Chosen

“I, Too” by Langston Hughes

One of Hughes’s best-known poems, “I, Too,” like the Bontemps poem, uses a first-person narrator. This time, the voice is strong, assertive, and not willing to shirk its claim to a nation that he knows is his, too. In the latter regard, Hughes’s narrator is like Diverne: He, however, is better equipped to articulate his claim. While Diverne knows Pomp is a part of her and the white man’s “share of the future” (Line 13), she cannot envision his place within it. Hughes’s narrator, on the other hand, envisions himself at the family table, enjoying the bounty, and asserting his legitimacy. The proverbial table is the place where both Hughes’s narrator and Diverne seek to claim their long-denied citizenship and history.

“Charity on Blind Tom” by Tyehimba Jess

In this poem on the life of Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, featured in his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Olio, African American poet Tyehimba Jess imagines the birth of Blind Tom and the strike of good fortune—his immense and unique musical talent—which resulted in his master’s allowing him to survive. Tom’s mother, like Diverne, loves her child, despite the world’s determination that he is not entitled to it. Like “Chosen,” Jess’s poem is a free-verse sonnet and a narrative poem that employs a strong persona to recount an experience. Like the aforementioned poems, it uses a first-person narrative to give the oppressed the authority to narrate their own travails.