Toy Boat

“A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay (2015)

“A Small Needful Fact” is written for Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man who was accused of selling individual cigarettes without charging taxes, then choked to death by a New York City police officer. Following Garner’s death in July of 2014, Garner’s last words—“I can’t breathe”—quickly became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter Movement. When Tamir Rice was killed by a police officer a few months later in November of 2014, the Black Lives Matter Movement also protested his death. “Toy Boat” is, of course, dedicated to Rice, but the poem is in conversation with other poems written for unarmed Black people killed by the police, including “A Small Needful Fact.”

“The Tradition” by Jericho Brown (2015)

While “Toy Boat” is written for Rice, “The Tradition” is written for three Black men killed by the police: Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Michael Brown. Like Rice, Garner, Crawford, and Brown were all killed in 2014.

“Nightstick [A Mural for Michael Brown]” by Kevin Young (2018)

Approximately three months before Rice was killed by a police officer in Cleveland, an unarmed Black teenager named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Vuong wrote “Toy Boat” for Rice, and Young wrote this poem for Brown.

“Salutations in Search Of” by Patricia Smith (2020)

While “Toy Boat” is written for Rice and addresses Rice as “you,” “Salutations in Search Of” piles salutation upon salutation. This sonnet sequence addresses many Black people killed by the police, including Rice and many others, as well as the people they left behind, slavery and the long history of institutional racism in the United States, and more.

“Would You Kill God Too?” by W.J. Lofton (2020)

Like “Toy Boat,” this visual poem responds to the killing of an unarmed Black person by white police officers. “Would You Kill God Too?” was composed for Breonna Taylor, an EMT who was sleeping in her bed when Louisville police officers barged through her front door and shot her to death.

“Dinosaurs in the Hood” by Danez Smith (2014)

Like “Toy Boat,” Danez Smith’s “Dinosaurs in the Hood” is a work of notional ekphrasis. Instead of a toy, Smith’s poem describes a movie titled Dinosaurs in the Hood, but like the toy boat in Vuong’s poem, this movie only exists in the poet’s imagination. While “Toy Boat” is written “For Tamir Rice,” a Black child who was killed by the police, “Dinosaurs in the Hood” imaginatively erases violence committed against Black children: “No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills / the black boy. & no one kills the black boy” (Smith, Lines 32-33).