The Golden Shovel
Terrance Hayes
what it means
In the first section, a father and son are out exploring the night, including a pool hall. They witness a neighbor hit his son. We learn this is discipline for the types of behavior that eventually end this boy up in prison or possibly for defending his ma. I got confused in that part. But this section ends with the father and son praying together to survive.
In the second section, I’m not sure what’s going on. Is this homeless people in a tent city? It’s much more imagistic than narrative. “Born lost and cool/er than heartache.” I don’t know what this means, but it makes me think African American, homeless, young hip and denied.
This is what it’s like to be Black in America.
why I like it
I love this father and son. I got caught up in their lives, hoping they would make it. I’m always fond of getting stories, especially of lives I don’t know, through poetry. The second stanza feels more like listening to music: it moves me but I don’t understand lines like “What we/break is what we hold. A sing-/ular blue note.” And then, I really like this poem for the craft.
craft
Hayes invented a new form called a Golden Shovel. I’m guessing a lot of you know the Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “We Real Cool.” Here it is:
We Real Cool
THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Now, look at the last word of every line in Hayes’ poem. If you read down, you will read this poem. And, oh my gosh, he does it twice. First, I love the magic of that crafting. I’ve tried to write a golden shovel and, as often happens with form, it helps you say things you hadn’t expected. But I also like how the two poems talk to each other, how you have a second layer of meaning to the Hayes poem because the Brooks poem is embedded in it.