by Pat Parker
At some point, perhaps with “Questions” and its refrain, “how do I break your chains?” as well as these lines: “now I’m tired/now you listen!/I have a dream too,” her poetry went from explaining and depicting to mobilizing. By 1976 she had written “Movement in Black,” a triumphant call for African-American women to move forward into leadership. The drum is a very effective instrument for mobilizing people. By shifting her poetic into rhythmic structures coupled with real life experience, Pat produced an amazing emphasis that was irresistible—a drum-call to action and activism, that goes straight to the heart with its own drumbeats, goes, one could say, directly for the “innards” as well as to the minds of the recipients.
Pat and I used to talk about how some people seemed to think we working class, or nonacademic poets just plucked our stuff effortlessly out of the air. “They don’t realize how much study we have put into learning our craft,” Pat said and I agreed people did not seem to see how much intense thought, feeling and structure we put into each poem. As our audiences became more enthusiastic (and we both had more than one community cheering us on) we increasingly crafted our work to be read aloud, and to be understood on the first hearing. This requires a kind of stanza by stanza pungency, that can and frequently did lead to dismissal from the more academic critics, especially early on, and especially for Pat, as she increasingly used repetition to drive her points home. We were aiming for the hearts and guts in our audiences, for the “innards.” This isn’t to say there is anything less poetic about denser, linguistically dexterous poetry, or poetry meant to evoke a scene or meditative feeling or brain spark. Just that orally-oriented poetry is a different exercise for different purposes, and that all art needs to be asked, among other questions, for what purpose were you crafted? What communities do you feed?
In the same spirit, and always with a big grin, Pat also liked to speak of the two of us as “poet athletes;” we were proud that we had muscles as well as brains and heart. She wanted, and achieved despite her life being cut short at the age of 45, a very full life, of family, of international politics, of sports, of art, of fulfilling work, and of leadership that continues through her poetic voice.
On a visit with Pat to her sister’s suburban home in LA, her brother-in-law invited us to view his paintings in the studio he had built in the garage, and to let us know he was successful at selling his work. I saw how she admired their way of life as an achievement of both solidity and artfulness. “You see how they are doing this?” Pat said later to me, “It’s really possible to have both security and creativity. ” That was what she wanted. She had also wanted to be a different kind of poet, to indulge aesthetics and a variety of subjects, rather than constantly to be called (from within) to confront social aggressions in behalf of communities. Yet she also found profound meaning in the effects her work had on others.
In an interview she did with Pippa Fleming, who co-founded and served as editor for Ache: A Journal for Black Lesbians, Pat said this:
If I died tomorrow and what could be said about my life is ‘yes, she wrote books and she wrote poetry and people liked it,’ that would not be enough. That’s not why I take the risks that I do. A woman wrote a letter to me and the most touching things she said was, ‘I’m doing my work so you don’t have to do it for me.’ What she’s telling me by this is long after I’m gone, there are going to be women who will continue to do the work.
The great-hearted organizer Avotcja Jiltonilro, who combines her own poetry with dynamic live music, opened for Parker’s gigs the last three years of her life, and then established a yearly memorial reading and performance evening celebrating Pat’s birthday. This event in Berkeley helped raise money for Pat’s life partner, Marty Dunham, in behalf of the college education fund for their daughter, Anastasia Dunham-Parker-Brady.
Both historic and prophetic, both contemporary and timelessly accessible, Pat Parker’s voice will continue to influence as we all go forward into new challenges and opportunities to lead meaningful lives.
Movement in Black
Foreword
On the last night of my first trip to the West Coast in 1969, I walked into a room and met a young Black poet with fire in her eyes, a beer in her hand and a smile/scowl on her face. There were poems in her mouth, on the tables, in the refrigerator, under the bed, and in the way she cast about the apartment, searing for—not answers—but rather, unexpressable questions. We were both Black; we were Lesbians; we were both poets, in a very white, straight, male world, and we sat up all night trading poems. The next day the continent divided us, and during the next few years I read Pat Parker’s two earlier books with appreciation, sometimes worrying about whether or not she’d/we’d survive. (Which for Black/Poet/Women is synonymous with grow).
