{"id":3214,"date":"2018-11-07T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T10:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridareview.cah.ucf.edu\/?post_type=article&p=3214"},"modified":"2018-11-07T10:00:57","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T10:00:57","slug":"the-failure-of-the-verdict","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-failure-of-the-verdict\/","title":{"rendered":"The Failure of the Verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anagnorisis<\/em> by Kyle Dargan<\/strong>
\nTriQuarterly\/Northwestern University Press, 2018<\/strong>
\n90 pages, paperback, $18.00<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In his fifth\u00a0volume of poetry, Kyle Dargan challenges readers to engage with his experience of living in a society some of whose members continue to regard African Americans as less than equal. Dargan prompts readers to ask themselves what it would be like to walk in the shoes of the speakers of these poems, and readers may be surprised to find themselves uncomfortable, frustrated, angry, sad, guilty, absolved of guilt, and\/or ashamed. Dargan\u2019s voice is at his most confident as the poems comment on the world we face today\u2014of an ultra-conservative administration; continued gun violence, especially aimed at African Americans; and continued racism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first poem, \u201cFailed Sonnet After the Verdict,\u201d sets the tone, as well as its historical context. The verdict of the title refers to the not guilty<\/em>\u00a0granted to George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. In the poem, this recent public racial discrimination hearkens back to the racism of the past, \u201cdredging up the cotton gin\u2019s gothic maw, \/ yoking it to another child devoured.\u201d Although Dargan chooses to include the word sonnet in its title, the poem makes no attempt to follow the rhyme and meter schemes of traditional sonnets. Modern sonnets often are suggestive of the sonnet form primarily by having fourteen lines, as this one does, and are sometimes known as \u201cghost sonnets.\u201d Dargan\u2019s opening poem carries the ghost of Trayvon Martin and other young African American males throughout. Naming the poem a \u201cfailed sonnet\u201d invites readers to ponder whether Dargan is referring not to the failure of the poetic form, but, rather, to the failure of the verdict to bring justice for the murder of a young black man.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dargan has found his home in Washington, DC. Several of the poems in the first section, as well as the longer prose pieces in the second section, reference the city. \u201cEastland\u201d references Anacostia, in Southeast DC, the quadrant of the city notorious for a high crime rate. Despite the violence, the area is, to the speaker, \u201cpeaceful<\/em>\u201d and \u201csleepy<\/em>.\u201d But,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Our bleeding is not random. At nightfall,
\n\u00a0<\/span>we are not here awaiting a chance to stalk
\n\u00a0<\/span>the whites nesting your dilating irises.
\n\u00a0<\/span>We have our own private violence to stir<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>and sip just like you\u2014most often
\n\u00a0<\/span>not on the streets but inside our own homes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The prose piece \u201cLost One\u201d takes place on the same night that Michael Brown is shot in Ferguson, Missouri, though the speaker does not know this information yet. The speaker and friend are walking home through Anacostia, SE, and, in seeing two young black men, the speaker takes the reader through his too-familiar process of discerning whether the two young back men pose a threat to the speaker and his friend. First, he must \u201cappear unfazed and devoid of concern.\u201d Then, he scans the boys for weapons and signs of communication with each other. \u201cI begin to accept how tired I am of feeling as though I have to treat these young boys as though they are our primary threats in the world.\u201d At the last minute before encountering the boys, his friend suggests they cross the street, and the speaker sees them go through the gate to their own rowhouse. \u201cThey were merely trying to get home\u2014just like Kirstyn and me, just like, for all we\u2019ll know, Michael Brown.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is difficult to read this collection of poetry without noticing its many contradictions, which serve to shine a light on the contradictions that persist in the current environment. Many of us claim that we do not discriminate, while at the same time enjoying our lives of privilege without realizing it. One of the core questions the speaker of these poems confronts is whether he wants to be seen or to stay hidden. Put another way, should the speaker resist and question what has become the norm or should he accept the norm and stay hidden, which, perhaps, is safer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dargan\u2019s study in contradictions begins in \u201cDaily Conscription,\u201d in which the speaker sees race as something \u201cakin to climate change, \/\/ a force we don\u2019t have to believe in for us to undo us.\u201d Whether or not we want to believe in racism, or \u201cwhiteness,\u201d as the speaker says, it exists and will affect us. In this same poem, the speaker crosses the street, keeping his head down, \u201cstraining to discern the crossfire from the cover.