‘Assassination’ -Don L Lee (1942-)
MLK imagery and his death
it was wild.
the Key punctuation and play with
bullet hit high. upper and lowercase letters
(the throat-neck)
& from everywhere, Imagery of assassins/police
the motel, from under bushes and cars,
from around corners and across streets, Repetition
out of the garbage cans and from rat holes
in the earth Sound devices
they came running.
with
guns
drawn
they came running
toward the King—
all of them
fast and sure—
as if
the King
was going to fire back.
they came running,
fast and sure,
in the
wrong
direction.
Title
The targeted murder of an important person (MLK in 1968). One man, James Earl Ray,
was arrested but many believe the conspiracy that police and government were behind
the murder (poet presents this version).
it was wild.
Lowercase: chaos, no sense of order, absurd event. Use of 60’s slang telling us as it was:
full of frenzy and craziness.
the
Own line to introduce the single bullet that hit MLK.
bullet hit high.
Alliteration: hard and harsh ‘h’ to emphasise the impact of the shot. The shooter was a
trained sniper who knew what he was doing: he had a direct target for a successful kill.
(the throat-neck)
Parenthesis conveys extra information in the form of a descriptive detail and acts as a
visual pun representing the bullet enclosed in MLK’s skin. The hyphen creates a
compound noun describing the area in which he was hit (MLK’s voice was taken away).
MLK imagery and his death
it was wild.
the Key punctuation and play with
bullet hit high. upper and lowercase letters
(the throat-neck)
& from everywhere, Imagery of assassins/police
the motel, from under bushes and cars,
from around corners and across streets, Repetition
out of the garbage cans and from rat holes
in the earth Sound devices
they came running.
with
guns
drawn
they came running
toward the King—
all of them
fast and sure—
as if
the King
was going to fire back.
they came running,
fast and sure,
in the
wrong
direction.
Title
The targeted murder of an important person (MLK in 1968). One man, James Earl Ray,
was arrested but many believe the conspiracy that police and government were behind
the murder (poet presents this version).
it was wild.
Lowercase: chaos, no sense of order, absurd event. Use of 60’s slang telling us as it was:
full of frenzy and craziness.
the
Own line to introduce the single bullet that hit MLK.
bullet hit high.
Alliteration: hard and harsh ‘h’ to emphasise the impact of the shot. The shooter was a
trained sniper who knew what he was doing: he had a direct target for a successful kill.
(the throat-neck)
Parenthesis conveys extra information in the form of a descriptive detail and acts as a
visual pun representing the bullet enclosed in MLK’s skin. The hyphen creates a
compound noun describing the area in which he was hit (MLK’s voice was taken away).
