American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin ["I lock you in..."]

The bird forms a recurrent and important motif in the poem, with the speaker intending the poem itself as a means to “separate the song of the bird from the bone” (Line 4). The song of the bird refers to the song or voice of Black Americans which the speaker wants to separate from the “bone” or the violence associated with racial injustice. However, the speaker suggests that the bone and the song of the bird are not really inseparable; the Black American poet cannot sing their personal song without including its historical and political context. In this sense, the bird represents the Black American poet, the fully expressed self, as well as the idea of freedom. The bird in the poem is repeatedly associated with the disparate images of violence/confinement and music, as in Line 11, when the poet describes the poem as “a box of darkness with a bird in its heart.” The motif of the bird is also a reference to the famous poem, “Caged Bird” by American poet Maya Angelou. In Angelou’s poem, the song of the caged bird – a symbol of oppressed minorities – is especially powerful because the bird longs for freedom.