The Line Break

I’m not going to lie…Kendrick Lamar has art as protest on my mind. Art as subversion, as layered as a rose. Art as showing up, as voice-giving. Art as documentation of harm. Art as a shout, a stomp, a crip walk. And then I saw this image of a policeman at a protest, taken by mid-20th century photograph Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), and oh, I knew we should write about it:

Street Demonstration (General Strike), 1934

Description: A uniformed policeman standing in front of a dense crowd of men holding protest signs in English and Japanese nearly fills the height of this vertical black and white photograph. The policeman either has a ruddy complexion or his face might be in shadow. He stands with his body facing us but he turns his head to our left in profile. His hands are crossed over his chest and one thumb is hooked into his jacket between two of the eight brass buttons down the front. A seven-pointed star reflects light on his chest and his flat-topped hat has a short, shiny brim angled down over his eyes. The jacket comes to his knees and his pants are lined with gold or other light material down the side. His feet are widely planted, and he wears dark shoes. The men in the crowd behind appear to be light skinned. Many wear button-down, collared shirts with ties tucked into long coats. Many also wear fedora hats and look off to our left, the same direction as the policeman. One man to our right wearing a floppy cap and glasses looks out at us with his hands in his jacket pockets. Some of the legible English words on the protest signs read “UNION,” “AMERICAN PRESS SLANDER against the,” and “JA.”

There is another photograph of a policeman, with even more posture in it, can you believe it:

Policeman on street, San Francisco, California , 1934

Writing Prompt: Using the above photographs as your inspiration, write a poem or a story where you focus on power and its postures, its poses, its uniforms–even if you very gently fold this examination into, say, a schoolyard where children are playing during recess. Consider how power and gesture work, also how the lens of a camera works: what it looks at, who it looks at and considers, the angle of its gaze, whether it looks from above or below or at equal-height with its subject, or from behind, or before. Who is in the foreground? The background? What kind of sounds can you hear? What scents of the city can you smell, or in the scene in the story/poem you are writing? Let your imagination go.