Walking Down Park

In “Walking Down Park,” the speaker invites the reader to imagine a different America, one where Indigenous- and African-descended people evolved without the interference of colonizers. The speaker presents a greener picture, one where people are freer, happier, in harmony with nature, and able to openly love themselves and one another. The poem both directs the reader’s attention to what has gone “wrong” in society and what people can and need to do to make it “right.” It begins asking the important questions and imagining a better world.

The poem opens with a direct address. Presumably, the speaker is speaking to African American readers specifically, though she does not say it. Using the second person, she encompasses a general audience, meaning any and all humans across time, saying,

do you ever stop

to think what it looked like

before it was an avenue

did you ever stop to think

what you walked   

before you rode   

subways to the stock (Lines 3-9).

With these lines, the speaker sets up her premise. She invites the reader to think about life before subways and roads. When she notes that “we are the stock / exchanged” (Lines 12-13), she is talking to African Americans who once were exchanged like livestock in New York and elsewhere.