Now, with love and admiration, I introduce Pat Parker and this new collection of her poetry. These poems would not need any introduction except for the racism and heterosexism of a poetry establishment which has whited out Parker from the recognition deserved by a dynamic and original voice in our poetry today.
I am a child of America
a step child
raised in a back room
Even when a line falters, Parker’s poetry maintains, reaches out and does not let go. It is clean and sharp without ever being neat. Yet her images are precise, and the plain accuracy of her visions encourages an honesty that may be uncomfortable as it is compelling. Her words are womanly and uncompromising.
SISTER! your foot’s smaller
but it’s still on my neck.
Her tenderness is very direct:
A woman’s body must be taught to speak
bearing a lifetime of keys, a patient soul
and her directness can be equally tender:
My hands are big
and rough and callous
like my mother’s—
Her Black Woman’s voice rings true and deep and gentle, with an iron echo. It is merciless and vulnerable and far ranging. In her poems Parker owns her weaknesses and she owns her strengths, and she does not give up. Even when she weeps, her words evoke that real power which is core-born.
A pit is an abyss
let’s drink to my shame
For as a Black Lesbian poet Parker knows, that for all women, the most enduring conflicts are far from simple.
And for the Sisters who still think that fear is a reason to be silent, Parker’s poetry says loudly and clearly: I HAVE SURVIVED! I SEE, AND I SPEAK!
Audre Lorde
MARRIED
Goat Child
I. 1944-1956
“you were a mistake”
my mother told me
ever since i’ve been
trying to make up.
couldn’t really imagine
her/him in bed &
me coming 4 years after
the last sister
& to make things worse
i come blasting in
2 months too soon.
maybe the war did it
& to top the whole thing off
i’m the fourth girl
& my father was pissed.
caught pneumonia &
got hung up in [an] incubator
for three months
finally made it out,
but the bed was too big
so my sister lost her doll bed.
another enemy quickly made.
& my old man being typical
spade businessman
too much credit – too little capital
loses his shop, &
we move to what is now
suburbs of Houston only
it had weeds and space
move to our own home
away from two-story brick
project where i found my
cousin’s condom & blew it up
& good-bye cousins to
one room – tin roof playhouse
with tarzan making beams,
tin #2 washtub, maggot-filled
&nb
sp; outhouse and super rats /
but i did try to please then.
football, baseball, fishing,
best yard cutter on the block.
two guns hanging from my hips
in the best Texas tradition
& me bad pistol pete holding
up all visitors for nickels
& wiping out roaches faster
than the durango kid ever could.
but even the best cowboys need learning
so they herded me back to school
but i remembered nursery school
& nurses with long needles
hell no i won’t go,
but i went & had to leave
my guns/could only take
my boots & the teacher
300 lbs. of don’ts
& i cried thru a whole day
of turtles, lizards, pretty
pictures, crayons, & glue.
came back all ready to
hang up the second day,
but the teacher showed
us her paddle – heavy
wood, hand fitted paddle
with holes drilled to
suck the flesh/no tears
so i settled down &
fought my way thru first grade
defending my right to
wear cowboy boots even if
i was a girl which no one
had bothered to tell me
about at home / swung
into 2nd grade right into
economics / 50¢ notebook
which mother couldn’t
buy that day & i couldn’t
tell the teacher that rap
so i copped one from the
doctor’s son who could
afford it easy, but he
had numbered his pages
& i couldn’t explain why
my book began on pg. 9
& the teacher calls
my sister who has been
her star #1 pupil
four years ago who
immediately denies that
her mother had bought it
& there i was caught
thief at seven years old.
conditions improved /
looked like i was going
to make it till 5th grade
& i got beat all day
for stealing a 15¢ pack
of paper which i didn’t,
but couldn’t say because the
girl that did was too big
& the teacher got religion
& bought me steak sandwiches
from then on & even put me
in the glee club which was
indeed a most generous act.
