Sam’s Blog

The ghost of Amadou Diallo

returns to the stoop

where the fluorescents backlit

his lingering body,

where he heard shouts

from the street and turned,

where he pulled his wallet

to show identification,

to show he meant no one harm,

where plainclothes officers

unloaded their service revolvers

into his sternum, both shoulders,

his scapula, his clavicle, his trachea,

into his deltoids, his femur,

his pelvis, his hip,

three of his ribs,

into his patella, his quadriceps, 

his diaphragm, his skull, his heart.

The ghost of Amadou Diallo 

returns to the stoop

and traces his ghost fingers

across the pockmarks in the molding

made by the bullets that missed,

and he is awed by the fact

of the stoop still being a stoop.

The ghost of Amadou Diallo

is not a vain ghost—

no, he is a good soul, a believer.

He is scared that God,

who was not there to greet him,

had no plan for him,

or had a plan and forgot.

The ghost of Amadou Diallo

expected transformation

for himself, and received none,

or transformation for the world,

and received none.

So finally he returned to the stoop,

expecting that somehow peonies

would spring from the scarred wood,

or that mushrooms would cluster

where his blood pooled.

The ghost of Amadou Diallo

drags his ghost-fingers

across the trim, along twenty-two 

depressions, the shots that missed,

wounds the superintendent

hasn’t yet filled in with putty. 

In “American Supernatural”, Ross White talks about the ghost of Amadou Diallo and how he revisits where he died. For context, Amadou Diallo was a 23-year-old student in New York City who was killed by New York City police officers on his apartment stoop in 1999. They shot at him 41 times, hitting him 19 times. Diallo was reaching for his wallet when he got shot. The police officers who shot him were charged with second degree murder and reckless endangerment but were acquitted and they all remained with the NYPD.

One thing I thought was interesting about this poem specifically was that it seemingly takes place just a little bit after the murder, and how it takes place from the perspective of Amadou Diallo. I think this helps to establish the tone as it is more reflective than anything else. The tone is also somberful, rather than angry, because it is reflective rather than in the moment of the murder. It has the same effect as if he made the poem in the moment, as it makes the readers reflect on the topic and it makes the readers upset about the topic of black people getting killed by cops. 

One quote that stood out to me was when White talked about how Diallo responded in the moment, “where he pulled his wallet to show identification, to show he meant no one harm,”. I think this quote really made me question the intent of the police officers because he was trying to show his identification rather than pull out a weapon. The police officers might have interpreted it as him pulling out a weapon rather than his wallet, but he was just trying to pull out his identification to show that he meant no harm and that he had done nothing wrong, but he got killed anyway. Another technique that stood out to me was when White used asyndeton to list everywhere Diallo got shot, “into his sternum, both shoulders, his scapula, his clavicle, his trachea, into his deltoids, his femur, his pelvis, his hip, three of his ribs, into his patella, his quadriceps, his diaphragm, his skull, his heart.” I think this quote really shows how he got shot many times and how brutal it was. This really helps also make the audience question the true intent of the police officers and whether it was justified.  

I also really liked the ending of this poem. I liked the quote where White described how Diallo was scared that God “had no plan for him, or had a plan and forgot.” This meant to me that he was questioning whether this act was in God’s plan. White is a Christian, so to me, he was questioning whether God intended for this to happen or whether it was just humans committing unreasonable sin. This quote stood out to me because it showed that the choice that the officers made was one of sin, as White believed it was not intended by God. In addition, the last couple lines stood out to me as well. I liked the way he described the “twenty two depressions” that hadn’t “yet filled in with putty”. I liked this quote because it represents the shots that missed, as there were twenty two shots that missed, as nineteen shots hit Diallo. The quote about the depressions that hadn’t filled in with putty references how people hadn’t yet forgotten, but they will eventually, which is what the putty represents.

Overall, I really liked this poem. It had many memorable quotes and a really powerful message.

Leaving 

Each day, less leaves 

in the tree outside my window.

More leave, and every day

more sky. More of the far,

and every night more stars.

Day after shortening day, more

day in my panes, more missing

in the branches, fewer places

for the birds to hide, their abandoned nests exposed.

And night after increasing night,

the disappearances multiply.

The leaves leap from fire

to colder fire,

from belonging to darker belonging,

from membership to ownership. 

The growing absence

leaves no lack, nothing wanting,

and their gone outnumbers their going

through the door they leave ajar. 

