Poet Marilyn Nelson reads her poem Minor Miracle Read the full description.
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Piece Description
Host Intro: This is Poetry Off the Shelf from The Poetry Foundation. The poet Marilyn Nelson is the daughter of one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen and her mother was a teacher. She spent much of her youth living on different military bases and began writing poetry when in elementary school. This next poem, Minor Miracle, describes an incident of sadly unsurprising racism that ends in a surprising way. Host Outro: That was the poet Marilyn Nelson reading her poem Minor Miracle. The piece was produced by PoetryFoundation.org. You can find out more about Marilyn Nelson, and read some of her poems, at the website PoetryFoundation.org.
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Tiffany Kriner
Posted on September 10, 2008 at 05:18 AM | Permalink
Review of Minor Miracle by Marilyn Nelson
Using the "n-word" on the radio is a controversial thing to do. Yet Nelson's poetic use of the "n-word," introduced as it is by Nelson's explanation of her experience encountering the word from the mouth of a man driving by in a truck, seems to be the kind that, with a content advisory, would allow the piece to do its healing work. A bit more introduction, or perhaps a critical explanation (afterward?) of how the literary devices at work in the poem complicate the use of the word and/or the story being told, would make it just the thing to provoke thought with NPR listeners.