{"id":2431,"date":"2021-04-05T15:08:54","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T15:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/?p=2431"},"modified":"2025-06-30T19:24:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T19:24:19","slug":"the-golden-shovel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/the-golden-shovel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Golden Shovel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Golden Shovel<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Terrance Hayes<\/p>\n

\n

what it means<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In the second section, I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s going on. Is this homeless people in a tent city? It\u2019s much more imagistic than narrative. \u201cBorn lost and cool\/er than heartache.\u201d I don\u2019t know what this means, but it makes me think African American, homeless, young hip and denied.<\/p>\n

This is what it\u2019s like to be Black in America.<\/p>\n

why I like it<\/h3>\n

\u00a0I love this father and son. I got caught up in their lives, hoping they would make it. I\u2019m always fond of getting stories, especially of lives I don\u2019t know, through poetry. The second stanza feels more like listening to music: it moves me but I don\u2019t understand lines like \u201cWhat we\/break is what we hold. A sing-\/ular blue note.\u201d And then, I really like this poem for the craft.<\/p>\n

craft<\/h3>\n

Hayes invented a new form called a Golden Shovel. I\u2019m guessing a lot of you know the Gwendolyn Brooks\u2019 poem \u201cWe Real Cool.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Here it is:<\/p>\n

We Real Cool<\/p>\n

\u00a0THE POOL PLAYERS.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.<\/p>\n

We real cool. We<\/p>\n

Left school. We<\/p>\n

Lurk late. We<\/p>\n

Strike straight. We<\/p>\n

Sing sin. We<\/p>\n

Thin gin. We<\/p>\n

Jazz June. We<\/p>\n

Die soon.<\/p>\n

Now, look at the last word of every line in Hayes\u2019 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\u2019ve tried to write a golden shovel and, as often happens with form, it helps you say things you hadn\u2019t expected.\u00a0\u00a0But 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2431"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2545,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431\/revisions\/2545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}