Unpacking "Sunrise in the Urban South"

Not that anyone cares, but following is a line by line explanation of the poem, all in context of the way the poem was originally conceived back in 1989.

First things first: the concept derives of Eliot's The Waste Land, although all it shares in common with Eliot's masterpiece is concept, and that only in a very broad sense.

"sweat and steam in a night that opens like a parasol
and I am threaded
tight like a piano wire
cool like a holy man holy man
round like an eight ball
and white like my own shame"

"Sweat and steam" refers to business and industry, especially the steel and textile industries, which, in the 50's and 60's, subjected to their laborers to pretty bad conditions during what were purportedly pretty lush times in America-- thus, "in a night that opens like a parasol." (Besides, it sounds good.)"And I am threaded" was another nod to textiles, but I also like that it sounds like it could be a reference to drug addiction, since, looking back on the way people conducted business in this era, the effects and tendencies are similar in some striking, not to say shocking, ways. "Cool like a holy man holy man/round like an eight ball;" first a reference to the place of religion in business and industry - you couldn't close the deal if you didn't go to the right church - and then a purely meaningless bunch of words that sound good and could be, again, a reference to drugs, but aren't. "White like my own shame:" a reference, naturally, to racism and the civil rights struggle, which, to the certain and historic chagrin of the children of the South, shouldn't have been that much of a struggle - and wouldn't have been, except for the stupidity, slovenly thinking, and nastiness of many of the Pillars of the Community.

"cloaked in cotton and rounding the bend
into a nightmare I had intended to skip"

A reference to the cotton industry, which my part of the South didn't really do to well with. Then "rounding the bend/ into a nightmare I had intended to skip:" urbanization. The Fathers of the New South were laboring under the illusion that we could have all the growth, all of the progess, and all of the wealth of the North without the problems. (The Mothers of the New South weren't guiltless in this respect, either, mind you.)

There was alot of determined blindness in the South, a great deal of heads turned away from the very unpleasant truths of the time. And it seemed to get worse the higher you got up in society. Growing up I ran into a great number of "Gracious Southern Ladies" who were mean as snakes.

Here I get into trouble with a regrettable but necessary profanity:

"and I had to trim
some upright motherfucker
for the money his momma left him"

During the economic turbulence of the 70's, and in order to just survive the crash of 1980 (which hit Atlanta far harder than it hit us), we banked on our Southern Heritage, which most ABSOLUTELY did NOT include slavery, Jim Crow, or ANY kind of oppression WHATEVER. What a bunch of tradition whores. It was really embarassing.

"but then the surprise ending I wrote myself
leaps from the screen and says, YOU MOTHERFUCKER"

The Charlotte Observer developed a tendency to point at our fair city's problems and inconsistencies without any hint that the good people on their masthead were not only Pillars of the community, but also trendsetters of the highest order. (The members of our city/county governments had the same tendencies, but, rather obviously, since they lacked the smarts to work for the local newspaper, their protests were rather more transparent.) This actually turned out to be a good thing; it seems a certain amount of hypocrisy is a good thing to have among the ruling elite of a rising city in this epoch.

"and the green thoughts my mind had
fall apart like a weak solo"

As the growing economies boosted industry, the traditional, shady, green South disappeared at an alarming rate, eventually becoming more of a myth than even a memory.

"that whimpering sick voice my own bleeding
no, man, no, not me"

I have no idea what I mean by that.

The next bit is a descending catalogue, designed for speed, with notes of despair, paranoia, racism, urban decay, and manufacturing:

"sounds bounced back like the brick walls of a blind alley and the dark is still dark the dark is still dark
and the outline just shows from the streetlights
the outline big and black and blue steel
and from shivering and shaking I got moving teeth
crawling through my mouth like maggots
and I run a wet hand through my hair
and breathe deep and my breath steams
and I lean on a wall and run a wet hand through my hair
and I know I will see the light of day
and I know I will see the light of day
and I crouch and shake like a blown out tire
with a head full of violence
and a hand full of nothing"

"Moving teeth" is a particularly troublesome image; it's supposed to be invokative of the breakdown of the brick-and-mortar buildings that epitomized small town Southern architecture, as well as of the brick-and-mortar Section 8 (welfare) housing that were built throughout the late 60's and early 70's that, by the early 80's, were beginning to fall apart - proof positive that the road to hell is very often paved with socialist intentions. "With a head full of violence/and a hand full of nothing" is descriptiive of a junkie going through withdrawal; there was a kind of shrill denial in the right leaning, pro-Reagan business community during the early 80's that, if properly veiwed, resembled the behavior of a huge tribe of junkies finding out that there was, indeed, a bottom to the goodie bag. (Okay, perhaps it's unfair, but that's how I saw it.)

No lines of this poem have been altered since 1989 when, during a workshop, Leigh Ann Sackrider criticized the lines "trim some upright motherfucker in a seersucker suit," noting: "I think the seersucker suit is implied."