\u201d In \u201cPoem Resisting Arrest,\u201d the speaker\/poem asks \u201cWhere is the daylight (this poem asks and is \/\/ thus crushed) between existence and resistance?\u201d The speaker in \u201cTredegar,\u201d the name of a Civil War museum in Richmond, observes the ecosystem in the James River. In trying to understand why black dragonflies chase red ones away, a metaphor for trying to understand racism, the speaker says, \u201cJust the law of things \/ here<\/em>\u2026,\u201d as though the laws of nature should be enough to explain such contradictions. Later, in the same poem, the speaker laments, \u201cI am the stupid human. My eye \/ unable to distinguish hiding from lurking\u2014each a form \/\u00a0 of stillness.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The poems in Section III, China Cycle, may seem wildly out of place in this book. However, Dargan uses his experience of travel to China to push through to a deeper questioning and exploration of identity. If he can feel displaced in his own country, how much greater can his experience of displacement be in a country where his being a minority makes him an enigma? He is mistaken for Ethiopian, Dominican, and Caribe in \u201cThe Shouts of Tanggu Station,\u201d and is both being asked for money and heralded by a young boy. He practices the calligraphy of the Chinese characters, the hanzi, and seeks understanding of their meaning. The speaker of \u201cBeautiful Country\u2019\u2019\u201dlearns that the translation of \u201cAmerican\u201d is \u201cfrom the \u2018Beautiful Country.\u2019\u201d In the poem, the speaker “bemoan[s] \/ the translation, yet I was not brought here \/\/ to explain all the beauty not found at home.\u201d Dargan recognizes his own privilege in being born in America in \u201cEarly Onset Survivor\u2019s Guilt.\u201d Speaking of the relentless smog in Binhai, he says,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Where there is sadness,
\n\u00a0<\/span>it bubbles from thoughts of the blue
\n\u00a0<\/span>that awaits me, the blue I take for granted, the blue
\n\u00a0<\/span>I never asked to be born beneath.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dargan\u2019s volume is aptly titled. In literary terms, anagnorisis refers to the moment, usually in a tragedy, when the protagonist comes to a full understanding of their own nature, situation, or vulnerability. The end of anagnorisis, at least in literature, may lead to catharsis in readers. The entire volume may be read as the speaker\u2019s anagnorisis of enduring racism. However, the one moment that stands out as the moment of understanding appears in \u201cAnother Poem Beginning with a Bullet,\u201d which could also serve as the title of this collection. The wrenching narrative of the speaker hearing gunshots on his way to his mother\u2019s house and the pains he takes to change his path there so that the gunman won\u2019t follow him and learn where his mother lives is harrowing. Arriving at his mother\u2019s house, the speaker learns that one of her neighbors had been hit by the gunfire. Seeing the mother\u2019s porch light on, the wounded man went to her house for help, tracking blood into her house. The moment of seeing the blood is the moment of anagnorisis for the speaker\u2014that despite his best efforts, he cannot keep his mother safe. \u201cThe city no longer stops \/ at Mother\u2019s door. It has come inside now, has bled \/ here. In the living room.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dargan deftly infuses historical and cultural facts into his poetry. He is a careful poet; each word, each line break, each form is studied and purposeful. Each of these choices serves the poem, calling attention to them, as though saying subtly: reader, pay attention here; this is important<\/em>. The careful reader of Dargan\u2019s work needs to be prepared to spend time with these poems. Dargan is an introspective poet\u2014even in his anger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poetic commentary on the world we face today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3307,"template":"","categories":[9,139],"tags":[893,894,6,895,896,897,284,898,899],"class_list":["post-3214","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-book-review","tag-anacostia","tag-anagnorisis","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-china","tag-dc","tag-kyle-dargan","tag-racism","tag-trayvon-martin","tag-washington"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Failure of the Verdict - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-failure-of-the-verdict\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Failure of the Verdict - The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Poetic commentary on the world we face today.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-failure-of-the-verdict\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/11\/Detail-of-Cover_Kyle-Dargan-Anagnorisis-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"641\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"353\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cah.ucf.edu\\\/floridareview\\\/article\\\/the-failure-of-the-verdict\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cah.ucf.edu\\\/floridareview\\\/article\\\/the-failure-of-the-verdict\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Failure of the Verdict - 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