The poem I am looking at is “Leaving” by Li-Young Lee. This was an interesting poem that, at first glance, is a little unclear and the message is not obvious. What is clear, however, is that a majority of the poem is focused on nature, as the author mentions “leaves in the tree” outside his window, “more stars” every night, “fewer places for the birds to hide”, and how the “leaves leap from fire to colder fire”. The title “Leaving” has multiple meanings, as the majority of the poem seems to focus on leaves falling, and how they are leaving the tree, which I think was an intentional usage of double meaning.

The first stanza is the easiest to understand, as Lee describes how on the tree outside his window, more leaves are falling from the tree. This leaves more sky exposed, which allows him to see “more stars” every night. There is not much figurative language present in the first stanza, except for the parallel uses of the word “leave” to represent the leaves falling and how they were leaving the tree. 

The second stanza is where things get more complex. The author describes the days shortening, which alludes to it being autumn. The fall season often alludes to death coming, as winter represents death. This can also be inferred because the leaves are falling from the trees outside the speaker’s window. The poem then takes a turn when the speaker describes how there are “fewer places for the birds to hide, their abandoned nests exposed.” The connotation of some of the words they used, such as saying the birds had fewer places to hide, or the words “abandoned” and “exposed” make it sounds like they are almost being hunted, as they can’t hide and they are exposed. And then this connotation only increases with it being said that “their disappearances multiply”, making it sound like whatever is hunting them got them.

The third stanza is an interesting one, as it is very metaphorical, and it is a little harder to understand. The first few lines talk about how the leaves “leap from fire to colder fire”, which I did not initially understand. I now believe that, since fire is a symbol that often symbolizes transformation or destruction, the leaves that are falling from the tree are transforming in some way. And, if the fire is becoming colder, or the leaves are going to a colder fire, the fire is less intense, so maybe the transformation is not as intense and is a more subtle transformation of some kind. The speaker then describes how the leaves transform from membership to ownership, which means that the trees used to be a part of a larger idea, in this case the tree, and then became individuals when they fell, or left, the tree. They became more independent. This realization was the initial clue that led me to believe the leaves are a metaphor that represents people leaving a country and moving to another country where there is more freedom and they can become more individualistic. 

With that being said, the fourth stanza is very interesting as it could represent a few things. What I think it represents is the idea of being reminiscent of the old place that the person was, or in this case, where the leaf was: the tree. Leaving the door ajar could mean that the person is open to going back to where they were, as they are not closing the door or ending the idea on returning to their old place. Overall, I think this is a very interesting poem that took me a little while to figure out but when I did, it felt very satisfying.

If I were careening down Broadway dressed in my Sunday suit.
If my arms were out to either side, my hands extended.
If my eyes were shut, my head tilted.
If my coruscating smile, the kind you’d see in an advertisement.
If roses sloughed off my back and outstretched arms.
If streamers and ribbons followed, and the air seemed aglitter.
If the light fell such that no one in New York cast a shadow.
If I were followed by wolves and playful malamutes,
if the wolves wore velvet collars and the malamutes red kerchiefs.
If I spun.
If confetti in a million different colors from the skyscrapers.
If every window in Manhattan open, and the crowds roaring.
If the people on the curbs and streetcorners tried to reach out to me,
if they clapped, if they pointed, if they whistled.
If everyone on the streetcorners wore fedoras and bowlers,
if elbow patches on every coat.
If I were in slow-motion, ecstatic, and trailed by wolves.
If the roses and rosepetals littered the streets behind me.
If all of Manhattan, made of rose petal.
If I had no one to share it with.
If I had no one I had to share it with.

This poem is another interesting poem by Ross White. I noticed a few different techniques in this poem that helped to contribute to the poem’s overall message. The poem seems to depict the speaker imagining a world different than the one we currently live in now, saying things like “If I were careening down Broadway dressed in my Sunday suit.”

The first thing I noticed was the anaphora present in the poem, which is the repetition of every line beginning with the word “if”. This immediately shows that this does not take place in our modern world and the speaker is imagining a different place. The speaker is imagining an alternate universe or is just dreaming of something different. The speaker says things like “If I were followed by wolves and playful malamutes, if the wolves wore velvet collars and the malamutes red kerchiefs.” Some of the dreaming and imagining that the speaker is doing is fantastical and some of his other statements are more realistic, such as “If my arms were out to either side, my hands extended. If my eyes were shut, my head tilted.” This is a more realistic quote compared to the other one above about being followed by wolves with velvet collars and malamutes with red kerchiefs. 

