Etheridge Knight (1931–1991) dropped out of high school when he was a teenager to serve in the Korean War and was wounded in combat. He returned home with an injury that led to a drug addiction and eventual incarceration for robbery. On the back of his first published book of poetry, he summarizes his experiences this way: “I died in Korea from a shrapnel wound, and narcotics resurrected me. I died in 1960 from a prison sentence and poetry brought me back to life.”

I’ve got about 13 poems dog-eared in The Essential Etheridge Knight, but I think “A WASP Woman Visits a Black Junkie in Prison” is my favorite. Take a minute to read it here. Or, better yet, listen to Knight read it in the two-minute clip below.

Audio clip of Knight reading
“A WASP Woman Visits a Black Junkie in Prison.”

In this poem, we have two human beings from very different worlds. The only thing they seem to have in common is that they’re both human. It’s not much, yet they make a connection. How? Each takes a critical first step. The “WASP woman” makes a visit. Why? We don’t know, but if she’s anything like the rest of us, her motivations are probably mixed and unclear even to herself. I think it’s fair that she’s probably trying to do a good thing—it’s not easy, after all, visiting a prison. But maybe she imagines herself some kind of saint. Maybe has a White Savior Complex. Maybe her daddy was in prison and she never went to visit him and now he’s dead and she’s trying to make up for it. Or maybe she signed up for the Prison Visiting Committee at church and now that she’s there she doesn’t know what she was thinking. She’s sits, nervous in her chair, unsure what to talk about, but she is there.

The protagonist “black junkie” walks in. Guard up. Skeptical. The very idea of the visit “a cake baked with embarrassing icing,” but he sees the woman sitting there and something tells him to give it a chance. To give her a chance. He says to himself, “Hold your stupid face, man, Learn a little grace, man,” and then, in the crucial action of the poem—in the crucial action of life—he tells himself:

“drop a notch the sacred shield.” 

Ah, yes. The sacred shield. The god of our unenlightened lives. The ego self, always at hand, keeping us safe, keeping us isolated. How many missed connections in life because we were too afraid, stubborn, angry, anxious, arrogant, self-protecting, self-involved, bitter, prejudiced, spiteful, and/or wounded to lower it a notch? But even if/when we find the courage to lower it, it doesn’t mean it’s gonna be a cake walk. Knight, who is writing about his own experience in the poem, narrates what happens next:

“After the seating

And the greeting, they fished for a denominator,

Common or uncommon,

And could only summon up the fact that both were human.”

That’s it. That’s all they got. Like I said, not gonna be a cake walk. He’s agitated by this lowest of common denominators. Feels the “hot words” he put down earlier boiling back up to the surface, but chastises himself when he recognizes a crucial aspect of their shared humanity:

“The lady is as lost as you.” 

So, he decides to try again. “You got any children?” he asks, and the dam breaks. They begin to chat. “Small and funny talk.” No “compact sermons” or “pills to cure his many ills.” But they make a connection, and in the powerful closing lines of his poem, Knight lets us know this connection is the essential thing:

“Her chatter sparked no resurrection and truly

No shackles were shaken,

But after she had taken her leave, he walked softly,

And for hours used no hot words.”

I think Knight is saying that our shared humanity is enough, but only if we have the courage to lower our ego shields and offer our true selves to one another. Anyone who has ever made one of these rare, fleeting, mutually ego-less connections with another human being knows the awe and serenity that come in their wake. Knows what it’s like to walk softly and, for a couple of hours, to use no hot words. Knows how surprising and sweet the sustenance to the soul can be from one of these cakes baked with embarrassing icing.

You can read more about Etheridge Knight’s life and work at the Poetry Foundation, and you can access more of his recordings on the University of Pennsylvania PennSound website. The video below is of Knight reading some of his poems for the Friends of the Scranton Public Library Poetry Series, October 8, 1980.

Tales From the Liminal now available as an audiobook on all your favorite platforms!