A Potpourri of Poetic Curiosities
Viewing comments for Chapter 335 "The Montgomery Bus Boycott"A collection of poems showcasing unusual words
17 total reviews
Comment from Pearl Edwards
You've re-told the story of Rosa Park's bus journey well in this poem Craig. I like her reply to being told to get down the back of the bus-
I don't think so dear - well said Rosa and thanks for sharing her story.
cheers,
valda
reply by the author on 06-Dec-2018
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You've re-told the story of Rosa Park's bus journey well in this poem Craig. I like her reply to being told to get down the back of the bus-
I don't think so dear - well said Rosa and thanks for sharing her story.
cheers,
valda
Comment Written 06-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 06-Dec-2018
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Well, the words as given in my poem might have been a bit of poetic licence, but her actual words had pretty much the same meaning. Thanks so much, Valda :) We must have crossed reviews lol
Comment from rama devi
I love her story, and you've conveyed it well. Great rhymes and flow. I do think you've overused semicolons (somewhat inaccurately) in the first few stanzas, but otherwise your punctuation choices are pretty good. Since the tone is a narrative storytelling style, I suggest choosing more prose-like punctuation.
Specific suggestions:
Upon this day in nineteen-fifty-five,
one Rosa Parks got on a downtown bus;(,)
not knowing a new era would arrive,
or she would be the cause of so much fuss.
The driver had instructed four black folk
to take their "proper" places at the rear;(.)
Rosa, alone, thought that request a joke
and answered, "I don't think so, thank you dear."
The woman was arrested for affray
and fined ten dollars for her heinous crime;
but then, the issue wouldn't go away;(--)
could segregation stand the test of time?
GREAT STANZA:
The victims of injustice stood their ground,
and for a year, refused to ride the bus.
The judgement of the court was clear and sound,
"This conduct's unacceptable to us."
This is close to a six but needs fine tuning. Nonetheless, if I had a six, it would be yours!
Love it!
Warmly, rd
FAVORITE STANZA:
Montgomery became a landmark case,
obstrigillation paid a dividend.
Discrimination rears its ugly face,
but empathy can bring it to an end.
reply by the author on 04-Dec-2018
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I love her story, and you've conveyed it well. Great rhymes and flow. I do think you've overused semicolons (somewhat inaccurately) in the first few stanzas, but otherwise your punctuation choices are pretty good. Since the tone is a narrative storytelling style, I suggest choosing more prose-like punctuation.
Specific suggestions:
Upon this day in nineteen-fifty-five,
one Rosa Parks got on a downtown bus;(,)
not knowing a new era would arrive,
or she would be the cause of so much fuss.
The driver had instructed four black folk
to take their "proper" places at the rear;(.)
Rosa, alone, thought that request a joke
and answered, "I don't think so, thank you dear."
The woman was arrested for affray
and fined ten dollars for her heinous crime;
but then, the issue wouldn't go away;(--)
could segregation stand the test of time?
GREAT STANZA:
The victims of injustice stood their ground,
and for a year, refused to ride the bus.
The judgement of the court was clear and sound,
"This conduct's unacceptable to us."
This is close to a six but needs fine tuning. Nonetheless, if I had a six, it would be yours!
Love it!
Warmly, rd
FAVORITE STANZA:
Montgomery became a landmark case,
obstrigillation paid a dividend.
Discrimination rears its ugly face,
but empathy can bring it to an end.
Comment Written 04-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 04-Dec-2018
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Thanks once again for the most helpful and kind comments, RD. I believe I've implemented all the suggested changes :) Cheers, Craig
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Happy to help :)
Comment from Gloria ....
That was a landmark day and it still is because how easily people want to return to segregation again as they see the fair competition as ruing their lives.
Excellent metre and rhyme and a terrific poem.
Much enjoyed. :)
Gloria
reply by the author on 04-Dec-2018
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That was a landmark day and it still is because how easily people want to return to segregation again as they see the fair competition as ruing their lives.
Excellent metre and rhyme and a terrific poem.
Much enjoyed. :)
Gloria
Comment Written 03-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 04-Dec-2018
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Thanks so much for the great comments, Gloria. As always, they are much appreciated. Craig
Comment from tbacha58
You do deserve to be read by all of us here at FanStory, as your poem explains exactly what happened on this bus years ago. Every human being read about it, and the word, Discrimination, came to rise all around the world. The rhyming also gave this poem a beautiful way of writing it also like a song to be read. Excellent from my part. Terry .
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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You do deserve to be read by all of us here at FanStory, as your poem explains exactly what happened on this bus years ago. Every human being read about it, and the word, Discrimination, came to rise all around the world. The rhyming also gave this poem a beautiful way of writing it also like a song to be read. Excellent from my part. Terry .
