Kiki Petrosino: The Endline Endgame and Race Relations

I have mixed feelings about Fort Red Border. During the in-class lovefest, I just kind of slinked away quietly in my chair. On one hand, I love the ambition throughout, and the voice seems fresh, clear, and intriguing. However, there are two main issues I have with it, especially the first section: the last lines and the idea of race.

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In terms of the last line, for the most part, I felt they took me "out" of the reality of the poem. To me, they felt like the cliched intro-to-poetry type poems where the idea is that the last line is to be some multifaceted/epic turn of phrase, something that is haunting and not only comments on the poem, but comments, in a larger sense, concerning the world around it. For example, in "Mustang Bagel," the crux of the poem seems to be the mundanity of a coffee shop experience, how Redford's grilled cheese is unsatisfactory, and a proposal-esque box of chocolate/salt. The end line, "I have to blink against it all," seems to work both to indicate the literal brightness therein, but also seems to comment about Redford being too "thirsty"/bright/blinding her--it reminds me of the trope of blinking hard to see if you're dreaming, and it is uncertain whether this dream for the speaker is pleasant or not. It seems like a lot of the poems end on this kind of note, where the last line can be made to fit, but seems a bit tonally off or trying too hard to do something provocative. It seems the strength and resonance for me comes from the fact that she has a knack for elevating the shit out of plain language/situations (like a NY school poet), with experimental flourishes that keep the reader's attention--I don't think last line gimmicks are needed, but maybe I'm just over/under reading it. It's known to happen.

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The other issue I have is how she deals with the Damoclean race issue (or really, what it seems, the lack thereof) in the first section. This distills to one basic question: is the fact that Redford sees/notes the only difference between them is in terms of hair good or bad? "Afro" is mentioned at least three times in the first section, and one poem, "Dread," is focused on exploring Redford's fascination with her hair, specifically, what it means to wear it "natural." And I could very much see how differences in hair can be an important pivot point, but it ignores so much other content that can addressed via race. At times, it feels like Petrosino tries to cast both as amorphous blobs in order to focus mainly on their interactions, which I get, but it seems a bit half-assed, to me, to make such a big deal about hair earlier on (which shows difference) and not investigate this more. Their isolation from society works to eliminate, I guess, needs to "complicate" the issue of interracial relationships by avoiding dialogue/remembrances of family/friends/colleagues/etc concerning the relationship, so if she wants to work exclusively through the trope of hair...well, there's still a lot of ground to cover. I just think of this:



*As a side note, when I went to see this here, I was literally the only person there--back row, center, baby!

So so so so so so so so so so much is made of hair in the black community. So much. It's just a point of curiosity, and given Redford's inclination towards the curious, specifically in "Dread," I wanted to see more. The speaker seems to construct her identity more as a female (especially when doing the "pencil test" later on) than a black female, which I think changes a score of implications. Going back to "Dread," a question that this aroused in me, having three sisters, is whether this straightening described from growing up was more the "knocking out the curls" or more "having it lay flat and be bouncy luxurious."

I know that, before my sisters were "old enough"/had money to perm their hair straight, my mom, on Sundays, would put the metal comb on the eye of the stove and straighten it that way. A blow dryer, even with product, would not be enough. I know when I blew dry my hair either to make it look ridiculous or when I was getting it braided, it just stuck out and would not produce "silky" results until I added something with more heat, like a hot comb or a straightening iron.

So maybe this isn't spotted by a non-black reader, but it does make a commentary on the "goodness" of her hair, because if that's all that it takes to straighten it (some lotion [with no indication of lye content/mom wearing gloves] and the fact that this straightening could be done every six weeks versus every week), it does also imply, at least to some base degree, her overall "lightness," which again, is another huuuuuuuuge black issue: what makes "attractive." There is a battle of "light skinned" versus "dark skinned" in terms of beauty, and I think it's telling if Redford is being public with someone who looks like a Tyra Banks versus an Alek Wek. In a way, being lighten allows you to "blend" (or at least pretend to) in mainstream culture, as it almost becomes a lesser of two evils: "well, if that sort of relationship exists, I'm glad it's with..." It sort of makes it less necessary to address race issues, as the "curiousness" that exists may be more good-natured.

It's not that big of the issue in the long run, but it seems like if you're going to introduce something so coded in race as hair, it can't just "disappear." If the focus is more on the relationship dynamic of "everyman a" and "everywoman a," how does 'froing it up alter that? To me, it just seems like a huge gap that arises, where it feels very much that the speaker is aware of her blackness in this relationship and all of the sudden it disappears. Maybe I'm just mountain-ing out of a molehill.

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So yeah, overall, liked it--felt some of the endings to be weak/contrived, and disappointed by the hot potato like response to race throughout, but nonetheless a strong work.