Bullet Points

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Bullet Points

The title of Brown’s poem conjures up two distinct images. The first is an easy-to-understand, shorthand list: Bullet points are often used to highlight the significant ideas of a proposition, a collection of evidence, or a logical sequence of arguments. The typographical symbol connected to a “bullet point” is a round, black, dot. This dark dot can be perceived as a hole. This then leads to the title’s second meaning: the entry point made by the sharp tip of a bullet that pierces its target. Since Brown is discussing the deaths of several civilians killed by guns, this meaning refers to their gunshot wounds. The tragic deaths in 2013 and 2014 of young Black men like Huerta, White, Crawford, and Michael Brown, who all died after being shot by a police officer, is highlighted by the symbolic title.

Lowly Creatures

One common proverbial description of dead bodies is as food for worms—an image that evokes how dead animals decompose in the wild. Brown refers to this idea of nature’s scavengers in his poem with the description of trusting “the maggots / who live beneath the floorboards / Of my house to do what they must / To any carcass” (Lines 11-14). Maggots—which are the first life stage of flies—subsist on dead flesh; their instinct to devour necrotic tissue has turned them into a symbol of revulsion—the traditional image is of swarms of maggots teeming around and inside of a “carcass” (Line 14). Brown twists the familiarity of this image when he suggests he “trust[s]” (Line 11) these worms “more than I trust / An officer of the law of the land” (Lines 14-15). This shows that the supposedly civilized police become lower than carrion feeders when they abandon their promise to protect the populace, act in inhumane ways, and take lives motivated by racial bias. The image of “maggots” (Line 11) is powerful because of this contrast and highlights the festering actions of police brutality.

The Holiness of Mothers and God

Near the middle of the poem, Brown notes:

But I promise you, I trust the maggots

Who live beneath the floorboards

Of my house to do what they must

To any carcass more than I trust

An officer of the law of the land

To shut my eyes like a man

Of God might, or to cover me with a sheet

So clean my mother could have used it

To tuck me in (Lines 11-19).

This allusion to religious figures and mothers underscores that those who shoot people without just cause do not value the sanctity of life. The speaker’s corpse would be revered by a reverend as belonging to God; this religious authority would close the eyes of the dead body with respect for the life that it had housed. The speaker’s mother would cover her dead child with a sheet in a way that reminded onlookers of how she used to tuck him at night, making him feel safe. In contrast, the corrupt police officer wouldn’t even drape his victim in a cloth as EMTs or morticians would. These images, familiar to the audience, highlight how the corrupt police officer disregards time-honored traditions regarding the respect for human life and honoring the dead.