When Golda Meir was in

Africa

by Alice Walker

When Golda Meir
Was in Africa
She shook out her hair
And combed it
Everywhere she went.

According to her autobiography
Africans loved this.

In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.C.,
Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem
She never combed at all.
There was no point. In those
Places people said, “She looks like
Any other aging grandmother. She looks
Like a troll. Let’s sell her cookery
And guns.”  

“Kreplach your cookery,” said Golda.

Only in Africa could she finally
Settle down and comb her hair.
The children crept up and stroked it,
And she felt beautiful.

Such wonderful people, Africans
Childish, arrogant, self-indulgent, pompous,
Cowardly and treacherous—a great disappointment
To Israel, of course, and really rather
Ridiculous in international affairs
But, withal, opined Golda, a people of charm
And good taste.

 

ANALYSIS OF POEM

            “When Golda Meir was in Africa”, Alice Walker is a true story of Israeli’s third Prime Minister Golda Meir who was in Africa because she needed to feel beautiful. “When Golda Meir Was in Africa She shook out her hair and combed it everywhere she went”. Walker’s poem explains how Golda Meir only let her hair down in Africa and that whenever she did this the Africans loved it. However, it also describes how she is treated in her home country and explains how she never lets her hair down anywhere else but in Africa because in her home country no one fancy's her or thinks she is beautiful they think she is an old women who knows nothing.. Also the poem describes how some of the people in the other places would call her names and not think of her as anything more than an aging old woman who looks like a troll. “Only in Africa could she finally Settle down and comb her hair”. This line is the fifth stanza explains how much she lacks self-respect for her appearance. The line also shows she puts up a fake shield and act confident with herself but really is not. She must be considered beautiful and should be fawned over. Meir feels no one respects, so she goes to Africa where she knows that she is someone of great importance. Overall this poem discuses how weak Meir is inside and the lack of confidence in what she looks like and also explains how she uses Africans that she likes so much in her little game to feel beautiful.

WHO ?

BY ALICE WALKER
 

Who has not been
invaded
by the Wasichu?

Not I, said the people.

Not I, said the trees.

Not I, said the waters.

Not I, said the rocks.

Not I, said the air.

Moon!

We hoped
you were safe.

ANALYSIS OF POEM

“Who”, by Alice Walker centers on the Wasichu. In Alice Walker’s eyes I see the Wasichu as being the White Pilgrims or settlers. This poem gets right to the facts of how the Wasichu stole the land from its rightful owners. For example this quote explains what she thinks “Who has not been invaded by the Wasichu? The Wasichu invaded this land’s life and energy and ruined it. In Alice’s poem she describe how the Wasichu invaded the people, the trees, the water, rocks and even the air with their way of life. Though the Wasichu did not invade the moon. This next quote proves what the real meaning of her poem is, “We hoped you were safe”. That very line to me explains that the Wasichu will invade anything on or beneath their level. They have controlled and invaded everything on Earth with their ways. However the moon is above everyone so even though they can reach it they cannot invade it yet. The main point this poem is trying to say is stop destroying this land and this earth just because you can because in the end you will only destroy yourself.

EACH ONE, PULL ONE

BY ALICE WALKER

(Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)

 

We must say it all, and as clearly
Trying to bury us. 
As we can. For, even before we are dead,

Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country?
Or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown? 

But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw,
As clearly as we could? Were we unsophisticated
Enough to cry and scream? 

Well, then, they will fill our eyes,
Our ears, our noses and our mouths
With the mud
Of oblivion. They will chew up
Our fingers in the night. They will pick
Their teeth with our pens. They will sabotage
Both our children
And our art. 

Because when we show what we see,
They will discern the inevitable:
We do not worship them. 

We do not worship them.
We do not worship what they have made.
We do not trust them. 

We do not believe what they say.
We do not love their efficiency.
Or their power plants.
We do not love their factories.
Or their smog.
We do not love their television programs.
Or their radioactive leaks.
We find their papers boring.
We do not worship their cars.
We do not worship their blondes.
We do not worship their penises.
We do not think much
Of their Renaissance
We are indifferent to England.
We have grave doubts about their brains. 

