Mr. Z
By: M. Carl Holman

I found this poem to be kind of confusing at first.  However, after reading it a second time, I found that is pretty simple to understand.  After figuring out Mr. Z's race, I really was able to understand the point of the poem.  Line 1 opens the poem by saying "taught early that his mother's skin was the sign of error" (Holman). From this quote, I discovered that Mr. Z is biracial.  His mother is African American, and I am assuming that this poem was written during times of discrimination if her skin was a "sign of error."  Mr. Z's father, on the other hand, is Caucasian.   I learned this when Holman mentions "firmly seized whatever ground was Anglo-Saxonized" (Holman).  Mr. Z apparently rejected his culture.  He rejected African American foods like cornbread, yams, and collards.  Mr. Z marries a former Jewish woman who now rejects the culture she was raised in, too.  The couple tries to avoid situations that associate them with their cultures.  Overall, I think that M. Carl Holman wrote this poem to express the difficulty one lives with when he/she wants to separate from the culture he/she was born into.  However, he wants to give hope to those that do reject their cultures.  Mr. Z was a very successful man.  I think that this detail helps bring a more positive attitude to the poem.