Comment Written 03-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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Thank you very much for the lovely comments, Terry. I'm most grateful. Craig
Comment from Mustang Patty
Hi, Craig,
Thank you for posting a special poem to recognize this brave woman. Can you imagine the feelings she must have to know that her actions are the beginning of change?
Too many folks forget that sometimes all it takes is the act of one person,
~patty~
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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Hi, Craig,
Thank you for posting a special poem to recognize this brave woman. Can you imagine the feelings she must have to know that her actions are the beginning of change?
Too many folks forget that sometimes all it takes is the act of one person,
~patty~
Comment Written 03-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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Brave indeed, Patty. Many thanks for the lovely comments, Craig
Comment from Sandra du Plessis
A very well-written poem about the misdeeds of the past. It is not always about the race but often about the bad behavior of an individual that just happens to be a certain race, then it is called racism for no apparent reason when they are corrected in their wrong ways.
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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A very well-written poem about the misdeeds of the past. It is not always about the race but often about the bad behavior of an individual that just happens to be a certain race, then it is called racism for no apparent reason when they are corrected in their wrong ways.
Comment Written 03-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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Thanks, Sandra. Your continued reviewing support is much appreciated :) Craig
Comment from Dawn Munro
WONDERFUL POEM, Craig!
This might interest you:
In 1946, Viola Desmond's stand at a segregated Nova Scotia movie theatre made her into a civil-rights icon for black Canadians. On Monday, $10 banknotes commemorating her officially enter circulation, the first time a Canadian woman has been celebrated on the face of her country's currency.
"The Queen is in good company," Ms. Desmond's sister Wanda Robson said Monday in a ceremony at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, which is featured on the other side of the bill. The 91-year-old was due to make the first purchase with one of the new $10 bills. From Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, also received a framed engraving of her sister and two banknotes with special serial numbers.
Here's a primer on Ms. Desmond's story and how she came to be the new face of the $10 bill.
Self-made makeup maven
Viola Desmond was a cosmetics pioneer for black women in Atlantic Canada. Following in the footsteps of her father, a Halifax barber, Ms. Desmond started out in business at a time when few beauty schools would accept black students. After training in Montreal, Atlantic City and New York, she founded her own institution, Halifax's Desmond School of Beauty Culture, selling her own line of hair and skin products across Nova Scotia. But on one business trip on Nov. 8, 1946, when her car broke down in New Glasgow, Ms. Desmond would become famous for another reason.
A night at the movies
The fateful movie she went to see was The Dark Mirror, a psychological thriller starring Olivia de Havilland. She was at the Roseland Theatre to kill time while a garage repaired her car, which wouldn't be ready until the next day. But the Roseland was a segregated theatre; the floor seats were for whites only, while black patrons were confined to the balcony. Ms. Desmond was shortsighted and needed a better view, and tried to buy a floor seat, but was refused because she was black. She then bought a balcony seat (which was one cent cheaper) but sat in the floor area - until theatre staff called the police and had her dragged out. She spent 12 hours in jail.
"She said, 'I stretched out and I was just getting comfortable and I thought, oh, this is nice, and I won't worry about anything,'" her sister, Wanda Robson, recalled at the 2016 ceremony where the Desmond banknote was announced. "And then this usher came up and told her she couldn't sit there."
PAUL DARROW/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
On trial for a single penny
She was charged and convicted of tax evasion - over a single penny. She did not have a lawyer at trial - she was never informed she was entitled to one. Arguing that Ms. Desmond had evaded the one-cent difference between the balcony and floor ticket prices, a judge fined her $26. Protests from Nova Scotia's black community and an appeal to the provincial Supreme Court proved fruitless, and Ms. Desmond died in 1965 without any acknowledgment of racial discrimination in her case.
'She is now free'
In 2010, Nova Scotia gave her a free pardon - and the black lieutenant-governor signed it into law. "Here I am, 64 years later - a black woman giving freedom to another black woman," Mayann Francis recalled in a 2014 profile about the pardon, which called Ms. Desmond's case a miscarriage of justice and said she should never have been charged. "I believe she has to know that she is now free."
April 15, 2010: Nova Scotia lieutenant-governor Mayann Francis signs the official pardon for Viola Desmond as her sister Wanda Robson, left, then-premier Darrell Dexter and Percy Paris, minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs, look on at a ceremony at the legislature in Halifax.
ANDREW VAUGHAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Rosa Parks comparison
Ms. Desmond has often been compared to Rosa Parks, the U.S. civil rights heroine who refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955.
