Review on "A stones Throw", By Elma Mitchell

A Stones Throw

We shouted out 'We've got her! Here she is! It's her all right '. We caught her. There she was - A decent-looking woman, you'd have said, (They often are) Beautiful, but dead scared, Tousled - we roughed her up A little, nothing much And not the first time By any means She'd felt men's hands Greedy over her body - But ours were virtuous, Of course. And if our fingers bruised Her shuddering skin, These were love-bites, compared To the hail of kisses of stone, The last assault And battery, frigid rape, To come Of right. For justice must be done Specially when It tastes so good. And then - this guru, Preacher, God-merchant, God-knows-what - Spoilt the whole thing, Speaking to her (Should never speak to them) Squatting on the ground - her level, Writing in the dust Something we couldn't read. And saw in her Something we couldn't see At least until He turned his eyes on us, Her eyes on us, Our eyes upon ourselves. We walked away Still holding stones That we may throw Another day Given the urge.

REVIEW

This poem highlights the themes of hypocrisy, religion and mild sexism and violence. A woman was captured a woman in sin. Dennis Brutus implies to the reader that the woman is not decent. She was physically attractive, but scared because she is being persecuted by the people in the her village. The persona states that the woman has experienced men's hands on her body before, also makes an assumption that if this crowd bruises her, it cannot be compared to what she has experienced before but this crowd's hands were different , hostile and she was publicly being humiliated as an adulteress for men were "greedy over her body". The people ready to justify her actions with her death by stones enjoy punishing women for such a grievous act but no reference of made to the punishment of the men she sinned with, but simply "fun" to stoning this woman to death.

The poet also speaks about a last "assault and battery" to come. He defines the crowds last a assault to this woman by calling it justice, and it is justice that feels not only right, but pleasurable even comparing being stoned to pleasant kisses. This poem also says that the last assault and battery will be a "frigid rape" so there was a possible plan to treat her corpse the same way they thought she lived her life, as an object for men to use for the same men in the crowd .The crowd's "justice" is abruptly placed on hold by the interruption of a preacher, who stops to talk to the lady. He squats on the ground and writes something that the crowd cannot see. like Jesus did in the bible story; John 7:53-8:11, preventing Mary Magdalene who committed the same sin from "justice" at the hands of sinners themselves. Essentially, the preacher judges them, thereby allowing the lady to also judge the crowd, leading to the crowd inevitably judge themselves and reevaluate the decisions to throw stones. The crowd walks away from the lady, still holding stones and their judgments towards her that can be thrown another day.