11:55 a.m. - 2006-01-19
Allison Jospeh

Disclaimer:

I find my writing has become a little sidelined maybe even a little stilted. Which is why I have come to the conclusion I am going to give it all up and just become a pawn in the game of chess. No more delusions of becoming a King.

I’m jus joshing you but actually I like to think I bring a sense of understanding to this world something that forces any onlookers to read or at least appreciate different points of view.

Which is why I am also dedicating this little blogging machine to promoting poetry I think moves me by famous published poets of today and yesterday (mostly today since I am a fan of free verse and contemporary.)

Not just the classics like Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” but also “Howl” by Ginsberg. Though I will admit that I can’t post regularly as my internet is down and haven’t been able to pay the proper attention to this little site and my devotion to make a better internet world, but the few chances I do get I will make it my mission to post any great poetry or other works.

Which brings us to today’s piece written by Allison Joseph born in ’67 in the Bronx and Toronto.

She has earned B.A. from Kenyon College and M.F.A. from Indiana University.

Her poetry tends to lean towards free verse and recalls her childhood growing up as an African American. Joseph has gone on to publish four books: What Keeps Us Here, Soul Train, In Every Seam and Imitation of Life and has won numerous poetry and writing awards, Ampersand Press's 1992 Women Poets Series Competition and the John C. Zacharis First Book Award,.

On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person

Emphasize the “h,” you hignorant ass,
was what my mother was told
when colonial-minded teachers
slapped her open palm with a ruler
in that Jamaican schoolroom.
Trained in England, they tried
to force their pupils to speak
like Eliza Doolittle after
her transformation, fancying themselves
British as Henry Higgins,
despite dark, sun-ripened skin.
Mother never lost her accent,
though, the music of her voice
charming everyone, an infectious lilt
I can imitate, not duplicate.
No one in the State told her
to eliminate the accent,
my high school friends adoring
the way her voice would lift
when she called me to the phone,
A-ll-i-son, it’s friend Catchy.
Why don’t you sound like her?,
they ask. I didn’t sound
like anyone or anything,
no grating New Yorker nasality,
no fastidious British mannerisms
like the ones my father affected
when he wanted to sell someone
something. And I didn’t sound
like a Black American,
college acquaintances observed,
sure they knew what a black person
was supposed to sound like.
Was I supposed to sound lazy,
dropping syllables here, there,
not finishing words but
slurring the final letter so that
each sentence joined the next,
sliding past the listener?
Were certain words off limits,
too erudite, too scholarly
for someone with a natural tan?
I asked what they meant,
and they stuttered, blushed,
said you know, Black English,
applying what they’d learned
from that semester’s text.
Does everyone in your family
speak alike?, I’d question,
and they say don’t’ take this the
wrong way, nothing personal.

Now I realize there’s nothing
more personal than speech,
that I don’t have to defend
how I speak, how any person,
black, white, chooses to speak.
Let us speak. Let us talk
with the sounds of our mothers
and fathers still reverberating
in our minds, wherever our mothers
or fathers come from:
Arkansas, Belize, Alabama,
Brazil, Aruba, Arizona.
Let us simply speak
to one another,
listen and prize the inflections
differences, never assuming
how any person will sound
until her mouth opens,
until his mouth opens,
greetings familiar
in any language

1999

The poem speaks volumes (pun intended) because it talks of accents. I have many people inform me that I must be a genius because I can pronounce and know a few little facts here and there. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not by any means a genius and the government would be the second to back up that statement. Joseph talks about personal fight having to deal with languages, accents and racial expectations; all things I can personally identify with.

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