But Ms. Robson said in 2016 that her sister didn't want to join any formal protest movements. She had her beauty school to run - and that was her inspiration to help her community. "She said, 'I'm not the person to go around and be an activist for something. I will speak anywhere, but I can't make it my life's mission,'" Ms. Robson said. "'My life's mission is to be a hairdresser, to be the beauty consultant for all the black women, any black woman that comes to me, and to teach them, teach them to do what I do, so I can send them out in Nova Scotia or wherever they want to go and work with the black population,'" Ms. Robson said.
Feb. 22, 1956: Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lieutenant D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., after refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white passenger.
GENE HERRICK/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Her minute of fame
Ms. Desmond was the first historical woman of colour to get her own Heritage Minute, released in February, 2016, for Black History Month Actress Kandyse McClure portrayed her "I am honoured to give voice to a woman whose only crime was the expectation of being treated not as black or as a woman, but as a human being," Ms. McClure wrote in an article for the Huffington Post at the time. Historica Canada has since produced another Heritage Minute focusing on a woman of colour, Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak.
Fitting the bill
When the Trudeau government opened public consultations to choose a historical woman for the $10 bill, Ms. Desmond was one of five to make the shortlist, along with First Nations poet E. Pauline Johnson; Elsie MacGill, who received an electrical engineering degree from the University of Toronto in 1927; Quebec suffragette Idola Saint-Jean; and 1928 Olympic medallist Fanny (Bobbie) Rosenfeld, a track and field athlete.
The government announced the final choice in December, 2016, and in March of 2018 they unveiled the design of the bill: The first vertically oriented banknote in Canada. Behind Ms. Desmond's portrait is a map including the stretch of Gottingen Street, the city's north end's main drag, where she opened her salon. On the other side of the bill is a picture of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, an excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and an eagle feather, which the Bank of Canada said represents the "ongoing journey toward recognizing rights and freedoms for Indigenous Peoples in Canada."
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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WONDERFUL POEM, Craig!
This might interest you:
In 1946, Viola Desmond's stand at a segregated Nova Scotia movie theatre made her into a civil-rights icon for black Canadians. On Monday, $10 banknotes commemorating her officially enter circulation, the first time a Canadian woman has been celebrated on the face of her country's currency.
"The Queen is in good company," Ms. Desmond's sister Wanda Robson said Monday in a ceremony at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, which is featured on the other side of the bill. The 91-year-old was due to make the first purchase with one of the new $10 bills. From Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, also received a framed engraving of her sister and two banknotes with special serial numbers.
Here's a primer on Ms. Desmond's story and how she came to be the new face of the $10 bill.
Self-made makeup maven
Viola Desmond was a cosmetics pioneer for black women in Atlantic Canada. Following in the footsteps of her father, a Halifax barber, Ms. Desmond started out in business at a time when few beauty schools would accept black students. After training in Montreal, Atlantic City and New York, she founded her own institution, Halifax's Desmond School of Beauty Culture, selling her own line of hair and skin products across Nova Scotia. But on one business trip on Nov. 8, 1946, when her car broke down in New Glasgow, Ms. Desmond would become famous for another reason.
A night at the movies
The fateful movie she went to see was The Dark Mirror, a psychological thriller starring Olivia de Havilland. She was at the Roseland Theatre to kill time while a garage repaired her car, which wouldn't be ready until the next day. But the Roseland was a segregated theatre; the floor seats were for whites only, while black patrons were confined to the balcony. Ms. Desmond was shortsighted and needed a better view, and tried to buy a floor seat, but was refused because she was black. She then bought a balcony seat (which was one cent cheaper) but sat in the floor area - until theatre staff called the police and had her dragged out. She spent 12 hours in jail.
"She said, 'I stretched out and I was just getting comfortable and I thought, oh, this is nice, and I won't worry about anything,'" her sister, Wanda Robson, recalled at the 2016 ceremony where the Desmond banknote was announced. "And then this usher came up and told her she couldn't sit there."
PAUL DARROW/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
On trial for a single penny
She was charged and convicted of tax evasion - over a single penny. She did not have a lawyer at trial - she was never informed she was entitled to one. Arguing that Ms. Desmond had evaded the one-cent difference between the balcony and floor ticket prices, a judge fined her $26. Protests from Nova Scotia's black community and an appeal to the provincial Supreme Court proved fruitless, and Ms. Desmond died in 1965 without any acknowledgment of racial discrimination in her case.
'She is now free'
In 2010, Nova Scotia gave her a free pardon - and the black lieutenant-governor signed it into law. "Here I am, 64 years later - a black woman giving freedom to another black woman," Mayann Francis recalled in a 2014 profile about the pardon, which called Ms. Desmond's case a miscarriage of justice and said she should never have been charged. "I believe she has to know that she is now free."
April 15, 2010: Nova Scotia lieutenant-governor Mayann Francis signs the official pardon for Viola Desmond as her sister Wanda Robson, left, then-premier Darrell Dexter and Percy Paris, minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs, look on at a ceremony at the legislature in Halifax.
