For the Confederate Dead Quotes

“How humid
the heart, its messy
rooms! We eat spicy
food, sweat like wood

& smolder like the coal
mine that caught fire
decades ago, yet still smokes”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“The Revolution's Step-Daughters
will not let
Marion Anderson clear
her brown throat

onstage, among the blinding lights
of Constitution Hall--
it will take a First Lady to invite
Anderson to thrill

a throng at Lincoln's stone feet.
(In the wings, Anderson trills
the me-me-me
of practice drills.)

Like sky her throat is clear.
Everywhere,
folks stop to hear her
voice's bright thunder--”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Whenever a group of us coloreds
would be gathered, you know,
talking, all it’d take is two, three cops
to come along and sound
us down. The others ran—
I’d stand my ground—

One’d take his stick
and jab me in my stomach.
I’d call him a son of a b
all while he was hitting me.

[Silence.]”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Back then Baltimore had
the racial discrimination--
but you're too young to recollect.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“America, won't you take
your hands of hurt away?
tuck them drawer-deep
like the good
silver of grandmothers?

(I have inherited, America, only
rusty knees, a voice
hoarse from hollering.)

America I have counted
all the china and none
is missing.

America, I love most your rust,
the signs that misspell doom--”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“America, I am letting you in.
America, where you been?”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“America, I can’t leave you
well enough alone.

America, you’ve lost
your way home—”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“What mountains you are
America! What minefields
and mysteries, symptoms
and cinemas and symphonies
and cemeteries!”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“America, you won’t obey.
You won’t hunt
or heel or stay.

America, you won’t do
anything I want you to.
(To tell the truth,
I like that about you.)

You’re too much.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Old Exit 9 doesn't mind
opening up
a can of whupass,
help yourself.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Old Exit 9 gave peace a chance
Old Exit 9 has no regrets
Thinks Cleveland's exotic
& Akron's next”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Old Exit 9

sells Fireworks & Karate Supplies
is now Exit 29
is handy with a knife
wants what it wants
when it wants it.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“We work all night
at the unhappiness plant

where no one gets laid
off, pull down
a decent wage.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Termites & tow trucks & the Sheriff
Dept in which we each are deputies, except
those who ain't, who never will be. The no
good know it, and love that too--”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“The South knows ruin & likes it
thataway--”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Precious South,
must I save you

or myself?”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“If it moans

like a man it must
be a man.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“It's all there in black
and white: someone
has done it again.

We have lynched a man

in a land far-off
like Texas, hog-tied
and -wild

to the back of a car.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Still, every once in a moon

his mother bought
herself a church hat
with shoes to match--
not to hide

her face, but frame
its blossom brown
& remind folks
that humility

need not be ugly.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Easier to forget

than regret--”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Jim's duel with The Devil

was quick as Hell.
The Devil won,
of course, always does,
but afterward taught Jim a trick

or two.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“He
& Jesus mostly met
Sundays in church

where Jesus came for the singing
but stayed for the sermon
& to see whether the preacher
ever got it right.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Since they shared the same
monogram, Jim
Crow & Jesus
often found themselves

getting the other's dress shirts
back from the wash.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Known by four score
& seven names, Jim Crow
was born
with a silver bullet

in his hand.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead

“Lucy went

one night, late,
but that's the Lord's

business, not yours.”
― Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead