Punching the Air

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | YA | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Poems 1-9 Summary

From the very first poem, “Birth,” the novel in verse reveals how reflective and serious Amal’s voice is through the tone of his words. He states that he “was born with an / old, old soul” (4). The second poem takes place in the courtroom, where Amal’s trial is taking place. Amal is on trial for allegedly beating up a white teenager named Jeremy Mathis. Mathis, who is in a coma, cannot testify that Amal is not the one who beat him up. During the trial, Amal gradually reveals more about his predicament by sharing about the people who surround his case. In “Character Witness,” Amal introduces readers to his high school art teacher Ms. Rinaldi, who is a character witness for him. It is the first time that she has seen Amal in a suit and tie, which his mother, Umi, told him to wear “because optics” (9). “Anger Management” tells readers that Ms. Rinaldi says she works with Amal “To channel his anger into his art” (10). More witnesses come to the stand in “White Space II,” including the college student who filmed the fight between Amal’s friends and Jeremy’s friends. The college student became famous for posting the video, making Amal angry:

all [he] wanted to do was

drag him off that witness stand

But that would’ve looked bad

Really bad (15).

The testimonies are making Amal look like a monster, but he can’t say anything about the lies being said about him. Instead, he must be “bulletproof” and look unaffected (17).

Poems 10-17 Summary

As the trial continues, the court is shaping Amal into “the monster / they want [him] to be,” rather than the person he truly is (16). After the testimonies are over, Amal asks his lawyer Clyde about what happens if he is found guilty. Clyde acts unconcerned, prompting Amal to believe that Clyde has “two mouths / One for [him] and one for the court” (18). Even though Clyde is supposed to defend Amal, Amal loses faith in him because Clyde is white. In “Black Ink,” Amal describes how society treats white people and Black people differently, particularly in the context of the fight. While Amal is seen as a “man” and “criminal,” Jeremy (the kid who Amal is accused of beating up) is seen as a “boy” and a “victim” (20). Amal feels like he is being setup to look guilty of a crime he did not commit. However, the setup of his guilt does not matter as much to Amal as his “Fan Club”: his mother Umi, his grandma, Uncle Rashon, and his cousins Shay and Dionne (23). Amal thinks about how his mother’s face is beautiful and how his face “must be / the ugliest in the world” (26).

Poems 18-23 Summary

“Cacophony” describes the moment when the judge for Amal’s trial gives the jury’s verdict. The courtroom is abuzz with whispers and crying until the judge calls everyone to order so that they are silent. As the judge reads the verdict, Amal wishes that people could see his authentic self; not the version of him that the trial produced:

head down, arms pulled back

wrists cuffed

mean-mugged

name in mud (30).

The anticipation surrounding the verdict makes time pass slowly for Amal as he thinks about how “Amal means hope” and how the judge is talking about him “As if [he] came into the world / with fists blocking” (32, 34). In “Counting Game,” the reader discovers that Amal was on trial for aggravated assault and battery with a deadly weapon. Amal grew up learning that if someone hits you, that you have to hit back, which is the reason Amal pleaded not guilty. For Amal, it was self-defense. However, the jury finds him guilty.

Poems 24-30 Summary

“The Scream” and “The Scream II” describe Amal and his mother’s reactions to the guilty verdict. Amal is enraged and feels like his throat has stones in it while choking on his tears. He feels helpless because saying he didn’t do it won’t change the verdict. In “Blind Justice,” Amal expresses that the tipping scales of Lady Justice are imbalanced

because where [Amal comes] from

jail or death

were the two options she handed to us

because where [Jeremy] comes from

the American Dream

was the one option she handed to them (44).

Amal compares the guilty verdict to being on a “Slave Ship”: he feels like he is drowning while others are swimming towards their freedom without him (46). He thinks about the people who love him and wants to remember how they look as he envisions his family portrait before being handcuffed.

Poems 31-35 Summary

Once he’s in handcuffs, Amal considers the times that he has worn other things on his wrist. The prettiest girl in fifth grade gave Amal a friendship bracelet once, but when they broke up he couldn’t take it off. This resulted in a fight with another kid who was making fun of Amal for being dumped. When Amal was disciplined, Umi came to the school and they found out about the “zero tolerance policy” that justified Amal’s suspension (52). They also found out that the kid Amal fought with was not getting suspended. Since that day, Umi always watched and was strict with Amal. At school, Amal felt like his teachers believed lies about him,

and made themselves

a whole other boy

in their minds

and replaced me with him (56),

a sentiment he expresses in “Clone.” The fight in fifth grade was the moment where people started to see him differently. In “Conversations with God,” Amal reminisces about asking why Clyde was his lawyer and not Jeremy’s lawyer. Clyde doesn’t admit that he’s in it for money, but instead insists he’s Amal’s lawyer for the sake of justice. That moment is when Amal starts to doubt Clyde as his lawyer. In the present, Amal is being ushered through doors to be taken to jail.

