Guest Poet Tamara Stratford
South
The lazy, laughing South
With blood on its mouth
The sunny-faced South,
Beast-strong
idiot-brained.
The child-minded South
Scratching in the dead fire's ashes
For a Negro's bones
Cotton and the moon,
Warmth, earth, warmth,
The sky, the sun, the stars
The magnolia-scented South.
Beautiful, like a woman,
Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,
Passionate, cruel,
Honey-lipped, syphilitic -
That is the South.
And I, who am black, would love her
But she turns her back upon me.
So now I seek the North -
The cold-faced North,
For she, they say,
Is a kinder mistress,
And in her house my children
May escape the spell of the South
February, 2002
Tamara Stratford's questions:
1) Can you tell me what this poem means?
2) Is this poem referring to a black and a white woman?
3) Does this poem reflect anything about the days of racial discrimmination? ( Slave master, plantation, etc.)
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