The Weeping Time: Elegy in Three Voices

Christopher Conlon
The Argonne House Press (2004)
ISBN 1887641181
Reviewed by Cherie Burbach for Reader Views (2/06)

"The Weeping Time" is a poetic account of a true life event, the slave auction of March 2, 1859. Written entirely in free verse, the author tells the tale of real life figures Fanny Kemble, a British-born actress, and her slave-owning American husband Pierce Butler and how they came to be part of the slave auction that was called “the vastest such auction in American history.”

"The Weeping Time" begins with the poem “Downburst,” the final result of the slave auction. Without knowing the history behind the poetry, one might have the impression that Pierce Butler has given his slaves their freedom, as the poem ends:

“he’ll watch their black faces glow with gratitude,
all four hundred and forty of them...

and they’ll love him for it,
knowing him at last, knowing him truly,
Pierce Butler, Southern gentleman, for what he is
and always has been: beneficent, good, legal, tender.”

In the first section of the book the author tells us the background of Fanny, Pierce, and one of their slaves, Jack. It gives the reader a chance to see each character as the people they might have been, and a context in which to judge their lives. We learn early on in “Pierce Butler,” that Butler himself was born two months after his dead older brother of the same name, as he says:

“Pierce knew his name
to be borrowed only gradually, then distinctly-
images of himself as a ghost persist in dream even now,
trailing his other self.”

In this vein we begin to understand Pierce’s upbringing, and his appalling actions in living with and owning slaves. The author does a good job of bringing forth this man’s history without causing the reader to be unduly drawn to a sense of sorrow for the man. In “Pierce Butler” he makes the comparison of Pierce’s shadow life in the midst of slavery, where no slave’s life was ever their own.

In the poem “Reading Lesson,” we learn of Franny’s early years, where in her far-away England slavery is talked about almost as a child’s fable, with larger then life characters and implied happy endings, where slaves are not held, but cared for. This is the view that will linger later in the book, where this childish look at the far-away world of slavery will clash with the adult denial of the harsh injustice they are participating in.

In describing the character of Jack, we also have a poetic sense of slavery from his viewpoint. In “Learning the Language,” Jack learns to say “yes” to every white person he comes in contact with, all the while building a quiet resentment with this one word.

The end of "The Weeping Time" brings the reader back full circle, to the auction. In “Sale” and “The Buyers” we see the harsh reality of the slaves’ ordeal, standing naked and judged while they wait for their new fate. We see this from the slave Jack, and in the poem of the same name we learn he: “stands motionless beside it, dead, buried inside and out.”

"The Weeping Time" will leave you with pictures of this sinister period of American history. It is recommended reading for anyone who might easily forget.

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