What a wonderful post! "Incidentes in the Life of a Slave Girl" was a foundational text in the African American Literature course I took with the marvelous Professor John Ernest during my Master's Program at Sewanee. It deeply impressed me on many levels. Who can forget her seven years lives in her grandmother's attic? How she was basically crippled when she finally emerged? Her spirit was (is?) strong. I am absolutely sure she was there with all of you. Wonderful.
Wow, the serendipity! I've been working on a poem about Cambridge and just performed the first draft last night, before I read this post when I woke up this morning. I can't not share the following passage. (Context: the poem is centered on the Alewife/Fresh Pond area, and at this point I'm reflecting on the garish new developments business and housing developments underway by the train station.)
with the implosion of the post-2008 monetary
regime and now bank runs on the engines
of this bubble of obnoxious tech start-ups I wonder if
it will all just fall apart and then the cops can stop
doing their sweeps Jackal told me about along
the adjacent scenic bike path where I’ve seen
them harassing people under bridges
and the offices and labs and condos can be taken over
but for now the place is cursed, either cursed
or haunted, Rianna told me there’s a difference
people said cursed when someone crashed their car
into a concrete block on top of the T station
shattering the ceiling of the atrium and raining glass
down on people below and the cops said
it was intentional?, I never found out what that
was all about but with all the mess on the T
and also that big crash right outside
the station that took out a utility pole
cursed seems like the word, I felt bad
for spooking Rianna with all my talk of ghosts
I didn’t know she believed in them like that
I explained I don’t think they throw chairs and shit
but that I believe in them in another way, in the way
good historians in places like this believe in ghosts
A couple of decades ago I published the Penguin Classic edition of Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl. I’m so pleased to learn of recent commemorations of Jacobs’s life and work in North Carolina and Cambridge.
Wow — what an amazing story, Tiya. I love Robert Shetterly's portrait of Harriet Jacobs. There seems to be an impish spark in her eye. I can imagine her flipping the painting to the floor to announce herself.
From your recounting of the day, I see Harriet's agency even more clearly. She knew who she was (a woman free to make her own decisions) and refused to be moved from that. She is a foundation stone amid the turmoil of her (and our) times. She inspires me so much! Thank you for taking us on this journey with you.
What a wonderful post! "Incidentes in the Life of a Slave Girl" was a foundational text in the African American Literature course I took with the marvelous Professor John Ernest during my Master's Program at Sewanee. It deeply impressed me on many levels. Who can forget her seven years lives in her grandmother's attic? How she was basically crippled when she finally emerged? Her spirit was (is?) strong. I am absolutely sure she was there with all of you. Wonderful.
Wow, the serendipity! I've been working on a poem about Cambridge and just performed the first draft last night, before I read this post when I woke up this morning. I can't not share the following passage. (Context: the poem is centered on the Alewife/Fresh Pond area, and at this point I'm reflecting on the garish new developments business and housing developments underway by the train station.)
with the implosion of the post-2008 monetary
regime and now bank runs on the engines
of this bubble of obnoxious tech start-ups I wonder if
it will all just fall apart and then the cops can stop
doing their sweeps Jackal told me about along
the adjacent scenic bike path where I’ve seen
them harassing people under bridges
and the offices and labs and condos can be taken over
but for now the place is cursed, either cursed
or haunted, Rianna told me there’s a difference
people said cursed when someone crashed their car
into a concrete block on top of the T station
shattering the ceiling of the atrium and raining glass
down on people below and the cops said
it was intentional?, I never found out what that
was all about but with all the mess on the T
and also that big crash right outside
the station that took out a utility pole
cursed seems like the word, I felt bad
for spooking Rianna with all my talk of ghosts
I didn’t know she believed in them like that
I explained I don’t think they throw chairs and shit
but that I believe in them in another way, in the way
good historians in places like this believe in ghosts
maybe Tiya believes in ghosts like that
she lives in town, I think she’d get it
in the sense that there’s a memorial
on my block for the veterans of the
Spanish American War with a seal
depicting a woman on her knees
opening her arms to two Yankee rescuers
and clockwise around the seal it reads
Phillipine Islands - Cuba - Porto-Rico
U. S. A.
the statue is called The Hiker, one of fifty
copies that measure the continent like a map
which made it useful for a 2009 study
on the effects of air pollution
A couple of decades ago I published the Penguin Classic edition of Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl. I’m so pleased to learn of recent commemorations of Jacobs’s life and work in North Carolina and Cambridge.
Wow — what an amazing story, Tiya. I love Robert Shetterly's portrait of Harriet Jacobs. There seems to be an impish spark in her eye. I can imagine her flipping the painting to the floor to announce herself.
From your recounting of the day, I see Harriet's agency even more clearly. She knew who she was (a woman free to make her own decisions) and refused to be moved from that. She is a foundation stone amid the turmoil of her (and our) times. She inspires me so much! Thank you for taking us on this journey with you.