Monday, December 31, 2012

The year in African American poetry, 2012


News and publishing items related to African American poetry that caught my attention this past year.

December 28: poet Jayne Cortez dies. 

December 1: Eugene B. Redmond celebrates 75th birthday at gathering in East St. Louis.

October: The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink, edited by Kevin Young, is published by Bloomsbury USA.

October: CM Burroughs's volume The Vital System is published by Tupelo Press.

October 16: Poets Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and Joanne Gabbin organize a celebration for Toni Morrison at Virginia Tech.

October: Poetry magazine, which published several African American poets, celebrated its 100th year of publication.

August: The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 is published by BOA Editions Ltd

June: Natasha Trethewey is announced as the new U.S. Poet Laureate.

April: Tracy K. Smith is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her volume Life on Mars.

Jayne Cortez, Black Arts Poetry, Jazz, and Intellectual Traditions

Jayne Cortez, who passed recently, was one of several black arts era poets, including Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Carolyn Rodgers, Sonia Sanchez, Haki Madhubuti, Sarah Webster Fabio, and Etheridge Knight, who made jazz central to their writings. Cortez, like many black poets of the era, highlighted and memorialized  various other musicians in her works.  Ultimately, they made jazz one of black poetry's most central intellectual traditions.

Cortez, for instance, in her poem "How Long has Trane Been Gone," celebrates the famed saxophonist and focuses on African American political and cultural histories, pride, musical ideas, and black aesthetics. In her various recordings, she also collaborated with jazz musicians. And she was not alone.

Jazz was a fundamental element of black arts discourse and the production of African American poetry during the late 1960s through the 1970s. Poets such as Sanchez and Baraka, to name just two, seemed to even fashion themselves as poet-musicians. And more importantly, there seemed to be an expectation that poets serious about writing "black" poetry needed to study the music.

Not surprisingly, when Cortez pulled together a collection of her selected works, she could easily and fittingly entitle it Jazz Fan Looks Back. Of course, many of us always viewed her as more than the average fan.

 Related:
The Intellectual histories of black poetry
Tony Bolden, Aldon Nielsen and Jayne Cortez
 Aldon Nielsen, Jayne Cortez, and my classroom poetry canon
Jayne Cortez at SIUE in 2005

12 Memorable Blog Entries on Poetry from 2012

On this last day of 2012, I looked back on my poetry blogging from the past year. For now, I settled on the following 12 entries that were especially memorable to me.

• December 7: A Visual Notebook on Engagements with Poetry, Aug - Dec. 2012
• November 5: The scary presence of rap in an African American poetry course
• November 2:  What scares white students in a black poetry course
• September 18: Poetry vs. Poetry vs. Poetry vs. Poetry 
• September 1: 30 Days of Black Arts Artifacts
• August 20:  Different tonalities, perspectives & views of black women's poetry 
• August 17: Bad Men as Muses for Black Poets 
• August 3: Ishmael Reed's Funny Ex-slave Poem
• July 12: The increased aesthetic appeal of poetry book covers
• July 10: Kevin Young's Big Books & Extraordinary Publishing Career
• June 23: Where You Stay -- Amiri Baraka & the Matter of Where Poets Live  
• January 25: Why Elizabeth Alexander's Presence on Twitter Matters

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Tony Bolden, Aldon Nielsen and Jayne Cortez

Books by Aldon Nielsen, Jayne Cortez, and Tony Bolden
When elders are speaking, you're inclined to listen. So that's what I was doing back in October 2005 as Jayne Cortez, Haki Madhubuti, Eugene B. Redmond, and a couple of others were having a side conversation on campus about a lack of  scholarly works on poetry and poets. In particular, they were discussing the fact that more people had not taken serious looks at figures who emerged from the black arts era.

As they spoke, I listened, nodded my head in agreement. Late in the conversation, during a lull, I decided to insert a slight turn. "Too bad that more people haven't written about poets the way Tony Bolden has written about you," I said looking at Cortez.

