America<\/p>\n
BY\u00a0WALT WHITMAN<\/p>\n
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,<\/p>\n
All, all alike endear\u2019d, grown, ungrown, young or old,<\/p>\n
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,<\/p>\n
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,<\/p>\n
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,<\/p>\n
Chair\u2019d in the adamant of Time.<\/p>\n
America<\/p>\n
BY\u00a0ALLEN GINSBERG<\/p>\n
America I\u2019ve given you all and now I\u2019m nothing.<\/p>\n
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t stand my own mind.<\/p>\n
America when will we end the human war?<\/p>\n
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t feel good don\u2019t bother me.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t write my poem till I\u2019m in my right mind.<\/p>\n
America when will you be angelic?<\/p>\n
When will you take off your clothes?<\/p>\n
When will you look at yourself through the grave?<\/p>\n
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?<\/p>\n
America why are your libraries full of tears?<\/p>\n
America when will you send your eggs to India?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sick of your insane demands.<\/p>\n
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?<\/p>\n
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Your machinery is too much for me.<\/p>\n
You made me want to be a saint.<\/p>\n
There must be some other way to settle this argument.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll come back it\u2019s sinister.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m trying to come to the point.<\/p>\n
I refuse to give up my obsession.<\/p>\n
America stop pushing I know what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n
America the plum blossoms are falling.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder.<\/p>\n
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.<\/p>\n
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I\u2019m not sorry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.<\/p>\n
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
My mind is made up there\u2019s going to be trouble.<\/p>\n
You should have seen me reading Marx.<\/p>\n
My psychoanalyst thinks I\u2019m perfectly right.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t say the Lord\u2019s Prayer.<\/p>\n
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.<\/p>\n
America I still haven\u2019t told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m addressing you.<\/p>\n
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m obsessed by Time Magazine.<\/p>\n
I read it every week.<\/p>\n
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody\u2019s serious but me.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It occurs to me that I am America.<\/p>\n
I am talking to myself again.<\/p>\n
Asia is rising against me.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t got a chinaman\u2019s chance.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d better consider my national resources.<\/p>\n
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that jetplanes 1400 miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions.<\/p>\n
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.<\/p>\n
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.<\/p>\n
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I\u2019m a Catholic.<\/p>\n
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?<\/p>\n
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they\u2019re all different sexes.<\/p>\n
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe<\/p>\n
America free Tom Mooney<\/p>\n
America save the Spanish Loyalists<\/p>\n
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die<\/p>\n
America I am the Scottsboro boys.<\/p>\n
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor the Silk-strikers\u2019 Ewig-Weibliche made me cry I once saw the Yiddish orator Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy.<\/p>\n
America you don\u2019t really want to go to war.<\/p>\n
America its them bad Russians.<\/p>\n
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia\u2019s power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages.<\/p>\n
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red\u00a0Reader\u2019s Digest.\u00a0Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.<\/p>\n
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
America this is quite serious.<\/p>\n
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
America is this correct?<\/p>\n
I\u2019d better get right down to the job.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true I don\u2019t want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I\u2019m nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.<\/p>\n
America I\u2019m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Berkeley, January 17, 1956<\/p>\n
Allen Ginsberg, \u201cAmerica\u201d from\u00a0Collected Poems, 1947-1980.\u00a0Copyright \u00a9 1984 by Allen Ginsberg. Used with the permission of HarperCollins Publishers.<\/p>\n
America<\/p>\n
BY\u00a0TONY HOAGLAND<\/p>\n
Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison<\/p>\n
Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Where you can\u2019t tell the show from the commercials,<\/p>\n
And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He says that even when he\u2019s driving to the mall in his Isuzu<\/p>\n
Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels<\/p>\n
Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of the thick satin quilt of America<\/p>\n
And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,<\/p>\n
And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was not blood but money<\/p>\n
That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spilling from his wounds, and\u2014this is the weird part\u2014,<\/p>\n
He gasped \u201cThank god\u2014those Ben Franklins were\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Clogging up my heart\u2014<\/p>\n
And so I perish happily,<\/p>\n
Freed from that which kept me from my liberty\u201d\u2014<\/p>\n
Which was when I knew it was a dream, since my dad\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Would never speak in rhymed couplets,<\/p>\n
