Thursday, April 19, 2018

Day 19: "Apology for Apostasy?" by Etheridge Knight

Day 19 of 30 Days of The Five-Two is dedicated to Etheridge Knight, who was born April 19, 1931.

His poem, "Apology for Apostasy?", archived at the Poetry Foundation website, contrasts yesterday's poem, in which Rita Dove employed sun and moon imagery.

Knight's poem asserts, "The night is full / Of buggers and bastards; no moon or stars / Light the sky."

To confront the wrongs of its time, poetry cannot be "soft songs" or "candy," though the speaker does long for "peacetime, when my voice shall be light, / Like down," returning to its gentler nature.

—Gerald So

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