Poetry Collection

The James A. Emanuel Project’s Poetry Collection contains eighty-eight items that make up forty-six poems published between 1945 (“Dark Soldier”) and 2008 (“"Obama’s Acceptance Speech”). Of these poems, there are fourteen draft poems and eight annotated poems. For comparative purposes, there are eleven poems that include drafts or annotations as well as a final copy. The drafts provide readers with access to Emanuel’s writing process, making more visible the nuances of his word choice, line structure, and titles. Also, in his drafts, readers can view Emanuel’s system of documentation in which he notes the place, date, and time of composition. Emanuel’s annotations reveal his attention to detail and his concern for clarity, purpose, and memory as a poet.

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"Them old slaves ain't non e of me," you'd shrug ; but if you , musing , see them waking , are th ere among those whipped for being slow some lovers? and later are they singing vows across the corn? and do they make the cotton ring within its boll if by long design their fingers touch? and does the cane go sweeter to a boil for having juiced their tongues? · No matter. Atlanta, Philadelphia, L.A. say you lose before you play; you and half a million Larries, Garies (pick up your junk and go . Computers hum a while on rime , their way of humanizing what they say - after private print-outs read "they are expendable," they spell it slow, especially for you: you are obsolete as were your fathers and theirs before them back to the one who held the vomit tight against his teeth) . 1978 1980
leaves babysitter you without a single "nickel bag ," with prison afternoons to dribble , pass and shoot , a maybe-murderer still dreaming of a "little bit of land" down South, no trouble. How much do you know of trouble? Your spit-and-polish father, the cop-yes, cop - who left when you were 1 to climb his own stark road of rocks and glass, knew a generation more of it, had hands not so unlike his father's greatgrandfather's toughened in the sun, blackened down long rows of cotton, cane and corn: slavechild old enough to see the gun, to feel the whip, to take into his nose and throat and swamp of skin the salt of threat , of kill, of death on death. "Them old days ain't shit to me," you'd say, remembering perhaps the days your father tiptoed back to wake you, take you fishing on the Jersey shore, his gun and holster shining from a basket. So you, Patricia, radiant from L.A.'s "pregnant school," dandling happy chance you took, plan being specia l? Not wife of Theedie, not daughter of the Houston whiskey smells, not even independent welfare queen, but Breaker of the Cycle, little Taneshia one day pointing "There go my mommy," graduating. You gamble on love to break you out, long heritage of dungeon nights on pitted floor where lovetalk dulled the nightmare call of Brutalmouth with stick in hand at dawn.
For Young Blacks, the Lost Generation (Newsweek, 8/14/78) You, Larry, who almost threw the Atlanta bottle at your long-gone father, remember Gambia? the blue-eyed toubob there who threw the furtive stone that bloody bathed your father's far forgotten kin, that wordless prisoner whose fevered flesh was all the slaver's skill could chain, whose will was vomit held against his teeth through death on death across the sea until the savage shore? Rainsoaked now, from walking long to find the job that wasn't there , you'd say "That old-time stuffs so long ago it don't mean shit to me" ; but, said beneath your breath at least, it says your father stroked your brow at times upon his knee, where bone to bone like drumbeats through the trees some message went that held its way across the stone-and-bottle path the toubob centuries have thrown for Black feet: yours, your father's, and your unremembered kin's. You, Gary, writing your Rosetta from a Philadelphia jail, "responsible for what I did," you say, what did you do? lookout for the killer three, peeping through the iron grate while they took turns to stab old Drugstore Cohen hanging from the metal shelf pleading 'Tm your friend." $128 divided by 4 leaves 32, leaves Cohen dead,
"29  Boxes, Trunks, and Darkness (p. 2)   regrouped like grim survivors,  their tight-lipped knots,  uncompromising locks  resolute to not remember,  to clench tomorrow  breathless if need be,  crossing by the sea.  The darkness of it all put him to sleep, exhausted, his dinosaur set free to roam among its kind, unrealised by shape, by sound, in senses plain till claimed again by mortal memories drilled through.  1984 1987 "
"Boxes, Trunks, and Darkness   Sliding in their skin of darkness, tbey gorged his hallway to the door, Heaved their stillness on his sleepy eye, where he sensed them one gigantic creature prehistoric from its head (a heavy box of tools) to tail (long skis protruding past a trunk).  Dinosaur...deathlike fatigue stretched out the word that tracked such lumpish footfalls to his bed, shrank it back into boxes, trunks, lay with it there in tremors, throbbing, a heartbeat faster than a man's, or a slower, massive one enraged.  He slightly turned (a backward motion from the body he had made) and, held by clockbeats near it, hundred drifted back two/million years to rage that clawed the hills apart: conflict too fierce to feel till shouldergripe revived his days among tough boxes, trunks to pack; each choice, if sore (whether grudgingly keep or guiltily junk) itself a wrath, a grief, a changeless pain even when--he rose on one elbow to know it-­ the decimated lot "
"POEM: “White-Belly Justice.” 4 March, 1:55 a.m. Change from: his lie, its odor linking the page of Court Decision.  Flophopping?  INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE Published with The New York Times and the Washington Post Saturday-Sunday, March 3-4, 1979 Page 4   "
"p. 2 retyped 21 Jan. 79, and revised and[/or] contd, 6:05 p.m.—7:09; whole revised somewhat, 8:40 p.m.—9:01  THE BOAT BASIN, YEARS LATER  the ice spread calmly near its heart but turbulently strained to its extremities, in every middle zone still [clutching] trapping arms and legs (portions of metal chairs half visible, reaching through the ice, thrust up or down, depending on the drama [played] that had played).  No face approached me, not a hint, no shudder in the ground; and yet a memory of peopled autumn chairs came by: poolside sponsors doing on their sailboat [crew, crew, bank] tenders when suddenly midwinter came, QUICK as forgotten pain, [they panicked] [ousting] whishing panic on both resting watchers (and their [innocent band] [dripping] shirtsleeve crew, [*change dripping*] [*26 Feb. 79: line by itself*]  some dashing with their chairs into the pool, some wading out--precisely when the water froze.   No movement in the bodies led me on, and over my shoulder, a noontime certainty declared the others would be gone: the woodcutters, the bundled loungers in the sun. I let go of the pool, measured its drift by throwing a small, clean rock dead center.  I set my watch by the nearest public clock, heading home.   "
