Black Boys Play The Classics

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Poetry

The most popular “act” in

Penn Station

is the three black kids in ratty

sneakers & T-shirts playing

two violins and a cello—Brahms.

White men in business suits

have already dug into their pockets

as they pass and they toss in

a dollar or two without stopping.

Brown men in work-soiled khakis

stand with their mouths open,

arms crossed on their bellies

as if they themselves have always

wanted to attempt those bars.

One white boy, three, sits

cross-legged in front of his

idols—in ecstasy—

their slick, dark faces,

their thin, wiry arms,

who must begin to look

like angels!

Why does this trembling

pull us?

A: Beneath the surface we are one.

B: Amazing! I did not think that they could speak this tongue.

(Toi Derricotte, 1997)

Author

In Hamtramck, Michigan, the poet Toi Derricotte was born and earned her B.A. The University of Wayne State and an M.A. From New York University in English Literature. Her poetry books include The Empress of the Death House (1978), a collection based on her early encounters at the funeral home of her grandparents in Detroit, Natural Birth (1983), Captivity (1989), Tender (1997), the Paterson Poetry Prize winner, and The Daughter's Undertaker (2011) (2011).

She also wrote a prose collection, The Black Notebooks (1997), which received the Non-Fiction Annisfield-Wolf Book Prize. In Contemporary Women Poets, Jon Woodson observed that Derricotte's "poems begin in ordinary experiences," but she dissects the routine meanings given by society as a way of discovering what the self actually comprises unsuspected tools." Derricotte's life is filled with death, abuse, pain and racism in conjunction with her Roman Catholic schooling and light skin. Derricotte disclosed in an interview with Contemporary Writers that: “As a black woman, I have been consistently confused about my ‘sins,’ unsure of which faults were in me and which faults were the results of others’ projections.” She added that, “truthtelling in my art is also a way to separate my ‘self’ from what I have been taught to believe about my ‘self,’ the degrading stereotypes about black women.”

Racism Issue

This poetry is a form of criticism of classical music. Classical music is considered to belong only to whites. This poem tells how black boys played classical music and broke these stereotypes.

Reference

  1. Derricotte, Toi. 1997. Black Boys Play The Classics. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved January 1 2021.
  2. Toi Derricotte, Writing the Difficult Poem. Retrieved January 1 2021.