PENGUIN BOOKS
THE SOBBING SCHOOL
Joshua Bennett received his PhD in English from Princeton University. He is currently a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, and has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, The Kenyon Review, and New England Review. Bennett tours nationally and internationally as a performance artist and has recited his original work at the Sundance Film Festival, the NAACP Image Awards, and President Obama’s Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word at the White House. He lives in New York City.
THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES
The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of five collections of poetry annually through five participating publishers. Publication is funded annually by the Lannan Foundation; Amazon Literary Partnership; Barnes & Noble; the Poetry Foundation; the PG Family Foundation; and the Betsy Community Fund; Joan Bingham, Mariana Cook, Stephen Graham, Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds, William Kistler, Jeffrey Ravetch, Laura Baudo Sillerman, and Margaret Thornton. For a complete listing of generous contributors to the National Poetry Series, please visit www.nationalpoetryseries.org.
2015 COMPETITION WINNERS
Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last, by Justin Boening of Iowa City, IA
Chosen by Wayne Miller, to be published by Milkweed Editions
The Wug Test, by Jennifer Kronovet of New York, NY
Chosen by Eliza Griswold, to be published by Ecco
Scriptorium, by Melissa Range of Appleton, WI
Chosen by Tracy K. Smith, to be published by Beacon Press
Trébuchet, by Danniel Schoonebeek of Brooklyn, NY
Chosen by Kevin Prufer, to be published by University of Georgia Press
The Sobbing School, by Joshua Bennett of New York, NY
Chosen by Eugene Gloria, to be published by Penguin Books
PENGUIN BOOKS
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Copyright © 2016 by Joshua Bennett
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Bennett, Joshua (Poet)
Title: The sobbing school / Joshua Bennett.
Description: New York, New York : Penguin Books, 2016. | Series: National poetry series
Identifiers: LCCN 2016020931 (print) | LCCN 2016025326 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143111863 (paperback) | ISBN 9781101993101 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: POETRY / American / General. | POETRY / American / African American.
Classification: LCC PS3602.E664483 A6 2016 (print) | LCC PS3602.E664483 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020931
Cover design: Lynn Buckley
Cover photograph: Paul Hosefros/The New York Times/Redux Pictures
Version_1
For my father & mother, who dreamt of other worlds
I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. . . . No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
—ZORA NEALE HURSTON
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following journals for publishing poems featured in this book:
Anti-: “12 absolutely true facts about Richard Wright”
Backbone: “In Defense of Henry Box Brown”
Beloit Poetry Journal: “Love Poem Ending with Typewriters” and “On Blueness”
Blackbird: “On Flesh,” “Samson Reconsiders,” and “VCR&B”
Callaloo: “First Date” and “Yoke”
The Collagist: “Clench” and “home force: presumption of death”
Connotation Press: “Black History, abridged”
CURA: “Fade”
Drunken Boat: “Didn’t Old Pharaoh Get Lost in the Red Sea: theorizing amnesia in Afro-diasporic maritime literature”
Fjords Review: “Anthropophobia”
The Kenyon Review: “Praise song for the table in the cafeteria where all the black boys sat together during A Block, laughing too loudly” and “X”
Kweli: “Self-Portrait as Periplaneta Americana”
Magma: “Teacher’s Aide”
New England Review: “Aubade with Insomnia” and “The Sobbing School”
Obsidian: “Whenever Hemingway Hums Nigger”
Pinwheel: “On Stupidity,” “Taxonomy,” and “Tenacious Elegy: Insurgent Life in the Era of Trial by Gunfire with a Line from Sylvia Wynter”
Smartish Pace: “Fresh”
Storyscape: “The Order of Things”
Tupelo Quarterly: “Still Life with First Best Friend”
Vinyl: “Invocation”
Wave Composition: “On Extinction” and “Praise House”
Word Riot: “Theodicy”
I cannot imagine this book’s entry into the world of the living without the insight and unfettered imagination of Imani Perry, Salamishah Tillet, Charles Rowell, Gregory Pardlo, Josef Sorett, Camille Dungy, Terrance Hayes, Kyle Dargan, Ashon Crawley, Jesse McCarthy, and the entirety of the Black Studies Colloquium at Columbia University. Deepest gratitude to Phillip B. Williams for his singular editorial acuity, and Eugene Gloria for believing in the vision I set out to elaborate herein. Special thanks to Paul Slovak for his patience and trust. Thank you to the members of the Mourners Bench—Jamall Calloway, Jeremy Scott Vinson, and Wesley Morris—for the countless hours spent reading, laughing, and living on in spite of. Thank you to Thiahera Nurse for the series of poetry exchanges that led to the completion of this manuscript, as well as for being the sort of collaborator and friend that makes this work a joyous occasion. Thank you to the Kinfolks editorial board: Jerriod Avant, Desiree Bailey, Lauren Yates, Safia Elhillo, Nate Marshall, Sean DesVignes, and Aziza Barnes for their commitment to the cultivation, rigorous study, and unrelenting celebration of black expressive cultures. Thank you to my Strivers Row family past and present: Alysia Harris, Carvens Lissaint, Miles Hodges, Zora Howard, and every single person that has ever come out to one of our shows. Devin, you already know. Marcus, thank you for always holding me accountable to the people and places I care about most. Thank you, Miles, my beautiful, brilliant nephew, for always reminding me that another world is on its way. And finally, dearest Toya, thank you for all you have done to help me build a kind of life from words given to the air; this book would not exist without your tutelage, your valor, your steadfast love.
