1210: Negro Hero (to Suggest Dorie Miller) by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s poem is Negro Hero (to Suggest Dorie Miller) by Gwendolyn Brooks. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual.

It’s fall, and that means “back-to-school”. We put together this week’s episodes for the educators in our audience — especially those of you who may be looking for a little Slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost. We hope you all enjoy these selections, as learners of any age.

In this episode, Major writes… “When I last taught this poem, I asked a student to recite it. A Southeast Asian-American student could not mouth the once acceptable word “Negro.” Instead, without warning, she replaced the word with human, so that the title was “Human Hero,” and the black newspapers were “human weeklies.” It was heartbreaking. She simply could not say the word that, to her ear, sounded too close to the racial epithet with which we are all familiar. The class then discussed the nature of language and how context and time alter the meaning of words.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from Norton Young Readers of In Praise of Mystery from US Poet
0:06.5	Loria Aida Lamone and Caldecod honor-winning illustrator Peter Seis, a transcendent picture book featuring the poem that will travel into space aboard
0:16.3	NASA's Europa Clipper in praise of mystery, celebrates humankind's curiosity.
0:21.9	Asked us what it means to explore beyond our known world and shows
0:26.6	how the unknown can reflect us back to ourselves.
0:30.2	And praise of mystery is available wherever books are sold.
0:34.4	It's fall and that means back to school.
0:38.2	We put together this week's episodes for the educators in our audience, especially those of you who may be
0:46.2	looking for a little slowdown treatment on those classroom classics, from Shakespeare to Frost.
0:54.4	We hope you all enjoyed these selections
0:57.4	as learners of any age. I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.
1:07.0	I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.
1:13.0	Big ideas like democracy, freedom, opportunity, fairness, and justice can sound grandiose through the
1:29.8	minutia of everyday life. Most of us simply try to live our lives with joy and dignity. We maintain
1:39.0	daily routines far away from the headlines. We grapple with a personal set of challenges and so it can be
1:48.4	difficult to keep in sight our commitment to shared values.
1:53.0	For this reason, poetry, along with the other arts,
1:58.0	have a special function.
2:00.0	They tell the stories that underscore fundamental beliefs that make us a humane society.
2:08.0	They serve as a measure of how far we have come but also serve as a place to test limits and challenge assumptions. That brings us to today's poem, Negro Hero, to suggest Dory Miller by Gwendeline Brooks.
2:32.4	It's a dramatic monologue spoken in the voice of a Navy sailor during
2:36.9	War II. Dory Miller, a black deckhand, was confined to only clean, cook, and serve food on the battleship
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.