Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Academic Instructions," by Allison Joseph, confronts the often-unspoken biases and restrictions placed upon marginalized voices in academic and literary spaces. The poem reads as a sardonic critique of the implicit guidelines writers from underrepresented groups are expected to follow in order to be palatable or acceptable within dominant cultural and institutional frameworks. Through the poem’s biting tone, Joseph lays bare the erasure, tokenization, and dismissal of lived experiences tied to race, gender, and identity.

The poem opens with a pointed directive: "Don’t write about being black." This line immediately sets the tone for the critique, highlighting how discussions of race are often dismissed as outdated or overdone. Joseph enumerates the experiences of systemic racism—such as being followed in stores or encountering racial discrimination—but frames them as narratives the audience does not want to hear. By doing so, the poem exposes the discomfort that arises when racial realities challenge the status quo, as well as the dismissal of these realities as unworthy of attention. The sarcasm in "no one wants to hear" amplifies the absurdity of such dismissals, pointing to the larger societal unwillingness to confront ongoing racial inequities.

Joseph extends this critique to gender, addressing the marginalization of women’s voices in literature. The instruction to avoid writing "poems on being a woman" echoes the same dismissive tone, reducing the complexity of women’s experiences to "sullen tales" or "smug complaints." By trivializing subjects such as menstruation, virginity, and the objectification of women’s bodies, the imagined instructor in the poem reveals the pervasive discomfort with women articulating their own realities. Joseph deftly critiques the societal expectation that women should remain silent about their bodies and their struggles, as though these themes are irrelevant or unworthy of serious consideration.

The poem then zeroes in on the intersection of race and gender, where the speaker is told not to discuss being "both." This dismissal is even more cutting, as it denies the validity of intersecting identities and the unique challenges they present. The mocking rejection of "ancestor worship" and admiration for "strong brown women" belittles the speaker’s cultural and familial history, framing it as "naive and mundane." Joseph’s use of these descriptors exposes the hypocrisy of a literary culture that champions universal themes while marginalizing personal and cultural narratives that do not fit a narrow mold.

Throughout the poem, the speaker’s voice remains defiant, pushing back against the erasure and invalidation of their experiences. The repeated "no one wants to hear" functions as both accusation and indictment, holding the literary and academic gatekeepers accountable for perpetuating exclusionary practices. The poem critiques the reductive view of personal history as "scandalous blame," challenging the notion that systemic issues can be reduced to individual fault or responsibility.

The final lines drive home the poem’s critique with chilling clarity. The speaker is told to "come back" only when they are ready to conform, to write like those who are already accepted by the system. This expectation of assimilation underscores the silencing of marginalized voices and the devaluation of perspectives that challenge dominant narratives. The instruction to "admit all the beauty in the world around you" is laden with irony, as it demands the speaker ignore systemic injustices and focus instead on a sanitized, apolitical version of beauty. The concluding assertion—that "nothing you say clearly can ever matter"—is a stark indictment of the systems that devalue marginalized perspectives, reducing them to irrelevance.

"Academic Instructions" is a searing commentary on the constraints imposed on writers from marginalized communities. Through its sharp tone and incisive critique, the poem challenges the literary establishment’s complicity in silencing voices that do not conform to dominant cultural narratives. Joseph’s work serves as both a critique and a call to action, urging readers to reject these restrictive norms and embrace the full spectrum of human experience in literature.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...