Trina Young
A Sort of Horror
In response to Tony Hoagland’s “The Change”
Commentary |
Trina on "A Sort of Horror":
This was originally an erasure written when I was in college 5 years ago, from a chapter in Tony Hoagland’s Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft. This book was part of the class readings, and the erasure was an assignment during that unit. Titled “Adam & Eve in Exile,” it was a cheeky imagining of them enjoying sex after being cast out of Eden. Recently I have not been writing as much new material, and so to make myself feel less depressed over that and more productive, I’ve been taking a look at past writing of mine to play around with and possibly submit. I found this old erasure and felt it still held up, but I had this weird feeling coming across the author’s name again, like I’d heard something sketchy in the years between then and now. I Googled “Tony Hoagland controversy” and found Claudia Rankine’s response to Hoagland’s “The Change” first, and then read said poem myself. After, I did not want my original poem existing in a way that did not address this knowledge I now had. As a mixed race Black woman, I was uncomfortable and mad to read his words, whatever the intention or persona used. I’ve read his (very white, cis, male) explanation in his response letter to Claudia, and it only made me more upset. So I made further erasures to the poem to honor that, resulting in this. The title “A Sort of Horror” is a phrase in one of the blacked out lines that I feel sums up perfectly what I’m trying to express about the insidiousness of racism.
This was originally an erasure written when I was in college 5 years ago, from a chapter in Tony Hoagland’s Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft. This book was part of the class readings, and the erasure was an assignment during that unit. Titled “Adam & Eve in Exile,” it was a cheeky imagining of them enjoying sex after being cast out of Eden. Recently I have not been writing as much new material, and so to make myself feel less depressed over that and more productive, I’ve been taking a look at past writing of mine to play around with and possibly submit. I found this old erasure and felt it still held up, but I had this weird feeling coming across the author’s name again, like I’d heard something sketchy in the years between then and now. I Googled “Tony Hoagland controversy” and found Claudia Rankine’s response to Hoagland’s “The Change” first, and then read said poem myself. After, I did not want my original poem existing in a way that did not address this knowledge I now had. As a mixed race Black woman, I was uncomfortable and mad to read his words, whatever the intention or persona used. I’ve read his (very white, cis, male) explanation in his response letter to Claudia, and it only made me more upset. So I made further erasures to the poem to honor that, resulting in this. The title “A Sort of Horror” is a phrase in one of the blacked out lines that I feel sums up perfectly what I’m trying to express about the insidiousness of racism.
Biography
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Trina Young is a poet in Chicago and recent Best of the Net 2019 nominee. She has been published in Afterimage Online's Inklight Gallery, Superstition Review, Burning House Press, Rhythm & Bones Lit's Dark Marrow, Kristin Garth's Pink Plastic House, Moonchild Magazine, and placed third as a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award Winner in the Illinois Emerging Writers Competition. Her writing themes often include mental illness, marginalization, and the absurdity of life. She can be found defiantly tweeting about depression and snacks @tcyghoul.
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