CONTENTS
About the Author
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
IN DEFENSE OF HENRY BOX BROWN
ON EXTINCTION
INVOCATION
YOKE
TAXONOMY
DI
DN’T OLD PHARAOH GET LOST IN THE RED SEA: THEORIZING AMNESIA IN AFRO-DIASPORIC MARITIME LITERATURE
THEODICY
RUN
STILL LIFE WITH FIRST BEST FRIEND
FADE
WHENEVER HEMINGWAY HUMS NIGGER
TEACHER’S AIDE
PRAISE SONG FOR THE TABLE IN THE CAFETERIA WHERE ALL THE BLACK BOYS SAT TOGETHER DURING A BLOCK, LAUGHING TOO LOUDLY
IN DEFENSE OF PASSING
FLY
12 ABSOLUTELY TRUE FACTS ABOUT RICHARD WRIGHT
CLENCH
SELF-PORTRAIT AS PERIPLANETA AMERICANA
ON STUPIDITY
FIRST DATE
VARIATION ON THE FATHER AS NARCISSUS
FRESH
THE ORDER OF THINGS
ODE TO THE EQUIPMENT MANAGER
FAMILY REUNION
PRAISE HOUSE
VCR&B
IN DEFENSE OF DMX
ODE TO THE MASCOT
THE SOBBING SCHOOL
BLACK HISTORY, ABRIDGED
HOME FORCE: PRESUMPTION OF DEATH
TENACIOUS ELEGY: INSURGENT LIFE IN THE ERA OF TRIAL BY GUNFIRE WITH A LINE FROM SYLVIA WYNTER
ANTHROPOPHOBIA
AUBADE WITH INSOMNIA
SAMSON RECONSIDERS
LOVE POEM ENDING WITH TYPEWRITERS
ON FLESH
STILL LIFE WITH LITTLE BROTHER
ON BLUENESS
X
PREFACE TO A TWENTY-VOLUME REGICIDE NOTE
IN DEFENSE OF HENRY BOX BROWN
Not every trauma has a price
point. You & I are special
that way. No doubt, there is good
money to be made in the rehearsal of
a father’s rage, an empty crate,
whatever instrument ushered us into
lives of impure repetition. Years on
end, you replayed your infamous
escape for hundreds
of tearful devoted, sold out
shows an ocean away from the place
that made you possible, made you
parcel, uncommon contraband carried
over amber ululations of grain
& grass & filthy hands:
white, black, unwitting all the same.
If they had only known the weight
of what passed before them.
The wait you waded through.
Twenty-seven hours spent inside
a three-by-two-foot jail of splinter & rust. I too
have signed over the rights to all my
best wounds. I know the stage
is a leviathan with no proper name
to curtail its breadth. I know
the respectable man enjoys a dark
body best when it comes with a good
cry thrown in. I know all the code
words, Henry. Why you nicknamed
the violence. Why all your nightmares
end in vermilion.
ON EXTINCTION
Please, pardon my obsession
with endings. I was born of two Baptists,
one backslidden though no less
fervent when it came to the law,
the cross, the grain of me
& my sister’s hair. I was born
nonwhite in the 1980s,
arrived in the wake of four girls
slumped against a project wall
resembling a long ellipsis, heron
(my father’s preferred pronunciation)
having coaxed their heads
into solemn agreement.