Aldon Nielsen, Jayne Cortez, and my classroom poetry canon


I was a grad student at Penn State at just the right time. The literary scholar Aldon Nielsen was going through this process of converting his expansive vinyl collection to digital files. So if you were around and asked him about a musician or poet, and he happened to have just converted their works, he'd make you a CD.  

Seriously. You'd ask him about some early Amiri Baraka recording or some obscure jazz album, and a day or so later, there in your mailbox would be the CD. Free. Along with a photocopy of the album cover and liner notes.

Jayne Cortez at SIUE in 2005

Jayne Cortez signing autographs at SIUE after a reading, October 2005
What sad news -- the passing of poet Jayne Cortez a couple of days ago. She'd been a prominent figure in poetry, especially realms of African American poetry, since she first came on the scene during the black arts era. Early on and throughout her career, she was performing and recording her poetry with jazz musicians.

I first read and listened to much of her work when I was a graduate student at Penn State University. So I was pleased when just two years into my time at SIUE I was co-organizing a symposium with my colleague Eugene B. Redmond that would feature Cortez and her band. Redmond arranged for Cortez to perform on campus, give a talk the next day, and read her poetry that evening with a group of other writers, including Haki Madhubuti in East St. Louis.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

The intellectual histories of black poetry

Last month, I wrote about Toni Morrison's comments about the silence surrounding poet Lucille Clifton's "bracing intelligence." In Morrison's view, even Clifton's admirers have avoided talking about the poet's "profound intellect." I've been fascinated by that position, that we should do more to concentrate on Clifton's or any poets' engagements with ideas.

Maybe we could make concentrated efforts to place poets in conversation with intellectuals, or more broadly, we could consider the intellectual histories of black poetry. In addition to highlighting the language of the poetry, we might benefit by saying more about how poets participate in a range of notable discourses and conversations that have appealed to multiple communities.  So far, folks primarily talk about poetry in the context of poetry, which makes sense, but could be limiting.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Photographing volumes of poetry, 2012

This year, more than any, I began photographing volumes of poetry to accompany my blog entries. Selecting and photographing volumes gave me a chance to think more about the materiality of books and the beauty of many covers. Moving forward, I hope to photograph more volumes in 2013, and perhaps even do some exhibits on the books as part of my public humanities projects at the university.

What follows are some of the photographs from the last year.

“Diverse Enough”

Therí A. Pickens

Recently, a student of mine sent me an opportunity to pose and write for a local magazine (Lewiston/Auburn). They plan to do a “Healthy Minds/Healthy Bodies” spread that showcases people’s bodies and their discomforts with them. The point is to remind us all that we are vulnerable inside our skin.

I met with the photographer and his associate in an effort to learn more about the project. We had a great discussion about the importance of the project in a small and conservative community. The conversation turned a bit sour for me when we got to the details. I’ll explain why in a moment but for now I’ll just tell the story.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Coverage of Django Unchained


