“Hazel Tells LaVerne”
In this poem by Katharyn Howd Mechan, the speaker is a housemaid that is cleaning up after her over seer. It would appear that she is recalling a dream that voices her childhood desire to be a princess. The dialogue used depicts her as an African American woman and her disbelief and doubt display her as an older woman. The words are written like she was saying them out loud, so most are misspelled and nothing is capitalized. Her circumstances must be grim considering that becoming somewhat of a princess is out of the question. This type of lifestyle may have been something that she grew up into and her family before her did similarly what she does to earn her living.
Mechan is addressing the disbelief of rising above what has been placed in front of a person. Back in these times, people were not able to rise from different social classes. The character in the poem is uneducated and going to back to what she used to imagine as a child. However, this time, she is shutting down her dream forever by saying that she could never be a princess.
