UC Blue Ash professor finds inspiration in documents from nation’s troubled past

A 1925 property deed owned by her late grandfather inspired Rhonda Pettit to address racial segregation and institutional racism in her poem ‘A Deed Supreme.’ It is one of two poems by Pettit included in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers Crystal Wilkinson Volume XII, which was recently released by the Shepherd University’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities.

Pettit is an English professor at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College who has been writing and publishing poems for more than 30 years. Her themes often focus on issues of gender inequality, race or social injustice.

When she found the property deed for her grandfather’s land in Falmouth, Kentucky, she noticed it included language prohibiting the property owner from selling it to “anyone having Negro blood in his veins." That inspired the poem that highlights the forms of oppression that continued well after slavery ended.

“The deed is an example of institutional racism,” said Pettit. “The poem presents this through a variation of the call and response form that was used in slave work songs and spirituals, consisting of the poet's voice setting up the context on the left side of the page, and phrases from the deed on the right. The title alludes to John Coltrane's famous jazz song, ‘A Love Supreme.’"

Pettit’s second poem in the anthology is titled ‘Writing Blanks’ and was also inspired by a historical document, a 19th century Kentucky slave bill of sale.

“It’s similar in format (to ‘A Deed Supreme’), but it uses two sets of language from other sources,” Pettit noted. “The left side consists of phrases from the slave bill of sale where I have chosen to blank out the names of the slaves, and halfway down, a second set of phrases pulled from African American spirituals that provide an ‘answer’ to this historical mistreatment.“