A Wreath for Emmett Till: "A Wreath for Emmett Till" by Marilyn Nelson

I was nine years old when Emmett Till was lynched in 1955. His name and history have been a part of most of my life. When I decided to write a poem about lynching for young people, I knew that I would write about Emmett Till. He was lynched when he was the age of the young people who might read my poem. After revisiting what I knew about lynching, reading more about it, and growing increasingly depressed, I also knew that I would write this poem as a heroic crown of sonnets.

The rhyme scheme I chose to use in these sonnets is called Italian, or Petrarchan (after Petrarch, 1304-1374, the poet who invented it). A crown of sonnets is a sequence of interlinked sonnets in which the last line of one becomes the first line, sometimes slightly altered, of the next. A heroic crown of sonnets is a sequence of fifteen interlinked sonnets, in which the last one is made up of the first lines of the preceding fourteen.

The strict form became a kind of insulation, a way of protecting myself from the intense pain of the subject matter, and a way to allow the Muse to determine what the poem would say.

What should my wreath for Emmett Till denote?

Daisies and white lilacs, for Innocence.

For grief, more than one, for one
is not enough: rue, yew, cypress.

If trees could speak, it could describe, in words beyond words, make us see the strange fruit that still ghosts its reverie

But one night, blood, spilled at its roots, blighted its foliage.

Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
shivering the deep silence of the stars.

She’d told him the truth of many a Mississippi anecdote:
Some white folks have blind souls.

I’d put you in a parallel universe,
give you a better fate. There is none worse.

A universe where you’d surpass your mother’s dreams.

But parallel realities may have terrorists, too.

Let’s write the obituary of a life
lived well and wisely, mourned by a loving wife
or partner, friends, and a vast multitude.

Thousands of oak trees around this country groaned with the weight of men slain for their race

their murderers acquitted in almost every case.

Picked, one blackens, and one bleeds a thick red sap.

Indian pipe, a weed
that thrives on rot, is held in disesteem,
though it does have its use in nature’s scheme

The bloodroot poppy needs
no explanation here: Its red sap pleads
the case for its inclusion in the theme
of a wreath for the memory of Emmett Till.

Though the white poppy means forgetfulness,
who could forget, when red sap on a wreath
recalls the brown boy five white monsters killed?

Like the full moon, which smiled calmly on his death.
Like the stars, which fluttered their quicksilver wings.
Like the unbroken song creation sings
while humankind tramples the grapes of wrath.

Like wildflowers growing beside the path
a boy was dragged along, blood spattering
their white petals as he, abandoning
all hope, gasped his agonizing last breath.

Like a nation sending its children off to fight
our faceless enemy, immortal fear,
the most feared enemy of the human race.

Like a plague of not knowing wrong from right.

we must bear witness to atrocity.

People may disappear, leaving no trace,
unless we stand before the populace

orators denouncing the slavery to fear.

They feared because they saw their own
inner shadows, their vicious dreams,
the farthest horizons of their own thought,
their jungles immune to the rule of law.

We can speak now, or bear unforgettable shame.

Rosemary for remembrance, Shakespeare wrote.

Emmett Louis Till was born in Chicago on July 25, 1941. He was a friendly, extroverted African American boy who grew up during a time when racism and segregation were legal parts of the culture of the United States.

Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, held an open-casket funeral in Chicago to show what had been done to her son.

Graphic photos appeared in newspapers and magazines, galvanizing anger across the nation.

After deliberating for just over an hour, the jurors came back with a verdict of not guilty.

People around the country—both black and white—who previously had felt separated from southern racism were shocked by Emmett Till’s death and outraged by the injustice of his killers’ trial.