Because

[matsunosuperfan]

Preliminary reading here, not enough for a critique, but you making it explicit that "poplar tree" is a reference to "Strange Fruit" ruins that line for me. It feels wrong to make such an off-hand reference to the horrors of lynching in a poem about Sesame Street, and not where you imagine any of the characters get lynched either---I mean, did Mr. Hooper die because of racism? Maybe he did, but the poem doesn't seem to interrogate it.

Honestly I think our poetics are just too far apart. I appreciate your taking the time nonetheless.

---

Because

When Mr. Hooper left for good, Big Bird
couldn't take it: he said He’s never coming back?
and then, neither could I. I cried so loud

my mother thought someone had done me wrong.
I liked Sesame Street because the world was just 4 people
and all 4 of them were nice as hell

and 2 of them were black. They didn't sugarcoat it either,
gave it to us straight. Susan took one look at Gordon,
and he stood up like a man

about to cut his daughter down
from a poplar tree. Nobody was smiling, you could tell
it was for real. It fell to him to help the children

old enough to understand accept the truth:
good people, the people we love, die.
I didn't want to get it. I’d seen enough to know

you never really get it back. Big Bird hangs his sadness
from a wire in the sky, I hear his voice break
as he asks Why, Gordon?

Gordon says,
Because.

Also too soon to critique for me but as a reader who found no obscurity here and is still pondering what lies beneath I have no problem with the use of the hanging reference. Those lines express the depth of sadness, the resignation of having to accept what is. Gordon may have indeed felt that but in addition gave respect to the depth of feeling children experience, knowing it would break their little hearts.

Also, I love the last line, perfect for me.

thanks yeah it's a bit of a big swing but personally I like it/think it works. glad someone else does too. appreciate the encouragement on the ending, poem is basically reverse engineered from that gesture. I was watching YouTube and algo showed me the "Mr. Hopper is dead" clip from that episode, damn near ruined my day.