DeMisty's status updates without so much noise. Still, I'm on twitter and google+.
I am a: writer, academic, lecturer of English in a public university.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Cadree cadray—in which Kerouac is… is? Ah, I was born during the wrong time.
Mulatto by Langston Hughes
I, like many, came to Langston Hughes through his poetry. As a kid, the first poem we learned in school by him was “Dream Boogie.” What I learned next was either “Harlem” or “Mother to Son.” I remember learning about his poetry in music class, in English, in theater, in history. It was not until years later when I learned he, too, was a playwright. I read his short plays about Simple, a simple character, and in college, our small alternative arts group performed the one-act play Limitation of Life, a satire on the movie (and based on the Fannie Hurst novel) Imitations of Life. Later, I came to his nonfiction and his fiction. “On the Road” is my favorite Langston Hughes short story and tops the list of my favorite short stories by anyone.
As a kid, I hated Hughes’ voice. I thought he read too fast. I thought his timbre was of his time and outdated. Today, I love hearing him read. I’ve come to appreciate, in general, poets reading their own work, but I’ve also realized how much interpretation—of the reading (understanding)—Hughes puts into his work. Below is the transcript of his poem “Mulatto” and Mr. Hughes reading the work.
Mulatto | Langston Hughes
I am your son, white man!
Georgia dusk
And the turpentine woods.
One of the pillars of the temple fell.
You are my son!
Like Hell!
The moon over the turpentine woods.
The Southern night
Full of stars,
Great big yellow stars.
What’s a body but a toy?
Juicy bodies
Of nigger wenches
Blue black
Against black fences.
O, you little bastard boy,
What’s a body but a toy?
The scent of pine wood stings the soft night air.
What’s the body of your mother?
Silver moonlight everywhere.
What’s the body of your mother?
Sharp pine scent in the evening air.
A nigger night,
A nigger joy,
A little yellow
Bastard boy.
Naw, you ain’t my brother.
Niggers ain’t my brother.
Not ever.
Niggers ain’t my brother.
The Southern night is full of stars,
Great big yellow stars.
O, sweet as earth,
Dusk dark bodies
Give sweet birth
To little yellow bastard boys.
Git on back there in the night,
You ain’t white
The bright stars scatter everywhere.
Pine wood scent in the evening air.
A nigger night,
A nigger joy.
I am your son, white man!
A little yellow
Bastard boy.
30 Ways to Celebrate
From the Academy of American Poets
The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.
T. S. Eliot, “The Boston Evening Transcript”
Another April day, another poem: T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”
For April, for poetry month, for language and how it lives, and for tales, old but relevant.
Poet Camille Dungy reading her beautifully macabre poem “Requiem.” Not only is this a great poem, but hearing her read it brings out the imagery that much more. I love that she smiles when reading it.
Something for late at night. Something for in the morning, when waking up. Something for anytime you’re feeling afraid. She says it works!
On Suck on the Marrow
Suck on the Marrow by Camille Dungy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had a hard time getting into Suck on the Marrow. I’m not sure if this is because it’s a difficult subject or that I did not feel invested with Joseph Freeman, our first character in this cycle. I kept picking the book up and putting it down again. The second section, which follows Molly and Todd, picks up considerably in pace. Also, the world that is in this book is established in the previous section, so I don’t have to work to get to know the people, the place, and the situation. “Born on This Place,” which starts the second section of the book, is also the strongest poem thus far with a clear narrative voice and a good story—an origin story, just as with Joseph Freeman (who begins the book), but somehow, closer to the people than the first. Probably since the book starts with the poem “The Trapper’s Boast”? Who can identify with this trapper: “Give me a crowd of colored men and I can spot the new arrivals—/freed men or fugitives—I can tell them from those born with a claim to their flesh” (lines 1-3)? It is hard to find a place to grab on with such a character and I wonder how Dungy came to start the book with this voice.
That following section, which starts with “Born on This Place” which is followed by “The Development of the Scientific Mind,” a bold poem that addresses the sometimes ugliness of discovery (“Curious, Molly drowned a cat. With silver cutlery she returned before dawn,/ she separated fat from viscera, seeking the blood source that compels a beast to run”) and how we compare to other beings (lines 6-7).
Throughout, Dungy is bold. She talks about bodies and parts of bodies, about the sometimes beautiful (consensual) and sometimes brutal (taken—raped) actions of sex.
What works best in this book is the kind of glossary, kind of works cited, “Primer, or a History of These United States (Abridged).” I almost think one should begin the book here.
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