There was noise in the field.
No moon. Sky was clear.
I could distinguish a white man a rod off.
We live in a brick house, last one on the right.
When they got to the hill,
they went in all directions, except back.
I live in the third house from the bridge, as you go down.
Before I saw Z. dead in the morning,
I was awakened by the firing of guns.
Was in bed at the time of the firing,
till I heard men gathered in front of my house.
From their talk I took them to be whites.
Saw between 15 and 20 negroes running up.
Heard one say, “Come, boys, we will surround this place
and have the damned rascal” (or words to that effect).
I knew there was a fuss between the whites and the negroes.
C. called on me for a revolver, a day or two before the
murder.
He did not get one.
From the appearance of the eye,
the gun was in close proximity to the face
when fired.
S. told me times were desperate below town,
that the whites were molesting them, that he was afraid.
This was about 2 days before the murder.
I have often repaired his firearms.
I don’t recollect him saying
he wanted the gun fixed so as to shoot squirrels.
A negro had been knocked down in the street.
For fun I struck at him.
He pulled out a pistol and said, “Look here.”
I did not say
that any person who took the darkies’ part
was a damned mean man.
In D.’s barbershop on Monday night,
two or three present were talking of trouble
between the whites and negroes.
D. was shaving a man.
He remarked,
“If they do not be careful we will have bleeding Kansas
here.”
I heard nothing but the tramping of horses in the field.
I only went because they asked me.
As soon as I got into the corn, I squatted down.
I was facing eastward, in front of the stone quarry.
Then I got behind an apple tree
and whistled a little.
It was after prayer meeting.
The company took no liquor before starting.
I don’t know whether they stopped at hotels or not.
The field begins just beyond the yard.
Z. carried a club of some kind.
I recall they all wore hats.
Drank at T.’s.
Can’t tell whether I was at the marble shop.
Can’t tell what the row was about.
I was in a doze.
Something alarmed me.
Put my head out the window and heard a terrible swearing.
My husband and J. are cousins.
The swearing I heard was by black men.
On Sunday I swept shot off my porch.
I arrested D. in his barbershop.
He was shaving a man.
D. said he did not know what he had done.
I went along to arrest C.
He was eating.
Then he quit eating and commenced rubbing his hands.
I saw Z. raise his club and yell like an Indian.
The yell was such as the Indians gave
who were with the traveling show.
I said, “I am no nigger.”
He replied, “It’s well you spoke.
I might have killed you with this club.”
I think I had my pistol out.
I said my revolver was for six of them
if they jumped me.
A darkie came along
and Z. said he sauced him
and he knocked him down.
I saw a darkie enter D.’s barbershop with a shawl on
and something under his shawl.
I do not think it was a fiddle.
Went to T.’s, knocked 3 or 4 times.
T.’s wife told me not to put my hand
on the broken pane of glass.
I have known them long enough
to know them anywhere.
The place is a house of ill fame.
S. was in bed all that night.
He was sick.
His mother came to the door to speak with him.
Mr. N. rode down to our house
and asked whose gun that was.
My sister said it was the one Pap borrowed.
We were going across the creek after firewood.
When we came back,
the gun was gone.
I remained on the brow of the hill.
The path turns off
just before you get to the first apple tree.
J. was badly scared, tolerably drunk,
and suffering some pain.
He did not faint when I extracted the bullet.
He was in a chair he could not fall out of.
My opinion is that he did not know what he was saying.
This was his state pretty much the whole time.
On the day Z. lost his life, he came to the well.
He said, “The niggers about this place
have been carrying on with a high head.”
I never mentioned the conversation to my wife.
I took a drink, went directly upstairs.
I had a bottle of medicine I had got for her.
I opened the directions
and was in the act of reading them
when the firing took place.
I assisted in reaching Z. after the incident.
I found no weapons on him.
The night of the murder was a clear, starlight night.
