On Feb. 23, lovers of poetry and politics met in Summerton’s Cultural Arts Center to enjoy a reading from Poet Laureate of the U.S. Tracy K. Smith and a speech from Congressman Jim Clyburn.
After Scott’s Branch High School’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps members led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance, the conversation began with a brief welcome from U.S. Sen. Devin Brown. Brown gave a short history of the rural South’s role in the Civil Rights Movement by discussing Summerton’s participation in desegregation through the influential “Brown v. Board of Education” court case, and he reminded attendees of the many famous poets and writers who have visited the state, Smith included.
Clyburn then (after remarks from Robert China Jr. and Director of the University of South Carolina Center of Civil Rights Bobby Donaldson) delivered his presentation focused on the creation of Black History Month.
Negro History Week, which was founded by Carter G. Woodson in 1926, was the original kickstarter for the nationally-recognized Black History Month, according to Clyburn. The week was originally chosen to coincide with the birthdays of former President of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln and social reformer and writer Frederick Douglass.
“I often hear people ask why Black History Month is celebrated in February, the shortest month of the year,” Clyburn said. “What many people don’t know is that the month of February, or rather, a week in February was picked by Carter Woodson for a specific purpose.”
While explaining the relevance of the month of February to African American heritage, Clyburn set the tone for the next speaker: Smith.
Smith, a Harvard graduate and recipient of numerous literary awards, chose to focus her tour on rural areas in order to gain a new perspective and have different types of conversations that aren’t always possible when presenting for extremely large groups.
“As a writer, most of my public life and work are in large cities and urban areas,” Smith said. “These smaller, more intimate appearances, I think, allow me to get a fresh or different take on a situation and learn more about other people.”
Smith delivered her presentation in a conversation style by asking questions and pausing to tell stories and talk with the audience members. Smith read several of her poems, including one of her most famous poems, “Unrest in Baton Rouge.”
Smith said that this poem, based off of a photo taken at a 2016 protest in Baton Rouge, LA. that depicts a young African American woman standing against two heavily-armored police officers, was written during a radio interview.
These types of political poetry, according to Smith, force readers to critique societal norms while also being introspective about their own behavior within these norms.
“Political poems force you to acknowledge that you’re part of the problem, too, in some way,” Smith said.
While answering several questions between readings of her poems, Smith shared how she became interested in poetry as a college student. She said that, while attending Harvard, she was a member of the Dark Room Collective, a group for African American writers, which allowed her to meet various established writers and explore her own creativity.
Before concluding her reading, Smith shared several different poems with unique compositions. She said that she enjoys manipulating a poem’s form by drawing from historical or literary documents by looking at them in a different way.
In some of these poems, Smith chose and rearranged certain lines from letters of petition written by war veterans, and in others, she chose lines from a document to portray another person’s point of view who wasn’t present in the original text. According to Smith, these types of poems challenge her because, when writing them, she tries to stay true to the meaning of the original document while bringing in a new perspective.
Before ending her presentation, Smith held a question-and-answer discussion, during which she explained what poetry meant to her and how it helps her make sense of the world around her.
“Poetry finds a language – one that’s powerful and capable of speaking to all people,” Smith said. “Poetry isn’t satisfied with the first answer or the easy answer. The complexity of it urges me to make sense of honesty and unsettles what I think I’m certain of.”
