Etheridge Knight, Essay Example

“Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane”

As the title makes clear, the poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” (hereafter shortened to “Hard Rock”) tells the story of a prisoner who has been sent to a mental hospital for some form of treatment, and subsequently returned to the same prison. Poet Etheridge Knight uses a number of literary techniques to bring the character of Hard Rock to life for readers. The poem is structured almost like a short story, and does not rely on rhyming to presort its message; instead, Knight relies on a sense of rhythm to instill momentum in the poem, stripping down the common elements of storytelling –such as character development and detailed narrative arc- to their bare essentials. In a few short stanzas Knight manages to give readers a strong sense of who Hard Rock is, and delivers a story with a narrative arc that, despite its brevity, still carries the reader from the initial introduction to the main character to the sad, powerful conclusion.
Like many other forms of artistic expression, from sculpture to painting to musical performance, it can be helpful to know something about a poet in order to better understand a poem. This is certainly true in the case of Knight, an African American poet whose life spanned the middle of the 20^th century. Knight, who was born in 1931 and died sixty years later in 1991, first made his mark in the world of poetry with the book Poems from Prison. After being convicted of armed robbery, Knight served an eight-year sentence in prison, and his debut book offered a series of poems that recounted many of the events and people he encountered during that time, from fellow prisoners to the jailers –or “screws” as they were commonly known in Knight’s time- with an emphasis on the mistreatment of prisoners and the complicated and often violent relationships among the prisoner population (Collins, 2012). In “Hard Rock” Knight paints a vivid portrait of one of his fellow prisoners, and successfully gives readers a sense of what the character of Hard Rock was like and how Hard Rock affected those around him both before and after being sent to a mental hospital.

While Knight utilizes a number of poetic techniques in “Hard Rock,” the most notable of these is the way he uses strong, powerful, and often blunt imagery to convey his story. In fact, it is this use of imagery that makes “Hard Rock” function much like a short story, even though it shares more with poetry than it does with typical narrative prose. In many poems, the use of imagery is meant to be symbolic; a specific reference to a place or an object might be intended to call to mind some idea or emotion that is not mentioned directly. By contrast, Knight uses imagery in a very direct, straightforward manner. The images Knight describes may prompt readers to consider more abstract ideas or feelings, but their primary purpose is to bring the scene and the characters to life in a way that allows readers to easily visualize the central figure of Hard Rock and the setting in which the events of the story take place:

Hard Rock / was / “known not to take no shit

From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it:

Split purpole lips, lumbed ears, welts above

His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut

Across his temple and plowed through a thick

Canopy of kinky hair

In that opening stanza, Knight manages to convey a wealth of information. The most prominent feature contained in the first lines of “Hard Rock” is that it provides a physical description of Hard Rock. In order to make Hard Rock’s physical appearance vivid, Knight uses words that describe movement and action, such as his “split” lips or the scar that is not just on his temple, but that “cut(s) Across” it before it “plowed through” his hair.  The physical images Knight applies to Hard Rock make it clear that he is a man who has experienced violence and pain, and by framing these images in action words such as “cut” and “plowed” and “split,” Knight gives them a sense of immediacy and vitality.

This technique carries through the rest of the poem. Hard Rock apparently underwent a lobotomy and was subjected to electroshock therapy when he was taken to the mental hospital, but Knight imbues them with a sense of action by describing how a hole was “bored” into his head, how part of his brain was “cut out,” and how electricity was “shot through” the remaining parts of his brain. After being returned to the prison, Hard Rock was “like a freshly gelded stallion,” an image that makes it clear what he was like before the trip to the mental hospital, and what he was like afterwards. Hard Rock had earned such a notable reputation for his strength and size that even after he was sent back to the prison, his fellow inmates were unsure whether or not he was still as strong and threatening –both to them and to the “screws”- as he once had been. When Hard Rock receives a racially-charged taunt from another prisoner, his response is to do “nothing,” a word Knight emphasizes to contrast it from the vital and active descriptions he gave readers of the Hard Rock that existed before the treatment at the mental hospital.

Along with the powerful imagery, Knight uses a sense of rhythm and movement to give the poem a narrative arc. Although the story picks up after Hard Rock returns from the mental hospital, Knight describes what Hard Rock was like before and after being sent there. Despite being told out of linear order, the poem has a definitive beginning, middle, and end: there is the Hard Rock who was fearless and intimidating before his treatment, the Hard Rock that no one is sure about jhust after he returns, and the Hard Rock who they soon realize is just “silly,” with eyes that are “empty like knot holes in a fence.” Once the prisoners understand that the Hard Rock they once knew no longer exists, the forward momentum and the action imbued in the poem’s stark images simply vanishes, leaving the emptiness and nothingness of life as a just another prisoner.

Works cited

Collins, Michael S. Understanding Etheridge Knight. 1st ed. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2012. Print.

Knight, Etheridge. The Essential Etheridge Knight. 1st ed. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986. Print.