& 6th grade was worse cause
oldest sister #2 had been
there and & the teacher had
a good memory for bad ones.
& it wasn’t until
i recited the night
before christmas
three times on our
class program that
she forgave me.
II.
the goat left this child
me still trying to butt
my way in or out
& i came home dripping
blood & panic rode in
on my shoulders.
her slipped to the store
returned clutching a
box of kotex in a sack
twice as large.
“now you can have babies,
so keep your panties up”
& i couldn’t see the
connection between me &
babies cause i wasn’t
even thinking of marriage
& that always came first.
& him having to admit that
i really was a girl &
all of a sudden no more
football, not even touch
or anything & now getting
angry because i still
didn’t like dolls &
all this time me not knowing
that the real hang up
was something called virginity
which i had already lost
2 years ago to a really
hard-up rapist that i
never could tell my parents
about, not really knowing what
had happened but somehow
feeling it would not be
to my advantage.
twelve years old
& in a southern Baptist
tradition that meant
the leaving of childhood
& the latest acceptable
time to go to God
so with pleas of the
family image ringing
in my ears / i went
baptism / no evil spirit
left / just cold & wet
waiting to be struck
down for fraud
& now mickey – a
baptism present to
replace delmonte
who replaced scotty
who replaced queen
who went mad and
ran thru the streets
foaming with me
climbing fences to
cut her off at the pass
but mickey a pup
already at my knees
orange, blue-tongued
chow who ate on his
trainer who played with
his food and him brings
the victor to me/
scared but even more
afraid of it being
known & mickey just
as afraid as me, but
we learned and i
unchained him &
took the christmas
bike and rode free
miles and miles
& mickey running
ahead challenging
anyone or dog to
get too close.
the goat came charging back
& my sisters could no
longer tell me
& the fights won in the day
lost when him came
at night, but renewed
each day with each new welt
& the boys at school
learned that him was crazy
& off to the jr. prom
with the faggot in the
church choir/ the only
acceptable male other
than him & the hate
chickens, ducks &
rabbits who ate their
young when i forgot
to put in more salt and
beating and the volleyball
team i almost made varsity
but the gym floor & stitches
& better grades to apologize
pajama parties & mothers
who knew to go to bed
dirty jokes that i
didn’t quite understand
& beer and drunkenness
the friend who always
imitated me clomping
the cha cha & never
saw my pain/ horns
shrank until senior
year & debate champion
who really want to
write but more afraid
of the coach who
knew i was the next
great spade lawyer
& failed the only
boy i ever loved to
make sure i didn’t
get married/ her
pissed because i didn’t get the
scholarship/ the big one
me who never told of
the little one that
would have kept me
in texas/ new pastures
for the goat.
OUT
run to california
& golden streets
& big money
& freedom to go
anywhere & not being
served in new mexico
or arizona/ not stopping
to record that &
california streets
reeked of past glories
and wine and blood
and this brave young
goat blasting full
steam into everything
breaking into the landlady’s
window while showing
a young delinquent
a backhand & running
like hell, laughing
till it hurt &
his ole lady was
paying me to keep him out
of trouble.
college and the german
who didn’t want me
to know his language
& decided maybe adolph
wasn’t so great after
all.
journalism
a friend who
cut her forearms
to commit suicide
& me offering to help
her do it right
& retired lady colonel
who didn’t think i
liked her class &
this young beast
emphatically affirmed
her / journalism “C”
a little dark buddha
walked in with folder
“i’d like to see more
of your writing”/ me
awed – a man – who
knew about the goat.
III. 1962-1966
“i am a man,”
the buddha said –
come with me &
i will show you
the ways of woman.
come with me &
i will show you
the world of being –
the world of pain
the world of joy
the world of hate
the world of love
come walk with me
i will show you
why? – you are.
this goat child charged
muscles tensed,
leaped, trampled
into a new time
a time of talk
a time of wine
parties & me
not knowing the words,
the gestures,
not knowing
history or heritage,
not knowing
the liars or their lies,
but sensing, somewhere.