"Partial fair copy of poem begun 19 Jan. 79, av. Du Maine, Paris, 20.1.79, 10:50 a.m.—11:37; 11:45—12:00; 3:22—4:24 (with changes)   THE BOAT BASIN, YEARS LATER  A January moon, almost, and flat-blue sky from the Obelisk down to the Louvre beckoned me up thin, white steps and past a rigid dog sniffing an icy footprint melting in the sand, past woodcutters bent over in a truck, unmoving, as if to hide behind their planted cross: it said historic trees were cut to guard the public’s ... the missing word had smashed the corner of the sign.   It was in front of me somewhere, the Boat Basin, floating up-- no, I was stepping downward-- [those] more disappearing footprints fitting mine, loosening beneath the sun, stopping. Looking up, I saw them scattered around me, people sitting bent and curved like deep-freeze packages slow thawing in [a] some drafty door propped open, their scarves poked out for breathing, their bones all angles, gloved and padded, positioned as if for a vigil.  Partly guided by their gaze, I kept [the] a chosen path until the Boat Basin widened in my eyes, ten years of sudden changer [dropping] beaming like icicles dropping silently around the border of the pool, breaking fitful gleams across my sinking memory of sailboats out of hand, their gleeful little captains by turns awestruck and then distressed to see their bobbling colors drawn away, drifting to the center of the sea-- and if brought back by stratagems [somewhere buried] of strangers in the crowd, they anchored changed, less ownable for having sailed away alone.  The dead of [winter this [undecipherable] time] winter tightened by brow its changing spirit [undecipherable] warmest at the center of the pool [*put on line alone*] in the bending statue there pouring Sea God potions into the Boat Basin, keeping its heart alive, companionable, [but] while its slowly pulsing ripples, circling outward, stopped suddenly on ice, [recoiling from the frozen scene] recoiling from the frozen scene I inward saw, and outward woke to like a little dream:   "
"Dialogue Between My Fist and My Finger  by J. A. Emanuel ""I' m more powerful than you."" ""You are, but you could not say it,  not think it, without me."" ""What's that?"" ""I said, you are nothing without me."" ""But you're just a finger; I'm a fist!"" ""True, but you are bent over like an old man,  and I am straight as a new soldier."" ""Your similes piss me off!"" ""Your preface to your heavy book could have been omitted."" ""You're an impertinent little bastard.""  ""That is because I am so relevant."" ""I could get along without you, you know."" ""Yes, but you would not look so handsome  or feel so clever."" ""Then you admit I 'm handsome? I'm clever?"" ""Only when you have me along to complement you."" ""Surely you don't think I'm ugly or stupid?"" ""All of you fists are rather ugly, and you are poorly endowed with intelligence."" ""Just the same, we run every country and win every war."" ""I am sorry to have joined you in either achievement."" ""You sound like a 96—pound weakling. Where's your patriotism?"" ""If 1 point to it, will you carry it?"" ""Are you trying to get cute with me?"" I'll knock your block off!"" ""You will have to maim yourself some other day: our body is waking up from his nap."" ""I hope he wants us to knock somebody's block off!"" ""If I were you....""   ""But you ain't me. You're just a finger. So shut up!"" "
"163  Breakaway Haiku  For Racists Remembered:   I  “For White Only” was what they meant, no matter what pie was being sliced.  II  They cursed at children, murdered, cleaned their hands with laws. Strong people fought back.  III  Their greetings mocked us: Rastus, Sambo, Shine--and boy. Men they did not greet.  IV  We said “Sir” sometimes: “Sir Charles,” “Sir Honkie,” and then  the big lie: “the Man”.  1986 1987 "
"FOR ALIX, WHO IS THREE  Foreign country of her eyes  picture-book blue  as lakes she fingered while she read  and taught me simple words  like clé (like key),  chocolate milk breath curled up in smiles  for such a stranger in the room  who animal by animal  and thing by thing  named big on the page  had to be told again  like clé (like key),  her voice half gone to bed...   came back transformed in faces that I knew  or all one changing face in changing years  one or few or many  as pages turned and doors swung wide  row on row on row...  And there again was Alix,  who was three  who in foreign country of her eyes and chocolate smile  gave me the key  the clé  I will throw away  If ever I want  to lock my doors again.  1972      1978 "
"[ca. 1945]  “DARK SOLDIER”  By J. A. Emanuel, 642 Ord Am Co, Mindanao, P.I.  Dark soldier, where were you When evil from the sky First fell upon your countrymen Who could do naught but die?  I know--you, too, were at your post, Your lifeblood ebbed away. You gave your first full measure That famed December day.  Dark solder, was your manhood there At your wounded country’s side? Or, did you di savow your kin, And creep away to hide?  I know, you, too, took up your harms,  Beside the fair-skinned man. You bore with you your mother’s prayers And sailed to the foreign land.  You were maligned, dark soldier, While you were in the fray. The onslaughts of your countrymen Beshamed the American way.  Dark soldier, how did you meet your death By the hand of friend and foe?  What was your prayer as you gave your life For a land that treats you so?  I know your prayer, dark solider:  “America, you take my sons in hand And let them live the way they plan, The way I died for them--a man.”  [*For original see Subject File, Military service.]  "
"6 Nov. 2008 7:07 p.m.  Obama’s Acceptance Speech  No need to call him what he is: President of the USA. No need to tell him what that means:  cleanup man, strong hitter, driving them in, nobody knowing the scars. Look, man. Can we climb out of this pit? Yes, we can. We know all of you say (this river of words, sunlit by your smile) All of you say is true, is sometimes sad: (yet this waterfall leap[ing]s, [confirming] [retelling] [*24.04.2010*] confirming [*changed 24 Aug. 10] its sources  "
MY FIRST NOVEL, PAGE ONE 
by J. A. Emanuel

