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An Intelligent Well-Read Person Could Believe In The War Between Race Poem

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Moreover, in her poem, entitled “Poem For the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent, Well-read Person Could Believe in the War Between Races,” is similarly emotionally charged and autobiographical for the author. For instance, Cervantes was inspired to write this poem after her friend, novelist James Brown who is the “young white man” in this poem, asked her “How can you, an intelligent well-read person, believe in the war between races?” Brown was referring to Cervantes’s “allegiance to the experience of racism – even though he knew in heart and sense that [she] couldn’t ‘believe’ it” (Reflections On "Poem For the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent Well-Read Person Could Believe In the War Between Races). As a result, Cervantes was so disturbed by his question, even angry, that she “felt like a beer in a bottle, shaken up and ready to burst” (Reflections On "Poem For the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent Well-Read Person Could Believe In the War Between Races). …show more content…
Cervantes, who we can presume is the speaker, begins the poem with the firm declaration, “In my land there are no distinctions” (Emplumada 35). The first two stanzas discuss “my land,” an ideal world where everyone gets along and “There are no boundaries / There is no hunger, no / complicated famine or greed” (35). These stanzas are filled with hope and a sense of camaraderie and family that embody a community. She uses images such as the “barbed wire politics of oppression” torn down and “fertile field” and people who “write poems about love”

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