In short, we who write, paint, sculpt, dance
Or sing
Share the intelligence and thus the fate
Of all our people
In this land.
We are not different from them,
Neither above nor below,
Outside nor inside.
We are the same.
And we do not worship them. 

We do not worship them.
We do not worship their movies.
We do not worship their songs. 

We do not think their newscasts
Cast the news.
We do not admire their president.
We know why the White House is white.
We do not find their children irresistible;
We do not agree they should inherit the earth. 

But lately you have begun to help them
Bury us. You who said: King was just a womanizer;
Malcom, just a thug; Sojourner, folksy; Hansberry,
A traitor (or whore, depending); Fannie Lou Hamer,
merely spunky; Zora Hurston, Nella Larsen, Toomer:
reactionary, brainwashed, spoiled by whitefolks, minor;
Agnes Smedley, a spy. 

I look into your eyes;
You are throwing in the dirt.
You, standing in the grave
With me. Stop it!

Each one must pull one. 

Look, I, temporarily on the rim
Of the grave,
Have grasped my mother’s hand
My father’s leg.
There is the hand of Robeson
Langston’s thigh
Zora’s arm and hair
Your grandfather’s lifted chin
And lynched woman’s elbow
What you’ve tried to forget
Of your grandmother’s frown.

 

Each one, pull one back into the sun

We who have stood over
So many graves
Know that no matter what they do
All of us must live
Or none.

ANALYSIS OF POEM

                Lorraine Hansberry is a model for the poem “Each One, Pull One”, by Alice Walker. In the beginning of Walker’s poem it discusses how the real deep truth has not been truthfully told or written about African American History. It focuses on how the most horrific parts of black history that we tend to try to forget but the future should know was just balled up and put under the rug. In this quote Alice explains how she feels our history has been left out, “But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw, as clearly as we could?” Through the middle of Walker’s poem the poems centers on how blacks do not worship what they are about and what they do, which she sees as money. She saying they think they rule the world because they have the money and we should worship them because of it. “We are not different form them, neither above or below, outside nor inside. We are the same. And we do not worship them”, explains Alice Walker. She also explains how our people truly know why the White House is white. She thinks they should not inherit the Earth because of their wealth. In the last section of the poem Alice focuses on the real meaning of the title of the poem. She expresses how they constantly busy trying to bury us because we are different to them and how lately we as a race have been helping them bury us. She explains how as a race we say care for or history and all the struggles we went through to get to where we are today. These two quotes represent the message of the poem and title, “Each one, pull one back into the sun”, “We who have stood over so many graves know that no matter what they do all of us must live or none. These two quotes explain how as race we have ourselves constantly looking over grave. Also how we should stop all the shooting and killing and hurting to each other because there are those out there who will always try to bury us. However we make the difference whether we live or get buried by the way we treat each other. We have the choice whether our race lives or dies by stupidity and lack of respect for our history.

THEY WHO FEEL DEATH

BY ALICE WALKER

(FOR MARTYRS)

They who feel death close as a breath
Speak loudly in unlighted rooms
Lounge upright in articulate gesture
Before the herd of jealous Gods 

Fate finds them receiving
At home. 

Grim the warrior forest who present
Casual silence with casual battle cries
Or stand unflinchingly lodged 

In common sand
Crucified.

 

HOW POEMS ARE

MADE/A

DISCREDITED VEIW

By Alice Walker

 

Letting go
In order to hold one
I gradually understand
How poems are made.  

There is a place the fear must go.
There is a place the choice must go.
There is a place the loss must go.
The leftover love.
The love that spills out
Of the too full cup
And runs and hides
Its too full self
In shame. 

I gradually comprehend
How poems are made.
To the upbeat flight of memories.
The flagged beats of the running
Heart. 

I understand how poems are made.
They are the tears
That season the smile.
The stiff-neck laughter
That crowds the throat.
The leftover love.
I know how poems are made. 

There is a place the loss must go.
There is a place the gain must go.
The leftover love.

 

We Alone

by Alice Walker

We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.

Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.

This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.