[First published in J Journal (fall 2013). My mother, Janice Miller Potter, also has a poem in this issue. Hers, "Rat Night," is set in the same town as my poem is. We didn't know we were writing about the same town or that we'd both sent poems to the same journal till we got the magazines in the mail. As far as I know, the journal editors have no idea they've published a mother and daughter. Spooky all around.]
8 comments:
Mother and daughter -- wonderful. Wonderful poem.
Christopher
Wonderful coincidence!
Your source must have been fascinating. Wonderful poem.
The strange ambience of southwestern Pennsylvania makes room for a million poems, or so it seems. My poem is based on a court case in the town of Waynesburg, which is also the town where my parents went to college. My mom's story is personal whereas mine is historical, and they take place a hundred years apart. But some sorts of human behavior never seem to change.
Your poem isn't just based on a court case you have stolen the words of the witnesses and only added a handful of your own. Perhaps you thought no one would notice?
Dear anonymous-- As I have made clear publicly, the poem is a fiction that borrows from historical record, changes characters names, add invented characters, changes the order of events, has different people say different things, etc., etc.--like, say, the novel Johnny Tremain does, and every other work of historical fiction--i.e., the current off-Broadway musical "Hamilton." There is no deceit or pretense involved.
About 111 lines of your 117 (?) line poem - I lost count - are cut and pasted or written word for word from the newspaper article that describes the testimony of the trial of the Negroes. I saw maybe one invented initial for a character that used the words of a real person from the trial. And yes you did attribute a line or two to someone other than the person who is quoted. It really doesn't matter what is happening off-Broadway - this is you poem made up of 90% plagiarized material. I don't see you giving the journalist credit for documenting the trial. Where are the quotes attributed to the real people whose lives this true story affected? This is NOT a piece of historical fiction because you didn't write fiction - best I can tell is you cut and pasted from the transcribed article. And no this is not a trial transcription - there is no transcription of the trial in the court. Why didn't you just write the poem in your own words? Changes from the original that can be counted on one hand do not constitute your own words. You are the one who who uses the words deceit or pretense - those are not pre qualifications for plagiarism.
The title of this poem attracted me. I am fascinated by how we all see the world so differently, our eyes so colored by our backgrounds. Even in this age of stark video, witnesses see different things. I hope you don't mind if I share with you this (as yet) unpublished poem.
Eye witness
in response to eyewitness accounts of the shooting of Michael Brown
They say he was crazed
They say he was afraid
They say he got shot in the hand, blood running on his fingers
They say he took off running
They say the officer ran after him
They say the officer didn’t run
They say he was on his knees with his hands in the air
They say his hands were up, palms facing the officer, like okay you got me
They say he walked back, saying “I give up,” like the game was over, like this is enough, like put down the controller, like let’s go get a beer
They say he got shot repeatedly
They say a white officer shot an unarmed black teenager
They say he was a danger to himself, to others
They say he had demon anger on his face
They say he never put his hands up
They say he was shot in the chest, in the face, in the top of the head and that’s when he fell instantly
They say some people were afraid to testify
They say he staggered forward, wounded, in a gesture of surrender
They say he reached into his shirt for something
They say they know what it feels like to be shot, like nothing with the adrenaline pumping, body in rampage mode, like a wild hog in the forest
They say a shot is crippling pain, a message of unending bitterness
They say there was blood coming from him
They say he was just a boy
They say there’s no justice for a black boy in America
They say he made a grunting sound and charged the officer
They say it looked like he was bulking up to run through the shots, like he was mad that he was getting shot
They say he looked straight through everything, like the officer wasn’t even there, like there wasn’t anything in his way
They say they killed him
They say he hobbled to the ground, face on the pavement, paying blood
They say it everywhere, they say it in the streets, in the barrooms, in the bedrooms
They say there’s no justice, only this empty sack of answers
They say he’s dead, man.
He’s dead.
Hi, Judy-- Thanks so much for sharing your poem. The repetition in your sentence structure is so powerful. You're right about how differently we all see the same events; it's one of the mysteries of crowd response, I think.
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