Race

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2001

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Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Related Poems

“Heritage” by Countee Cullen (1925)

“Heritage” is another poem in which the speaker grapples with the issue of race and its place in creative work. Published during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the poem captures the difficulty of being a Black poet in a society that rejects Black excellence. “Heritage” and “Race” both address the importance of place to Black poets and Black identity.

“Nikki-Rosa” by Nikki Giovanni (1968)

The speaker in “Nikki-Rosa” explores the tension between how they remember childhood in a Black family and how writers outside of their racial community see Black childhood. While outsiders may assume that “childhood remembrances are always a drag / if you’re Black” (Lines 1-2), the speaker’s family and community meant that she had a happy childhood because “Black love is Black wealth” (Line 30). Like the speaker in “Race,” the speaker in this poem reassesses memories of family life to critique the way that common literary conventions for representing Black identity distort it.

“Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander (2009)

Alexander read “Praise Song for the Day” during Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 as America’s first Black president. As she does in “Race,” Alexander addresses the theme of Black ancestors and our relationship to them in the present.

Further Literary Resources

“The Black Arts Movement” by Larry Neal (1968)

Neal, one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement, argues that the Black artist’s “primary duty is to speak to the spiritual and cultural needs of Black people and to confront the contradictions arising out of the Black man’s experience in the racist West.” Alexander’s work, published decades after the Black Arts Movement, critically engages with this notion about Black art by confronting those contradictions. Alexander presents the Black poet as one who struggles to define not only what that duty is but also what “Black” is.

“The Far, Deep Things of Dreamland: An Interview With Elizabeth Alexander” by Natasha Trethewey and Elizabeth Alexander (2001)

Poets Natasha Trethewey and Alexander discuss the importance of place and Black identity in Antebellum Dream Book (2001), a volume that includes “Race.” In the discussion, Alexander describes the impact that her life in Washington, DC and Harlem had on her identity and work. “Race” grew out of her fascination with the “idea of what it meant to be a ‘race man’ or a ‘race woman,’ what it meant to ‘do something for the race,’ or what it meant to ‘bring shame upon the race.’” In the poem, the speaker tries to recuperate Great-Uncle Paul as a “race man,” but struggles to do so.

“Total Life is What We Need: Self-Determination and Black Arts Collectives” by Erika Browne and Elizabeth Alexander (2017)

In the transcript of a talk Alexander gave to introduce an exhibit on Black poetry collectives, Alexander provides context on early influences on her approach to writing poetry. Alexander discusses the “memorial function” in Black poetry, “[t]he ways in which Black art eulogizes, remembers, makes ancestral reference and mitigates against violence and destruction.” In “Race,” the speaker grapples with how to remember Great-Uncle Paul. “Race” serves its memorial function by documenting how complex notions of racial identity have always been.