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Helen Mori

Professoressa Lisa Marchi

AAM-LM 37– Lingua e Traduzione Inglese e Letterature Angloamericane II

June 2020

The Empowering Experience of the Encounter

within the Lines of a Multicultural U.S. Poetry

As the title suggests, the term encounter1 deserves to be considered as the one and only

key word capable of enhancing an intensely moving discussion regarding the main concepts

surrounding the theme of multiculturalism within U.S. Poetry. Also, in order to deeply

acknowledge its powerful meaning, this term should be split into two sections. Two independent

and complementary sections at the same time, whose aims are to show the double potential

interpretation that can be made out of such an evocative word, since the proper moment of

encounter can occur in two different dimensions, an internal and an external one.

Furthermore, it is for this reason that one could dare state that the term encounter may

also suggest the idea of an action, a motion willing to follow two possible directions: one moving

toward the ‘inside’, within a more intimate space, whilst the other one, more expansive, moving

toward the ‘outside’. According to this perspective, the first one is more concerned with the idea

of Poetry revealing to be a great opportunity for Americans to develop a more responsible and

thoughtful attitude towards their own critical thinking. Besides this particular way of

understanding poems’ meanings and functions, one may find himself pleased by connecting with

his inner self, spending time, communicating and reflecting upon great moral issues with it.

1
it comes from late Latin incontra that means “in front of”, in other words, encounter means “meeting,
confrontation, opportunity, and sometimes even fight”.
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However, on the contrary, the second interpretation of our key term, is more committed

with the efforts spent to enable the construction of one’s more righteous way to approach the

great collective experience of American multiculturalism. Indeed, by trying to follow the same

order of appearance, from the beginning until the end of this paper, the challenge will be

focusing the attention on the fact that these two aspects do not work separately, but rather

simultaneously. Both the encounter with the self and the encounter with a collective identity

incorporate the crucial opportunities American Poetry gives to its readership hoping to reinforce

a deeper sense of responsibility towards any political or social issue. In this sense, the main

prerogative of this work is to introduce and analyze American poems that have been spread and

shared, acknowledged and appreciated worldwide and that are committed with this special

purpose. This is the extraordinary case in which some among the most significant lyrical verses,

which have been examined during this academic course, will be discussed in relation to the type

of encounter they suggest to the reader.

The first poetic section to be investigated is the one concerned with the idea of Poetry

embodying the chance for an individual to actually learn how to spend moments of intimacy with

his own self. In reference to this, it is worthy to remark how often the act of reading intense

lyrical verses truly succeed in underlying the difficulty that stands in taking and maintaining a

slow rhythm. The American dream2 society gave birth to the concept of the self-made man and

taught that what mattered the most was being always in a rush, always moving towards someone

or something, chasing them, stressing the self in the effort of reaching the right status-quo,

2
The American belief according to which every single human being born in the USA, regardless of his color-skin,
religion, class, gender and culture has the same right to free access to success. The American concept of the self-
made man is to be considered as the greatest realization of the dream. To achieve this, one has absolutely to go
through hard work, sacrifice, patience, determination, risk-taking. The central idea is that everything is possible for
anyone.
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the right opportunity to work, the right person to spend the life with. Almost obliging an

individual to always project his image towards something else, outside his enslaved self.

And this may be the main reason why one risks to completely forget about his inner potential,

about his faculty to get concentrated in the encounter with the essential aspects of his own life.

For it is true that when one becomes capable of focusing on what really deserves to be given to

the ‘outside’, in that precise moment, his inner self acknowledges for real the crucial role of

responsible words, thoughts and actions. For it is true that in some societies’ backgrounds things

and circumstances are more likely to change when individuals are sincerely inclined to accept the

crucial role a wise sense of responsibility plays when exerted.

