Little Rock, 1957

Little Rock, 1957

What happens to
a dream deferred?
Langston Hughes asked,
while for the children at school, I
ready that photograph
of the Little Rock Nine —
the one with the mob,
mid-shout, trailing a
stoic Elizabeth Eckford
dressed in white, clutching
her books with one arm,
ram-rod straight
ahead stare, eyes
on the prize, no one
to watch her back —
and I wonder, also:
what happens
to a hatred inured?

– Steve Peterson

 

Notes

I wrote this for the comment section at Mary Lee Hahn’s poem place last year for April Poetry Month. But as I look around at our current politics I wonder if all this practice with hate just makes us more accustomed to hatred.

Published by

Steve Peterson

I teach fifth grade in Iowa.

2 thoughts on “Little Rock, 1957”

  1. Indeed. That could have been the woman at the Trump rally.

    Current politics has given me a new urgency in fueling my readers with enough skills and desires to last them for a lifetime of reading. I’m putting all my instructional money on future citizens who can think critically, and respond with empathy…as they read, and as they live.

    1. Those sound like great goals, Mary Lee. Current politics makes me more than a little nervous, too. I wish, though, I was better at helping develop readers, especially those who are least inclined to see reading as valuable. Those that already are readers, or are heading that way? I can make a big difference by widening horizons and showing ways to use reading to make a bigger, and more humane, world. Those who haven’t felt it yet? Not as much as I’d like, unfortunately. I’ll keep trying, though.

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