Noel Sloboda, PhD
Instructor of English
Penn State York
E-mail:  njs16@psu.edu

A Message from the Council for Acceptance

Something startles the visiting lecturer
awake.  A nightmare of intolerance
for a moment is thus suppressed.
“Report Hate!” the poster in the
Student Union commanded,
fiery orange
lettering, beneath
cruel fingers,
multicolored (blue, green,
red, yellow, maroon), jabbing at one
another--like chisels
in his dream--upon a black
backdrop.  No further instructions.
To whom, he wonders,
should he report? 
How should he know
hate?  With what clues
does it manifest? 
A furrowed brow,
a sudden blush?  A sneer
or smile too quick?  A wink,
a sigh half muffled?
Himself he trusts not to read
signs.  And should he report
himself if--inadvertently,
of course--he finds himself,
for a moment, despising
what he has discovered?

Orientalism

This rug I will not
take, Edward said,
reacting to a pattern,
coiled like his mother’s hair, red,
streaked white,
matted, as on that first day of school
back in 1942, before Cairo,
when it was just too hot to
sit still and study.     

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