My poem was inspired by an article recently on a Ferguson activist finding her son named Danye Jones murdered in the backyard of their home in St. Louis County in Missouri. I shockingly did not hear about this story on the news, I actually saw a tweet about the incident on Twitter. The tweet also revealed the horrific and devastating pictures of Jones that I’ve also decided to add in addition to my poem. The picture in the bottom right corner that I added is a picture of him hanging by a sheet around his neck on a tree with his pants down to his feet. Instead of having people who read my poem picture what he looked like at that moment, I thought why not actually show it.
As I began to figure out what words to use in my poem I found it very overwhelming. Even though my article was of fair enough length there were a bunch of words I would’ve liked to use but I could not use them all. I picked out the words that expressed the two point of views of what people believed happened to him and how others felt. I tried to be very creative while creating this poem because I want many people to be aware of most things that they do not inform us in the media. By placing his name several times scrabbled up I hope you would remember his name and not let what happened to him go unheard…
Shania,
I think the inclusion of Danye Jones’ name was a very impactful stylistic choice. We are very much in an age where we are bombarded with a constant influx of tragedy after tragedy, and too often we let ourselves get swept away, without really focusing on any particular one of them. Jones’ situation is definitely not one that should be lost in the whirlwind of constant media, and saying his name, emphasizing it in the way that your poem did, is one very important way of keeping his legacy, and the deserved outrage around his death, alive.