Greg B Podcast: The Race

As a former track athlete, Greg Birkett, the podcaster/poet for “Greg B Podcast: The Race,” says that a track race has always struck him as a perfect metaphor for life. The podcast embeds Birkett’s poem “The Race” within a brief discussion that considers how metaphors can be used to generate meaning. The podcast also includes questions to help listeners think more closely about the poem. Birkett leaves it to his listeners to make the connection between race as an athletic competition and race as a social identity constructed around the colour of a person’s skin, which is clear in the poem. The inequities in the track race stand for inequities among races, and the poem is ultimately a lament and a call to action for Black youth.