SHOWDOWN IN TURKEYTOWN, I named it, 
absurd, cornmealish as the subtitle,
"Americana Digged Out"; 
wrote faster, stationed experts on the firing-line 
I had imagined on seeing them real on TV, 
tough-minded on armament every one at the table, 
potbellied, bemedalled, straight-backed for the conference, 
trading gun-barrel reflections.

Up against Leatherstocking, 
would they shine 
in a turkey-shoot?  

Tumbled by my eye, they landed on page one, 
on Natty Bumppo's prairie turf, 
the parchment target raised high by an old Indian, 
their signal to fire inaudible in the fusillade. 
The target tender spaced his tribal intonation well: 
"No. more. room in. bull's. eye."

Musketry and smoke and expertise 
powwowed for one second, 
joined by stealthy movements from the trees; 
then bullets, arrows, spears, 
knives, darts, a tomahawk or two,  
slingshot pebbles, spitballs--
all thukked or fit or splut 
with deadeye certainty.

Everything in range, fair game, 
gave up its target-tidbit, 
pierced and cut and chopped end knobbed, 
raw to the fact that experts had arrived.

Nothing fleshed out, in Turkeytown, 
after page one.
183

[*”At Bay”: Using the images common to a confrontation between police and a lawbreaker, this poem examines the feelings of the “underdog”.*]

At Bay

My sirens
Ain’t never stopped screamin’
My searhlights
Ain’t got to no sky
My pistol
Ain’t hung up for dreamin’
My tear gas
Ain’t made nobody cry.

Come on, cops.
Ain’t but one way
To live and to die.
1966
1968

183

[*I Touched the Hand of a Solider Dead: an anti-war poem set in the Philippine Islands. The sampaguita is the national flower there.*]

I touched the hand of a solider dead
On Bukidnon hill.
I touched a cold and lonely hand. [*This line reflects my seeing (I thought) a human hand in the water near Manila Bay as the troopship I had been on for 36 days, the General Anderson, neared its destination*]
It was quite still.

It looked not like an enemy,
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For Young Blacks, the Lost Generation (Newsweek, 8/14/78) (3 of 3)

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