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.