And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes<\/p>\n
And I think, \u201cI am asleep in America too,<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t know how to wake myself either,\u201d<\/p>\n
And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:<\/p>\n
\u201cI was listening to the cries of the past,<\/p>\n
When I should have been listening to the cries of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable<\/p>\n
Or what kind of nightmare it might be<\/p>\n
When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you<\/p>\n
And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river<\/p>\n
Even while others are drowning underneath you<\/p>\n
And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters<\/p>\n
And yet it seems to be your own hand<\/p>\n
Which turns the volume higher?<\/p>\n
JACKLIGHT <\/p>\n
BY LOUISE\u00a0ERDRICH<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The same Chippewa word is used both for flirting and hunting game, while another Chippewa word connotes both using force in intercourse and also killing a bear with one\u2019s hands.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
-R.W. Dunning\u00a0(1959) Social and Economic Change Among the Northern Ojibwa<\/p>\n
We have come to the edge of the woods,<\/p>\n
out of brown grass where we slept, unseen,<\/p>\n
out of knotted twigs, out of leaves creaked shut,<\/p>\n
out of hiding.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
At first the light wavered, glancing over us.<\/p>\n
Then it clenched to a fist of light that pointed,<\/p>\n
searched out, divided us.<\/p>\n
Each took the beams like direct blows the heart answers.<\/p>\n
Each of us moved forward alone.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We have come to the edge of the woods,<\/p>\n
drawn out of ourselves by this night sun,<\/p>\n
this battery of polarized acids,<\/p>\n
that outshines the moon.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We smell them behind it<\/p>\n
but they are faceless, invisible.<\/p>\n
We smell the raw steel of their gun barrels,<\/p>\n
mink oil on leather, their tongues of sour barley.<\/p>\n
We smell their mothers buried chin-deep in wet dirt.<\/p>\n
We smell their fathers with scoured knuckles,<\/p>\n
teeth cracked from hot marrow.<\/p>\n
We smell their sisters of crushed dogwood, bruised apples,<\/p>\n
of fractured cups and concussions of burnt hooks.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We smell their breath steaming lightly behind the jacklight.<\/p>\n
We smell the itch underneath the caked guts on their clothes.<\/p>\n
We smell their minds like silver hammers<\/p>\n
cocked back, held in readiness<\/p>\n
for the first of us to step into the open.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We have come to the edge of the woods,<\/p>\n
out of brown grass where we slept, unseen,<\/p>\n
out of leaves creaked shut, out of our hiding.<\/p>\n
We have come here too long.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is their turn now,<\/p>\n
their turn to follow us. Listen,<\/p>\n
they put down their equipment.<\/p>\n
It is useless in the tall brush.<\/p>\n
And now they take the first steps, not knowing<\/p>\n
how deep the woods are and lightless.<\/p>\n
How deep the woods are.<\/p>\n
An American Sunrise<\/p>\n
Joy Harjo\u00a0– 1951-<\/p>\n
We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves. We
Were surfacing the edge of our ancestors\u2019 fights, and ready to Strike.
It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were Straight.
Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget. We
Made plans to be professional\u2014and did. And some of us could Sing
When we drove to the edge of the mountains, with a drum. We
Made sense of our beautiful crazed lives under the starry stars. Sin
Was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang. We
Were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them: Thin
Chance. We knew we were all related in this story, a little Gin
Will clarify the dark, and make us all feel like dancing. We
Had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz
I argued with the music as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,<\/p>\n
Forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We.<\/p>\n
Let America Be America Again<\/p>\n
Langston Hughes\u00a0– 1902-1967<\/p>\n
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.<\/p>\n
(America never was America to me.)<\/p>\n
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed\u2014
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.<\/p>\n
(It never was America to me.)<\/p>\n
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.<\/p>\n
(There\u2019s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this \u201chomeland of the free.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?<\/p>\n
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery\u2019s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek\u2014
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.<\/p>\n
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!g
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one\u2019s own greed!<\/p>\n
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean\u2014
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today\u2014O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.<\/p>\n
Yet I\u2019m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That\u2019s made America the land it has become.
O, I\u2019m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home\u2014
For I\u2019m the one who left dark Ireland\u2019s shore,
And Poland\u2019s plain, and England\u2019s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa\u2019s strand I came
To build a \u201chomeland of the free.\u201d<\/p>\n
The free?<\/p>\n
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we\u2019ve dreamed
And all the songs we\u2019ve sung
And all the hopes we\u2019ve held
And all the flags we\u2019ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay\u2014
Except the dream that\u2019s almost dead today.<\/p>\n
O, let America be America again\u2014
The land that never has been yet\u2014
And yet must be\u2014the land where\u00a0every\u00a0man is free.