January 28: I Like the Way You Rhyme, Boy -- Sounding Out! -- Regina N. Bradley
January 12: Quentin Tarantino talks to himself -- Salon -- Brian Gresko
January 11: Gallery: Django Unchained London Premiere 2013 -- Metro UK
January 11: Tarantino in furious rant over violence questions -- The Telegraph -- Andrew Hough
January 11: Tarantino vs. Guru-Murthy: Director Clashes With Interviewer -- The HuffPost -- Christopher Rosen   
January 10: Reginald Hudlin Talks Bringing the Film To Comic Form -- Comics Alliance -- Joseph Hughes
January 10: Django Unchained: Unspeakable Things Unseen -- Ms. magazine blog -- anell Hobson
January 10: Reggie Hudlin Adapts "Django Unchained" -- Comic Book Resources -- Josie Campbell 
January 10: DiCaprio Snubbed Again: Out Of Oscar Nominations -- International Business Times -- Justine Ashley
January 10: How Black Power Won the American West; Why Tarantino Doesn't Get It -- AlterNet -- Kimberly Ellis
January 10: Django Unchained producer: Comic book offers ‘straight-up hero’ -- LA Times -- Gina McIntyre
January 9: Slavery on Film: Sanitized No More -- The Root -- Lawrence D. Bobo
January 9: Django Unchained action figures outrage US black activists -- The Guardian -- Ben Child
January 8: Why Samuel L. Jackson’s “Uncle Tom” Is Tarantino’s Best Character Yet -- Slate -- Aisha Harris 
January 7: America’s Soul Unchained -- HBW -- Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
January 5: Django Unchained Is All Talk With Nothing to Say -- The New Republic -- David Thomson
January 4: Spike Lee’s Dissing of ‘Django Unchained’ Earns Both Ire & Indifference -- Daily Beast -- Allison Samuels
January 4: Why Spike Lee should see ‘Django Unchained’ -- MSNBC -- Michael Smerconish
January 4: Tarantino says linking films to Newtown shooting dishonours dead -- The Guardian -- Ben Child
January 3: Abomination or entertainment? -- The Times-Picayune  -- Mike Scott
January 3: Django Unchained wins over black audience -- The Guardian -- Ben Child
January 2: Tarantino Unchained -- New Yorker -- Jelani Cobb 
January 2: Samuel L. Jackson Refuses to Answer Question -- Gawker -- Neetzan Zimmerman
January 2: African Americans Turn Out in Force for 'Django Unchained' -- Hollywood Reporter -- Pamela McClintock
January 1: Minister Farrakhan on ‘Django Unchained’ -- San Francisco Bay View -- Your Black World
January 1: Hollywood's Nigger Joke -- Counterpunch -- Cecil Brown 
December 31:  'Django Unchained' was more than a role for Kerry Washington -- LA Times -- Nicole Sperling
December 31: Django Unchained: A Conversation -- The Feminist Wire -- David J. Leonard & Tamura A. Lomax
December 31: Django: A Baadassss Film for the Ages? -- Newblackman -- Stephane Dunn 
December 30: ‘Django Unchained’s “Dance Between Reality And Storytelling” -- Deadline
December 30: Django Unchained, or, What was So Damn Funny Anyway? -- Newblackman -- Darnell Moore
December 30: Antoine Fuqua Defends Tarantino Against Spike Lee -- Hollywood Reporter -- Eric J. Lyman  
December 29: J. Foxx, K. Washington &  S. Jackson Discuss Taking On Their Roles -- Huff Post Black Voices
December 29: Tarantino Uses Gruesome Death Scenes to Paint a New Picture of Slavery -- PolicyMic -- Pete DAlessandro 
December 28: Django Unchained: What Kind of Fantasy Is This? -- io9 -- Annalee Newitz
December 28: Still Not a Brother -- City Arts -- Armond White
December 28: Tarantino On 'Django,' Violence And Catharsis -- NPR -- NPR Staff
December 28: The Riddle of Tarantino -- The New Yorker -- Richard Brody
December 28: Samuel L. Jackson Lets Loose On ‘Django’ -- Deadline -- Pete Hammond
December 28: Black Audiences, White Stars and ‘Django Unchained’ -- Wall Street Journal -- Ishmael Reed
December 28: 'Django' an unsettling experience for many blacks -- LA Times -- Erin Aubry Kaplan
December 28: Tarantino at His Best and Worst -- Huffington Post -- David E. Moody
December 28: The 'Despicable' Inside Story Of Samuel L. Jackson's Role -- MTV -- Kevin P. Sullivan 
December 28: Could a black director have made “Django”? -- Salon -- David Sirota
December 27: Samuel L. Jackson on slavery, entertainment, guns in 'Django' -- LA Times --  Steven Zeitchik 
December 27: Michael Dyson & James Peterson Discuss Django Unchained -- MSNBC
December 27: 3 Reasons This Black Man Loved Django Unchained -- Huffington Post -- Boyce Watkins 
December 27: Tarantino is the baddest black filmmaker working today -- Salon -- Eric Deggans 
December 26: Does ‘Django Unchained’ get the history of slavery right? -- The Grio -- Anthea Butler
December 26: Not Giving Django Too Much Credit -- Black Youth Project -- Aaron
December 26: Quentin Tarantino Challenged Us To A Debate on plot point -- Huffington Post -- Mike Ryan
December 26: 'Django Unchained' is brilliantly acted across the board -- CNN -- Tom Charity
December 26: 'Django Unchained' a brazen, bloody spectacle, critics say -- LA Times -- Oliver Gettell
December 26: 'Django Unchained': Jamie Foxx Becomes A Superhero -- MTV -- Josh Wigler
