As Black History Month comes to a close, I’m reminded of a powerful voice I first encountered as an undergrad in the early ’90s. Etheridge Knight first gained modest fame when his Poems From Prison was published in 1968. His story is all too familiar: born poor, drop-out at age 16, enlisted in the Army, fell into drug addiction – not necessarily in that order.
It was after a eight-year prison sentence was levied on him for mugging an elderly woman, however, that Etheridge Knight discovered his true calling. Fueled by what he viewed as a racist system that saddled him with an unjust and lengthy term – Knight began to write. After doing his time, Etheridge Knight continued to write, married twice, struggled with addiction, and spent time at university (as both instructor and student – earning a degree from Indianapolis’ Martin Center University in 1990).
On Etheridge Knight’s “Genesis” (Read it Here):
“Genesis” functions as an introduction to The Essential Etheridge Knight – in fact, it is not included in the text but as a preface. Thereby, it parallels the biblical Book of Genesis as a beginning. Indeed, anyone familiar with the Judeo-Christian bible would recognize the title and associate it with the first words, “In the beginning…” In this way Knight has already captured his audience in looking to the beginning, the opening. In the poem this may be a biblical beginning; in the context of his book it is an opening statement.
The poem is separated into three sections which, for reference, I have entitled “Invocation” (lines 1-6), “The Garden” (lines 7-12), and “Exodus” (lines 13-19). These sections are clearly unique and separate, yet rhythmic and interwoven. The “snake” reference is the most obvious and continuous statement. The alliteration of ‘s’ is wonderfully used and constant in the poem (skin, sometimes, snake, shape, song, split). It is beautifully used to suggest slithering, intensifying the “snake” allusion.
The “Invocation” section is not related to religion or the Book of Genesis. In this section, Knight is likening his poetry to green skin, “wrinkled and worn” (another great alliteration). The significance of this opening stanza is twofold. It introduces the reader to the “green” skin, like a snake, yet we are not clued in to the snake just yet. Secondly, it lets the reader know what they are in for. That is, Knight claims his poetry is “green” and sometimes “wrinkled and worn” – he is giving an overview of his poetry. Knight is characterizing his poetry by telling the reader it may not always be to their liking or what they expect. “Green” is to conjure up ideas of youth or immaturity (it is common to say a youngster is “green”) or imply sickness (the color of an ill person is said to be “green”), as well as to foreshadow the “snake.”
It is in the second section, “The Garden,” where we are finally confronted with the “snake” and the biblical reference. Lines 7-8 liken the poetry to a snake and use the repetition of the ‘s’ sound to further this image (“snake shape/ of my song”). As people fear snakes, Etheridge Knight suggests they may fear his sometimes unsettling, political, and engaging verse. His poetry “may cause/ the heel/ of Adam & Eve/ to bleed…” This reference also works in a twofold manner. Firstly, Adam & Eve are the primordial parents of humanity. “The Fall” is an etiology of why snakes have no appendages, why they can only strike at man’s heel while he at its head, and to explain why people fear snakes – it is because the serpent is cursed “below all other creatures” (Gen. 3.14). In this section, Knight is likening his poetry to the creature that suggested original sin and has been hated ever since. Secondly, “The Garden” serves to tie the poem to its title. It is at this point that the references to the bible and the biblical Genesis are introduced.
Section 3, “Exodus” is interesting for two reasons. First, Knight takes a stance surrounding his self-characterization of his poetry from the first stanza (this will become clearer in a minute). Second, he calls upon knowledge of Moses, who is not introduced in the bible until the Book of Exodus. Indeed, Moses is a central figure and patriarch of the Old Testament, but why is he in a poem entitled “Genesis?”
The first three lines (“split my skin/ with the rock/ of love”) encapsulate the central argument of the poem. This “rock of love” Knight speaks about is a puzzling issue. I believe he is speaking about an intangible tool with which the reader is to attack the “skin” of his poetry. Etheridge Knight is asking the reader to look beyond the troubling aspects of his poetry to the deeper meaning and beauty. His statement “split my skin” implies going beyond the exterior, those issues that make his poetry appear “green” and “wrinkled and worn.”
Lines 15-17 bring Moses into the fold. Knight says the “rock/ of love”/ is “old/ as the rock/ of Moses” – obviously ancient. The rock of Moses is central to the way the poem works. The biblical instance Moses encounters a rock numbers two. In the first, Exodus 17, the Israelites are dying of thirst and God bids Moses to strike a rock which breaks open and water rushes from it. In the second incident, the Israelites are once again out of water and a well at the oasis of Kadesh is dry – God this time bids Moses to speak to the rock and instead he strikes it – water issues forth, but God is angry with Moses’ transgression. In these narratives God supplies his people with sustenance, yet in the second episode Moses is not strictly adherent to God’s commandment and thus is not allowed to enter the Promised Land. Like the “rock of Moses” which never failed the Israelites, the “rock of love” will never fail the readers of Etheridge Knight. But, like Moses, they should be particularly careful how they use the “rock.”
“Genesis” as a whole hits the reader on three levels. Religiously – with the allusions to biblical stories and people (serpent, Adam & Eve, Moses). Socially – in the realm of using lessons from biblical times (“rock of love,” etc.) toward life in the present, and, most importantly, in relation to Etheridge Knight’s poetry – to see beyond the poem’s exterior to the hidden or shadowed meaning and beauty. These three levels are expertly interwoven throughout Knight’s “Genesis,” his beginning.
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Etheridge Knight was the proverbial “rags-to-riches” story. He began his adult life as a heroin-addicted criminal and ended it a successful poet who had taught at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Hartford, and Lincoln University. Etheridge Knight died March 10, 1991 of complications from lung cancer. He was one-month shy of his 60th birthday.
Sources:
The Essential Etheridge Knight. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1986.
Crowder, Ashby Bland. “Etheridge Knight: Two Fields Of Combat.” Concerning Poetry 16.2 (1983): 23-25. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/etheridge-knight#poet Web. 24 Feb. 2012