Archive for the ‘Black Arts Poetry’ Category
“For Saundra” Is Actually About a Zombie Apocalypse.
It’s not your fault; you couldn’t have realized you were reading it wrong. With so many criticisms going every which way, it’s difficult to discern what is fact and what is fiction and what is just so off-the-wall crazy that it’s actually correct. I admit, it took some work, but I think I’ve done it; I’ve cracked the code. Now no one will ever read this poem any differently, because now there is only one right way to go about it. Everything else is just silly.
Let’s start at the title, something I’m surprised everyone had passed over. The poem, dedicated to the otherwise unmentioned ‘Saundra’, could be interpreted as naming Giovanni’s “neighbor,” but, since we are now enlightened, the name holds much more meaning. ‘Saundra’, means ‘defender of man,’ ‘defending man,’ or ‘shining upon man,’ and draws its Greek origins from the name ‘Cassandra’. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy and was the second most beautiful woman in the world. Her looks gained her the attention of Apollo who, ever-horny, granted her the gift of foresight in hope of his love being reciprocated. Of course it wasn’t, and Cassandra suffered a curse that made it so that nobody would ever believe her predictions. The poem, therefore, is written apologetically towards the prophet who went as far as predicting the fall of Troy, the prime example of civilization undone by its own hubris (a possible allusion to Richard “no-Dick” Nixon), just as our own civilization is undone by the ravenous zombie horde we called upon ourselves.
What led to our downfall? This remains, sadly, unclear although (as the title suggests) even the most viable prediction would be discredited as crazy talk. But I’m not crazy.
Moving on, we find Giovanni wanting “to write/ a poem/ that rhymes/ but revolution doesn’t lend/ itself to be-bopping.” Be-bopping, as discussed in class, was an improvisational form of free-flowing jazz. By desiring to write a poem (an act I will address later) that “rhymes,” Giovanni attempts to create a formulaic piece that arranges itself nicely into rhythms and complimentary language. But, similar to be-bopping, the world has been plunged into atonal chaos. Our once structured society is now fraught with free-flowing existences now wandering the wasteland looking for purpose. One cannot rhyme to bebop, just like one cannot pretend that everything is all right, like one cannot block out the brain-dead drones filling the streets.
Upon receiving the suggestion to write, instead, a tree poem, Giovanni “peeked from [her] window/ to check the image/ noticed the school yard was covered/ with asphalt/ no green – no trees grow/ in manhattan.” Clearly, everyone is dead. The “school yard”, once the thriving place where we build futures, is now void of life, of any “green,” of any hope, of any escape from the constant threat of being eaten alive by all manners of smelly zombies.
“Then, well,” Giovanni concludes, “i thought the sky/ I’ll do a big blue sky poem/ but all the clouds have winged/ low since no-Dick was elected.” The swallowing fog surrounding her could be understood as either the excessive pollution brought on by the smog of industrialism (in the context of the 1960’s, a possible allusion to the American war machine), the fires of our ruined cities brought upon my looters, rioters, and multiple military attempts at combating the zombie infestation, or even the mental clouding of facing one’s oncoming death in light of the destruction of our communal ties and institutions that (now overrun by zombies) are revealed to be crumbling and of no meaning at all.
Finally we are left with Giovanni’s realization that now, in light of mankind’s doom, poetry is not the most useful of tasks. “It occurred to me,” she reflects, “maybe i shouldn’t write/ at all/ but clean my gun/ and check my kerosene supply/ perhaps these are not poetic/ times/ at all.” Clearly, at this point, the horde has amassed too greatly even for poets to ignore, who are now deciding instead to take up arms against our own organic infrastructure (the American population) that has turned feral against the very system it helped create and preserve. The implication is clear here; the petty problems represented by our innate desire to make everything “rhyme” and orderly in our already disordered world, pale in comparison to our new zombie overlords bent on flesh-ripping anarchy.