December 26: When Blaxploitation Went West -- Slate -- Aisha Harris
December 25: 'Django Unchained' is entertaining, but the same old schtick -- The CSM -- Peter Rainer
December 25: Django Unchained' not Tarantino's best -- The Sacramento Bee -- By Carla Meyer 
December 25: Quentin Tarantino creates an exceptional slave -- CNN -- Salamishah Tillet
December 25: 'Django Unchained': A Postracial Epic? -- The Root -- Hillary Crosley
December 25: Spike Lee Goes After ‘Django Unchained’ -- The New York Times -- Melena Ryzik
December 25: Django Unchained -- Slackerwood -- Don Clinchy
December 25: A Look Inside Tarantino’s Django Unchained Comic Book -- Wired -- Angela Watercutter
December 25: Tarantino 'Unchained,' Part 3: White Saviors - The Root -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
December 25: Django Unchained -- Washington Post -- Ann Hornaday
December 25: Is "Django Unchained" Tarantino's great American movie? -- Denver Post -- Lisa Kennedy 
December 24: Django Unchained -- Miami Herald -- Rene Rodriguez
December 24: Django Unchained Is a Better Movie About Slavery Than Lincoln -- Esquire -- Stephen Marche 
December 24: Tarantino's Genius 'Unchained' -- NPR -- Stephanie Zacharek
December 24: Django Unchained -- Slate -- Dana Stevens
December 24: Tarantino 'Unchained,' Part 2: On the N-Word - The Root -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
December 24: The Black, the White and the Angry -- The New York Times -- A. O. Scott
December 24: Django Unchained -- AV Club -- Nathan Rabin  
December 24: Django Unchained’s Damsel in Distress -- Daily Beast -- Allison Samuels
December 24: Wild Western 'Django Unchained' is pure Tarantino -- USA Today  -- Claudia Puig
December 24: R. Hudlin on the Challenges & Rewards of Making ‘Django Unchained’ - Eurweb - DeBorah B. Pryor 
December 24: 'Django Unchained' review: Sweet revenge -- San Francisco Chronicle -- Mick LaSalle
December 24: Take 5: The 'Django Unchained' edition --  The Times-Picayune -- Mike Scott
December 24: Django Unchained is a heroic love story -- MSNBC -- Touré
December 24: Spike Lee says he's boycotting Tarantino's 'Django' -- USA Today
December 24: Review: Django Unchained (2012) -- Huffington Post -- Scoot Mendelson 
December 24: Tarantino blows up the spaghetti western in 'Django Unchained' -- The Boston Globe -- Wesley Morris
December 23: Tarantino 'Unchained,' Part 1: 'Django' Trilogy? - The Root -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
December 23: 'Django Unchained' is Tarantino unleashed --  LA Times -- Betsy Sharkey
December 23: The 'D' is silent; Quentin is not -- Philadelphia Inquirer -- Steven Rea
December 21: Nichole Galicia Talks ‘Django Unchained -- Uptown -- Franny Crooks
December 21: An hour with Quentin Tarantino -- The Charlie Rose Show 
December 21: Anatomy of a Scene: ‘Django Unchained’ -- The New York Times -- Mekado Murphy 
December 20: Jackson on playing 'the most hateful negro in cinematic history' -- EW.com -- Anthony Breznican
December 20: 'Django Unchained' is bold vision of what a black hero can be -- Tampa Bay Times -- Eric Deggans
December 20: Django Uncahined (2012) -- Entertainment Weekly -- Own Gleiberman
December 20: Django Unchained Is Manna for Mayhem Mavens -- Vulture (New York mag.) -- David Edelstein
December 20: S. Jackson on Finding the Right Skin Tone for Django Unchained -- Vanity Fair -- Jason Guerrasio
December 19: How Quentin Tarantino Concocted a Genre of His Own -- The New York Times -- Charles McGrath
December 19: Meet the Mistress of ​‘Django Unchained’: Nichole Galicia -- Ebony -- Kelley C. Carter
December 19: Django Unchained Upends the Western -- Village Voice -- Scott Foundas
December 18: The Chain Gang: Django Unchained -- The New York Observer -- Rex Reed
December 16: Read the Script for Django Unchained -- Slate -- David Haglund
December 14: J. Foxx on portraying slavery, filming on an actual plantation -- EW.com -- Keith Staskiewicz 
December 13: Django Unchained -- Rolling Stones -- Peter Travers 
December 12: 'Django Unchained' draws its guns -- EW.com -- Keith Staskiewicz
December 12: Django Unchained – first look review -- The Guardian -- Peter Bradshaw
December 12: Django Unchained: Tarantino Frees the Slaves -- Time -- Richard Corliss
December 7: Tarantino defends depiction of slavery in Django Unchained -- The Guardian -- Andrew Pulver
July 16: Jamie Foxx on Django Unchained -- Vanity Fair -- Julie Miller
July 14: Quentin Tarantino and Cast Reveal 'Django' Details at Comic-Con -- Rolling Stone -- Peter Holslin
July 14: Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' at Comic-Con -- Sports Mode -- Neil Wilkes
July 14: Tarantino fans primed for Comic-Con 'Django' panel -- Entertainment Weekly -- Jonathan W. Gray
July 14: 'Django Unchained' Comic-Con Panel -- Huffington Post -- Mike Ryan
June 7:  Jamie Foxx on Rapping for Django Unchained -- Vanity Fair -- Jason Guerrasio
June 7: Thoughts on Slavery, Black Women, and 'Django Unchained' -- The Atlantic -- Ta-Nehisi Coates

