Emmett Till Reflection Poem #12

4/25/13 Emmett Till Poem #12 Indian pipe, bloodroot. White as moonbeams In this sonnet overall explained the lack of conscienceness people had in the 1950s and 1960s. Nelson compares the innocence of nature to the corrupt moralities of humans. The author used words like bloody, monsters, and killed to create a gloomy and dark mood. The tone is somber. The sonnet is not a Shakespearean sonnet because the rhyme scheme is a-a-b-b-c-c-b-d-e-f-d-e-f. I didn't find any illusions but there are a lot of hidden meanings within the text. For example the Indian pipe is known as the Corpse Plant. This fungus like organism is opaque, and glows like the moon, with its buds curving downwards and looks like as if death had touched it. If you touch or pick an Indian pipe it would welt almost automatically and blacken, thus the first sentence "Picked, one blackens." The bloodroot that Nelson refers to multiple times throughout the sonnet is properly known as Sanguinaria but she probably chose its nickname, bloodroot poppy, because it sounds more revolting. The nickname came from the bloody red sap, "Picked, one bla it oozes which the author has "woven" as part of the wreath. It is found near the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River where Emmett Till had been lynched (surprise surprise)! The white poppy means forgetfulness but instead the author doesn't want you to forget so she replaces it with the memory of the bloodroot poppy. Near the end of the sonnet the author says "Forgetting would call for consciencelessness" as if she were speaking directly to our conscience and reminding us to never forget Emmett Till or else you are no different than the heartless monsters that killed him. Just by asking us "Who could forget (Emmette Till)" makes us remember him more. The last sentence of the sonnet alludes back to the first sentence talking about the moon and the Indian root and how unforgiving both of them are. This idea of consciencelessness is then passed onto the next sonnet