Something Else, Something Unspoken - a Blackout poem based on an essay by Di Brandt

Something Else, Something Unspoken

in the vibrations of the rich black prairie soil, a wildness,
freedom, faint trace of thundering herds of buffalo,
the smell of woodsmoke in the air, the incessant beating of drums.
Hidden in my blood, my bones, an older memory
out on the green hills under the moon, in the Flemish lowlands
before the persecutions, the Inquisition, the Burning Times,
before we became transients, exiles --I remember
when we gathered, my women ancestors, around fires,
free-spirited, surrounded by trees. I remember
when worship meant laughter and dancing and lovemaking
under the moon, carelessly, instead of remembering
the torture of innocents, and fearing the night, and obeying
our husbands, and sitting in church.


This is a "blackout poem," a technique in which one blacks out all but a few chosen words or phrases in a text, maintaining the order of the original, but omitting words and phrases. All words are from Di Brandt's essay, "This land that I love, this wide, wide prairie," published in her book of essays, So this is the world and here I am in it (NeWest Press, 2007).

Brandt speaks to the contrast between a way of life that relies on the goodness of the earth, and a way of life based on perpetuating the memories of suffering, fear, and terror of one's ancestors.