Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Night, Death, Mississippi
I was a little shocked after reading this poem to see that it was written in the point of view of a former member of the ku Klux clan, as I was expecting from the title to read a heartbreaking poem about a victim of lynching. This gave the poem a chilling and haunting feel, whereas if it were written in the point of view of the victim it would have been heartbreaking but would have lacked the new edge that this unique angle provides. I liked how Hayden played with the lighting of the poem in the first few stanzas to make the contrast between light and dark even more apparent. The old man “turns out the kitchen lamp” and goes into the “windowless night.” And according to the old man, the white robes are “like moonlight in the sweetgum dark” indicating that they are the shining light in the otherwise complete darkness.
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This poem is also surprising in the portrayal of the old man's attitude. "The old man in his reek / and gauntness laughs" when he hears the cry he figures to be "one of them." He reminisces about "time was" when he "and the rest" would torture and kill black men. He even treats it as a bonding activity with his son:
Have us a bottle,
Boy and me --
he's earned him a bottle --
when he gets home.
Perhaps the most revealing and sickening part of this poem is the second-to-last stanza:
Christ, it was better
than hunting bear
which don't know why
you want him dead.
This man and "the rest" treat this violence as a sport, as if the person they harm is an animal and they take pleasure in seeing it hurt and frightened. This stanza, along with the rest of the poem, is very disturbing to me not only in the images brought up but in the attitude conveyed by this old man.
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