Cornelius Eady Sherbet

 

 Cornelius Eady is an African American poet, born in Rochester, New York. His work focuses largely on matters of race and society. He was born in 1954, just about when the civil rights movement came about out of the need and desire for equality and freedom for African Americans and other peoples of color. The civil war officially abolished slavery, but it didn't end discrimination against black people. They weren't able to go to the same school as the white people or be employed just like them.

In the poem sherbet, the poem takes place at a restaurant in a hotel. 4 characters appear in this poem, the black man, his white wife, the young waitress, and the manager. The couple, a black man and a white woman sits together at the table and orders a sherbet. But the young white waitress who took the order doesn't know what to do. The Jefferson Hotel is for white people and therefore the black man shouldn't be there, but he has a white wife. The black man is nervous of what would happen, whether if the waitress would serve him or not and so I think that the poem explains that the couple sits like a criminal, using a simile. The waitress couldn't handle it herself and asks the manager for help. She goes from side to side, mapping the room off anxiously waiting for the manager to come. Then the manager quietly brings the sherbet up to the table and that's where this poem ends. It's not that the manager brought the sherbet calmly with confidence, the poem expresses his nervousness from his eye motions and how silent the place was when he came up to them. The couple had doubt that the waitress or manager wouldn't serve them but, in the end, it didn't work out the way they thought it might be and the sherbet was brought. I think it means that the sherbet didn't fingerprint, or shift, or explode the place, describes how peaceful it was to bring the sherbet so quietly. It didn't leave any marks or replace anything or burn the place, so I believe that the poet was impressed of what had happened. I think that the sherbets' rich, sweetness represents how the whole story was peacefully settled.

While reading this poem, I thought that the poet was a someone sitting near the couple at the restaurant, who was watching over the whole incident. But when I found out the poet was black, I was confused because he couldn't be in the hotel watching the whole thing. After that, I found out that he has a white wife, Sarah Micklem, and that the couple was about him and his wife. I'm not sure why his poem sounds like it was written by an outsider, but it may be to make the readers understand the situation easier. 

The poem is about the discomfort that still resounded even after the Civil Rights movement. After equality was thought to be had. Published in 1991, Sherbet exposed America and its inhabitants for the racism they still harbored.  Also, Eady uses, especially in naming the exact place at which the event happened. Though not everyone is from Richmond, VA, the area itself is recognizable and therefore brings the poem closer to home than most readers would like.

There are 18 stanzas in all and each of them have 3 lines. The poem itself is very compact and neat, with about the same syllables in every line. There are some metaphors and similes used in parts of the poem, in the 5th stanza for example where it says that the couple waits like a criminal, they are not actually criminals, but it explains how nervous they were. Also in the 9th stanza, where it says that the waitress mapps the room off like the end of border dispute, there was no border dispute in the restaurant, but it tells how she was kind of like dividing the whole room, walking straight to side to side. 

Overall, I think that Eady did explain the situation at the restaurant very well and we can learn a little about how black people were treated back then and their uncomfortableness, struggle in the society. Even now, we can't say that all men are treated equally but by the acts of people like Eady, I believe that many people can change their minds and overcome their racial prejudices.