Incident by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

1. What is the nature of the interaction between the two boys?
The Baltimorean, presumably a white boy, purposely insulted the speaker by sticking out his tongue and calling him a 'nigger' even after being smiled at. This is an act of racism and discrimination.


2. Why does the speaker remember nothing more than the incident, even though he stayed in Baltimore from "May until December"? 
The speaker was taken aback by the incident. The word 'nigger' is a very offensive word to African Americans and through the poem, we know that the speaker was truly offended as it was the only thing he remembered during his 7 month stay in Baltimore when he was eight.

3. In a paragraph compare your experience with prejudice with the persona in the poem.
I personally have not yet experienced any racial prejudice but my father once told me about his Kelantanese friend who experienced social class prejudice when he was looking to buy jewellery for his wife. Being a simple and humble man that he is, he only wore an old shirt and an old pair of jeans and spoke kelantanese to the goldsmith. The goldsmith (who was wearing an expensive chunky jewellery piece around his neck) told him to leave and that he shouldn't be wasting his time there. Little did he know, the man in old clothes who only spoke Kelantanese was a successful car dealer in Kelantan. The story ended with the expensive chunky jewellery piece around the Kelantanese car dealer's neck.

All Things Not Considered by Naomi Shihab Nye

You cannot stitch the breath
back into this boy.

A brother and sister were playing with toys
when their room exploded.

In what language
is this holy?

The Jewish boys killed in the cave
were skipping school, having an adventure.

Asel Asleh, Palestinian, age 17, believed in the field
beyond right and wrong where people came together

to talk. He kneeled to help someone else
stand up before he was shot.

If this is holy,
could we have some new religions please?

Mohammed al-Durra huddled against his father
in the street, terrified. The whole world saw him die.

An Arab father on crutches burying his 4 month girl weeps,
“I spit in the face of this ugly world.”

*

Most of us would take our children over land.
We would walk in the fields forever homeless
with our children,
huddle under cliffs, eat crumbs and berries,
to keep our children.
This is what we say from a distance
because we can say whatever we want.

*

No one was right.
Everyone was wrong.
What if they’d get together
and say that?
At a certain point
the flawed narrator wins.

People made mistakes for decades.
Everyone hurt in similar ways
at different times.
Some picked up guns because guns were given.
If they were holy it was okay to use guns.
Some picked up stones because they had them.
They had millions of them.
They might have picked up turnip roots
or olive pits.
Picking up things to throw and shoot:
at the same time people were studying history,
going to school.

*

The curl of a baby’s graceful ear.

The calm of a bucket
waiting for water.

Orchards of the old Arab men
who knew each tree.

Jewish and Arab women
standing silently together.

Generations of black.

Are people the only holy land?

Thesis 

The poem displays the misinterpretation of religion that leads to carnage instead of peace and harmony as taught by every religion.



First Exploratary Draft

In the poem entitled, 'All Things Not Considered' by Naomi Shihab Nye, the poet depicts the effects of wars executed under the excuse of religion in vivid images. Religion is either used and manipulated by the powerful or misinterpreted by the extremist which result in incomprehensible turmoils.

 Vivid images are painted meticulously in the poem by the poet. The poet uses imagery to effectively capture the reader's empathy and emotions. The line, "A brother and sister were playing with toys, when their room exploded",  shows innocent lives being taken away violently in, where supposedly safe, their own home. The lines, "In what language is this holy?" and "If this is holy, could we have some new religions, please?" accentuated in italic in the poem, are to show provocation, anger and extreme disappointment.

The use of real life names in the poem, Mohammed al-Durra and Asel Asleh, who died in innocence and were both young during death, is another way to compellingly grasp reader's empathy by exhibiting injustice and oppression.

The last few lines of the poem illustrates a serene and peaceful picture, which is what the poet longs for, serenity and peace. The poem is ended with a spectral question, "Are people the only holy land?", to provoke thinking in readers.