Poem of the Day: White Papers [1]

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1 / 11 / 2015

Poem of the Day: White Papers [1] BY MARTHA COLLINS Because my father said Yes but not in our lifetimes Because my mother said I know my daughter would never want to marry... But mostly because they rarely spoke of or noticed or even whispered about and did not of course ... Because magazines rarely TV rarely textbooks rarely or not at all except for figures like George Washington Carver who'd lived in our state Because among the crayons there was one called Flesh Because paintings rarely or never until because books from the library never until because college literature not at all the American lit anthology had only Gwendolyn Brooks who was not assigned Because a few years after Brown v. Board of Education I wrote a paper that took the position Yes but not yet although my father although my mother although we rarely although we whispered although the silence although the absence although even now some TV books not to mention radio websites new militias hate groups raging against our socialist- communist-fascist although but still: our textbooks now our museums mostly our college literature courses even our crayons not to mention our young president who could scarcely have been imagined when we when I— and although I've gone back and filled in some blanks I'm still learning this un- learning untying the knot of Yes but re- writing this    Yes   Yes Martha Collins, "White Papers [1]" from White Papers. Copyright © 2012 by Martha Collins.  Reprinted by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press. Source: White Papers (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012) MARTHA COLLINS Biography  More poems by this author