Poem about My Rights

The idea of being wrong, or having something about oneself be wrong, is a core motif in “Poem About My Rights.” Wrongness is primarily attached to the speaker but is also later used as a descriptor for other elements of the poem. The language of “wrong” calls to mind both education, which is mentioned several times, as well as moral and religious views on people being right or wrong in their behavior or characteristics.

In many separate instances, the speaker describes herself as wrong: “the wrong / sex” (Lines 8-9), “the wrong skin” (Line 55), and being “wrong / to be who I am” (Lines 32-33), among others. These phrases are both directly and indirectly repeated throughout the poem, creating a cyclical intensity to the way the speaker’s wrongness impacts both her life and the plot of the poem. The wrongness is woven into both how her family of origin treat her, how “the teachers / and the preachers” (Lines 71-72) perceive her, and how other countries are treated. The concluding rebuttal of all these descriptions, when the speaker states, “Wrong is not my name” (Line 109), is a pronouncement of goodness and value in the face of many institutions and global systems that do not see this speaker, or people like her, as right.