The land that\u2019s mine\u2014the poor man\u2019s, Indian\u2019s, Negro\u2019s, ME\u2014
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.<\/p>\n
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose\u2014
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people\u2019s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!<\/p>\n
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath\u2014
America will be!<\/p>\n
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain\u2014
All, all the stretch of these great green states\u2014
And make America again!<\/p>\n
America<\/p>\n
BY\u00a0CLAUDE MCKAY<\/p>\n
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,<\/p>\n
And sinks into my throat her tiger\u2019s tooth,<\/p>\n
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess<\/p>\n
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.<\/p>\n
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,<\/p>\n
Giving me strength erect against her hate,<\/p>\n
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.<\/p>\n
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,<\/p>\n
I stand within her walls with not a shred<\/p>\n
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.<\/p>\n
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,<\/p>\n
And see her might and granite wonders there,<\/p>\n
Beneath the touch of Time\u2019s unerring hand,<\/p>\n
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.<\/p>\n
Claude McKay, “America” from\u00a0Liberator\u00a0(December 1921). Courtesy of the Literary Representative for the Works of Claude McKay, Schombourg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tildeen Foundations.<\/p>\n
In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes<\/p>\n
BY\u00a0EDUARDO C. CORRAL<\/p>\n
in a Tex-Mex restaurant. His co-workers,<\/p>\n
unable to utter his name, renamed him Jalape\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
If I ask for a goldfish, he spits a glob of phlegm<\/p>\n
into a jar of water. The silver letters<\/p>\n
on his black belt spell\u00a0Sangr\u00f3n. Once, borracho, nuisance, drunk<\/p>\n
at dinner, he said: Jesus wasn\u2019t a snowman.<\/p>\n
Arriba Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed Durango-state in Northern Mexico<\/p>\n
into a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States.<\/p>\n
Frijolero. Greaser. In Tucson he branded Beaner<\/p>\n
cattle. He slept in a stable. The horse blankets<\/p>\n
oddly fragrant: wood smoke, lilac. He\u2019s an illegal.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m an Illegal-American. Once, in a grove<\/p>\n
of saguaro, at dusk, I slept next to him. I woke<\/p>\n
with his thumb in my mouth. \u00bfNo qu\u00e9 no \u00a0It usually is used when something, after trying it a lot, doesn\u00b4t works and finally, suddenly, works. Another use of this expression, the most common, is when someone says no to something and finally does it.<\/p>\n
tronabas, pistolita? He learned English<\/p>\n
by listening to the radio. The first four words<\/p>\n
he memorized: In God We Trust. The fifth:<\/p>\n
Percolate. Again and again I borrow his clothes.<\/p>\n
He calls me Scarecrow. In Oregon he picked apples.<\/p>\n
Braeburn. Jonagold. Cameo. Nightly,<\/p>\n
to entertain his cuates, around a campfire, buddy, pal<\/p>\n
he strummed a guitarra, sang corridos. Arriba arriba-up, above<\/p>\n
The\u00a0corrido\u00a0is a popular narrative song and poetry form, a ballad, of Mexico. The songs are often about oppression, history, daily life for peasants, and other socially important information.<\/p>\n
Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed into Durango-state in Northern Mexico<\/p>\n
a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States. Orizaba\u2014City in Veracruz.<\/p>\n
Greaser. Beaner. Once, borracho, at breakfast,<\/p>\n
he said: The heart can only be broken<\/p>\n
once, like a window. \u00a1No mames! His favorite \u201cNo way!\u201d, \u201cYou\u2019re kidding me!\u201d<\/p>\n
belt buckle: an \u00e1guila perched on a nopal. eagle; \u00a0prickly pear=nopal<\/p>\n
If he laughs out loud, his hands tremble.<\/p>\n
Bugs Bunny wants to deport him. C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez<\/p>\n
wants to deport him. When I walk through<\/p>\n
the desert, I wear his shirt. The gaze of the moon<\/p>\n
stitches the buttons of his shirt to my skin.<\/p>\n
The snake hisses. The snake is torn.<\/p>\n
\u201cCITIZENSHIP\u201d BY\u00a0JAVIER ZAMORA<\/p>\n
it was clear they were hungry
with their carts empty the clothes inside their empty hands<\/p>\n
they were hungry because their hands
were empty their hands in trashcans<\/p>\n
the trashcans on the street
the asphalt street on the red dirt the dirt taxpayers pay for<\/p>\n
