How I Discovered Poetry's Influence

This is about how a poet's history is influenced by her color of skin.

In my First Year Seminar class, we look in-depth about racism throughout the years starting in 1619 with the beginning of the Slave Trade. While studying this topic, I remembered a poem that I read in my AP Lit class my senior year. The poem was titled How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson. Marilyn Nelson was an African American born into a military family around the Second World War. Because of this, she moved around a lot as a child who started writing poetry in elementary school. She soon became an accomplished poet, children’s verse author, and translator. Though this poem at first seems to convey a positive message through its title and opening lines, some might consider the poem to have a negative connation since it singles out one student, the poet,.

How I Discovered Poetry is in first person which alludes to the fact this poem is a part of Nelson's life as a child around the 1950's where desegregation started to take place. The poem hints at this when she states "the all except for me white class" meaning that she is the only black child in the class. She is forced to read a poem that refers to slavery and the lives of African Americans during the Reconstruction Era when it says "opened my mouth to banjo playing darkies, pickaninnies, disses and dats".

It is interesting to see how race could make a child's first experience to something seem like a bad thing. In her experience, Nelson relates that at first poetry took her on a journey but soon that journey became her history of her ancestry having hardships. This not only affects her but also all of those in the class with her.

Link to the poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46559/how-i-discovered-poetry