WEBVTT

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I'll read one of the sort
of overtly historical poems,

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and then I'll close with a
couple of more personal poems.

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This is a poem about John Brown,
who was a figure who has always

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fascinated me and many others.

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And I'd always wanted to
write something about him.

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And I never could
figure out a way

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of approaching that sort
of well-worn subject,

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until I was reading
a book about him that

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included a long letter by his
eldest son, John Brown, Jr.

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that was written long
after his father's death,

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but it was written
to his biographer.

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And one of the things that
he said in this letter,

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he described how John Brown
punished his children.

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And that, for me, was the--

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something clicked, and that
was what sparked the poem.

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And so all the details in
this are actual details

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about the way he
punishes his children,

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according to his eldest son.

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It's called "Day of Settlement,
December 2nd, 1859."

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That's the date that he
was hung, John Brown.

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And it's got an epigraph
from his son, John Brown, Jr.

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from that letter.

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I dared not refuse to obey, but
at first I did not strike hard.

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Harder, he said.

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Harder.

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Harder.

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We knew the rules
and punishments.

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Three lashes for
lack of diligence,

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eight for disobeying
mother or telling lies.

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No blood, he'd say,
and no remission.

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Came a day he started keeping
my account, as at a store.

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And came another, he called
me to the tannery, a Sunday,

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day of settlement.

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I paid one third the owed amount
when he, to my astonishment,

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handed the blue beech
switch to me, tearful.

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The greatest of my fears never
his whippings, but those tears.

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And so it was my father
paid himself the balance

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that I owed.

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Our mingled blood, a token
of a thing that went unnamed,

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his love.

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This nation, too,
is his bad child.

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And she has failed him, made
him wild with rage and grief,

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and will be scourged nearly to
death before she, purged, may

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rise and stand.

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No blood, I hear him saying
still, and no remission.

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So hang in today, Virginia.

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Cheer his body,
swaying in the air.

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Tomorrow you will
learn what's true.

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Hanging's a thing
he's done for you.

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