However, in order to appreciate the relevant and essential value of intimate reflections,

one may need to go back to what some religions have taught to humanity: nobody should fear or

should ever feel ashamed for their innate hunger for spirituality. Nobody should ever feel

ashamed for their human thirst for universal and existential questions, which always seem to

have no responses from anything nor anyone. In this sense, it would not be wrong to dare say

that the acts of writing and reading poems could resemble the act of praying, since throughout

the whole history praying has always embodied an indispensable and helpful habit that supported

any individual during moments of profound crisis. Prayers teach one how to get used to isolation

and profound reflection, how to enjoy and benefit from great regenerative instants of rebirth.

Indeed, according to these terms, some American poems seem to have been written for

this special purpose: to remind U.S. citizens that their consumerist society sometimes it is just

too demanding, a bombarding institution affecting their lives. Furthermore, by serving a quite

pervert, subtle and distorted upbringing, that kind of contemporary society supports the idea

according to which the act of praying is still stuck to the idea of something obsolete to reject,
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something useless willing to steal precious time to young people, as some lines of the poem

Different Ways to Pray by Naomi Shihab Nye3 seems to hint:

There were those who didn’t care about praying.

The young ones. The ones who had been to America.   

They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.

Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones.4   

For this reason, the American ‘self-made man’ generation needs religious poems to stop

feeling ashamed of faith being one of the greatest brick in the wall of its culture. For the same

reason, that generation needs to learn once again how much and why is it crucial to interpret its

multicultural context as an enriching and empowering experience. Even when it regards religion.

Above all when it regards religious discourses. Since, as the joyful theme addressed by the poem

Light the Festival Candles by Aileen Lucia Fisher shows, America’s heterogeneous religious

background is made of special different ways to experience faith, all of them yearning for being

acknowledged, supported and safeguarded:

And an eight-day feast proclaimed—

The Festival of Lights—well named

To celebrate the joyous day

when we regained the right to pray

3
a poet and songwriter born to a Palestinian father and an American mother.
4
Nye, Naomi Shihab. “Different Ways to Pray” Tender Spot: Selected Poems. Bloodaxe Books, 2008. 100-101;
157-158.
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to our one God in our own way5.

However, as it has been stated at the beginning, poems can also be interpreted as an

opportunity for one to truly encounter the Other who is hiding between the lines. The rendezvous

takes place in a sort of mythical atmosphere, an ‘outside’ called elsewhere6, after a metaphorical

journey during which one may risk to lose himself. In reference to this, it is worthy to mention

the poem In Search of Evanescence written by Agha Shahid Ali7, a literary text that reveals to be

the most adequate and accurate one to convey the idea of American Poetry being a metaphysical

encounter with a parallel dimension (Indian, in this case):

When on Route 80 in Ohio

I came across an exit

to Calcutta

the temptation to write a poem

led me past the exit

so I could say

India always exists

off the turnpikes

of America8.

Moreover, according to the same perspective, U.S. Poetry can be interpreted at the same

time both as the emblem for an unfamiliar place and as a fertile soil able to host arrivals and

departures. Strangers and acquaintances. Dialogues and silences. As it happens with the airports,

5
Fisher, Aileen Lucia. “Light the Festive Candles.” Skip Around the Year. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967.
6
it means “in another place or in other places” conveying the idea of a parallel dimension to the real one.
7
an Indian-American Kashmiri poet.
8
Ali, Agha Shahid. “In Search of Evanescence.” Eds. Wai Chee Dimock et al. American Literature in the World:
An Anthology from Ann Bradstreet to Octavia Butler. Columbia UP, 2017. 276-278.
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huge settings where it is almost impossible to not experience those feelings called alienation or

estrangement9. Airports are places that incorporate the typical rendezvous in which one

physically and psychologically abandon his country, his traditions and his mind-set in order to

set-off and reach new dimensions, new people, new emotions.

Some American poems resemble the airports with all their departures and arrivals, their

goodbyes and their welcomes. Backgrounds strongly characterized by the uncertainty regarding a

question: to what extent is it worthy to be truly able to disconnect with our comfort-zone to

throw ourselves within a new world? Moreover, another personal challenge that can take place

before a metaphorical departure, regards the importance of being ready to leave behind a part of

ourselves and to face the potential transformation coming after the actual encounter.