Related:
Coverage of books, authors & special topics  

Friday, December 21, 2012

Black World, Poetry magazine & the Chicago poetry scene


If we're going to talk demographics, including attention to regions, and African American poetry over a long period of time, then of course we have to talk about those two centers of power Chicago and New York City. Throughout the histories of African American poetry, those cities have been especially important for large groupings of interrelated writers. Within the Chicago context, we might look at Poetry magazine on the one hand and then Black World magazine (formerly known as Negro Digest) on the other hand as being crucial publication venues.

Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Gwendolyn Brooks, Melvin B. Tolson, Margaret Walker, and others published some of their early works in Poetry. Most notably, Brooks's "We Real Cool" and Walker's "For My People" first appeared in the periodical. Those poems, as you know, have gone on to become two of the most widely circulating poems in African American and American literature.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Poets by birth year

I'm working on a larger project concerning the demographics of African American poetry. One aspect of the project involves gathering information about when poets were born. What follows is a list of poets arranged by birth year.

RapGenius and access to black poetry

By Kenton Rambsy

How do we as readers account for the distance between rap and poetry? Often times, rap music is thought of as being more accessible because we hear it on the radio, television, and other social settings. Poetry, on the other hand, is sometimes seen as foreign or inaccessible because of language barriers, complex allusions, and other literary devices used to tell a story.

In Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, Adam Bradley explains, “most people associate poetry with hard work; it is something to be studied in school or puzzled over for hidden insights.” He continues, “Poetry stands at an almost unfathomable distance from our daily lives, or at least so it seems given how infrequently we seek it out.” Bradley’s explanation of poetry relates to several fields of African American literature where presumable outsiders struggle to decipher references and language that is more common to discourse insiders.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Diversity and Black Poetry

Many of the debates and resentments -- both of which are often covertly expressed or discussed among close-knit groups -- that take place in realms of African American poetry concern issues of diversity...black diversity. Some people claim that more attention should be given to black women poets; some state that spoken word artists should receive more play; some say that "experimental" African American poets have been too often excluded.

Poets, scholars, and general readers  with deep interests in Amiri Baraka tend to be different than those with deep interests in Rita Dove. The scholars who explicate the poetry of Harryette Mullen and Yusef Komunyakaa express less interest in the works of Saul Williams and Tracie Morris. 

RapGenius as a space for sharing expertise

By Simone Savannah

It is important to give people the language to participate in a particular discourse. What I found most valuable in working as the Graduate Assistant for the Survivor Advocacy Program at Ohio University was giving students the language to talk about sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking. Just as the Survivor Advocacy Program empowered students, RapGenius is a space in which many people are able to share their expertise through accessible language.

RapGenius allows people to break down song lyrics and share those annotations with an audience. The annotations serve as excellent tools for those who would like to learn more or speak about particular songs. Furthermore, the site is a gateway for gaining rap literacy. Professors, including Howard Rambsy, find the site useful for guiding students in rap lyric explications in poetry courses.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Demographics of African American Poetry

When poet and editor Don Share referenced a  recent high profile conversation about the demographics of American poetry, he could easily add "deja vu!" to the title of his write-up. Such conversations, hmmm, debates about whether there are too many or too few poets have been taking place in informal and formal ways for some time now. Usually, in the informal contexts, you'll hear folks talking about MFA programs as factories, producing  way too many poets. And hey, that's just in the print-based world.

Hang with the veteran spoken word folks around St. Louis, for instance, and you'll hear complaints about there being way too many poets on the scenes right now in the city. On the flip side, I hear folks mentioning how there's not enough poets, by which they end up meaning certain kinds of "good" poets. And again, I'm just referring to the St. Louis spoken word scene--however big and small we conceive of that scene.

Poets and Body Language

Maya Angelou, back in the day
If the research about the importance of body language is correct then maybe poets should spend less time working on specific wording in this poem or that poem and spend more time thinking about how they walk to the podium, how stand when they read, and the kind of eye contact they make with their audience? Ok, ok, poets can still work on specific wording, but maybe some attention can also be given to body language.

Poets, people in general in fact, communicate so much through nonverbal means. I became increasingly aware of and intrigued by poets' nonverbal communication several years ago when I first began working with poet/photographer Eugene B. Redmond, who already had at that time a collection of more than 100,000 photographs of poets, novelists, musicians, politicians, and various attendees at events. Looking over thousands of his photographs of poets as I prepared exhibits of Redmond's images gave me a chance to become more familiar with the signature poses and patterned gestures of prominent figures.

Monday, December 17, 2012

A Notebook on Rap Genius

At some point, I'm going to produce a larger project on my engagements with Rap Genius. In the meantime, I'm publishing short entries based on my experiences utilizing the site.

Entries:
2013
• September 16: Becoming a Rap Genius (Literature course for Spring 2014)
• September 12: Frederick Douglass and Rap Genius
• July 18: When my Rap Genius activities become less fun, though purposeful
• July 15: An Ex-Slave's Letter Arrives on Rap Genius 
• June 26: Sister-scientist astronomers remix that classic Wu on Rap Genius 
• June 25: Analyzing the poetry/lyrics of high school students on Rap Genius 
• June 25: From RapGenius to Science Genius
• May 22: How to read poetry like a Rap Genius
• May 20: From RapGenius to Cultural Historian to Marketing Analyzer?
• May 9: From OHHLA to Rap Genius
• April 16: Jay-Z & Zora Neale Hurston on swag: Rap Genius notes by Kenton Rambsy
• April 15: RapGenius and Digital Humanities at CLA
• April 5: Becoming a Verified Artist on Rap Genius
• April 4: Vince Manuel on the Rap Genius Experience: An Interview
• April 3: Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes & Rap Genius 
• April 3: Follow-up on the 7 Ways Rap Genius encourages participants by Kenton Rambsy
• April 2: 7 Ways that RapGenius Assists Digital African American Literary Scholarship by Kenton Rambsy