Poems 36-42 Summary

Amal is ushered to the county jail, and although his “heart / is suffocating” he hopes that he is “superhuman” (62). In “The Entombment,” Amal tells how the county jail is where “the system / buries their dead,” and where their “souls / can burn in an inferno” (63-64). Amal tries to look strong in front of the other people in jail and doesn’t interact with anyone. He gets processed into the jail system and thinks about the night of his arrest. Amal remembers liking his lawyer Clyde when they first met because he gave him books to read. “Books” tells how Amal doesn’t think Clyde understands him because he gave Amal The Autobiography of Malcolm X without realizing that Amal read the book already and is an avid reader. In response, Amal gives Clyde The Rose That Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur. Both Malcolm X and Tupac were shot dead.

Poems 43-48 Summary

In “Money,” the reader finds out that Amal’s family and friends tried to get him bail money but that it wasn’t enough and could not save him from going to jail. In jail, he gets his inmate number and feels like he lost his other identities as a student and potential college graduate. He only has his “New ID” (79). As he and the other inmates are moved from the county jail, they are chained together. Amal thinks, “Maybe these are the / same chains that bind me / to my ancestors (80). Amal calls his transfer from the county jail onto the bus to the juvenile detention facility the “Middle Passage,” a reference to slave ships (82). He sits quietly on the bus and avoids eye contact so as not to cause trouble with the other kids. After accidentally making eye contact with another inmate, Amal gets knocked on the back of his head, which makes him realize that people don’t know how he ended up there yet. He thinks about the night of his arrest. Amal was convinced to go to the basketball court even though he wanted to go to the skate park. He wishes he had a girl to give him a reason not to go, particularly this girl from school named Zenobia who probably doesn’t know who Amal is. Amal tried to tell his friend that he didn’t want to get involved with the “white boys from East Hills / who been telling us / they don’t want us on their block,” but they go anyways (88). As Amal thinks about that night while on the bus to the juvenile detention center, he begins to rhyme his truth aloud even when people tell him to shut up. Amal can’t hold his words inside anymore. Part 1 ends with “Hope” as Amal hopes that he survives his incarceration.

Part 1 Analysis

Part 1, comprised of 48 poems, establishes the narrative’s tone. Amal, a serious narrator who chooses his words deliberately, feels disheartened by the lazy image of him portrayed by others and the assumptions made based on this image. Although his family loves him and believes he is innocent, Part 1 foreshadows the racist stereotypes that will continue to challenge Amal. From the first poem, Amal recognizes his predicament: Strangers are judging him as a monster and not as the person he truly is, and they’re doing so because he is Black and Jeremy Mathis is white. Amal’s race plays a large role in Part 1, showing that the US’s troubling history with race and ethnicity doomed Amal from the start. Although Clyde and those testifying all say that they believe in justice, their racial biases against Amal eventually lead to a guilty verdict. Poems like “Slave Ship,” “Middle Passage,” “Coming to America,” and “DNA” all underscore the arbitrary, pejorative nature of justice for Black people in America through both content and title.

The poems utilize various literary devices to evoke Amal’s moods. The text italicizes the speech of others to offer a more dramatic rendering of the important words that others are saying about (or to) Amal. Amal also uses different formatting structures depending on the poem’s subject matter. Some poems have standalone titles, while others, like “Old Soul,” are continuations of ideas shared in previous poems (“Birth” ends with the image of Amal as an old soul). Some poems also have clearly delineated stanzas, while others slow the pace of the poem with punctuation—a technique known as caesura. Caesuras, or pauses in poems, help readers absorb new information and absorb each feeling Amal is trying to share. Other poems have large spaces on the same lines or indents on the middle of the page, creating motion. This technique, called enjambment, deliberately breaks up lines to keep the action moving. Part 1 also utilizes anaphora, which happens when words or phrases repeat successively at the beginning of sentences. “Courtroom,” for instance, repeats “like” (7) successively to emphasize seemingly disparate things (“like a black hoodie”; “like a few fights”; “like failing three classes” (7) that the prosecution groups together to show a pattern of behavior. These varied styles create a sense of urgency and drama in the courtroom and show Amal’s vulnerability during his trial. His thinking is not streamlined; the poems mimic Amal’s feelings in court.