I was stumbling a bit for poetry as we near the end of National Poetry Awareness Month (aka April), so I decided to fall back on Langston Hughes. I was reading Song For a Black Girl in class while tuning out my prof talking about Faulkner and thought about it, then I read this post from Stuff White People Do and decided it was a good thing. You'll see why in a moment.
As a side note, I have no idea why it's so hard for folks to accept that their savior might be a person of color. Oh wait, I think I know.
Anyway, have a poem/song:
Song for a Dark Girl
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
April 17, 2009
Song for a Dark Girl
April 11, 2009
The Flowers of Evil
Yes, we're going to France and we're visiting...Arthur Rimbaud.
AND Charles Baudelaire, of course.
I wanted to talk about Arthur Rimbaud alone, originally, but then I thought, for historical context maybe I could pair him with Verlaine. But the truth is Paul Verlaine puts me to nappy-nap and Baudelaire and Rimbaud have respectively been MY SHIT for years now, so I figure it'd be nice to put them in the same post. They were more or less part of the same poetry movements in France, the decadent period. And they have a lot of similarities you'll see... I remember stumbling on to Baudelaire in our local library (the good one) after hearing about his controversial, evil poetry. I was expecting Satan to leap off the page and shit the way some critics went on but it was a little milder than I expected...but way more awesome. Can't quite remember how I discovered Rimbaud, I think it was more or less the same way just later.
Rimbaud may be a little obscure but if you haven't read Les Fleurs du Mal yet, I think you better or I might beat you up a little. Like tap your face repeatedly. You don't have to see it as a marvelous piece of French master poetry but you've got to at least stare at the words on the page/screen a little. A LITTLE.
Now, I like bilingual poems especially if I can sort of half-read the language, something like French or Spanish or Italian, or strangely enough, Brasilian Portuguese. Romance languages, you see. Well I should actually take out French because by damn I can't get the hang of it, but I think it's interesting to see how things translate into our language, or how that particular translator chooses to interpret the stanza and why. So I'll give you the French and the English of these.
Arthur Rimbaud, "My Bohemian Life" ("Ma Bohème")
Je m'en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées ;
Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal ;
J'allais sous le ciel, Muse ! et j'étais ton féal ;
Oh ! là là ! que d'amours splendides j'ai rêvées !
Mon unique culotte avait un large trou.
- Petit-Poucet rêveur, j'égrenais dans ma course
Des rimes. Mon auberge était à la Grande Ourse.
- Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou
Et je les écoutais, assis au bord des routes,
Ces bons soirs de septembre où je sentais des gouttes
De rosée à mon front, comme un vin de vigueur ;
Où, rimant au milieu des ombres fantastiques,
Comme des lyres, je tirais les élastiques
De mes souliers blessés, un pied près de mon coeur !
I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets;
My overcoat too was becoming ideal;
I travelled beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal;
Oh dear me! what marvellous loves I dreamed of!
My only pair of breeches had a big whole in them.
– Stargazing Tom Thumb, I sowed rhymes along my way.
My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
– My stars in the sky rustled softly.
And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
On those pleasant September evenings while I felt drops
Of dew on my forehead like vigorous wine;
And while, rhyming among the fantastical shadows,
I plucked like the strings of a lyre the elastics
Of my tattered boots, one foot close to my heart!
Charles Baudelaire, "The Sick Muse" ("La Muse Malade")
Ma pauvre muse, hélas! qu'as-tu donc ce matin?
Tes yeux creux sont peuplés de visions nocturnes,
Et je vois tour à tour réfléchis sur ton teint
La folie et l'horreur, froides et taciturnes.
Le succube verdâtre et le rose lutin
T'ont-ils versé la peur et l'amour de leurs urnes?
Le cauchemar, d'un poing despotique et mutin
T'a-t-il noyée au fond d'un fabuleux Minturnes?
Je voudrais qu'exhalant l'odeur de la santé
Ton sein de pensers forts fût toujours fréquenté,
Et que ton sang chrétien coulât à flots rythmiques,
Comme les sons nombreux des syllabes antiques,
Où règnent tour à tour le père des chansons,
Phoebus, et le grand Pan, le seigneur des moissons.
Alas, poor Muse, what ails you so today?
Your hollow eyes with midnight visions burn,
And turn about, in your complexion play
Madness and horror, cold and taciturn.
Green succubus and rosy imp — have they
Poured you both fear and love into one glass?
Or with his tyrant fist the nightmare, say,
Submerged you in some fabulous morass?
I wish that, breathing health, your breast might nourish
Ever robuster thoughts therein to flourish:
And that your Christian blood, in rhythmic flow,
With those old polysyllables would chime,
Where, turn about, reigned Phoebus, sire of rhyme,
And Pan, the lord of harvests long ago.
That particular translation was by Roy Campbell, I felt it captured the original more...aptly.
April 10, 2009
Black Arts Movement poetry
So, this April has been especially educational for me, in more than a few ways that I'll get to before the month is up, even if it's on the 29th. On the poetic branch, which is always the easiest to talk about, I've learned about the Black Arts Movement, described by Wiki as an artistic branch of the black power movement.
I discovered this while I was looking up Sonia Sanchez, whose work I was introduced to via our lovely Heath Anthology some time ago. That shit is my bible. But I don't think the biography blurb mentions the black arts movement...or maybe it does.
Well, through that I learned of another familiar poet I was introduced to by my Librarian Bosslady a year or two ago now, Amiri Baraka. So let's be a good class and look at any similarities in their poetry. I wanted to show you Sanchez's more famous poem, or at least well known, "to blk/record/buyers" but for the life of me I can't find an online version, which makes me think I will be beaten up if I typed it up myself plus the format is difficult so I'm going to risk an ass beating to type up "Masks" (1984) instead.