Another thing I noticed immediately was the continuing references to New York, specifically Manhattan. In the first line, there is a reference to Broadway. In the seventh line, there is a reference to New York. In the eleventh and twelfth lines, there is a reference to Manhattan, when the speaker says, “If confetti in a million different colors from the skyscrapers. If every window in Manhattan open, and the crowds roaring.” This alludes to some sort of party with the confetti and crowds roaring in Manhattan, so something fabulous must have happened in this dream that the speaker is having. In the nineteenth line, the speaker references all of Manhattan being made of rose petal. This is an interesting concept and I was not sure what it meant at first. Rose petals allude to love in poetry and literature. So New York is having a party and there is a lot of love involved, which I think may be a call for the end to hatred and to start loving others, but I am not exactly sure.

Some of the lines are enjambed while some are end-stopped. This is interesting because every line begins with the word “if”, but some of the lines have periods, ending the thought, while others have commas, so the thoughts continue onto the next line. The lines about the wolves and malamutes from earlier were two enjambed lines, while others, such as “If my coruscating smile, the kind you’d see in an advertisement”, were end-stopped, and the next line does not reference this thought at all.

The title is an interesting one: “Vs. World”. I initially was not sure what the title of the poem meant, as I would have thought this poem would have a title of “If” or “If I was” or something like that. The words “vs. world” are not actually present at any point throughout the main text of the poem. In fact, neither of those two words are present at any point. It is interesting because the speaker references New York specifically a total of four times, but doesn’t talk about the world at all, even though the title references the world. I almost wonder if this means that something happened where New York was going against the world? Or maybe there is a worldwide call to stop the hate and begin a new era of love, referenced by the rose petals earlier.

Poem is here: https://www.aprweb.org/poems/ghazal

This poem is an interesting one, as the speaker is comparing himself to the devil in several ways. One of the most interesting parts is the repetition of the phrase “beat me out of me”. He uses imagery to describe getting physically beaten, talking about “the lash” and “the white knuckle across my cheekbone”. He is begging the audience to beat him out of him, and I believe the main point of the poem is figuring out why he is saying this, which we slowly come to realize by the end.

The speaker uses cacophony throughout the poem, usually to compare himself to something negative so the audience knows he does not think highly of himself. He talks about how he is “ready for a lung collapse” and how “nothing good will grow” out of him, even going as far as to say he is “a salt in soil, poison ground”. We can tell early on that the speaker does not like himself for some reason and he believes he needs to be punished for something he has done.

The speaker uses a metaphor to compare himself to the devil at the end of the poem. Toward the end of the poem, the speaker talks about his “preoccupation with the devil” and how his father beat him and locked him in a cabin, which I think might be a representation of how he turned less into himself and more into the devil, like how he slowly began doing worse things and worse habits. The speaker describes how “nothing is right” and that is why he asks the audience to beat him out of him. He describes himself as “self-obsessed” and “preening like a white seal”. He then ends with describing how the “devil steers”, which I believe means that he is meaning that the devil is controlling him in a way, making him do bad things as he is doing, and he is realizing he is doing bad things which is why he is asking the audience to beat him. Also, he says how he is the devil, which goes further to explain why the speaker wants the audience to beat him out of him. He really means he wants the audience to beat the devil out of him. He is comparing himself to the devil and wants the audience to beat the malicious devil-like part out of him so he can be a better person.

The title of the poem, “Ghazel” sounds like a weird title when one first sees it. A Ghazel is a type of poem that originated in Arabic cultures and they are often about either romantic or spiritual topics; this works because this poem is more of a spiritual poem.

I think a very interesting sentence was “Beat me out of me with the violence you have only just discovered you needed”. It is right at the end, right before he compares himself to the devil. I think it is interesting because the speaker is suggesting that the audience has just realized that he is unredeemable and the only way to solve this problem is to use violence.

Overall, I think this poem was very interesting and it hooked me instantly. It had some interesting themes of negative self-talk and believing oneself to be irredeemable. Comparing oneself to the devil is quite a comparison, meaning that the speaker clearly has done something or many things that he believes make him irredeemable. It left me curious, wondering what the speaker did to make himself believe himself to be a bad person. This poem was very interesting and I enjoyed reading and studying it.

Ross White is the author of Charm Offensive, winner of the Sexton Prize for Poetry, and three chapbooks, Valley of Want, How We Came Upon the Colony and The Polite Society. He is the director of Bull City Press, an independent publisher of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, where he hosts The Chapbook, a podcast devoted to chapbooks. He teaches creative writing, podcasting, publishing, and grammar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Tin House, and The Southern Review, among others. With Matthew Olzmann, he edited Another & Another: An Anthology from the Grind Daily Writing Series. He also has a boutique design firm, Spock & Associates, and a weekly trivia show and podcast, Trivia Escape Pod. Follow him on Twitter: @rosswhite.