But who are the zombies? Are they ourselves? Our racist, our prejudiced, our greedy, our hateful selves? Where did this danger come from? What did we do to deserve the apocalypse? Humanity has always held the potential to bring about its own end-times, and this poem is a testament to our unrest that slowly eats away at our society like newly reddened gums looking to sink into the nearest arm, leg, or cranium.
I am glad this debate over author authority and ‘reading too much’ into a text can be put to rest. Now that I have deciphered Giovanni’s vision (whether she knew it or not) we can go about our daily lives with the knowledge that another mystery has been solved. Clearly more research must be done on the topic, alas I am only one man with a dream, and together we can fortify our windows, doors, and hearts from the oncoming undead mob as humans united.
Poetry
I have never heard a poet curse. The prospect opens up worlds of fascinating new possibilities; the most prominent being a chance to rewrite our traditional perception of poetry.
I would not, of course, wish to confuse the reader—-John Keats forever has my undying devotion—-but these poems that “wrestle cops into alleys” hold a certain charm. Without feeling the need for poems that “smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches,” it is important to recognize that some of Shakespeare is poetry, but not all poetry is Shakespeare.
I was told once that poems affect us, like a piece of music or a painting: without the need for definition, and without regard for interpretation. I do believe that poems have meaning; I believe that meaning is their purpose, but I also believe that poems affect us, and that it is entirely their nature to do so. In short, poetry is whatever touches the reader. It may be a gentle, awe-inspiring caress—-and these poems do have the potential to be powerful—-but it may also be an icepick, wielded by those “Assassin poems,” which take our weapons away and ship our dead tongues off to Ireland—-just in time for St. Patty’s day.
It is our part to read and be reminded that the worlds of “coursing blood” and “souls splintering fire” can coexist, and, in fact, must; in order to create a place where “love can exist freely and cleanly.”
Unsettled
Unsettled is how I feel after reading these poems, especially Black Arts by Amiri Baraka. Of course, like others have said, I am not reading from a similar perspective. My tendency is to argue and deny the realities faced by the writers of these poems and the discriminated people they represent. Due to my optimism and unintentional ignorance, it’s so difficult to to take of my white middle-class lens and see the world these poems describe or hope for. Baraka’s voice, when listening to his reading, is overflowing with powerful frustration and his violent words are unsettling to me. But of course they are! They have such good reason to be. People want poems to be nice and pretty and abstract and to flow beautifully. Baraka outrightly defies these things, and when the nice and pretty do come along, they’re ironically represented. To me, Elizabeth Taylor would make a nice addition to a poem since I think she’s beautiful and all, but the gruesome description of mulatto women’s brains that are “stuck between ‘lizbeth taylor’s toes” completely appalls me and grabs my attention to the injustices and images women had/have to live with and live by. The transition from poems about “trees or lemons” to “poems that kill” shows the violent contrast between the normal “bullshit” poems and the poems that describe the reality of the situation–the action and use of the power of these violent words that express the not-so-pretty realities of a world with which I can never fully understand. Baraka ironically juxtaposes “beasts in green berets” and “Clean out the world for virtue and love” when he feels that those armed forces in reality do exactly the opposite, and that poems should in fact “scream poison gas” on those very beasts. So yes, thankfully, I’m unsettled, as intended by the author.
Nikki-Rosa Blog
At first glance, the poem by Nikki Giovanni caught me at a disadvantage. Being middle class, an attendant of a private university, and someone who can confidently declare that he will never understand what being Black in America will ever feel like, I couldn’t help but feel a little disconnected when reading our selection of poems. Which got me thinking about the things I enjoy most about poetry, the palpable words that just ‘feel’ right when you read them, and why “Nikki-Rosa” stuck out to be my favorite when its style is so simplistic and lacking in the hard-hitting retaliatory diction that constitutes living in civil-rights era polarity.
