F is for the feathered thrust
And the birth of twins.
Leda never felt a thing.
Penetrated by the force majeure,
A trick in the air.
F is for fuck.
Finis coronat opus.
F is for Frankenstein,
Who did not name his baby.
Always name offspring.
“De donde vienos, amor, mi ninos?”
-Percival Everett
Throughout Percival Everett’s “Zulus”, he constructs poems that each begin with a letter of the alphabet following alphabetical order. The poem beginning with the letter F tells a story that has a commonality with some of the other poems within the series. The consistent statement made within several of the poems is, “always name offspring”(20). The other poems that contain this statement refer to different concepts within each poem, but they allude to the same conclusion that naming a child is crucial. Not naming a child upon birth can lead to the child not living a good and fulfilled life, and the poem contains examples of this occurring such as the story of Frankenstein and the Greek mythology story of Leda and the Swan. These recurring themes within the poems, I thought was quite contradictory of Perical Everett to be endorsing. Percival Everett does not endorse labels. A name is considered a label and he is endorsing naming children immediately otherwise the child will not live a fulfilled life, or causing harm to others involved with the child. The poems’ messages mostly all connect with each other but do not endorse the beliefs that Percival Everett usually preaches.
Within the poem beginning with the letter F, Percival Everett mentions two stories having to do with the creation of children. The first is the story of Leda and the Swan. I was not aware of this story prior to reading the poems, but some of my group members during the discussion of this poem educated me on the topic. According to an article titled Leda and Zeus in Greek Mythology (https://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/leda.html), Leda and the Swan involves a woman named Leda, and the Greek god Zeus. Leda is a beautiful woman who attracted the attention of Zeus. Zeus disguises himself as a swan and impregnates Leda without her knowledge, described in the poem as Leda never feeling a thing (20). Within the same day, Leda also sleeps with her husband and multiple children are born. The children face lives of being tormented by other gods because of the way they were conceived. This triggers the argument of children needing to be born out of a pure background. These children face a life of wrath from other gods because of the way they were conceived.
The next allusion made within the F poem is the story of “Frankenstein”. The author of “Frankenstein” began the story after experiencing a traumatic event. At eighteen years old, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley fell pregnant with a child according to an article in The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-strange-and-twisted-life-of-frankenstein). After not naming the child, she found the baby dead after a night of not feeding the child. She then writes the story of Frankenstein. A mad scientist creates a monster that he never gave a name. The monster is depicted as a horrific being. The scientist that created the monster is eventually killed by the monster. This supports the meaning behind the “F” poem by Percival Everett. The poem alludes to the fact that parents need to name their children or something horrific will happen. The scientist who made a creation full of desire was killed by that very creation, and the reason for this could be because he never named the monster. The monster was never given an identity, which led to a downfall within the story.
Both of these examples are contradictory to the opinions of Percival Everett. Everett doesn’t believe in categorization, as discussed in one of my previous blog posts, (https://readerandtext.sunygeneseoenglish.org/2019/12/04/do-you-like-genre-i-do/). For him to state throughout these poems that children need to be named, is quite contradictory of his statements within interviews. He is aware that labels exist within society but chooses to ignore them within his own life. Writing these poems, and advocating for the labeling of a child goes against everything he usually advocates. I don’t know the exact reason for this, but I have an idea. Though he doesn’t totally believe in labels, he may think they are sometimes necessary.
Why does Percival Everett’s contradiction matter? For me, this conveys the idea that beliefs do not have to be concrete. Beliefs can be subjective and should be subjective. Opinions can change and that means that a person is intellectual learning and growing. Everett’s opinion of labels should be fluid based on the situation. If giving a child a name can give them a better life than the alternative of not giving them a name, then the belief should change. Labels can help one develop an identity, then if the label no longer fits the identity, the label should change. Labels should exist, but be subjective to the individual.