and wholesome, and it also felt 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.720 like kind of a meta narrative because we're sitting there 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.240 imagining and in her garden. But she often also wrote 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:27.760 about her garden herself in her poems that. 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:29.920 She did because she's also a poet, so. 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.240 It's like her in her element, is her in this 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.760 very free space. And there's another part of the poem 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.280 where Starling A. Brown does this juxtaposition between the street 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.400 that's right there by the home and the garden itself. 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.919 So he calls the streets things like dingy, and he 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.320 says the noise is futile or something like that, and 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.680 he says they're silly. So he's attaching these negative characterizations 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:01.320 to the human built environment that is literally right there 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:04.879 next to this act of creation, and it's taking in 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.840 her garden, And in my mind, I'm forming these images 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:14.920 of gray drab street right up against the greens and 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.919 all of the other colors of her garden, and it 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.000 makes it seem like it's this haven for her. 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:24.280 Lots of fun imagery. 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:47.800 Yes, lots of it. Part three Then rest a while, 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:49.160 so Kabi. 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:54.200 As we've made clear, black people have a complicated relationship 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:58.280 with nature, but black poets did write about their relationship 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.520 with nature outside of its wrong as a setting for 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:05.720 trauma and subjugation. Through Black nature poetry, we get to 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:11.360 see how black people enjoy their environments. We get the romance, pleasure, 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:15.320 and pastoral softness that black poets were deemed incapable of. 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:19.480