What I appreciated most, I believe, was the level of intimacy expressed in Giovanni’s recounts of her childhood. “You always remember things like living in Woodlawn,” she begins, “with no inside toilet/ and if you ever become famous or something/ they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother/ all to yourself.” These lines begin Giovanni’s discussion on the many definitions of what constitutes poverty, and that there is no universal standard of wealth that can be applied to our lives. “Even though you remember/ your biographers never understand/ your father’s pain as he sells his stock/and another dream goes/ and though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that/ concerns you.” Giovanni’s choice of writing the poem in second person brought me, if only superficially, into her life. Clearly, as mentioned before, I could never truly understand what (economically) impoverished life truly entails but what I do understand is a knowledge of something I believe isn’t unique to me; the human desire to be happy.
Although Giovanni’s hope that “no white person ever has cause to write about [her]” puts me in an odd position. I’m writing about her right now. The idea that a more (economically) privileged individual would “never understand Black love is Black wealth” compels me not to defend any qualifications I may have to discuss her poetry, but rather accept the aspects of my life that separates me from our narrator. Indeed I will never understand what Giovanni thinks is love, because something as intangible as “love” or “wealth” is relative. I don’t want to preach that we are all the same, because that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Instead of adopting regressive color-blindness (or any form of social or racial ‘blindness’) it is to our benefit to amplify what makes us all so different form one another and realize that those differences shouldn’t be considered superior or inferior to the our socially constructed mold of how a life should be lived. Giovanni feels the need to defend her own childhood memories, because although times were rough she “was quite happy”, and such a notion would appear contradictory to what constitutes success in America. The message is passed down in almost any holiday special or animated feature; money doesn’t equal happiness. What surprises me is how quickly that lesson is lost. Although I am realistic; money is great, but it will never be everything.
black arts poetry
So…I really wasn’t sure how to read this poetry. I thought I was confused last time when we read Emily Dickison, but this is a whole new level of feeling lost. The poem “Black Art” certainly caught my attention, especially with the first lines: “Poems are bullshit unless they are / teeth or trees or lemons / piled on a step.” It just seems so random to say “teeth or trees or lemons.” However, maybe it’s important to focus that there are tangible items and not abstract, empty words. Yet..how can poems be something “tangible”? I thought certain lines were also powerful such as “We want ‘poems that kill’ / Assassin poems, Poems that shoot / guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys and take their weapons leaving them dead.” I don’t think the author literally wants physical violence to occur as a result of poetry, but having some sort of action take place. The author does not just want these words to be heard, but something to happen once they are heard. Then again, I could be wrong!
Thoughts on Black Arts Poetry
Honestly, the first thoughts in my mind when reading the black arts poetry was that I am not qualified to comment on these poems, because I have no way of understanding their context. First, I’m terrible at history. Obviously I know this is the Civil Rights era and there was violence and conflict between white people and black people. But that’s pretty much it. I don’t get the nuances of the time, especially because I was not there.
Also, I am white. From my understanding, these poets are drawing a distinct line between being black or white. “I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they’ll never understand Black love is Black wealth…” “We want a black poem. And a Black World” Somehow, I’m not hearing the “we’re really all the same deep inside” kind of message. They are arguing that there are fundamental differences between white and black. (Whether these fundamental differences are biological, experiential, historical, etc. is another matter.) And receiving that message loud and clear just puts a barrier between me and the poem. Like I will never be able to understand nor will I be justified in any critique or analysis of it. That’s just how it makes me feel, this is not an argument that I shouldn’t try to analyze or criticize these poems. But I think that it’s interesting to think about in terms of things like audience or intended audience. Is this only intended for blacks to read? Or despite the claims that whites will never understand, are whites intended to read it as well? I think that can have effects on the reading of the poem. This kind of perspective is also interesting in terms of reader response criticism.
Comparing these to what I read in a Black Women Writers class I took last year, I find that both sets of literature contain the same kind of intensity, with features like powerful emotions and violence. But at the same time, I didn’t see this kind of hate in the works for the other class, even though the violence was there also. In summary, first impression of hate poetry: intimidating.
Black Arts Poetry
That is some really angry poetry.
