3-2-1 Response-Martha Collins

One of the poets at the “Fall for the Book” event I attended was Martha Collins. She was an older White woman who has been writing for years. She’s been praised for her wit, political, creative and personal work. She did a couple of readings from her new book “Bluefront” which is named after a restaurant that her father worked at when he was 5. Collins wrote a book length poem about her father witnessing a lynching of a Black man accused of rape and murder of a White woman. She talks about the significance of her being a White woman poet in today’s society and how it connects through her poetry. She really showed her connections and they were clear and precise. She showed us how to make clear connections that were easy for others to follow and understand how they were connected.

In her poetry she makes really good connections from beginning to end. She begins speaking about where her father lived when he was younger. He lived in Cairo, Illinois next to Missouri and Kentucky, the two most prominent slave states in 1901. He lived in a town of 10,000 people and those 10,000 people all came out to witness the lynching. The Black man was hung, shot and then burned. She describes how she was appalled at her father being a witness to this when he was only 5, but he also had a job when he was 5 so he was a witness to many things. Collins goes on to talk about how everyone would come out to see him make “change” by selling fruit and ushering people into the store. She spoke with such passion and emotion which made her voice seem authentic and made me believe in what she was saying. I could really take some speech tips from her. She used metaphors like “flowing rivers meeting with blue and brown” to show the unity yet separation of people. She talks about how her father saw men in white sheets who were the KKK and how there were many injustices dealing with crime. Collins explained through her work how rape/murder cases were premeditated and blamed on Black men simply because they could do it.

Her next section talked about when her father was 17. Her transition into the new subject was smooth and if she was actually speaking as she wrote it. Her father was still working at the convenience store and he opened and closed the store every day. She showed his maturity through metaphors of growth and she talked about trees. She said that the trees were innocent victims as was the man being lynched. They did nothing. He did nothing. She conveyed the passion of the lynching scene using a lot of imagery. She ends saying how her father was against slavery and that before he died he asked if she could help to make change; help him make some “change”.

I love how she ended with a paradox of the beginning when he was working outside of the convenience store making “change”. It was clever and reminded me of my own writing style. Something I feel as though could’ve been furthered in explaining was the actual significance of being a White woman poet in today’s society. She says she talks about it in one of her books, but she doesn’t elaborate on it too much. Also, I would’ve liked for her to talk more about her father’s character as a person in the Jim Crow South back then. It would’ve been more interesting to know some inside thoughts of her father while he was going through everything. One question I do have for Collins is if she felt the same way as her father about slavery and if this is her way of helping to make “change”. Overall I enjoyed her segment.