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Abdul
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Eulogizing a Generation in Elizabeth Alexander’s “When”
There is a long tradition of Black poets using the sonnet in both traditional and transgressive ways dating back to the Harlem Renaissance. A good amount of scholarly literature about the Black sonnet frames it as a protest form, and largely a vehicle for Black men to express their discontents with society. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of critical literature focusing on the unique perspectives and handling of the sonnet by Black women poets.
A careful reading of Elizabeth Alexander’s poem “When” allows the reader to see the sonnet as a double enclosure: it both praises black men but elegizes them as the 1980s was a decade of HIV-AIDS where we lost so many creative black men as described in the poem. The unexpected turn towards the end of the poem definitely shows a formal acknowledgement to the silence that surrounded so many African Americans who didn’t discuss this illness, but it also shows the poet conflating the personal and the political in the sonnet. In short, Elizabeth Alexander’s sonnet “When” is noteworthy it breaks the silence on a taboo topic: HIV epidemic in the 1980s. We might read this poem as a mini epic capturing (and elegizing) the zeitgeist of that time.
A careful reading of Elizabeth Alexander’s poem “When” allows the reader to see the sonnet as a double enclosure: it both praises black men but elegizes them as the 1980s was a decade of HIV-AIDS where we lost so many creative black men as described in the poem. The unexpected turn towards the end of the poem definitely shows a formal acknowledgement to the silence that surrounded so many African Americans who didn’t discuss this illness, but it also shows the poet conflating the personal and the political in the sonnet. In short, Elizabeth Alexander’s sonnet “When” is noteworthy it breaks the silence on a taboo topic: HIV epidemic in the 1980s. We might read this poem as a mini epic capturing (and elegizing) the zeitgeist of that time.
Abdul Ali is a poet and culture critic. His debut collection of poems, Trouble Sleeping, won the 2014 New Issues Poetry Book Prize. He has held distinguished teaching appointments at Johns Hopkins University, Howard University, and Goucher College. He is the recipient of the 2019 Ruby Grant, from the Robert Deutsch Foundation and is a fellow at the Cave Canem Foundation.