These are the slave poems that I wrote some time ago.
And I'm going to read about two of them for you.
About 10 of them as you heard are on a CD with music to them.
And the two that I will read to you, one of them
is on the CD the other one is-- and I think I'll
say one of them to the last.
But listen to this.
I gave this assignment to my students at Exeter.
And it is called "Arthur Mason Shopping List."
It's 123456789 10, 11, 12, 14 lines.
And when I gave it to the kids they said, oh this is easy.
This is easiest assignment she ever gave.
DO Kendrick gave this 14 line poem,
easy as I don't know what.
So they took it and back and read it.
But listen to the poem and I'll tell you
what they said to me after they came to class the next day.
To market, to market.
You know that little ditty to market, to market,
to buy a fat pig is it, a fat pig.
Home again, home again, jiggidy.
You never heard that?
I know I'm older than all of you but anyway, as children.
Have you heard it?
OK.
Arthur Mason Shopping List November 6, 1804.
One Black Angus, one ewe, two hawks, one spinning wheel,
one dresser mirror, one nigger wench and child,
pay no more than $2000.
12 silver spoons, four teacups, four sources, six China plates,
one pewter teapot billed to be paid in full to tide
as Wellington 6th of November, 1804.
Now, they read that and they thought it was a lark.
They put it aside and they told me, most of the students
said, wait a minute there's something in there.
Let's go back to it.
And they went back to it.
They said, wait a minute he's buying a human being.
I said yeah that's the point of the job--
of the poem.
That slaves were property and that human being that nigger
wench and child as he stated it went along
with the spinning wheel in the hogs and the teapots.
It's a statement on its own.
I'm going to read a poem called "Sidney
Waiting for Her Mother."
I think it's here.
Yeah, Sidney Looking for her Mother.
And the other part of the poem is while her mother waits.
But I'll read Sidney.
And she'll tell you who she is.
She's a freed slave and she'll tell you
who she is as she talks.
But sir, you made a mistake.
Yes, sir.
I can't be put on the block no more.
I'm free so here be my papers.
I know I've got a brand on the back of my neck
as you've noticed, but that'd be my first master because I
ran way too much.
But my new master gave me my freedom
and my mistress packed a big basket full of food
more than I could eat enough for three people
and gave me money to take the train
and go to my freedom and my mother.
Oh my mistress and master be good people, Lord bless them.
Now, please let me go.
My mother is out there somewhere and you detained me unlawfully.
Do you understand the paper, sir?
Can you read?
And no offense, sir, but no.
But the train for Austin be here any minute
and that'd be the place where last I heard my mother was.
I don't know how strong she'd be if all these days of her
motherhood before the mothers of children
without mothers though they mothers be closing they rooms
and they chatters and in their dreams and playthings
and all that mothering their children all white and fragile,
playing in the sunlight with ease and wind
beyond their faces and they hungry cheeks
and they fade sometimes and they play and needs
a kiss for their misery.
All that mothering while mothers sip and sip tea with their kin
and talk about the beauty of the magnolia or the rosebush
or how expensive they silver be and how much they
pay for their woman slaves when they
be young and childbearing and cheap.
And sometimes they mother a horse
with tenderness and affection, brush him daily,
keep him well-fed, give him a special doctor and weep
when he's ailing.
Oh mother they chatters with friends and mother
they fears and memories.
I wonder, sir.
I don't know.
But I wonder if all that mothering which my mother makes
out of clay sometimes hasn't muted
her, made her solid invisible.
But I must go please, sir.
I must not.
I must go and find her.
And Austin is where she is last seen,
which means her strength be there, her visibility moving
throughout the land like a moonbeam
taking care of those other than herself.
She be my mother, sir.
Do you recognize the sound if not the word?
Don't holler, sir.
Please don't holler.
I'm sick of hollering, so sick it don't scare me no more.
Ha, but your throat sounds raspy and must be sore.
Howling don't help any.
Oh no.
Do you hear it?
The train becoming coming and I'd be a passenger.
The papers, sir.
May I have them back?
They simply tell that I'm free.
Can't be put on the auction block no more, you understand?
This man here standing next to you
can look at them if you like.
If you give them to him please sir quit the train be.
You understand now.
Oh thank you, sir.
Thank you.
I thought you would.
Hear be the train.
I have one seat and my mother in my lap, on my arm, in my belly,
or my tongue through my eyes, all that and more.
She out there.
I know it.
God get me a seat and wonder.