The Man Who

by Anthony S. Abbott

Book by Abbott, Anthony S.

84 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2005

Reviews

[Candy Wood]

Sometimes “The Man Who” is a version of the poet--explicitly in the last two, but recognizably in ones like “The Man Who Could Not Remember” and “The Man Who Walked Funny.” In others, The Man is clearly someone else. Of those, I especially like “The Man Who Shouted ‘Good Stuff’” because both Tony Abbott and Gill Holland, to whom the poem is dedicated, are now my neighbors, and I can see why both were respected and popular professors at Davidson College. Either way, the collection provides many compelling stories informed by vivid observation of the surrounding world and offering both sadness and hope.

[Dan Gobble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthony Abbott's book of poems are a collection of third person glimpses into the lives, minds, thoughts, and experiences of the various persons who are the main characters in the poems, many if not all, having been drawn from actual history. Sometimes, the person witnesses something significant, and sometimes the person actually lives through a series of events which make up the body of the poem. Each poem is thought provoking and offers its readers a chance to stand in the shoes of someone else and ponder their lives, experiences, and reactions. One of my favorite poems in The Man Who collection is framed around Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust, a very prominent historian in modern academia, who became the first woman President of Harvard University in 2007. Anthony's poem goes back to 1957 and specifically to a letter Gilpin Faust penned when she was only nine years old. The letter was written to President Eisenhower. The subject of the letter was bold and provocative for such a young girl. I'll let the poem speak for itself: THE MAN WHO COULD NOT REMEMBER

Catherine Drew Gilpin was nine in 1957.
The man who could not remember was 22.
She was a Girl Scout in Boyce, Virginia.
He was a senior at Princeton University.

On Lincoln's Birthday she wrote to President
Eisenhower in block letters: "I AM NINE YEARS
OLD AND I AM WHITE BUT I HAVE MANY
FEELINGS AOUT SEGREGATION. WHY SHOULD PEOPLE

FEEL THAT WAY BECAUSE THE COLOR OF THE SKIN?
IF I PAINTED MY FACE BLACK I WOULDN'T BE LET
IN ANY PULBIC SCHOOLS, etc. MY FEELINGS HAVEN'T
CHANGED, JUST THE COLOR OF MY SKIN.

LONG AGO ON CHRISTMAS DAY JESUS CHRIST
WAS BORN. AS YOU REMEMBER HE WAS BORN
TO SAVE THE WORLD. NOT ONLY WHITE PEOPLE
BUT BLACK YELLOW RED AND BROWN."

The man read her words in his Alumni Magazine
with great wonder. He studied he block letters
and the lined, three-holed notebook paper. He was
astonished. He saw her looking frankly at the camera

in her Girl Scout uniform, a shelf behind her where
a box of Crayola crayons and a needlepoint kit lay
innocently enough. No signs of radicalism here.
Yet she had written, "COLORED PEOPLE AREN'T

GIVEN A CHANCE. . . . SO WHAT IF THEIR SKIN
IS BLACK? THEY STILL HAVE FEELINGS BUT
MOST OF ALL ARE GOD'S PEOPLE." Except for
"sincerely" at the end, there were no spelling errors.

The man was nine in 1944, sent off to boarding school
because his home was breaking up. He remembered
riding on the train from New York with the other boys
and watching the black people in the street and in

the windows of apartment buildings when the train
stopped at 125th Street. Surely he could not
have written such a letter as Drew Gilpin's.
He envied the girl her courage and her vision.

Even in 1957 when he was twenty-two
He would not have written to President Eisenhower
He was hard at work in the basement
of the college library on his senior thesis.

He wished to attend graduate school,
and where Rosa Parks sat or did not sit
on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama,
did not concern him.

Now he gazes in awe at the picture
of Drew Gilpin in her Girl Scout uniform,
at her words in their clean block letters.
Her courage burns in his heart.

(Anthony Abbott, The Man Who, Charlotte, NC: Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2005, pp. 27-28)