ANDREW VAUGHAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Rosa Parks comparison
Ms. Desmond has often been compared to Rosa Parks, the U.S. civil rights heroine who refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955.
But Ms. Robson said in 2016 that her sister didn't want to join any formal protest movements. She had her beauty school to run - and that was her inspiration to help her community. "She said, 'I'm not the person to go around and be an activist for something. I will speak anywhere, but I can't make it my life's mission,'" Ms. Robson said. "'My life's mission is to be a hairdresser, to be the beauty consultant for all the black women, any black woman that comes to me, and to teach them, teach them to do what I do, so I can send them out in Nova Scotia or wherever they want to go and work with the black population,'" Ms. Robson said.
Feb. 22, 1956: Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lieutenant D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., after refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white passenger.
GENE HERRICK/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Her minute of fame
Ms. Desmond was the first historical woman of colour to get her own Heritage Minute, released in February, 2016, for Black History Month Actress Kandyse McClure portrayed her "I am honoured to give voice to a woman whose only crime was the expectation of being treated not as black or as a woman, but as a human being," Ms. McClure wrote in an article for the Huffington Post at the time. Historica Canada has since produced another Heritage Minute focusing on a woman of colour, Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak.
Fitting the bill
When the Trudeau government opened public consultations to choose a historical woman for the $10 bill, Ms. Desmond was one of five to make the shortlist, along with First Nations poet E. Pauline Johnson; Elsie MacGill, who received an electrical engineering degree from the University of Toronto in 1927; Quebec suffragette Idola Saint-Jean; and 1928 Olympic medallist Fanny (Bobbie) Rosenfeld, a track and field athlete.
The government announced the final choice in December, 2016, and in March of 2018 they unveiled the design of the bill: The first vertically oriented banknote in Canada. Behind Ms. Desmond's portrait is a map including the stretch of Gottingen Street, the city's north end's main drag, where she opened her salon. On the other side of the bill is a picture of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, an excerpt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and an eagle feather, which the Bank of Canada said represents the "ongoing journey toward recognizing rights and freedoms for Indigenous Peoples in Canada."
Comment Written 03-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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Thanks for providing those informative details about Ms Desmond, Dawn. How sad that she didn't survive to see herself exonerated. I suppose there is some consolation for surviving relatives that she has been given, posthumously, respect and acknowledgement she didn't receive in life.
Thanks also for appreciating my poem, and for the lovely rating you bestowed upon it. Most grateful for all of the above.
Craig
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Always a pleasure, Craig. Yep, so sad! I would struggle with that SO much!
Comment from lyenochka
She's always remembered as being so courageous but she herself just said she was just really tired. We are thankful for taking that risk and changing history. She's honored with a street name as west coast cities. It's sad that discrimination still continues today.
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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She's always remembered as being so courageous but she herself just said she was just really tired. We are thankful for taking that risk and changing history. She's honored with a street name as west coast cities. It's sad that discrimination still continues today.
Comment Written 02-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 03-Dec-2018
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She might have said that, and it was probably partially true, but she'd been an activist for over a decade before that; so perhaps a little modesty comes into play. And yes, you're right, Helen. Sadly, after being on the decline for some time, it seems to be enjoying something of a resurgence lately.
Comment from Y. M. Roger
A wonderful write about a time in a history that happened but is now past. It is very sad that women and other classes are still second class citizens and worse other places around the world....thanx for statement here that points to the fact that it only takes one act to spark a difference! :) ;) Yvette :)
reply by the author on 02-Dec-2018
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A wonderful write about a time in a history that happened but is now past. It is very sad that women and other classes are still second class citizens and worse other places around the world....thanx for statement here that points to the fact that it only takes one act to spark a difference! :) ;) Yvette :)
Comment Written 02-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 02-Dec-2018
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Hi Yvette,
I don't think sexism and racism are things of the past anywhere. Pick any place on Earth you like, and you'll find them. Particularly in the political sphere; there are people in power who want to turn the clock back to the 1950s, something that should be resisted at all costs. Thanks for the thoughtful review :) Craig
Comment from nancy_e_davis
She was only one of the courageous women who helped shape our countries history. Ten dollars back then was a great deal of money especially to a retired black lady. Well done CD. A good story to cite for your word obstrigillation.
Nancy:)
reply by the author on 02-Dec-2018
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She was only one of the courageous women who helped shape our countries history. Ten dollars back then was a great deal of money especially to a retired black lady. Well done CD. A good story to cite for your word obstrigillation.
Nancy:)
Comment Written 02-Dec-2018
reply by the author on 02-Dec-2018
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Thanks for the lovely comments, Nancy :) Craig