Free verse № 135454
Mixed Quartet
They were variously toned,
but harmoniously united.
They broadcast a whole,
surpassing parts summed.
Soprano: orientally quick, precise.
Alto: whitely sharp, analytical.
Tenor: latinly soulish, devoted.
Bass: Africanly smooth, limber.
But they were all the same race,
geneticists say.
37 comments
Merry Holidays!
Happy 2006!
And yes, we are all of the same race. whether purple, green or orange.
This should give you a good preview:
http://poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?i
But what I am trying to say is this. we are all the same..... irrespective of who we are. We are not cows, dogs, cats,..........etc. We are all humanbeings, and what happens to the so one will happen to the other. For you are dust and unto dust you shall return.
Its Christmas. We are one.... and celebrate on common event that has changed our world forever. Lets not throw away our coats of differences, but merge it to sing in unison like your mixed Quartet......Lets sing Joy to the world............ for its Christmas. Merry Christmas one and all.
to Dovina: I wouldn't recommend writing poems about racial stereotypes, especially since, racially speaking, you're the least experienced poemranker user since SupremeDreamer vanished into a cloud of his own guff.
Sorry, but when you put out such tempting bait you're gonna get a bite.:)
Even if 99.9% of DNA is the same in all humans, the effect of
slc24a5 seems great. As the article says, new strength for the arguement that race actually exists and is a worthy topic for debate is implied by this study. "For better or worse, the finding's most immediate impact may be an escalating debate about the meaning of race."
DOVINA: Some random comment of zodiac's on race.
ZODIAC: You are kind of clueless, aren't you?
(2) Geneticists say nothing about the cultural or other differences between races, which seem to be the basis for the rest of your poem. Unless you're going to argue that latinos are genetically "soulish".
(3) Despite all that, you've still managed to be racist. The whites are the "analytical" ones? Please get over yourself.
DOVINA: Some random denial.
ZODIAC: Your metaphor has Asians "quick" and "precise", whites "sharp" and "analytical", latins "soulish" and "devoted" - and blacks "smooth" and "limber"??!? Tell me, were you ever planning on giving blacks mental or psychological features, like you gave the other races? Or just physical ones, brutes that they are? What mental features would you give them? (Suggestions: Docile! Brooding! Rhythmical!) Does it bother you that, at best, this poem is a dictionary of outdated racial stereotypes obviously written by someone with little experience of other races and a profound, unacknowledged sense of white superiority?
DOVINA: You've failed to get it. I'm talking about instruments.
ZODIAC: If you say that you're the biggest guffer ever and ought to crawl in a hole and die of shame.
DOVINA: You've failed to get it. I'm talking about instruments. I'm clever.
ZODIAC: ...
I have used stereotypical adjectives in describing the four races in the poem, as you say. That does not mean that other adjectives could not be used, it only means that I was making the nostalgic point that each race contributes differently to the harmony of the âquartet.â Itâs a kind of yuletide bringing together of the races.
Usually, you project my responses with some accuracy, but here, almost everything you ascribe to DOVINA, I would not say.
I still contend, not for argumentâs sake, but for the record, that I am not racist. (Notice my initial comment)
(1a) "But there was, on a structural level,
very, very little difference between them,
geneticists say."
(2) Any adjectives you used would be stereotypical, because they'd still be giving entire races/instruments broad, *typical* qualities. That's what stereotype means.
(3) I know. Merry Christmas.
(4) I thought we'd agreed. You're not racist. Your poems occasionally are. "You've still managed to be racist" is sloppy expression; I'll try to avoid that in the future.
The only one of them who could
Know the meaning of that look
Was the infant. But He did not speak.
- Joseph Brodsky, trans. Seamus Heaney
Regarding the poem: I simply don't think mush is the solution to America's - or the world's - race problems. For one, it's not all that nostalgic, unless you mean it nostalgically hearkens back to when white people had simpler, more "colorful" ideas of what other races are all about. For two, Michael Jackson and a bunch of white guys sing a song about how everyone's together, black, white and yellow, and suddenly racism, continuing oppression, denied opportunities and such just DISAPPEAR? No, but a bunch of white people smile and tap their toes and go on about their business with little heartglows of undeserved righteousness. Then Hurricane Katrina obliterates a black ghetto of shoddily-constructed slum houses and everybody's like, How'd all our black people end up in one place? And such a desperate, dangerous, hellish place, at that?
Yes, you would think racial harmony has been achieved to a greater extent. You live in Southern California, the most segregated place in America. Seriously.
I wish you would try to get these kinds of things straight before using them as arguments.
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