Gregory Pardlo: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Raisin

 

I dragged my twelve-year-old cousin

to see the Broadway production of A Raisin

in the Sun because the hip-hop mogul

and rapping bachelor, Diddy, played

the starring role. An aspiring rapper gave

my cousin his last name and the occasional child

support so I thought the boy would geek to see a pop

hero in the flesh as Walter Lee. My wife was newly

pregnant, and I was rehearsing, like Diddy

swapping fictions, surrendering his manicured

thug persona for a more domestic performance.

My cousin mostly yawned throughout the play.

Except the moment Walter Lee's tween son stiffened

on stage, as if rapt by the sound of a roulette ball.

Scene: No one breathes as Walter Lee vacillates,

uncertain of obsequity or indignation after Lindner offers

to buy the family out of the house they've purchased

in the all-white suburb, Walter might kneel to accept,

but he senses the tension in his son's gaze. I was thinking,

for real though, what would Diddy do? "Get rich

or die trying," 50 Cent would tell us. But my father would

sing like Ricky Scaggs, "Don't get above your raisin',"

when as a kid I vowed to be a bigger man than him.

That oppressive fruit dropped heavy as a medicine

ball in my lap meant to check my ego, and I imagined

generations wimpling in succession like the conga

marching raisins that sang Marvin's hit song. Silly,

I know. Outside the theater, my cousin told me

when Diddy was two, they found his hustler dad

draping a steering wheel in Central Park,

a bullet in his head. I shared what I knew of dreams

deferred and Marvin Gaye. (When asked if he loved

his son, Marvin Sr. answered, "Let's just say I didn't

dislike him.") Beneath the bling of many billion

diodes I walked beside the boy through Times Square

as if anticipating a magic curtain that would rise,

but only one of us would get to take a bow.

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Gregory Pardlo is the author of Digest, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His other books include Totem, winner of the American Poetry Review/ Honickman Prize and Air Traffic, a memoir in essays. His honors include fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University-Camden, and a visiting professor of creative writing at NYU Abu Dhabi. His third poetry collection, Spectral Evidence, is forthcoming in 2024.

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Comments

[Clarinda]

Wow. This blew my mind. I’m
So sad the boy yawned tho

[lally]

the play on 'don't get above your raisin'' resonates with my seventh-grade-drop-out father's admonishments i rebelled against doubling the impact and insight of this beautiful lyric narrative

[Denise Duhamel]

Terrific poem about fatherhood and aspirations, with the violence of Marvin's dad thrown in for good measure. Such a wonderful weaving of pop culture and the personal.

[Grace Cavalieri]

Amazing amalgam of the past and present. Thank you.

[Bernard Welt]

The line from Marvin Gaye's dad is an incredibly intense piece of found poetry--more like a Raymond Chandler novel, really.
The line breaks here are really interesting. I tried reading it really emphasizing them, and I think I get it. I like when form becomes content.

[Diane Ward]

Ditto, Bernard Welt. I like when form becomes content. It's the best.
This one has an internal combustion, jump starting the poem throughout.
But it's all consideration, no destruction.
Thanks for posting another interesting poem, Terence.

[Terence Winch]

Diane: Thanks for the comment.

[Beth B Joselow]

Diane and Bernard said all that I would say. A poem worth returning to several times!

[Geoffrey Himes]

The lyrics in "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'," a 1951 song written and recorded by Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt, are not advising the listener to curtail ambition but rather to stay loyal to one's childhood community, much as Walter Lee's mother is telling her son not to betray his neighborhood.