Food related Poem "Sherbet"

I want to explain a poem, "Sherbet"

Here is the poem.

 

The problem here is that

This isn’t pretty, the
Sort of thing that

Can easily be dealt with
With words. After
All it’s

A horror story to sit,
A black man with
A white wife in

The middle of a hot
Sunday afternoon in
The Jefferson Hotel in

Richmond, Va., and wait
Like a criminal for service
From a young white waitress

Who has decided that
This looks like something
She doesn’t want

To be a part of. What poetry
Could describe the
Perfect angle of

This woman’s back as
She walks, just so,
Mapping the room off

Like the end of a
Border dispute, which
Metaphor could turn

The room more perfectly
Into a group of
Islands? And when

The manager finally
Arrives, what language
Do I use

To translate the nervous
Eye motions, the yawning
Afternoon silence, the

Prayer beneath
His simple inquiries,
The sherbet which

He then brings to the table personally,
Just to be certain
The doubt

Stays on our side
Of the fence? What do
We call the rich,

Sweet taste of
Frozen oranges in
This context? What do

We call a weight that
Doesn’t fingerprint,
Won’t shift,

And can’t explode?

The poet is Cornelius Eady who was born in Rochester, New York and is an author of seven volumes of poetry. In most of Eady’s poems, there is a musical quality drawn from the Blues and Jazz. Also, he centers family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questions of race and class.

His poetry is often praised for its simple and approachable language.

In this poem, certainly, it is true that many of the words used in this poem seem to be simple. This makes it easy to understand, but at the same time, it makes you think about the meaning of the words.

First, let's talk about black and white. This refers to the color of the skin. This poem is about racial issues, which is one of his styles. The poem says that a black man sits next to his white wife. Eady actually is an African-American and has a white wife, so this poem seems to be based on his actual experience. The word problem is used at the beginning of the poem, ostensibly to emphasize the "problem" as he worded it, but at the same time, this indirectly expresses more powerfully the problem he has with his environment. 

 

Next, let's talk about the name of the place, Richmond, Virginia. This is the place where the capital of the American Confederacy, founded in 1861 during the Civil War, was located. This war was fought between the North, which supported the abolition of slavery, and the South, which advocated the continuation of slavery, and we can see that these are historically important place names in the American black issues.　

Next, let's look at the sentence "the end of- dispute, a group of islands, our side, the fence". The next sentence, "the end of- dispute," uses the word "border," which may refer to the Cold War that divided the world into the West and the East. Sherbet is a cold food, and the word "cold" is used to describe the Cold War.　

 

The word "a group" refers to the western and eastern countries, and "our side" may refer to the western countries to which the U.S. belongs. However, since "what do we call the rich" is used, the author may be wondering which principle is more appropriate.