Summary

The poem "Frame" recounts the speaker's childhood in the Los Angeles area. It begins with descriptions of two farms owned by white people in the speaker's neighborhood. The farms no longer seemed to grow any crops, and the other farms in the surrounding area were "not working" anymore (117). There was now the new neighborhood, in which the speaker lived, as well as more industrialized buildings. There were many people from Louisiana in the area, and the speaker and their community would bring newcomers pies. The farmers never did, however, and were "lost/ and hating it" (118). The speaker describes a third farm, where she learned how to drive, and which then was torn down to become the site of a new library. The speaker's mother bought her a book of "Famous Afro-Americans" so she could see pictures of Black people besides those who had...