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- Herausgeber: Carcanet Poetry
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
For the Unnamed was originally entitled 'For the Unnamed Black Jockey Who Rode the Winning Steed in the Race Between Pico's Sarco and Sepulveda's Black Swan in Los Angeles, in 1852'. That title provided the full narrative in a nutshell: we know the names of the owners of the two horses, we know the horses' names, the place and date of the race. But apart from his colour, and his victory, we know nothing about the jockey who made the whole thing happen. Fred D'Aguiar's new book recovers and re-imagines his story. It was the most publicised race of its era with numerous press notices but he remained unnamed. We are given several perspectives on the action – owner's, trainer's, the horse Black Swan's, the jockey's lover, the jockey himself. But one crucial element of identity is forgotten, and that forgetfulness speaks eloquently about the time and the freed man's circumstances in the mid-nineteenth century. Fred D'Aguiar's previous collection, Letters to America (2020), was a Poetry Book Society Winter Choice and a White Review Book of the Year.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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For the Unnamed
Fred D’Aguiar
CARCANET POETRY
Contents
For Dylan, Aniyah, Cruz & Erin
‘There’s no nowhere for something to become nothing.’
Alice Notley, The Speak Angel Series
The Players
Sarco & Black Swan – Pedigree Horses
Pico & Sepulveda – Owners of Sarco and Black Swan Respectively
Black Jockey (B. J.) – Aka Nameless; Rider of Black Swan
Ethel – His Partner
Dancing Salt Water (D.S.W.) – Trainer of Black Swan
Joyce – His Partner
Saloon – Voices of the City
Moon – Voices for All Inanimate Things
Call, Calling Called – Narrators, Out of Time
Call
We gather for him:
hundred-strong choir;
cathedral bell tongues;
dance troupe at traffic
lights break out on red
in the middle of the road;
stadium where beats
rock young, middle, old.
Bring him back from dead
too long, raise him, claim
him from some unknown
grave that kept him lost
in history, stranded outside
time, banned from his name.
Calling
Come back now for us
who need you more than
you should know or care
you seem big to us
time chained to your skin
stretched by our summons
fused to your good name
you cannot be us
your cord blood for ours
if we find your name
buried in your time
if you answer us
from your bed of skin
made by history
for us to sleep in
that keeps us awake
Called
Black jockey, stranger,
walks into a saloon,
heads turn, jaws drop
for no reason other
than your black skin.
You, nameless, strange
to us as much as to your
self in time, even if back
then you knew who
you were and did not
care if people called you
bad names, spat, cursed.
We bring you back to name
you, not for yourself,
you’re way past caring.
You’re here for us, as all
History must be if served
half-eaten for one group
while others starve fed
crumbs after a feast.
Dead, you ask us living
nothing. We need you,
fetched from ground
blessed by your bones
hungry for this light.
Call, Calling, Called
If we can name him then no one can blame
him for the glaring omission by his times.
Name him and we save him from attempts
to erase him from History that framed him.
He jockeyed Black Swan, rider and horse won
against wild favorite, Sarco, owned by Pico.
Poor Sarco, earmarked for victory, foxtrotted
through training, brushed more than pushed.
By contrast, Black Jockey worked Black Swan
in secret, at night, hidden in stables by day.
What the crowd saw made them gasp twice:
once at Black Jockey, twice, at thoroughbred.
Sweet fortunes placed on Sarco turned sour.
Token bets on Black Swan made sweet fortunes.
Newsmakers, why fail to name the Black Jockey
who championed Black Swan for Sepulveda?
Is Mansa Musa too much? Or conqueror
Abu Bakr II? Or magical Prester John?
His face on a coin, his name sung by choir,
his horse and him on a plinth in a square.
March, 20th, 1852, Los Angeles, California,
Black jockey no one saw fit to name,
won the biggest race in the west of that era,
start of a black tradition riding thoroughbreds.
If we could see him in some lucky audience
with the long gone and unjustly dead
this is what we would tell him, given the chance
to set things straight and bring him peace:
Forget that they failed to record your name
or accord you proper fame and reward;
feel the free power of a horse at full pelt;
be the one who shared that freedom;
keep it in your heart for the rest of your days
no matter they refused to grant you your name.
We name you now to right back then to put
to rest their hurt that saw you as stock.
We see you. Say your name. What you did brought
your horse fame, and left you as a mere footnote.
You ride once more with your name in the thoughts
of your audience, who see you and the horse; both.
You lead by seventy-five yards at the finish line,
and the victors toast the horse and both your names,
and the losers curse you and your fame and blame
your skill for their ruin, not the horse for winning.
B. J.
You make me feel like a borrowed library book
somebody never bothered to return to its nook.
The date stamped on me is so old, I’m appalled;
the library went South, pulled down for a mall.
You found that book, found me, in a thrift store
or at a droll country fair antique books seller.
Now you want to give me what’s overdue, more
apt for your time than mine, you want to settle
scores in poetry that yards of newspaper columns
about the greatest race, failed to do in prose:
grant me dignity by saying my name with an art
that’s all feel, touch, communion with a horse.
It’s so long after my time, I do and don’t, care if
you name me, keep it simple, not double-barrel,
for I was never one for airs, never quarreled,
I lived to race, lucky to have the ride of my life.
Do what you have to do to satisfy your time;
make sure you return me to my proper place
in history; check that people can say the name
you pick for me. I do not want to lose face
with my friends who will joke if they think
it funny. Where we remain, there’s no end
to what we say, what we do, and no ink
that lasts long enough to make amends.
Ethel
How do we carve out room to love
our life crowded with fending off
elbows?
You ask as we hold hands under
water after we stripped each other
bare
We sit on river bed stones
up to our necks in current hands
grip
More to steady ourselves we lie
barefaced fail to hide this found
trouble
Against all odds laid by our time
when black skin counts as work
stock
Worse off than pedigree horse
just above pigs, sheep, cows, or
bulls
If you take our labour as plow
pulled soil turned us pushed by
whips
Our hands tight against this tide
washed by currents that sweep clean
through
B. J.
This stream makes my skin feel new
Turns your brown lips two shades bluer
I feel weightless in it as if our love
Lifts our history off my back
And us off our feet so that we float
In a stream outside our time
If I can trust our love as the thing
That makes this stream pull and push and sing
Do not let go of my hand
Everything that I know lasts
As long as you keep my grip in this stream
That we bathe each other in
Ethel
Not the light of the moon
But the moon by whose light
We count our luck in stars
Not the call of the caribou
But the caribou in each of us
That calls for the other
Not the burn of midnight oil
But midnight’s oil on our skin
Burned as we clashed in bed
We cast long shadows around
Our walk and hands held talk
Shadows that melt under us
If time reads as our shadows
It passeth not for our love
*
Once or twice in life
Love strikes your spine
Straightens curves at top
And tail into lightning rod
For fingertips tongue touch
By one or two though never
Both at the same time for this
Love not just sex this what
Flesh thirsts for more
Than breath even
More than death
Equals free
Ethel & B. J.
Does my belly show?
Your belly shows.
Am I getting fat?
You’ve gained necessary weight.
Do you still love me?
I love you twice as much for what you carry for both of us.
But do you still want me?
You have to ask? Look at us naked every chance we get.
What if you fall for another?
I would be out of my mind. Have a doctor check my head
and heart.
You have an answer for everything I say.
[pause]
Don’t you?
[pause]
Don’t pretend that you don’t.
