Ross Gay
It's the shivering. When rage grows
hot as an army of red ants and forces
the mind to quiet the body, the quakes
emerge, sometimes just the knees,
but, at worst, through the hips, chest, neck
until, like a virus, slipping inside the lungs
and pulse, every ounce of strength tapped
to squeeze words from my taut lips,
his eyes scanning my car's insides, my eyes,
my license, and as I answer questions
3, 4, 5 times, my jaw tight as a vice,
his hand massaging the gun butt, I
imagine things I don't want to
and inside beg this to end
before the shiver catches my
hands, and he sees,
and something happens.
This appeared in my email through one of many poetry list serves I receive daily. It's not a poem that would typically grab my attention - there are no sweeping nature images or contemplations about living in the moment. But this one dug under my skin and stayed there.
The word choices and structure are perfect - the violent language in the narrator's description of his body's reaction, how this entire thing is one choppy sentence. You can feel the rush of anger, rage, and underlying fear. The poet took one second of one occurrence and enabled us to feel it the way he has. Amazing how great poetry can do that seemingly so easily.
There is a context for this poem that I might be oblivious to if a picture of the poet had not accompanied the poem. The poet is a black man. And I've been there so I know that Short Hills, NJ is an incredibly affluent NYC suburb. So yeah sometimes poetry is more, much more, than nature images and living in the moment contemplations. Sometimes it's a reminder that while I may be musing about how to be "happy" in my privileged life, another person's life may depend on properly masking his justified anger at an unjust world.
This grabbed me right from the beginning. So visceral. Good to know the context to. And good to be called outside our own experience, as you mentioned.
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