Sonia Sanchez, "Masks"
(blacks don't have the intellectual capacity to succeed.) -WILLIAM COORS
the river runs toward the day
and never stops.
so life receives the lakes
patrolled by one-eyed pimps
who wash their feet in our blue whoredom
the river floods
the days grow short
we wait to change our masks
we wait for warmer days and
fountains without force
we wait for seasons without power.
today
ah today
only the shirll sparrow seeks the sky
our days are edifice
we look toward temples that give birth to sanctioned flesh.
entering the temple
on this day of sundays
i hear the word spoken
by the unhurried speaker
who speaks of unveiled eyes.
straight in this chair
tall in an unrehearsed role
i rejoice
and the spirit sinks in twilight of
distant smells.
o bring the mask
full of drying blood.
fee, fie, fo, fum,
i smell the blood
of an englishman
o my people
wear the white masks
for they speak without speaking
and hear words of forgetfulness.
o my people.
~~
I find that poem incredibly beautiful and it's usage of the Jack & the Beanstalk chant was so startling...now what I COULD find online was Baraka's "Black Dada Nihilism" and I got it from here.
It's pretty long, much longer than the Sanchez piece if you've never read it before, so I'll give you the first half and you can hit the link for the rest. That would be good to do.
. Against what lightis false what breathsucked, for deadness. Murder, the cleansedpurpose, frail, againstGod, if they bring him bleeding, I would notforgive, or even call himblack dada nihilismus.The protestant love, wide windows,color blocked to Mondrian, and theugly silent deaths of jews underthe surgeon’s knife. (To awake on69th street with money and a hipnose. Black dada nihilismus, forthe umbrella’d jesus. Trillby intriguemovie house presidents sticky on the floor.B.D.N., for the secret men, Hermes, theblacker art. Thievery (ahh, they returnthose secret gold killers. Inquisitorsof the cocktail hour. Trismegistus, havethem, in their transmutation, from stoneto bleeding pearl, from lead to burninglooting, dead Moctezuma, find the Westa grey hideous space.
April 9, 2009
Countee Cullen, that other dude I didn't know about
Of course there's a wealth of literature out there that I'll feel I should know about but either never find out about or just find out too late.
Next week in my Am Lit II class we will be covering Countee Cullen. I might as well just get ready to be pissed, shouldn't I?
Cullen was a poet during the earlier years of the Harlem Renaissance with Langston an'nem, heavily influenced by John Keats, whom I'll be talking about before the month's up, because I loves me some Keats.
Two notable things about Cullen, and you'll soon understand my pre-emptive anger knowing my professor's track record with...stuff:
He was married to Yolanda DuBois, daughter of WEB DuBois
and
She ended up divorcing him when he told her he was attracted to men.
Oh yes, he got married again much more happily, but it seems at the very least Cullen was bisexual...like Langston an'nem. And well, yeah, homosexuality of any sort was a big ol' no-no back in the 30s-40s, and he was doubly pressed being black. Black communities tend/ed to downplay an awful lot some of our heroes and their sexual orientation if it's anything but straight. That's actually something interesting I'd like to get into another time. I think this might just be true of people in general but it seems the trend is especially strong with minority groups...
But now the poetry. If you want more try here.
TO JOHN KEATS, POET, AT SPRING TIME
(For Carl Van Vechten)
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year's song and next year's bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
I am as helpless in the toil
Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover
Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.
And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death's dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.
"John Keats is dead," they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.
And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.
February 20, 2009
Somedays, I give up more than others
So those of us that actively try to change people's minds & ways of thinking--whether it be racism, sexism, glbt issues, ableism, and whatever we're all stuck in the ground with--surely, SURELY we all come to the point where we just say, "Know what? Fuck it."
I have those days a lot. With my so-called battles with racism (I feel like I just need to add "in the South" every time I say that) and Ignorant!whitey I just look and say, "Okay, you aren't getting it and I've explained it on a kindergarten level several times, get out of my sight." I feel awful defeated, which is sad because I've been told that one of my worst traits is I give up too easy. Which...you know what, I really hate repeating myself. It's not that I give up too easy, it's that you try too less to grasp simple damn concepts (this is one of the stages of grieving I think).
So, I just say, fuck it you aren't getting it and I'm not going to make you, just stay ignorant (*sings: "Not payin him any atteeention!"*). Occasionally I delude myself into thinking that moving up north will, somehow, make it all better and I can just relax, and sip my Starbucks coffee and look upon the troubles of the world like a playful toy. A bit like an episode of the Twilight Zone. But obviously that doesn't work now does it.
And then sometimes I think of the poem "If--" by Rudyard "Behold the White Man's Burden" Kipling which is funny to me. I had to memorize If for English III honors and it thus traumatized me for a while because I had a horrible experience with it, but sometimes, I think of a few choice particular stanzas (it is a long poem after all) and it somehow makes everything better:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
And you know, it ends, when I can do all these things I'll be a grown ass Man. Sure it's rather androcentric (I just taught you a new word) but I think it can still apply. I'm not sure why those two stanzas just stick in my memory, on the whole I don't think I even like the poem all that much. But you have to say they're rather true.
June 2, 2008
Death be not proud
Well, I was planning on making this post, about a John Donne poem, and it's really got nothing to do with either death but it's something I want to talk about later: "Death Be Not Proud". I have some left over reflections on Death...that I felt like addressing sometime today. For now:
DEATH, be not proud, though some have callèd thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go—
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!
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April 2, 2008
Woe, thy name is Misery when we dare to speak its name
From Wiki, Pope looking pimp as usual.
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
And, just because I'm bummed out enough to do it, "Ode to Melancholy" by John Keats makes a special appearance :/
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine:
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