Mama knew three of the dying
personally, but maybe this isn’t about her,
so much as how this scene became a part
of our extended family, its argument
clear as a bullet’s signature: to live
in this flesh is to worship agility,
to call death by its government name.
The woman across the table from me is scared
to raise her son, fears he will be killed
by police, says this outright, over soup,
expecting nothing.
My first thought is of the landscape.
For a moment, all I can see is flat green oblivion,
unchecked flora where fourth graders
once sped across the open. In 1896,
Frederick Hoffman claimed every Negro
in the U.S. would be dead by the year
of my younger brother’s birth. To his credit,
Hoffman dreamt of neither badge nor bullet,
but dysentery, tuberculosis, killers
we could not touch or beg for clemency.
Hence, when I consider extinction,
I do not think of sad men with guns,
or Hoffman standing by the chalkboard
in his office, discerning algorithms
for the dead, but of our refusal,
how my mother, without stopping
even to write a poem about it,
woke up that day,
& this morning again.
INVOCATION
Pray for flame
with the diligence of a saint,
scarlet tongues of light sharp enough
to cut bone & soul just the same.
My parents praise a vengeful God.
Son of all three, what else did I inherit
but this commitment to the scales?
The killer woke up today.
Probably ate scrambled eggs
for breakfast, brushed his teeth
three times or fewer, walked
in soft slippers through the living
room, checked the mail
while a child decomposed underground,
held still beneath the bloodless weight
of the law. Baldwin sang The Fire Next Time
in 1963 & we are living in the wake
of his impossible love. I too dream
of such heat. I yearn for nothing
if not equilibrium, a means to honor
how elders taught me to pray:
Lord, if you be
at all, be
a blade.
YOKE
1
consider the yoke. its violent geometry.
how wood and metal
blur every border.
grandpa Earl is tilling tobacco in the heavy dark,
cuffed by the neck to a nameless mule.
when he meets Lena, he will propose on the spot.
repent of the land. head north to hunt for a clean start.
tobacco season came and fled.
1933 paused to catch its breath
and grandpa was gone.
started a second family right down the block. thought it providence.
2
my mother stays for the sake of premise, a promise made in the wake
of my sister’s birth. she loves us despite him. to spite him.
she cannot leave any more than she can unlearn the shape of our mouths.
what does it mean to be wholly for another? to count your seed as both anchor
and anima?
3
bulletproof glass turned my older brother into a prime number. stuffed his libretto in a cage. corrections: as if he were an essay of bone. dad was wrong. the belt’s leather cadence is all my brother and I share, all that binds us across age and the irreverence of steel.
TAXONOMY
as cormorant. as crow. as colon. as comma.
as coma. as shadow. as shade. as show.
as collards. as collection plate. as play cousin.
as dozens. a
s sea. as depth where light
don’t dare tread. as treason. as gun. as gullet.
as gully. as ghetto came to be named.
as Cain. as antonym. as animal ontology.
as analogy always. as antimatter.
as bullet’s best bet. as best friend. as bobby
pin. as Bobby Brown. as brown crayons
color everything in this house. as the inside
of a nap. as Mama’s naps. as the hot comb
she used to lay them down like a burden.
as burden. as burial. as breath. as break beat.
as breaking: as anything that burns.
DIDN’T OLD PHARAOH GET LOST IN THE RED SEA: THEORIZING AMNESIA IN AFRO-DIASPORIC MARITIME LITERATURE
Keywords: absence, being-for-another, undertow, thalassophobia, phantom limb
Abstract:
Though there has certainly been a recent wave of scholarship in the field of hydropoetics that attends to the necessarily fraught relationship between writers of the African diaspora and their encounters with the sea, many of which are watermarked by the serrated memory of the Middle Passage and its afterlife, what has heretofore been left largely undertheorized are the ways in which these very same writers might encounter the sea as a trick mirror against which they are able to craft new worlds out of black, wet infinity, like Elohim in Genesis 1 or a child in a darkroom. Thus, this poem is interested in using the moment the speaker looks into the sea for the first time on a family trip to Antigua, thousands of miles away from the unknowable depth of his block, which is its own kind of benthos, as a springboard for considering what it means to never be able to regain what is lost (even a name or less heavy tongue) and what that sort of truancy can make of a seven-year-old who, even then, could not shake the feeling that his legs were not his own.
THEODICY
for Renisha McBride
When yet another one of your kin falls,
you question God’s wingspan, the architecture
of mercy. It is Friday morning, & despair
is the only law
left intact. No one knows how to stop
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