Identity Lessons

Table Of Contents

Introduction

I. Family Primer I
Names – Ruth Stone
Pokeberries – Ruth Stone
Beets – Tiffany Midge
Magnalia Christi Americana – T.H.S. Wallace
daughters – Lucille Clifton
fury – Lucille Clifton
Dear Mama – Sonia Sanchez
Linked – Naomi Shihab Nye
I Go Back to May 1937 – Sharon Olds
The Portrait – Stanley Kunitz
Cracked Portraits – Agha Shahid Ali
Those Were the Days – Philip Levine
The Substitute – Stephen Dunn
The Liar – Tobias Wolff
Daddy, We Called You – Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Sangre 24: A Legacy – Leroy V. Quintana
Working Class – Lenard D. Moore
from attic – Justin Vitiello
Always Running – Luis J. Rodríguez
Company Outing – Diane Der-Hovanessian
Tending – Elizabeth Alexander
I cannot write a poem to bless all the givers of pain – Honorée Jeffers
II. Family Primer II
Family – Grace Paley
Why the Violin Is Better – Hal Sirowitz
My Aunts – Anthony Valerio
My Son Is Worried About Me – Laura Boss
The Word You Did Not Speak – Vivian Shipley
Words for My Daughter from the Asylum – Hayden Carruth
My Mad Son Helps Me Into Heaven – Arthur L. Clements
The Children – Diane di Prima
Mother’s Voice – Robert Creeley
Singing Lessons – Rochelle Ratner
photo poem – Vittoria repetto
Saying Farewell to My Father – James P. Handlin
The Birthday—August 25, 1980 – Edgar Gabriel Silex
Late – Terrance Hayes
Hotel Nights with My Mother – Linda McCarriston
Legacy – Stephen Dunn
Apples – Shirley Kaufman
Day Worker – Lamont B. Steptoe
Breakfast – Yictove
Shelling Shrimp – Lê Thi Diem Thúy
The Last Lesson – Toni Libro
Poem for My Father – Quincy Troupe
Sports Heroes, Cops, and Lace – Michael Lally

III. Calling Roll
The Riddle of Noah – Maxine Kumin
Baptisms – Joseph Bruchac
Freedom Candy – E. Ethelbert Miller
The Boots of Alfred Bettingdorf – Daniel Gabriel
Say What? – Amiri Baraka
Sangre 14: Sterling, Colorado – Leroy V. Quintana
The Loss of a Culture – Antonio D’Alfonso
Coffee- Wanda Coleman
Horns on Your Head – Hal Sirowitz
The Middle Classes – Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Right Off the Bat – Leslea Newman
French Girls Are Fast – Cheryl Savageau
My Rough Skinned Grandmother – Tina Chang
Kemo Sabe – Diane Glancy
Dictionary of Terminology – Tony Medina
A New Story – SImon J. Ortiz

IV. Pledging Allegiance
The Poets – Afaa M. Weaver
Seven Horses – Marge Piercy
The Last Wild Horses in Kentucky – Vivian Shipley
Learning Silence – Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Home Training – Bruce A. Jacobs
Half-Breed’s Song – Adrian C. Louis
Mestizo – Alfred Encarnacion
Tangerine – Susan Deer Cloud Clements
Between Holi and Halloween – Beena Kamlani
Strange Country – Julie Parson-Nesbitt
Roomers, rumors – Marge Piercy
Language Difficulties – Kathryn Nocerino
The Welcome Table – Lee Martin
High School: San Martin – Renny Christopher
On the Subway – Sharon Olds

V. School Daze
In the Elementary School Choir – Gregory Djanikian
Sixth Grade – Marie Howe
The Jacket – Gary Soto
Ladies’ Choice – Tony Ardizzone
As Children Together – Carolyn Forché
The Silence That Widened – Tom Romano
Caroline – Allison Joseph
Poem for Anthony, Otherwise Known as Head – Sean Thomas Dougherty
from Personal and Impersonal Landscapes – Diane Wakoski
The Dance at St. Gabriel’s – Felix Stefanile
Yellow Roses – Lyn Lifshin
High School Reunion – Denise Duhamel
The Story of My Life – Liz Rosenberg
Wearing of the Green – Anthony F. Bruno
The Boy Without a Flag – Abraham Rodriguez Jr.
Early Snow – Dona Luongo Stein
Butch Traynor – Michael S. Glaser
The Weird Kid – Mark Vinz
Sterling Williams’ Nosebleed – David Chin
Losing Faith – Mary McLaughlin Slechta
Altar Boy – Charles Rossiter
School of Night – Toi Derricotte
No Consolation – Robert Phillips
The Way of the Cross – Len Roberts

VI. Learning by Rote
Teaching English from an Old Composition Book – Gary Soto
Among Children – Philip Levine
Our Room – Molly Peacock
Chinese in Academia – Shirely Geok-lin Lim
For Sal Sanjamino: On His Retirement – Stanley H. Barkan
Poem on the First Day of School – Peter Cooley
Big World, Little Man – William Stafford
A Long Way – Ralph Salisbury
The First Day – Edward P. Jones
Pennies – David Ray
Shame – Francisco X. Alarcón
Disc ‘n Dat – Grace Cavalieri
The Captain of the Safeties – Maria Fama
Senior Will – David Haynes
VII. Our Bodies, Ourselves
My Father’s Love Letters – Yusef Komunyakaa
Mortal Sins – Maureen Seaton
Training Bra – Maria Mazziotti Gillan
The One Girl at the Boys’ Party – Sharon Olds
The Boy – Marie Howe
Practicing – Marie Howe
from Drops of This Story – Suheir Hammad
Playing with Dolls – David Trinidad
Rice and Beans – Rafael Campo
Defining Us – Rafael Campo
Imagining Drag – Rafael Campo
Choice in Colored Rain – Lisa Yun
Graffiti – Margie Norris
The Girls – Diane Wakoski
Aunt Dorothy – Laura Boss
Aunt Rose – Laura Boss
The Accordion – Rachel Guido deVries
Uncle Earl and Guns – Walt McDonald
Legacy – Chris Kennedy
The Politics of Buddy – Leslea Newman
“You know what I’m saying?” – Allen Ginsberg
The Robe – Afaa M. Weaver
Acupuncture and Cleansing at Forty-eight – Len Roberts

VIII. Beyond Dick and Jane
Garden State – Allen Ginsberg
Thelonious – Afaa M. Weaver
Robin’s Nest – Janice Eidus
Real Life – Mary Ann Mannino
Jetties Were the Bridges I Crossed – Nancy Mercado
Rock’n’Roll – M.L. Liebler
Sally – Frank Finale
Painting the Christmas Trees – Joe E. Weil
City Lights – Diane di Prima
There I Was One Day – Gerald Stern
An American in Trapani – Nat Scammacca
Made You Mine, America – Ali Zarrin
Ode to Elizabeth – Joe E. Weil
from Krik? Krak! – Edwidge Danticat
from This Past Decade and the Next – Eliot Katz
Second-Grade Angel – Len Roberts
Miz Rosa Rides the Bus – Angela Jackson
The Summer of Black Widows – Sherman Alexie
Tourists – Sherman Alexie
Like Mexicans – Gary Soto
American Milk – Ruth Stone

Contributors
Index