Natalie Diaz's poem "American Arithmetic", from her 2020 collection "Postcolonial Love Poem", repeats the word "race" at the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next: "Police kill Native Americans more / than any other race. Race is a funny word." Such repetition of a word has a "funny", comic side, even in this tragic context. This comedy of repetition also appears in the tragic context of Ilya Kaminsky's "Gunshot", from his 2019 collection "Deaf Republic". Shortly before a deaf boy who can't hear his commands is shot, a Sergeant harangues a crowd at a puppet show: "Disperse immediately! / Disperse immediately! the puppet mimics in a wooden falsetto." (Andrew Shields, #111words, 21 April 2022)
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