1352 Langston Hughes' Brass Spittoons

The assignment in writing class was to write a poem about some type of job we'd had in the past, and the teacher provided Langston Hughes "Brass Spittoons" as a sample and we spent some time discussing what he might have meant. Tricky stuff, deciphering what a poet might intend. Although there's little doubt that cleaning a spittoon wouldn't be much fun.

So I used Hughes' poem as a template for mine, following his style, to write about corn detasselling, the adolescent right of passage in the midwest. [I don't know enough html code to get this to space correctly--if anyone can suggest an indent that isn't a blockquote, let me know.]



Working for DeKalb Seed



Pull the tassels, girl.

Polo
Dixon
Stratford
Woosung

Pull those pollen tassels.
Mud between the rows
in between your toes.
Bugs on the stalks.

Mud in the boots
dirt in your gloves
Sunburned eye lids.
Dew on the leaves
Soaking your sleeves.
Forget where you are, girl.

Two weeks in hot July, girl.

Fifty cents
One dollar
Two dollar
Save it all

Buy shoes for the horse,
a dress of course
For a Saturday date.

Tug those tassels, girls

sisters
friends
sack lunches
dropped at the farm by moms.

Faster, faster arms aching
Get a rhythm, back be breaking
Water at the end of the row.

At night in your sleep, girl,

row on row
on cutting row
on green row
on glistening row

All night till dawn
Pull the tassel,
Hey, girl.