Poems

In my opinion, the poem that we should discuss in class today is "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims' point". I think that this poem fits best with what we have discussed in class because it focuses a lot in the human body, a topic that you have emphasized throughout the course. However, in this case, we get to see the body from another perspective, which is race. In this poem, the slave keeps saying how she is black and the differences there is between being black and being "fair" (which is how she, or people in that time, called whites). In this poem we can see how the difference in color can affect one's life, how the body can produce certain emotions and attitudes and how it can sometimes affect us. The issue of race in this poem is very strong, I think we could discuss how our racial body can affect or influence us in our daily basis. For example, why did the slave called her child "fair" and thought of him different than herself, why she covered him with a handkerchief just because the baby was whiter than her. I think it is very interesting because we haven't discussed racism during that period of time.