The Fire This Time

“Men like me and my brothers filmed what we 

Planted for proof we existed before

Too late, sped the video to see blossoms

Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems

Where the world ends, everything cut down. 

John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.” 

Jericho Brown compares the planting of flowers with the ephemerality of black life in his sonnet. The final six lines show black men attempting to hold onto their lives and legacies before they are destroyed. The three men named in the final line died in very public incidents of police brutality against African Americans. 

“I know little. But I know what a good portion of Americans think of my worth. Their disdain takes form. In my head, it is my dark twin. Sometimes I wonder which of us will be remembered if I die soon [...]. Will I be a vicious menace, like Trayvon Martin? An unhinged menace, like Tamir Rice? A monstrous menace, like Mike Brown? An unreasonable menace, like Sandra Bland? A sly menace, like Emmett Till?”

Anthology editor Jesmyn Ward meditates on the deaths of unarmed black Americans, whom white people tend to villainize out of disdain, fear, and hatred. Ward, however, considers the humanity of Trayvon Martin and others, as well as the tragedy of their loss in acts of racially motivated violence.  

“If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. If we do not dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by the slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!” 

Near the end of Jesmyn Ward’s Introduction, she quotes this passage from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, the title that inspired this anthology. Baldwin issues this call to action for the betterment of race relations in America and warns that a great disaster may visit the U.S. if readers fail to pursue change. “The fire next time” comes from a slave spiritual referencing the biblical flood and predicting a flaming judgment on the earth.