Deciphering the poem, Surplus Future Imperfect, by Erica Hunt was a challenging task, however, I believe the speaker wanted to portray a message concerning the African American race. As Hunt herself, in Poetry and Politics, says, “ But the language used to mediate social reality,..for here race…are coded in ways seldom acknowledged, transmitted noiselessly and invisibly, disguised as irrevocable speech, impenetrable text.”. The first line of the poem already presents an allusion to religion and history. The mention of “promised land” signifies a connection to the biblical belief of God promising Moses a land of hope and new beginnings where suffering is no more. Furthermore, I interpreted, “ When the smoke lifted”, as a historical allusion to the Civil War, indicating the end of firearms, grenades, and machine guns. Therefore, the speaker could be expressing her thoughts in regards to the African American life after the fights to end slavery by employing certain techniques and forms of language.

Erica Hunts states in her essay, “Part gesture, part command, these social rhetorics use syntax, prosody, features of repetition, emphasis and timing to re-enforce what often goes unspoken.” Throughout the poem, repetition is used with the word “No” to denote a negative connotation and add emphasis to the idea of denial given to African Americans even after promised new beginnings. When the speaker voices, “No seams between excuses and platitudes.” she depicts how these promises of hope resulted in no action but only excuses to prevent them from becoming real. She makes this clear in the contradictory lines, “No more of the same. No difference”, presenting paradox, as in a way to say that although there’s no more slavery, the circumstances seem to remain the same due to the discrimination and injustice. When she says, “No table of contents just a list of demands…No benefits…No libraries”, she supports the idea of there being “no difference” since demands are still being given and while they do get paid hourly for their work, they still receive no benefits and the lack of libraries suggests the inability to read as before. In addition, the speaker could be attacking society as a whole to depict how the working man and woman are all puppets to society/authority. Therefore, when stated, “No seatbelt, the entire world seemed unsafe”, the speaker is expressing how nothing really seems safe to African Americans in a world that is mainly dominated by the white race. Hunt’s choice of words throughout her poem add syntax and prosody to its language in order to put focus on the meaning while preserving ambiguity.

I’m not African American nor can speak on their behalf, but I do know how it feels to be treated differently because of your race. As an Hispanic female, I have encountered people who automatically assume I can’t speak english. People who assume that Hispanics are only good for doing construction and some who ignorantly believe that all Hispanics of a slightly darker complexion are Mexicans. As the speaker communicates, it is hard to feel safe in a world where our own president is attacking our race.

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