Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Failure of Southern Representation: 2," James Applewhite continues his exploration of the South's complex heritage and the challenges inherent in capturing its true essence and history. This poem shifts focus slightly, emphasizing the decay of Southern monuments and the elusive nature of its historical narrative, as shaped by both memory and myth.

The poem opens with a vivid image of memorial heads eroding outside libraries, suggesting that even the stone attempts to honor and remember the past are succumbing to time and perhaps the weight of the history they represent. The "tar-dark patches" on the marble evoke not just physical decay but also moral and ethical blemishes — the "spots of shame" that mar the region's history, particularly its legacy of slavery and racial injustice.

Applewhite's mention of names "implanted in this terrain" — those of Civil War heroes and supposed paragons of civic virtue — underscores the deep roots of Southern identity in a contentious history. These names and the statues commemorating them become diseased, flaking away like flesh from bone, a metaphor for the disintegration of a narrative built on glorified accounts of the past. This imagery suggests the inherent sickness in venerating figures associated with a cause rooted in the oppression of others.

The poet then addresses the unreality of the Southern idyll, embodied by the "columned, white plantation" that "invents itself on front porches now wholly vanished." This line critiques the romanticization of the antebellum South, a nostalgia for a bygone era that overlooks the brutal realities of slavery that underpinned plantation life. The mention of "fictitious aunts, fabulous uncles" hints at the stories and legends passed down through generations, which often sanitize or ignore the darker aspects of Southern history.

The poem concludes by reflecting on the Southern accent, "deep in their vowels," as a vessel for the region's haunted past. The accent itself, with its slow drawl, becomes a symbol of an unbreakable connection to a history of subjugation, as if the very way of speaking carries the ghosts of those who were enslaved. This chorus of haunted narration suggests that the stories told and retold in the South are imbued with the voices of those who can never truly be freed from the narrative of oppression.

"Failure of Southern Representation: 2" is a poignant meditation on the decay of Southern monuments and the myths that sustain the region's identity. Applewhite delves into the symbolism of eroding statues and the narratives that fail to confront the full truth of the South's past, highlighting the ongoing struggle to reconcile the beauty and horror of Southern heritage.

POEM TEXT: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Yellow_Shoe_Poets/2D6aqhb651oC?q=BACA+%22MEN+LATE+AT+NIGHT+COOK+COFFEE+IN+RUSTY+CANS%22&gbpv=1&bsq=FAILURE%20OF#f=false

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