Caucasian men, but was instead dragged by a pickup for three miles and left dead in front of a cemetery (“Imagine”). Lucille Clifton uses poetry of witness and her style choices to detail the physical damage as well as the betrayal felt by James Byrd Jr. nineteen years ago, and to call on the audience to seek justice due to the impressions left behind from hearing the dead man speak. Clifton’s poem “jasper texas 1998” is a reaction to this event, and is styled in a way that gives this dead man his testimony…
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