Author: Nina F

M. NourbeSe Philip uses the format and the text in Zong! to recognize the lives lost and the tragedy that the Zong massacre brought. Captain Luke Collingwood boarded 470 slaves on his ship, Zong, to bring them to Jamaica. However, he deliberately overcrowded the boat with more slaves than it was supposed to carry to get the most out of his profits. When it hit a period of no wind, many of the slaves and crew members began to die. “Over the next week the remaining crew members threw 132 slaves who were sick and dying over the side” (Bernard). The insurance underwriter tried to take this to the courts since he knew that the ship had enough water for the journey but the judges sided with the owners. As a result, the ship owners were able to claim insurance money on the slaves that were thrown over. Society disregarded the slaves because of the color of their skin so the lives lost were never given justice. Philip created these poems to honor the lives that were lost. 

At first look, the poems do not make sense when first looking at them but their unreadability is significant in that it pays respect to what happened the night of the massacre. According to Philip the main goal of her poems was, “to release the story that cannot be told, but which, through not-telling will tell itself” (Philip 199). Philip understands that the real story will never be told because there is no correct representation of the night in any documents regarding the event. This is evident when she states, “the law attempts to extinguish being, as happened for 400 years as part of the European project” (Philip 200). The law was trying to make it seem like the crew was justified in the deaths of the slaves, but Philip is using her text to prove them wrong. Most importantly, Philip took the court case surrounding the massacre and crafted the poems to tell the slaves’ stories to create a new narrative of the tragedy. She wants the people to be remembered and her main purpose is to “defend the dead” (Philip 200).

Zong! #1 has letters that spell out water in a downward motion across the page. The poem states, “wat er wa  ter” (Philip 4). Philip formats the first poem using water to introduce the ocean as the setting of the tragedy. The letters are spread out in a way that reflects the waves and the movements of the ocean. Water is not directly spelled out for many lines but inferred based on the next line’s letters. The format also reflects the disrupted journey through the ocean the slaves were about to go through. The poems continue to contain spaces in between words and even have random words all over the pages. Philip does this for the text to mimic the voices of those thrown overboard and struggling to speak as the water is drowning them. For example, Zong! #7 states, “the throwing    overboard    the be      come apprehended   exist did not” (Philip 15). The pauses between the words signify the people fighting the water and struggling to stay above it to share their stories. In one of her journals, Philip states, “All the poems- need a great deal of space around them- as if there is too much cramping around them-as if they need to breathe” (Philip 194). This shows that the spaces were intended to symbolize the struggle to breathe. Also, the poems have no correct way to read them. No matter what way you read them, they are unreadable and are barely understandable. When I first read the poems, I was very confused. I wanted a clear poem that was easy to analyze, especially for my blog post. However, as I continued to read to the Notenda part, I realized that Philip intentionally made the poems like that. She states, “In the struggle to avoid imposing meaning, I confront the tension between the poem that I want to write and the poem that must write itself” (Philip 199). The point of the poems is to tell the story of the people killed, which goes against the narrative of the people who justified the massacre. Philip shares her journals to show how her experience in writing the poems connects to the overall tragedy. In one of her journals she states, “I sit and watch the flow of people and suddenly become aware that the fragment appears more precious” (Philip 201). She is looking at the groups of people passing by in the airport and she realizes that the group of people means more than a singular person. She notices the beauty in the group. Philip takes this realization into the poems by encompassing the voices of many slaves in each poem. The spaces and the random words also reflect the different voices shouting simultaneously as they drown. The poems are unreadable because Philip is using the text to convey the different voices saying different words as they are in the water. Philip continues to adhere to her purpose to “defend the dead” (Philip 200), by adding a space to the beginning of each poem. This space is done to recognize and remember the life that was lost. She takes the silence as a moment to acknowledge what was happening to them on the ship before beginning the stories. Then, she uses the words to capture the story of the slave who was just thrown overboard along with the rest that was in the water. Philip deliberately formatted the text throughout the poem with spaces and made the text unreadable to capture the stories of the lives lost while respecting what they went through. 

Questions:

1. How did your interpretation of Zong! change once you read the “Notanda” section?
2. How do the blank spaces and the tone that they create reflect Philip’s purpose for writing the poems? 

Works Cited

Bernard, Ian. “The Zong Massacre (1781)”. BlackPast, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/zong-massacre-1781/.

Philip, NourbeSe M. Zong! Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University Press, 2008.

After attending the Benjamin Garcia event this afternoon, I noticed many similarities from what we learn in class. All of his poems have a different meaning to them and have some personal connection. Watching him read them, it was apparent that he devoted a lot of himself into creating each poem in the book. He read the poems confidently while showing a lot of emotion. At times he even had to take a second to compose himself by drinking water. He even shared an emotional moment he had with his partner about writing a poem about tacos. I liked how he confronted the areas that society is weird to accept like using swear words and talking about sex. While listening to his poems, I tried to make connections with the two books we read. As an immigrant, he was also told by everyone that if he worked hard then he would get rich. I related this to A Raisin in the Sun. The main theme of the play was the American Theme. The Youngers were a hardworking family but no matter how hard they worked they were never able to get enough to live comfortably. They even struggled to be able to own their own house. Garcia also shared in his poem about the glass closet that he lived with eleven family members including his grandparents and aunts. This reminded me of the Younger apartment since the entire family lived with each other. Garcia reminded me of Travis and Beneatha. They both grew up with everyone under the same roof but also had different dreams. When Walter asks what Travis wants to be, he says a bus driver but Walter said he needs to be something more in order to make money. Beneatha wants to marry someone she actually likes and not because he has money. Garcia was told to work hard in order to get rich but decided to major in poetry even though he knew it would be hard to make money in. He chose his passion just like Beneatha chooses her passion of trying to become a doctor. All of his poems were about some personal experiences. He talked a lot about his family which reminded me of The Woman Warrior. He talked about his mother’s village and her being poor. He explained how she was lucky enough to be able to eat this certain food that he does not even like. This reminded me of Kingston since she wrote a book to expose her village after coming to America. Garcia and Kingston show the difference in connection to the culture after moving to a new country. One of his poems “The Great Glass Closet” talks about his uncle being on crutches and still crossing the border. I connected this instantly with Kingston starting her book about the story of her aunt. Garcia wrote about his uncle while sharing his story of literally living in the/a closet. It showed that the story of his uncle influenced him in the way that Kingston was influenced by her aunt. Overall, Garcia is a talented poet and I enjoyed listening to his work!

Hi my name is Nina and I am from New Hartford, New York. I am majoring in political science and want to become a lawyer. I am excited to take this course because it is different from my usual classes and is a nice break from reading cases!