About a quarter of the way through the third poem, I realized that all of this poetry needs to be spoken out loud rather than read silently. In high school, I participated in a Poetry Out Loud competition. I made it to the state level, but ultimately had to forfeit my position because I was the only pianist in my jazz band and were going to a state-wide performance. I have a PASSION for reading poetry aloud. I do it a lot. I think I’m pretty good at it, but there is NO way that I could ever read this stuff the way it needs to be read without some serious training from professionals. Two poems after I thought of this, “Beautiful Black Men” appeared on my page, which was actually one of the poems that a competing classmate chose when we were both going for the school level. It was some good stuff. So, that being said, apparently my feeling of “this stuff really needs to be read aloud” is not so far off the mark.
I think it would be very easy to become offended or put off by most of this poetry. Example: “Setting fire and death to whities ass.” Okay, sure, maybe a little bit offensive. But, we have to consider time and place here. This poem was written in 1969, and not a whole lot good was going on for the black community at that time. No one is saying that it’s necessary to agree with the words on the page, but stifling or censoring poetry like this would be just as bad as censoring poetry in which a white person wrote about “setting fire and death to blackies ass.” It’s not appealing, but it’s still worth reading — if only for education.
I’ve learned, to some extent, to separate myself from my opinions and the content of poetry in order to really LEARN it. I’m not great at doing it with other forms of the written word yet, but I’ve become decently good at poetry, and I can appreciate most of this, even if it is a little hard to swallow at times. I think it becomes much easier to read and much easier to truly appreciate when it’s read aloud in a blatantly narrative context.
Now, it’s not a book of poetry that I would sit down to read on a lovely Sunday afternoon to relax while I was having a picnic under a tree with a puppy dog on my lap…but it NEEDS to be read. If this stuff gets lost to time because it’s “offensive,” where exactly does that leave us?
Love and Wealth
In the poem “Nikki-Rosa” by Nikki Giovanni, the speaker talks about growing up black and. The lack of a rhyme scheme gives the poem a conversational or stream-of-consciousness quality. The tone is not overtly bitter, but the poem is critical of the way white biographers of black people seem to focus on the problems they perceive as existing in the black community.
Although the poem begins with the assertion that “childhood remembrances are always a drag/if you’re black,” the speaker makes it clear that her memories of childhood are not purely bitter ones. Monetary wealth is contrasted with love and a strong sense of community, and the speaker makes it clear that although poverty and alcoholism were present in her childhood, she was “quite happy.” Because biographers coming from different backgrounds have a different frame of reference, they “never understand [that] Black love is Black wealth.”
Connections Between Black Arts Poetry and “Talking Black”
I think the Black Arts poetry is a good example of the idea talked about the “Talking Black” reading of this subculture requiring their own literary criticisms. Clearly, this poetry is much more social bound and driven than typical “white” literary theories account for, and the style alone is something that, to me, seems unique and separate from typical “poetry.” Since typical critical theories were created after the original literature in our culture came about, it makes sense that as this culture begins creating its own literary identity, theories should be suited specifically for this new literature, as opposed to being “borrowed” from white literary culture.
Like the author of “Talking Black” points out – this idea must be political. Reading these texts in new ways is a form of correcting the racism of reading these texts through white critical theories. These new critical theories must be created by “drawing on the black vernacular, the language we use to speak to each other when no outsiders are around.” I don’t know too much about Black vernacular (because I’m white and apparently they cannot use it when I am around), but in my mind it is something like style of the Black Arts poetry. The language is different, and because of it’s specificity to Black culture, it is the only true way of representing it. The author is making the same argument for criticisms – they must stay true to the culture who speaks in the vernacular and the literature written in the vernacular to “protect the integrity” of the literature. White literary criticisms are written in the same style as the literature itself – and the same should be allowed for Black literature.
I think I’m done with that argument – but one more thing I found interesting. In the article he says that his task is to “help guarantee that black and so-called Third World Literature is taught to black and Third World and white students by black and Third World and white professors in heretofore white mainstream departments of literature.” Well, here we are reading this article, Black Art poetry, and even taking classes devoted more specifically to “African American Literature.” Does that mean this movement has succeeded?
Literary Analysis and Methods 