I'll read one of the sort of overtly historical poems,
and then I'll close with a couple of more personal poems.
This is a poem about John Brown, who was a figure who has always
fascinated me and many others.
And I'd always wanted to write something about him.
And I never could figure out a way
of approaching that sort of well-worn subject,
until I was reading a book about him that
included a long letter by his eldest son, John Brown, Jr.
that was written long after his father's death,
but it was written to his biographer.
And one of the things that he said in this letter,
he described how John Brown punished his children.
And that, for me, was the--
something clicked, and that was what sparked the poem.
And so all the details in this are actual details
about the way he punishes his children,
according to his eldest son.
It's called "Day of Settlement, December 2nd, 1859."
That's the date that he was hung, John Brown.
And it's got an epigraph from his son, John Brown, Jr.
from that letter.
I dared not refuse to obey, but at first I did not strike hard.
Harder, he said.
Harder.
We knew the rules and punishments.
Three lashes for lack of diligence,
eight for disobeying mother or telling lies.
No blood, he'd say, and no remission.
Came a day he started keeping my account, as at a store.
And came another, he called me to the tannery, a Sunday,
day of settlement.
I paid one third the owed amount when he, to my astonishment,
handed the blue beech switch to me, tearful.
The greatest of my fears never his whippings, but those tears.
And so it was my father paid himself the balance
that I owed.
Our mingled blood, a token of a thing that went unnamed,
his love.
This nation, too, is his bad child.
And she has failed him, made him wild with rage and grief,
and will be scourged nearly to death before she, purged, may
rise and stand.
No blood, I hear him saying still, and no remission.
So hang in today, Virginia.
Cheer his body, swaying in the air.
Tomorrow you will learn what's true.
Hanging's a thing he's done for you.