The answers to these doubts reside in the fact that only benefits can be gained by being open to

other cultures. Cultures that can give birth to the concept of the ‘shared world’, the possible

utopia well embodied by Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Gate-A4:

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a

sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the

lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered

sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie. […]

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, this

is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that

gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about

any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. 10

9
the term indicates the state of alienation that one can experience when voluntarily or involuntarily kept at distance
from particular emotions and feelings.
10
Nye, Naomi Shihab. “Gate A-4.” Tender Spot: Selected Poems. Bloodaxe Books, 2008. 100-101; 157-158.
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U.S. Poetry does not know borders, both from the point of view of language and contents.

It incorporates almost all of the several gazes, tastes, colors, sounds that characterize each of its

communities, whether they represent ethnic minorities or not. U.S. poems are like enriching

journeys throughout the country, allowing American citizens to encounter and appreciate the

cultural differences existing within and outside their borders. Moreover, it is clear to see that the

main prerogative of such an evocative literary form of art is empowering people.

In other words, the multicultural nuances of this kind of Poetry are expected to enable the

spread of awareness regarding the mutual coexistence of both the intimate and individual

dimension and the collective one. For it is true that when one becomes able to bear witness to

such a complex and articulate reality, it is also easier for him to see how much his own

responsible actions and thoughts can positively affect the whole context surrounding him.

And only by accepting and facing this tough challenge, multiethnic societies will be able to

grow up strong, healthy and free.

However, there is also a bitter consequence to the multicultural experience of encounter

that must be considered: what often occurs within multiethnic societies is that too many voices,

too many opinions coexisting are more likely to end up crushing, since all of them struggle to be

heard, accepted, handed down. Altercation 11 is the most adequate term able to convey this ideas,

as it is well portrayed in the poem AmeRícan by Tato Laviera12:

AmeRícan,       across forth and across back

                           back across and forth back

11
this word literally means ‘a loud argument or disagreement’.
12
a Nuyorican poet, where the adjective Nuyorican stands for the mixture between “New York” and “Puerto
Rican”, term used by native Puerto Ricans to identify Puerto Ricans from New York City as distinct from those
from the island.
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                           forth across and back and forth

                           our trips are walking bridges!

                           it all dissolved into itself, an attempt

                           was truly made, the attempt was truly

                           absorbed, digested, we spit out

                           the poison, we spit out in malice,

                           we stand, affirmative in action,

                           to reproduce a broader answer to the

                           marginality that gobbled us up abruptly!13

At this point, as this poem suggests, it is crucial to underline that in the attempt of

empowering the readership, another great U.S. Poetry’s purpose is teaching people how to desist

from beginning cultural conflicts that can lead certain communities to suffocate others.

Or in the worst case, harsh contrasts and tensions between different communities can lead to

wars. Indeed, the final section of this work is intended to discuss the contents of a few American

poems whose intentions are to stress and then strengthen the crucial role resilience14 can play in

such dramatic circumstances. According to these terms, antiwar poems demonstrate to be

righteous tools operating in the name of resistance and tolerance, whose function becomes

essential whenever rough debates risk to affect the pacific encounter between different traditions

on the soil of a single country.

13
Laviera, Tato. “AmeRícan.” Ed. Paul Lauter. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2002. 3046-3048.
14
since this term portrays the ability of objects to return to their original form after having been compressed or
stretched, the same concept can be applied to those people who are capable to positively endure adversities.
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In reference to this tough issue, a Langston Hughes’15 article untitled General Franco’s Moors

closes its argumentations with a few lyric lines that are strongly concerned with the antiwar

conception:

He said he had a feelin’

This whole thing wasn’t right.

He said he didn’t know

These folks he had to fight.16

While antiwar poems struggle to heal the wounds of a broken humanity that has lost the

proper meaning of the term encounter, poems dealing with the tragic theme of slavery17 are to be

considered intense lyrical texts committed with the advised condemnation of the prevarication of

some cultures on others and the fight against the traumatic process of dehumanization of certain

individuals. In particular, Negro and Remember are a pair of Langston Hughes’ poems

displaying the enslaved people’s points of view, suffering for the brutality they were obliged to

endure during the era of American colonialism:

I’ve been a slave:

Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.

