Parsley (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Rita Dove
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Dictators, Caribbean, Murder or homicide, Latinos, Latin America or Latin Americans, Haiti or Haitians, Genocide
The Poem
“Parsley” revisits a horrific moment in Caribbean history and, in doing so, highlights the manner in which language and ideology can combine to produce political violence. The poem dramatizes the slaughter of thousands of migrant Haitian sugarcane workers by troops following orders from Dominican Republican dictator General Rafael Trujillo on October 2, 1937. (Rita Dove’s notes to the poem erroneously indicate the date of the massacre as October 2, 1957.) In Dove’s poem, the Haitians are killed because they could not pronounce the letter r in...
[The entire page is 1520 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
