Brad Bennett — Touchstone Award for Individual Poems Winner 2024

Brad Bennett is the recipient of a Touchstone Award for Individual Poems for 2024 for the poem:

white suburb—
the diversity
of stone walls

     —Brad Bennett, Prune Juice Journal, Issue #42

Commentary from the Panel: 

This poem is 3-5-3 syllables, that begins and ends on two accented syllables, enhancing its message and effect on the reader. “white suburb” seems at first so obvious a reference to racism in the United States that it’s obvious to miss the subtleties in the first word. White would seem to be a reference to what used to be called WASPs: White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. White, however, also carries the notion of innocence and purity. Both can apply in this instance. The perceived innocence many white people have from growing up uninformed about how people of other colors/cultures may suffer in our country, and the “purity,” as espoused by white supremacists, keeping white people here as the dominant group.

The second line, “the diversity,” is a key concept as it brings in the current political language of the U.S. Are we going to allow all people to share their language and cultures or only the past dominant race/culture, whites, to share theirs? Of course, the diversity among whites here is never mentioned in political discourse, and the history is also ignored. It seems a tacit understanding that only a certain group of whites, a sort of idealized past, is allowed. Thus, the past differences between the Germans, Irish, Italians, Slavs, etc., are glossed over in favor of the idea of an idealized white people.

The last line, “of stone walls,” is indicative of the walls between people. Coupled with “diversity,” in line two, it’s apparent that the people being kept out are people of color and ethnic groups, often referred to by whites with the exclusionary language: “non-whites.” Ironically, it is these people — Africans, Chinese, Indigenous, Japanese, Latinos, Middle Eastern, etc. — who have helped this nation achieve greatness.  There is the suggestion of a second meaning, however, of stone walls. When we meet an obstacle we cannot overcome, we refer to it as a stone wall or brick wall. “The diversity of stone walls” can therefore also be seen as the variety of objections put up by one group over another. At a glance, these stone walls may appear to be repetitively the same, but, like microaggressions, when you tease apart the different stones and their varieties, there’s a subtlety to the many different insidious forms that white supremacy and/or racism can take. The stone walls, then, can be seen as a series of ways to exclude others based not just on color, but culture, language, and religion. This is a poem rich in secondary meanings.

Touchstone winners receive a crystal award to commemorate their selection. See the complete list of winners of both Individual Poem Awards and Distinguished Books Awards in the Touchstone Archives.