Contemporary Poet: Rita Dove

                                      Banneker

What did he do except lie
under a pear tree, wrapped in
a great cloak, and meditate
on the heavenly bodies?
Venerable, the good people of Baltimore
whispered, shocked and more than
a little afraid. After all it was said
he took to strong drink.
Why else would he stay out
under the stars all night
and why hadn't he married?

But who would want him! Neither
Ethiopian nor English, neither
lucky nor crazy, a capacious bird
humming as he penned in his mind
another enflamed letter
to President Jefferson—he imagined
the reply, polite and rhetorical.
Those who had been to Philadelphia
reported the statue
of Benjamin Franklin
before the library

his very size and likeness.
A wife? No, thank you.
At dawn he milked
the cows, then went inside
and put on a pot to stew
while he slept. The clock
he whittled as a boy
still ran. Neighbors
woke him up
with warm bread and quilts.
At nightfall he took out

his rifle—a white-maned
figure stalking the darkened
breast of the Union—and
shot at the stars, and by chance
one went out. Had he killed?
I assure thee, my dear Sir!
Lowering his eyes to fields
sweet with the rot of spring, he could see
a government's domed city
rising from the morass and spreading
in a spiral of lights....

Rita Dove

Commentary

 The poem " Banneker" by Rita dove was based off the first African American scientist Benjamin Banneker. Throughout Banneker's life he has made many contributions to the United Sates. Not only did this man contribute scientifically with his knowledge of astronomy and his publication of the almanac, but he also played a political part. He wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, the drafters of the United States Declaration of Independence, about racial and slavery inequalities. Thomas Jefferson drafted ideas from his latter in to The Declaration of Independence. Although this was a brilliant man, he was a usual unmarried farmer that enjoyed shooting with his rifle.
  Dove's main theme was to focus on  racial inequalities in this particular poem. Her tone in this poem seems to be candid, based off of her truthful facts being told, and also a little sarcastic due to her acknowledgement of what most blacks and abolitionists agreed to whereas whites thought was a problem. I would consider this poem as a free verse due to the the irregular meter and no rhyme scheme. This poems shows little to no imagery except for the first four lines in the last stanza "his rifle-......went out."
 I believed Dove did a impressive job of pointing out the small things that most people did not notice from him. She showed how he experienced tension because of his idea's and how he attacked the tensions politically. I enjoyed how she explained basically his whole life in poem of four stanzas.