Let the Eagle Fly

One of my favorite poems from our poetry reading days has been “America” by Henry Dumas. It really is short and sweet, compact with a lot of meaning to glean once reading it. This poem is inherently open to a lot of interpretation because of all the metaphorical language within, and so I thought I would chip in and give my personal thoughts surrounding the poem.

America  by Henry Dumas

If an eagle be imprisoned

On the back of a coin

And the coin is tossed into the sky,

That coin will spin,

That coin will flutter,

But the eagle will never fly.

Right off the bat, I want to lay down the metaphorical elements and their connections. I take the eagle to be the people of America, and the coin to be the nation itself. The eagle operates on two levels, because it is the people as a whole, and also the subset of people that are considered minorities – people that are oppressed in society. This dual possibility is available because the eagle is a patriotic symbol that generally is inclusive about all the people in our country, and the starting word “if” shows that a portion of these people are in not so good situations. And to be even pickier, Dumas specifically illustrates using “an eagle.” He does not say “the eagles,” he says “an eagle.” In other words, he makes it clear that we are one people, unified and identified as American all together.

The central metaphor of the poem is that of the coin representing the country as a whole. So the coin tossed into the air is, figuratively speaking, America going through time, thriving as a nation in some way. Dumas then brilliantly connects the already mentioned eagle, people of America, to this core metaphor that the poem revolves around. In the second to the last line, he uses the word “flutter” to describe the coin in motion. “That coin will spin, That coin will flutter.” In my mind, I usually associate the word flutter with a bird’s motion, not much else. So this interesting word choice is a move meant to transition the reader into thinking that the coin behaves like the bird. The coin is the bird. Dumas is saying that the people are the nation. One makes up the other, and concurrently is what defines it. By using the word flutter, he produces an eloquent and smooth transition that brings the message full circle, and lets the significance of the poem sink in. There is one eagle and one coin, and they are the same.

There are many angles Dumas could have taken, but he chose to use a coin to illustrate what he is trying to say. It is a powerful choice that makes a lot of sense if you consider that a coin tossed into the air always has an arc. There is time in which it flies up in the air, but then also one where it sails down to the ground. In the poem, all that is mentioned about the coin itself is that it is tossed into the air, the first half of its travels. So it is important to note that this is only the beginning of its travels; it is implied that this journey of the coin also has an end in which it will plummet to the ground. While he leaves the imagery of the coin open ended, he follows by saying that the eagle will never fly, once again going back to the idea that the coin and eagle are equivalent. And the reason why the eagle can’t fly is because it is imprisoned. These lines all culminate in the point that the nation can’t go on, it will plummet to the ground if the people who compose the nation, who are the nation, are restrained by oppression and imprisonment. America kills its own flight and trajectory through the air by imposing restraints on itself.

It is pretty justifiable to say that the people who are referred to as imprisoned in this poem are African-Americans. The word choice of “imprisoned” evokes connections in the readers mind of when black people were actually slaves, and so it puts a weight on the sense of hard times they have to go through because of America’s set up. Basically, the poem is a protest poem. It is pointing out the oppression in society, however, it doesn’t do it in a Native Son manner. In that novel, the whole technique was dependent on shocking scenes and plain exposure to how the country is messed up. Everywhere you look there is trouble and it is not right. In “America,” on the other hand, there is a comment on society, a strong comment, but still not a "complaint." There is no boiling anger present in the voice Dumas uses in sharp contrast to what can be seen with Wright at times. Rather, the attitude is very matter of fact, proclaiming that the ideas presented need to be accepted, but not in a noisy way. If anything, the poem is more related to Invisible Man, which appeals in an intellectual battle of protest. There is a challenge to society, but it is not quite as direct and emotional as Native Son. I am not saying that the poem doesn’t call for change, it definitely does, just in a milder yet arguably more effective way. All of this creates a poem that is purely a cool declaration of injustice intertwined with complex undertones. Speaking technically, I think the cause for this effect is partly the conciseness and brevity of the poem, but also the fact that it is an announcement and not a demand. Dumas pulls this off by starting “If an eagle...” almost like an introduction to a logical argument. There is an air of confidence that he is bringing a message into clearer definition.