I brushed the boots of Washington. […]

15
an Afro-American poet.
16
Hughes, Langston. “General Franco’s Moors.” Eds. Wai Chee Dimock et al. American Literature in the World:
An Anthology from Ann Bradstreet to Octavia Butler. Columbia UP, 2017. 65-70.
17
associable to terms like “genocide, holocaust, displacement, […] as the slave trade and plantation slavery were of
prime importance in the making of the modern world. But what was a gain for the world, especially in the West, was
a loss for Africa. […] Slave trade and slavery were a historical trauma whose consequences on the African psyche
have never been properly explored. […] The West has never properly acknowledged this crime against humanity,
for to acknowledge is to accept responsibility for the crime and its consequences. […] you cannot mourn a loss or
acknowledge a crime you deny.” These reflections have been taken from Thiong'o, Ngugi Wa. “Learning from
Slavery – The Legacy of the Slave Trade on Modern Society”. https://www.unchronicle.un.org/. 10th June 2020.
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I’ve been a victim:

The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.

They lynch me still in Mississippi.18

The following lines belong to Langston Hughes’ poem Remember:

And you will see what I mean for you to see—

             The white hand:

             The thieving hand.

             The white face:

             The lying face.

             The white power:

             The unscrupulous power

That makes of you

The hungry wretched thing you are today19.

To conclude, it is necessary to remember that this special class of Poetry20, is a whole

matter of responsibility as its purposes are often concerned with social and political issues.
18
Hughes, Langston. “Negro.” Ed. Paul Lauter. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2002. 1599-1600; 1603-1604.
19
Hughes, Langston. “Remember.” Ed. Paul Lauter. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 1599-1600; 1603-1604.
20
the term indicates that special American literary art limited in the shape but unlimited in the complexity and
intensity of contents, whose purposes are often concerned with social and political commitments.
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In particular, both the two sections of the American Poetry that have been analyzed and

discussed throughout this paper, the one regarding the individual dimension of intimacy with

one’s own self and the other regarding the collective experience of encounter, support and fight

for the empowerment of people. Nothing but a process strongly willing to teach individuals the

value of feeling responsible for their personal thoughts, words and actions. Since it is true that

Poetry requires one’s deep reflections. Reflections that are destined to become actual choices

able to affect in a positive or in a negative way the social context surrounding any American man

or woman. Nevertheless, a free and open multiethnic experience will always call for responsible

mindsets and behaviors both from an individual and a collective point of view. Above all of it is

the extraordinary case of a multicultural country like the U.S., still exposed to a constant social

challenge, still yearning and fighting for being considered a role model worldwide.

Works Cited:
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Ali, Agha Shahid. “In Search of Evanescence.” Eds. Wai Chee Dimock et al. American

Literature in the World: An Anthology from Ann Bradstreet to Octavia Butler.

Columbia UP, 2017. 276-278.

Bienen, Henry, Poetry Foundation Website, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.

10th June 2020.

Fisher, Aileen Lucia. “Light the Festive Candles.” Skip Around the Year.

New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967.

Hughes, Langston. “General Franco’s Moors.” Eds. Wai Chee Dimock et al. American

Literature in the World: An Anthology from Ann Bradstreet to Octavia Butler.

Columbia UP, 2017. 65-70.

---. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “Negro.” Ed. Paul Lauter. The Heath Anthology of

American Literature.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 1599-1600; 1603-1604

Laviera, Tato. “AmeRícan.” Ed. Paul Lauter. The Heath Anthology of American Literature.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. 3046-3048.

Nye, Naomi Shihab. “Different Ways to Pray” and “Gate A-4.” Tender Spot: Selected

Poems. Bloodaxe Books, 2008. 100-101; 157-158.

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Thiong'o, Ngugi Wa. “Learning from Slavery – The Legacy of the Slave Trade on Modern

Society”. https://www.unchronicle.un.org/.

10th June 2020.