Feb 11 2020
Richard Wright – I am nobody
I am nobody
by Richard Wright
I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away
— from Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition, by Gabriel Rosenstock
/ Image by Philip Male /
The great African-American writer, Richard Wright, is best known for his novels Native Son and Black Boy, but less well-known is that late in his life, while living in self-exile in Paris, he wrote thousands of haiku.
This is one I keep re-reading since I first discovered it as I was editing Gabriel Rosenstock’s Haiku Enlightenment.
This haiku resonates on so many levels.
I am nobody
We start with negation. The author is not there. We ourselves as readers are not there. I imagine an outline where a person might have stood, a shadow, a silhouette. Awareness is there, but no self.
A red sinking autumn sun
Then we have the massive glowing presence of the red sinking sun. We go from negation to immensity. The vastness of that vision has a gravitational pull to it. It has grabbed us and carried us away. It…
Took my name away
And that’s what it is, this state of being nobody. The witness — the author, the reader — is still there on some essential level, but the “name” has disappeared. That self-referential loop within the mind has stopped its ceaseless spinning and we have become a thing undefined. In that quiet, selfless state, we stand in open mystery with great beauty open before us.
=
I write all this, obviously not during the autumn, but looking out the window at a blanket of snow glistening in bright morning sunlight. Of course, anything can be that autumn sun for us, a mountain, a symphony, a thought. It’s not so much a matter of putting ourselves in the presence of the right thing, so much as being present ourselves, open, and ready to be swept away into silence.
=
…I have been reminded by a reader that it is important to remember that Richard Wright, as a black man who lived his later years in France in rejection of institutionalized American racism may also be making a comment about the experience of African Americans in the US down to literally having their names taken from them. I really appreciate that reminder about perspective. A good poem can be read in multiple ways at the same time.
Recommended Books: Richard Wright
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| Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition | Haiku: The Last Poetry of Richard Wright | |||
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Richard Wright
US (1908 – 1960) Timeline |
Loved the haiku and your commentary. We have lovely sunsets in Kansas but I usually miss them. Thanks for reminding me to take time for beauty.
Richard Wright joins Emily Dickinson and that great Sufi poet whose name I can’t remember because, I guess, he finally achieved true “nobodyness ” I had my chance a little over 20 years ago as I sat, like Machado, beside my wife at Mass. It came time to kneel and I dutifully followed my wife’s example. The Church was dark, lit by a single candle. I noticed that my knees appeared to be sinking into the bench. I was frightened. I screamed inside my head — don’t let me disappear. I did not know this was a blessing. Oh for one more chance to disappear, to become nobody. I guess it will happen someday. one way or another.
Ivan you are a great person and you are doing a great job thankyou
We experience simultaneously
Both nobody and somebody
Form and formless
being nothing and being everything
As a seamless WHOLE
And this is truly awakening state