up to that invisible line visible thick white paint
visible booths visible with the fence starting from the booths<\/p>\n
booth road booth road booth road office building then the fence
fence fence fence<\/p>\n
it started from a corner with an iron pole
always an iron pole at the beginning<\/p>\n
those men those women could walk between booths
say hi to white or brown officers no problem<\/p>\n
the problem I think were carts belts jackets
we didn\u2019t have any<\/p>\n
or maybe not\u00a0the\u00a0problem
our skin sunburned all of us spoke Spanish<\/p>\n
we didn\u2019t know how they had ended up that way
on\u00a0that\u00a0side<\/p>\n
we didn\u2019t know how we had ended up here
we didn\u2019t know but we understood why they walk<\/p>\n
the opposite direction to buy food on this side
this side we all know is hunger<\/p>\n
For a New Citizen of These United States<\/p>\n
By Li Young Lee<\/p>\n
Forgive me for thinking I saw<\/p>\n
the irregular postage stamp of death;<\/p>\n
a black moth the size of my left<\/p>\n
thumbnail is all I\u2019ve trapped in the damask.<\/p>\n
There is no need for alarm. \u00a0And<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
there is no need for sadness, if<\/p>\n
the rain at the window now reminds you<\/p>\n
of nothing; not even of that<\/p>\n
parlor, long like a nave, where cloud-shadow,<\/p>\n
wing-shadow, where father-shadow<\/p>\n
continually confused the light. \u00a0In flight,<\/p>\n
leaf-throng and, later, soldiers and<\/p>\n
flags deepened those windows to submarine.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But you don\u2019t remember, I know,<\/p>\n
so I won\u2019t mention that house where Chung hid,<\/p>\n
Lin wizened, you languished, and Ming\u2013<\/p>\n
Ming hush-hushed us with small song. \u00a0And since you<\/p>\n
don\u2019t recall the missionary<\/p>\n
bells chiming the hour, or those words whose sounds<\/p>\n
alone exhaust the heart\u2014garden,<\/p>\n
heaven, amen\u2014I\u2019ll mention none of it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
After all, it was just our life,<\/p>\n
merely years in a book of years. \u00a0It was<\/p>\n
1960, and we stood with<\/p>\n
the other families on a crowded<\/p>\n
railroad platform. \u00a0The trains came, then<\/p>\n
the rains, and then we got separated.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And in the interval between<\/p>\n
familiar faces, events occurred, which<\/p>\n
one of us faithfully pencilled<\/p>\n
in a day-book bound by a rubber band.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But birds, as you say, fly forward.<\/p>\n
So I won\u2019t show you letters and the shawl<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve so meaninglessly preserved.<\/p>\n
And I won\u2019t hum along, if you don\u2019t, when<\/p>\n
our mothers sing Nights in Shanghai.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t, each Spring, each time I smell lilac,<\/p>\n
recall my mother, patiently<\/p>\n
stitching money inside my coat lining,<\/p>\n
if you don\u2019t remember your mother<\/p>\n
preparing for your own escape.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
After all, it was only our<\/p>\n
life, our life and its forgetting.<\/p>\n
WE ARE AMERICANS NOW, WE LIVE IN THE TUNDRA\u201d BY\u00a0MARILYN CHIN<\/p>\n
Today in hazy San Francisco, I face seaward
Toward China, a giant begonia\u2014<\/p>\n
Pink, fragrant, bitten
By verdigris and insects. I sing her<\/p>\n
A blues song; even a Chinese girl gets the blues,
Her reticence is black and blue.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s sing about the extinct
Bengal tigers, about giant Pandas\u2014<\/p>\n
\u201cLing Ling loves Xing Xing\u2026yet,
We will not mate. We are<\/p>\n
Not impotent, we are important.
We blame the environment, we blame the zoo!\u201d<\/p>\n
What shall we plant for the future?
Bamboo, sassafras, coconut palms? No!<\/p>\n
Legumes, wheat, maize, old swine
To milk the new.<\/p>\n
We are Americans now, we live in the tundra
Of the logical, a sea of cities, a wood of cars.<\/p>\n
Farewell my ancestors:
Hirsute Taoists, failed scholars, farewell<\/p>\n
My wetnurse who feared and loathed the Catholics,
Who called out<\/p>\n
Now that half-men have occupied Canton
Hide your daughters, lock your doors!<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
America BY\u00a0WALT WHITMAN Centre of equal daughters, equal sons, All, all alike endear\u2019d, grown, ungrown, young or old, Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love, A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, Chair\u2019d in the adamant of Time. America BY\u00a0ALLEN GINSBERG America I\u2019ve given you all and now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-96328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}