{"id":268259,"date":"2025-06-02T07:23:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T07:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-june-2-2025-graduationstudying-george-moses-hortons-poem\/"},"modified":"2025-06-02T07:23:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T07:23:41","slug":"americanstudies-june-2-2025-graduationstudying-george-moses-hortons-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=268259","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: June 2, 2025: GraduationStudying: George Moses Horton\u2019s Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[This past
\nweekend, my younger son and
\nco<\/a>-favorite-Guest
\nPoster Kyle Railton<\/a> graduated from high school. As I wipe away proud Dad
\ntears, this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contexts for this momentous
\noccasion\u2014leading up to a special weekend post on what\u2019s next for the new grad!]<\/p>\n

On two
\nways in which biographical contexts greatly enhance a seemingly simple
\ngraduation poem.<\/span><\/p>\n

When read
\nin a vacuum, George Moses Horton\u2019s \u201cThe Graduate Leaving
\nCollege<\/a>\u201d (1845) is a tender and sweet depiction of the final moments in a
\ncollege student\u2019s career before he departs that educational institution which has
\nof course also become his community and home. A couple of word choices really
\ndrive home the bittersweet tone: calling this cohort of students \u201cthe pensive
\nseniors\u201d; and describing their final rest before the departure \u201cone more transient
\nnight.\u201d Although the poem\u2019s last word is \u201cjoy,\u201d suggesting that the graduate\u2019s
\nreturn to his childhood home is not without its pleasures as well, the
\noverarching tone is one of happy but nostalgic remembrance and leave-taking, as
\ncaptured by the first stanza line \u201cMy eyes let fall a friendly tear.\u201d Again, a tender
\nand sweet depiction of this experience eventually shared by most every college
\nstudent, and indeed by every graduate of every kind of educational institution
\n(and, yes, by their proud papas as well). <\/span><\/p>\n

But when
\nwe add in the details of Horton\u2019s quite amazing
\nbiography<\/a> (which I first learned about when I taught him in my 19th<\/sup>
\nCentury African American Literature course<\/a> a few years back, and which I
\ncan\u2019t do full justice to here so please do check out that first hyperlinked
\npiece from the University of North Carolina\u2019s Special Collections folks), this
\npoem becomes significantly more interesting still. To quote a particularly relevant
\npassage, which follows sentences about Horton being enslaved near Chapel Hill
\nand developing relationships with the campus and town alike: \u201cHe earned money
\nfor himself through selling romantic poetry commissioned by UNC students. These
\npoems were acrostics: the first letters of the lines spell out the subject\u2019s
\nname. Horton composed poetry in his head and recited the poems while others transcribed
\nthem.\u201d \u201cGraduate\u201d is not an acrostic nor does it focus in any overt way on a
\nspecific individual, and so likely wasn\u2019t one of these directly commissioned
\npoems\u2014but it of course reflects Horton\u2019s relationship to UNC, his understanding
\nof both the experiences of college students and of this pivotal communal moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet it also
\nreflects more than that. Horton remained enslaved until the end of the Civil
\nWar, but for the four decades before that moment consistently used his poetry
\nto argue for his freedom; such as his first poem, \u201cOn Liberty
\nand Slavery<\/a>\u201d (1828), which he published in the Lancaster (MA) Gazette<\/i>
\nwith the help of UNC
\nfaculty member Caroline Lee Hentz.<\/a> \u201cGraduate\u201d makes no mention of slavery,
\nnor is there any direct evidence in the text that its author is an enslaved person.
\nBut when we know that he was, and know moreover that his poetry was a principal
\nmeans through which he expressed the layers of his identity that slavery could
\nnot circumscribe, then I believe we have to see one of his most striking formal
\nchoices\u2014his use of the first-person pronouns \u201cI\u201d and \u201cmy\u201d in the opening stanza\u2014in
\na new light. Here at the opening of this poem, one seemingly connected to the
\nUNC students whom Horton got to know well during his time around Chapel Hill,
\nHorton imagines himself as a college student, and one graduating to all that\u2019s
\nnext, and even better, in what lies beyond that experience. At once a bittersweet
\ndetail, and a reflection of the ideals of education and graduation alike. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next
\ngraduation connection tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Graduation texts or topics you\u2019d share? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This past weekend, my younger son and co-favorite-Guest Poster Kyle Railton graduated from high school. As I wipe away proud Dad tears, this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contexts for this momentous occasion\u2014leading up to a special weekend post on what\u2019s next for the new grad!] On two ways in which biographical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[13299,1365,95774,41137,6128,17198,31728],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-268259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-americanstudies","tag-george","tag-graduationstudying","tag-hortons","tag-june","tag-moses","tag-poem"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericanStudies: June 2, 2025: GraduationStudying: George Moses Horton\u2019s Poem - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=268259\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: June 2, 2025: GraduationStudying: George Moses Horton\u2019s Poem - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[This past weekend, my younger son and co-favorite-Guest Poster Kyle Railton graduated from high school. 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