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By G. Zhou
Posted on April 1, 2024
Cover Image Title: Micro
Cover Image by: Czartistic
Classification: Photography
Specifications: 2,080 pixels x 1,560 pixels
Year: 2024
Location: Oman
In school, students are ostensibly uplifted and taught to be proud of their individuality. Classrooms are a place of safety and confidence, where bright minds are encouraged to think openly about the world around them. However, in “The Microscopes” by Jericho Brown, the speaker of the poem learns the opposite. In a verse paragraph, the young speaker details three important memories of his student life — a science lesson involving microscopes, a confrontation with another student, and an American history exam — which shape his view of himself as a Black queer man. By expressing his experience in educational settings, the speaker exposes his own insignificance in regard to both race and sexuality.
To begin, the speaker reveals that the role of microscopes in a science classroom is to minimize his identity, through their power to portray him as inconsequential. The microscopes, personified as “baby cannons” and as “the real children of war” in Line 3, introduce the theme of youth, seen through the speaker himself, and the violent force of the microscopes themselves. Soon, the speaker discloses his feelings towards the microscopes: “I / Hated them for that, for what our teacher said / They could do” (3-5). The speaker includes an internal slant rhyme between “that” and “what” to highlight his hatred, stemming from the “teacher”, of the microscopes’ power. Moreover, the speaker represents himself and his classmates as developing students, impressionable and pliant. The students’ inexhaustible curiosity and susceptibility to the ideas that their education offers is shown by the imagery of “stealing looks at one another’s bodies” (7). In particular, the speaker is affected by the microscopes’ ability to render his racial identity meaningless. His pride in his appearance, which he knows to be worth “stealing looks” after, is quickly destroyed as he watches the microscopes expose “every atomic thing / About a piece of [his] coiled hair on one slide” (10-11). Thus, the microscopes create a sense of the speaker’s smallness throughout the poem. he speaker is presented at an “atomic” level, invisible to the naked eye, his “coiled hair” representing his identity as a Black man. Having been “taken down to a cell”, the speaker’s hair is shown to be “just as unimportant as anyone else’s” (12). Furthermore, the consecutive lines are enjambed to accelerate the flow of the poem leading up to the climactic phrase “God saw if God saw me”. The speaker is uncertain of having any presence at all, as suggested by the anaphora and parallelism of “God saw”, which call attention to the enclosed conjunction “if” and the last pronoun “me” — truly, he believes he may be too small that God, may ignore or pass over him .
Building upon the speaker’s fear revealed by microscopes, he explores his perceived sexual insignificance. Immediately, the speaker dismisses his concern of invisibility as “a puny one not worth mentioning” (16), betraying the degree to which the microscopes have changed his self-image. The speaker believes his own emotions are unworthy of concern, and able to be overlooked. Having described his fear as “puny”, he goes so far to claim his fear is “narrow as the pencil tucked behind [his] ear, lost / When [he] reached for it / To stab someone [he] secretly loved” (17-19). The speaker continues to minimize his fears with the adjective “narrow” and a simile likening his fear to a “pencil tucked behind [his] ear”. The image of a thin pencil, hidden away by and almost joined to his body exhibits his studious, timid nature in school. Additionally, the pencil symbolizes the speaker’s reliance on writing as a self-defense, which he uses “to stab someone” to compensate for physical attributes and diminutive stature. The speaker’s bookish and meek personality is heavily contrasted with the second character in the section. With the enjambment of lines from Line 17 to the end of Line 19 hastening the poem’s rhythm until the major turn at , the speaker soon confronts his love — “a bigger boy”, bringing the speaker’s homosexuality to light. However, the “boy” quickly assumes the same role as the microscopes, naturally subjugating the speaker to an inferior position through the comparative adjective “bigger”. An authoritative quality is given to the boy by the stress on the first syllable of “bigger”, enforcing his greater size. The boy is powerful, while the speaker is not. Likewise, the imbalance between the speaker and the boy is exacerbated by the boy’s actions: “[He’d] advance / Through those tight, locker-lined corridors shoving” (20-21). The menacing verbs “advance” and “shoving” underscore his intimidating presence, unyielding to other students. Moreover, the speaker is overwhelmed by the boy’s power, feeling hemmed in and inhibited, suggested by the imagery of “tight, locker-lined corridors” around him. The boy exerts strength over the speaker, without feeling the need to acknowledge him or even say “excuse me” (23) — thus, the speaker’s smallness is emphasized again, as he stands against his larger adversary. Their conflict is one-sided, “more an insult than a battle” to the speaker who is too weak to fight back as an equal opponent. Much like in his experience with the microscopes, the speaker is left feeling disempowered.
Finally, the speaker confronts his lack of agency and presence within American history itself. He remarks there is “no fighting in the hall / On the way to an American history exam” (25-26). Cycling back to the first section of the poem, in which microscopes are characterized as violent and powerful, the speaker points out that he does not share that quality and leaves “no fighting” in his wake. The speaker lacks agency not only in his school, but in the entirety of “American history”. A concrete example of his insignificance is provided in the passage: “Redcoats. / Red blood cells. / Red-bricked / Education I rode the bus to get (27-29). The repetition of the vibrant color “red” raises a tone of urgency, and imbues the speaker’s voice with intensity. Historically, white men - so called “Redcoats” - are assigned unique and personal names. Recognition is offered to even those men who fought against the very inception of American independence, and the founding of the nation. While the “Redcoats” are portrayed as influential and suitable for a title, the speaker is only represented by “red blood cells”. He is refused recognition— a type of “camouflage” (33) melted away on the backdrop of American history and society. In addition, the speaker declares his fears of “conflicts so old they seem to amount / To nothing really” (34-35) are equally as insignificant in history. Black and queer identities are transformed into “dust particles left behind” (35), again diminishing his race and sexuality. However, the speaker hints that the purported nothingness of these conflicts is not the truth which it seems to be. At last, the speaker addresses the prominence of the same issue in his everyday life. He compares the “dust” to an “occupied territory” (36), alluding to the origin of America, deeply intertwined with racism, colonialism and slavery. The speaker associates the “territory” closely to his appearance: “A region I imagine you imagine when you see / A white woman walking with a speck like me” (37-38). In two ways, the speaker exposes his invisibility. Firstly, the “white woman” wields her race as a distinct trait and strength. Secondly, she represents a heterosexual relationship the speaker cannot relate to. While the “white woman” is humanized, the speaker is reduced to a “speck”. Finally, the rhyme between “see” and “me” stresses the speaker’s invisibility, since the direct object of the verb is not the speaker, but rather the “white woman”. Because of his race and sexuality, the speaker feels he is not considered human in America.
Throughout “The Microscopes”, the speaker is marginalized by his education. As a Black queer man, he grapples with society’s imposed diminution, and the magnitude of societal prejudices and expectations relentlessly pressed upon him. However, in another poem by Jericho Brown, “Stand”, the speaker reveals his belief that love is multifaceted, and may not only represent only one idea or action in particular, but rather serve different purposes as well. The role of love as a political act, and as defiance against external anger, is shown by the speaker’s time with his past beloved. Through their love, care is given to the two Black, queer men — a care which America disregards. Even though a dismissive country may leave many feeling powerless, love can and will remain a meaningful method of resistance.
[The End]
[Writing Editor: Nikky Kroeger]