Nikky Finney

 

 'The Greatest Show on Earth"  lists Saartjie Baartman, Joice Heth, Anarcha of Alabama, and Truginini who are four black women who represent the oppression of black women throughout history. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saartjie Baartman, "The Hottentot Venus,was discovered by a surgeon, who was particularly interested in her "large buttocks" and labia. Luring her with the promise of wealth and fame, he took her to England where she was exhibited nude in front ofa large crowd of vulgar spectators who came to gawk and some, for a heightened fee, actually touched her. She died poor in Paris in 1816 after bouts with prostitution and alcoholism. Not even 24 hours after her death, her body was cast in wax, her brain and genitals dissected and pickled, and then put on display in the Musee de L'Homme, which ironically means Museum of Humanity. Eventually, her body was taken from public view in 1974 only to be kept in a storage closet until she was returned to Africa to be laid to rest in May of 2002.

 

Joice Heth, the nurse of George Washington, was born in Madagascar in 1674. At age 15 she was stolen and sold off to slavery in America to Thomas Buckner. After being in the possession of several slave owners and outliving most of her relatives, Heth, then blind and quite feeble, (only 46 lbs), was displayed around the country as a marvel at the [supposed] age of 161

 

Anarcha was one of three noted slaves that first endured countless operations under Dr. J. Marion Sims Dossier, inventor of the speculum and the "founder of modern gynecology" (Brinker). Sims used experimental techniques on many of his slaves, asserting that black women could endure great measures of pain without the aid of medicine ''as well as dogs or rabbits"and that "plantation owners were glad to turn over their slaves to [him] for experimentation" (Bath). Anarcha was only 17 and underwent over 30 brutal surgeries.

The last of these, Truginini, born in 1803, would eventually become the last Tasmanian alive after the first Europeans came to their land and began killing them off for possession of the land. After living through rape and witnessing the murder and capture of several of her family members, she died in 1876, pleading "Don't let them cut me up! Bury me in the mountains" (ABC). Unfortunately, her last wish was not granted and she was buried, then exhumed and her
skeleton put on display until 1947. The "us all" part of Finney's dedication commemorates all black women who have been objectified, oppressed and brutalized.

 

This poem is constructed in free verse, with no particular meter or rhyme scheme. Finney contructs particular stanzas differently for more emphasis, such as the couplets which make up stanzas 2 and 4: "somebody got their wish and somebody didn't" ... "so the normal pay their fifty cents/ to see what makes a freak a freak." She also indents stanza 5: "Go ahead,/ walk around her/..." which mocks the voice of a sideshow ringleader. And in stanza 9, Truginini's last words are italicized. There are some instances of rhyme, alliteration, and consonance, as in the first stanza's "split spread/unanesthetized legs..." and in the second stanza's "wish/ and...didn't" and "size" and "pried" and "desires" in the sixth. Perhaps the poet created "The Greatest Show on Earth" with such structural liberty with the intent of not restricting the memory of these women any more than they had been in life and death.