Apollo

“Apollo” is written in the literary context and poetic tradition of poems told from a child’s perspective (often exploring an important memory from the poet’s past) to confront difficult topics, such as race and discrimination. While written in the present tense, “Apollo” is told through the lens of a child in another time (late-1960s America). By using a child’s voice and perspective, Alexander focuses the poem in a way that an adult perspective (or an adult speaker looking back on the past) would not be able to. The poem’s present tense gives the poem an immediacy—much like the immediacy of the poem’s start (stopping suddenly at a roadside shack to watch men walk on the moon). (Note: This was before recordings and the Internet, so the moonwalk had to be watched in real time.) Second, a child’s perspective offers stark realizations; these can be playful or deeply honest. For example, the speaker’s sudden understanding that the moon is “not green, not cheese” (Line 16) is both humorous and establishes the child’s young age. While the speaker’s final line (“stranger / even than we are,” Lines 28-29) is heartbreakingly honest and poignant.

Working in a similar literary tradition, Elizabeth Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room” also uses a child’s voice to talk about a variety of difficult topics: World War I, unfamiliar cultures, and self-identity. Bishop published her poem in 1971, nearly 20 years before Alexander’s. However, both poems use the child’s voice to consider topics that are uncomfortable and challenging (war, discrimination). For example, in Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room,” the six-year-old child confronts their identity, stating, “You are an I, / You are an Elizabeth, / you are one of them” (Lines 61-63).

By analyzing advanced concepts through childrens’ eyes, Alexander and Bishop draw on truths that might otherwise go unspoken or be withheld. The child in Alexander’s poem openly states, “the road shack people don’t / notice we are a black / family” (Lines 20-22). This line reveals that the child is used to being discriminated against and treated differently based on the color of their skin (“the way it mostly goes” [Line 23]). The literary tradition of writing poems from the child’s perspective is rich in possibility. The child’s voice is unique and telling, particularly when paired with challenging truths as in Alexander’s “Apollo.”