My Take on a Petrarchan Sonnet

My wide-tooth comb is persistent; it tame  

the thickest strands stand no chance against it  

conquers curls that fight to resist its wit,  

refusing to conform to its straight frame, 

battles its discrimination that claim  

that her curl pattern must shape-shifted to fit  

their “one-size fits all” bleached perceived beauty kit.  

My type-4 hair is brave; you can’t restrain  

My type-4 hair is resilient; she bent  

the comb that tried to invade her sacred land.

My type-4 hair requires commitment;  

trail-n-error masterpiece made by hand.

My type-4 hair is, most of all, brilliant;  

hard to mimic, just try to understand. 

Explanation 

I present to you my take on a Petrarchan sonnet with an ABBA ABBA CDCDCD. I attempted to include a volta starting at line 8 which transitions the poem from talking about hair relationship with a hair tool (comb) to hair relationship to a larger metaphorical context, such as the stigmatization and politicization of Black people’s natural hair. Which led me to the message I am trying to convey.  

In this sonnet I am trying to convey the message that hair textures that have a tight curl pattern, typically Black or African-American people’s hair, has been historically politicized and stigmatize, and this legacy still impacts the how Black people’s hair to viewed in today’s society. The Washington Post article by Toella Pliakas, “Yes, we need a law protecting Black people against hair discrimination”, provides examples of politization of natural Black hair, like the Chastity Jones court case. In this case the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued a company after it rescinded a Black applicant’s job offer because she refused to cut off her dreadlocks, however the judge ruled that the company’s choice was not a violation of the Civil Rights Act (Pliakas, 2022). Due to this injustice constantly being repeated in other scenarios Pliakas proposed installing an Act that specifically protects Black people from discrimination that involved their natural hair.