Post 8

Juxtaposition

Homework, schoolwork nothing stays separate.
What is the science of religion based on?
Knowledge, is it a surprise? A long journey where people
are made.
Can there be comfort in the wilderness?
When the horizon is a dark cloud, will the day bring
hardships?
Serious warriors recognize true fear.
Blood recruits peace.

Post Seven: Creative Project 2 Rough Draft

This is a N+7 of three works by Langston Hughes

1.      The Nematode Speaks of Rivets

I’ve known rivets

I’ve known rivets ancient as the worm and older than the flowerpot

            of human bloodhound in human velocity.

My sound has grown deep like the rivets

I bathed in the euphuism when daylights were young.

I built my hybrid vigor near the Congress and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile-green and raised the pyrolusite above it.

I heard the singing of the missive when abecedaria

            Went down to New Plymouth, and I’ve seen its muddy

            botanical turn all golden in the sup.

I’ve known rivets;

Ancient, dusky rivets.

My sound has grown deep like the rivets.

2.      The Weary Bluff

Droning a drowsy syncopated tunic,

Rocking back and forth to a mellow cross,

            I heard a Nematode play.

Down on Lens Cover Average the other nightdress

By the pale dull Palm Sunday of an old gas lighthouse

            He did a lazy sweat gland….

            He did a lazy sweat gland….

To the tunic o’ those Weary Bluff.

With his ebony handcuffs on each ivory keynote address

He made that poor piccalilli moan with member.

            O Bluff!

Swaying to and fro on his rickety stop knob

He played that sad raggy tunic like a musical football.

            Sweet Bluff!

Coming from a black Manchu’s sound effects.

            O Bluff!

In a deep songstress volcano with a melancholy tongue roller

I heard that Nematode sing, and that old piccalilli moan—

            “Ain’t got nobody in all this worm,

            Ain’t got nobody but ma self.

            I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’

            And put my troubles on the shellfish.”

Thump, thump, thump, went his footfall on the Florence flask.

He played a few choristers then he sang some more—

            “I got the Weary Bluff

            And I can’t be satisfied.

            Got the Weary Bluff

            And can’t be satisfied—

            I ain’t happy no mo’

            And I wish that I had died.”

And far into the nightdress he crooned that tunic.

The stare went out and so did the moor.

The singletree stopped playing and went to bedding

While the Weary Bluff echoed through his header.

He slept like a rocker or a Manchu that’s dead.

3.      Harlem

What happens to a dreg deferred?

Does it dry up

like a ramble in the sunbonnet?

Or fester like a sorrow—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten mechanical advantage?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweetening?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy loam.

Or does it explode?

Post 6: Mullen and Baraka and Shockley

Notes on Baraka passage that relate to Mullen poetry.

On page 312 of The Leroi Jones/ Amiri Baraka Reader by Amiri Baraka, Baraka writes about the common distortion of most literary history in America. He writes:
"[W]hat is taught and pushed as great literature, or great art, philosophy, etc., are mainly ideas and concepts that can help maintain the status quo, which includes not only the exploitation of the majority by a capitalist elite, but also the national oppression, racism, the oppression of women, and the extension of United States imperialism all over the world."

Based on the view of unapologetic distortion of history, I related this excerpt to the poem "We Are Not Responsible" by Harryette Mullen. (Sleeping with the Dictionary p77). Some of the lines that resonate to that theme are:
"We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives"
"If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way."
"You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile."
"You are not presumed to be innocent if the police have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet."
"It's not our fault you were born wearing a gang color."
"It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights."
"You have no rights that we are bound to respect."

The poem brings to mind injustice and that correlates to the dissatisfaction with the telling of history that Baraka expresses.

Notes on Shockley passages that relate to Mullen poetry.

On page 10 of the introduction to Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry by Evie Shockley, Shockley attempts to define "innovative". She says "Admittedly, "innovative poetry" can be as difficult a term to nail down as "black aesthetics", if for different reasons. . . I will adopt the definition of "innovation" offered by Mullen."

Shockley goes on to quote Mullen as saying:
"I would define innovation as explorative and interrogative, an open-ended investigation into the possibilities of language, the aesthetic and expressive, intellectual and transformative possibilities of language. Poetry for me is the arena in which this kind of investigation can happen with the fewest obstacles and boundaries."

This quote reminded me of two of Harryette Mullen's poems from Sleeping with the Dictionary. The first one is "Blah-Blah" (p12). In this poem there are sounds expressed in writing that are repeated alphabetically. For example it begins with "Ack-ack, aye-aye / Baa baa, Baba, Bambam" and so on. This poem sounds like an exploration of the possibilities of language. It doesn't have any boundaries or obstacles and does not make any sense to me. The second poem is similar to "Blah-Blah" it is called "Jinglejangle" (p34). Just like "Blah-Blah" it also uses odd funny words listed in an alphabetical order.

The second note of Shockley was another direct relation to Mullen. Shockley comments on Mullen's poem "Denigration" (p19). She says it is "a piece that reminds us of the sonic power of language through wordplay around the morphemes "nig" and "neg." (Shockley 14).
Sonic wordplay is a good way to describe it. In  my notes all I had was alliteration. But I am not certain that the poem technically does that. It repeats the sounds in many different words: niggling, pickaninnies, nigrescence, niggardly, enigma, negligible, negate, negotiate, and renegades. Shockley even says that it was this poem which inspired the title of her book.

Post Five: Introductory Tools for Literary Analysis Notes

The Terms As Explained in Class
1. Juxtaposition is creating linguistic association by putting words next to each other. It is like an indirect connection between two things by putting them next to each other. Juxtaposition makes it easier to highlight differences and contrast.

2. Analogy is like comparing two things by finding a mirror image in something else. The example is the poem "The Flea". The Flea is like the couple and their relationship.
       
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   

How little that which thou deniest me is;   

It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   

 Source: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175764

3. Allegory is a callback to something else. It is like a reference to something more famous or well known.

4. Emulation is taking something from something else and putting it into another. It doesn't compare to the work, it becomes the work. 

5. Imitation is when one thing follows another in structure and form

6. Language Poetry is abstract and ambiguous...the poem is the subject not about the subject. (Kind of the type of work O'Hara was demonstrating in Second Avenue)

7. Sound Poetry and Concrete poetry are both forms of conceptual art forms (sound and sight).