“Poetry as a Mirror” by Glenis Redmond (poetry, ’11)
An excerpt from the article, “Poetry as a Mirror,” by Glenis Redmond (poetry, ’11) in Teachers and Writers Magazine:
Poetry as a Mirror
Poetry has given me a mirror in which to reflect upon myself as a Black girl turning into a Black woman. The first poem in which I saw my reflection happened when I was eleven years old. I was a fifth-grade student at Aviano Elementary in Ms. Vann’s class in Aviano, Italy–we were an Air Force family stationed overseas. On one uneventful day in February, the teachers rounded up all of us elementary students and walked us over to the high school gymnasium for a Black history program. Assemblies in my eleven-year-old mind were cool because we missed class, but assembly in lieu of recess was not so cool. However, little did I know that I would not miss my favorite playground game that day, Prison Ball–little did I know that my small world was about to be magnified.
I am sure that I was well mannered and respectful during the program, because that was how I was raised. Yet it was not until Yolanda Walker, a tenth-grade girl, took the stage that I became fully engaged. I became rapt before a word ever fell from her mouth. I noted how cool Yolanda was–dressed in all black and sporting an Angela Davis afro. Her clothes, her swagger, and her sense of agency took me in. Then she recited a poem, “1,968 Winters” by Jackie Earley. Her performance blew my fifth-grade mind. It was not just the poem, but how she conveyed the poem with a full-bodied delivery. The essence of the poem came alive with Yolanda’s gestures, stance, and attitude.
The poem she read evoked laughter with its colloquial speech and repetition of black black black, then white. On the surface it could have been mistaken for just a funny poem. I laughed along with everyone else, but the turn in the poem got me. When the speaker walks out into the white snow after arming herself with black feelings, black music, and black thoughts, I wasn’t laughing anymore. I saw myself in a piece of literature for the first time. This poem instructed: If you live in a world that does not embrace or accept you, you will feel emotionally cold. I got it. The poem demonstrated how I felt in my young life to date. Up to then, I had never seen myself reflected accurately in a textbook or any other literature. I liked my teachers, but they were not culturally competent. […continue reading here]
