20 pages • 40 minutes read
Kwame DawesDirt
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Value of the Land
“Dirt” is set in an agricultural culture, spoken by a “we” who knows how to work the land. The connotation of “dirt” is twofold. It can refer to something of little value, as in “dirt-poor” or “lower than the dirt,” insinuating that a person has very little. In the context of this poem, the speaker makes obvious the essential value of dirt. The first line, “We who gave, owned nothing, / learned the value of dirt” (Lines 1-2), suggests that the speakers may also have overlooked the value of dirt. As they “learned” it is the basis of agriculture and thus the basis of life. Those who own dirt can own everything that dirt provides—food, a place to build a home, products to sell for money. Those who are denied the dirt are denied “a currency of personhood” (Line 9), meaning the ability to act as a human being with independent value.
The poem turns the connotation of dirt from one of little value to one of remarkable value. The speaker also makes obvious the depths of degradation a person experiences when they are denied even the dirt. Without the ability to own a piece of land, a person has “nothing” while still being expected to give everything.
The everything that the “we” in the poem gives is time, energy, and the work they perform with their bodies. The poem depicts an image of a man or woman looking over a field “among the unruly growth, / […] far into its limits, / a place of stone and entanglements” (Lines 4-6). The land is presented as wild, with chaotic growth and stones. Those who tend the land to make it ready for planting and harvesting must clear the growth, stones, and entanglements and then prepare the soil for planting.
The speaker(s) labor “for another man’s gain” (Line 11) with hard physical labor but “have built only / that which others have owned” (Lines 15-16). Though denied ownership, they have done the work which produced the gain. Their bodies are essential. To own a body is to own a valuable piece of capital, but enslaved people did not legally own their bodies. Through their work, they understand their value:
learn the ritual of trees,
the rites of fruit picked
and eaten, the pleasures
of ownership (Lines 17-20).
In the context of their economy, the enslaved persons understand how much value they bring to others. They learn what it means to have control over the land, to be able to plant trees and watch them bear fruit and to pick and eat that fruit. They experience these pleasures only second-hand, watching others enjoy the benefits. Though they have the physical energy to manipulate the land and bring forth a harvest, they do not have the social rights that other human beings give to one another. They have learned “the meaning of a name, a deed, / a currency of personhood” (Lines 8-9).
Legal Ownership Versus Spiritual Ownership
In The Piano Lesson, the characters have taken a piano that was not legally theirs but had been enriched by their enslaved ancestor who carved a Basque relief onto its surface. The work that the enslaved person added to the piano may not have made it legally his but it made it spiritually or metaphorically his. In parallel, those who work the land and learn the “ritual of trees” and the “rites” of fruit, may have a greater claim to ownership than those who merely have a deed but do not interact with the land.
Dawes uses language that connotes a spiritual connection to the land. The speakers “learn the ritual of trees, / the rites of fruit picked / and eaten” (Lines 17-19). Ritual and rites are words that connote a spiritual experience. Working the land has become not a chore or a burden— something the enslaved people have been forced to do for others’ gain—but a spiritual practice. They learn the rituals of the earth and commune with the land in a way that plantation masters will never know.
The climax of that communion with the land is burial in it. The speaker makes a reference to burial twice. First in these lines:
Here, where we have labored
for another man’s gain, if it is fine
to own dirt and stone, it is
fine to have a plot where
a body may be planted to rot (Lines 10-14).
And again, the poem ends on a reference to burial:
We will sell our bones
for a piece of dirt,
we will build new tribes
and plant new seeds
and bury our bones in our dirt (Lines 30-34).
Those who owned their bodies after slavery ended, often owned little else. To sell “our bones / for a piece of dirt” (Lines 30-31) shows the essential value of both the body and the land. In this case, the land is worth more than the body, and the speaker claims they will sell the very last of what they own, their bones, possibly after death for a “piece of dirt.” The result of this sacrifice is that they will be able to “bury our bones in our dirt.” The word “our” signaling that they finally own both their bones and their piece of the land. The two entities—body and land—are joined. This creates a sense of spiritual belonging or spiritual ownership of the land. The legal recognition of that ownership, i.e., the ability to legally claim the land, logistically gives the next generation rights to something that spiritually already belongs to them. Thus, it attempts to rectify the injustice of having their land taken from them.
Generational Resilience
The other significant aspect of being able to bury one’s bones in one’s own dirt is that a person who does so is able to pass down their wealth to the next generation. They “build new tribes / and plant new seeds” (Lines 32-33). They transfer power from themselves to the next generation. The terms Dawes uses are “planted” and “rot.” Both of these connote agricultural rituals wherein a piece of organic matter is put in the ground to grow or to help grow a new generation of plant life. The natural rhythms and rituals of life in agrarian societies allow plants to pass down their genetic profiles to their “children,” thereby propagating new crops. The speaker of “Dirt” expresses the desire to pass their own life force on to the next generation, which is in and of itself an act of resilience as natural as the seasons.
The speakers of the poem express forethought about the future and how their actions may affect their descendants. Those who “sell their bones” purchase a better tomorrow for their children and grandchildren. This forethought demonstrates the strength of their hope and a sense of empowerment amid oppression. The last line expresses a belief and a vow that the oppressed will ultimately prevail and thus they will be able to bury “our bones” in “our dirt.” If so, the next generation will inherit land and be born with a greater advantage than their predecessors had.
The hope is informed by a memory of the past. The speakers remember a time before they were forced from their country by a “sword / at our backs” (Lines 21-22) and made to work for others’ gain. Carrying that memory reminds them of their value as human beings. Passing on this memory and this temerity instills pride in the next generation, reminding them of what they lost and encouraging them to regain it. This demonstrates a lineage between generations, reaching back to a distant past and stretching into the future. It expresses the speakers’ obligation to draw strength from previous generations and to work for the betterment of future generations. This attitude of communal obligation strengthens the speakers, infusing them with an awareness of a larger history that includes eras prior to slavery and promising eras in which the downtrodden will rise again.