2012
• December 20: Rap Genius and access to black poetry by Kenton Rambsy
• December 19: Rap Genius as a space for sharing expertise by Simone Savannah
• December 17: A Malcolm X project on Rap Genius, Pt. 1
• December 17: What if African American poetry enthusiasts were like rap geniuses?
• December 17: Utilizing the Poetry Foundation and Rap Genius  
• December 17: Reading Rap Genius: An Introduction

Related:
Assorted Notebooks  

A Malcolm X project on RapGenius, Pt. 1


A month or so ago, I began offering brief explanations of Malcolm X's "Message to the Grassroots" speech on the site RapGenius. So far, I've only provided about 12 or so short annotations. I'll ultimately offer more than 100 short entries on the speech, which I hope will assist in illuminating Malcolm's words.

Nearly every semester, I listen to Malcolm's speech with a couple of the classes that I teach.  We go over some of the big themes, but there's often the problem of not having enough time during the class periods to talk about many of the details and nuances of Malcolm's use of distinct words and phrasings. This project of annotating the speech on RapGenius will help me address that problem by providing an online resource that explains several details of Malcolm's "Message."   

What if African American poetry enthusiasts were like rap geniuses?

Although fields of African American poetry have many enthusiasts, we have hardly seen the rise of a popular poetry user-generated content site like RapGenius, where dozens and dozens of contributors decode and illuminate lines of verse. Of course, I understand that many poets would rightly take issue with the unauthorized publication of their poems on the net. But are copyright issues the only barriers preventing us from having more robust and active line-by-line treatments of black poetry?

The social and sometimes public culture of decoding song lyrics, which predates rap music, likely helped fuel interest in an endeavor like RapGenius, where several contributors collaborate to explain the lyrics of a piece. Folks have long shown interest in explicating poetry, but the academic and professionalized nature of such practice has also assisted in determining that the enterprise would become decidedly less social and public.

What if, I wonder, African American poetry enthusiasts performed acts like those "rap geniuses" and collaborated on breaking down a common poem or set of poems? I imagine countless readers would appreciate and enjoy brief explanations of lines from works by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, Robert Hayden, Amiri Baraka, and many others. In addition, I believe those enthusiasts turned rap geniuses would stand to gain by participating in collaborative interpretive or decoding acts.

Related:  
A Notebook on RapGenius

Utilizing the Poetry Foundation and RapGenius

During the course of this last semester, I spent considerable time on RapGenius and the Poetry Foundation. I've visited both of these online resources over the years, but since I was teaching courses that featured poetry and rap, I was especially inclined to check out materials on the two sites over the last few months. Taken together, the sites provided me with extensive information to complement my discussions of materials and artists that I covered in my classes, and more importantly, my uses of the two sites for common scholarly purposes enhanced my sense of a type of double consciousness with that duality in this case consisting of  poetry and rap.

The Poetry Foundation provides a large number of poems and biographical information on poets. I have access to much of what they present on their site in various books that I own. However, the user-friendly navigation and many materials on a single site make the Poetry Foundation one of my favored online destinations when it comes to poetry.

Reading RapGenius: An Introduction


Earlier this past semester, there was this moment when several of my students began to form false impressions about me. We were going over some rap lyrics in our poetry course, and whenever a group of presenters in the class had trouble decoding particular lyrics, I would chime in to explain seemingly hard to decipher lines. Rakim, Nas, Jay-Z, or Jay Electronica--didn't matter; I was quick to translate.

As we progressed in the coverage and my explanations of obscure references in lyrics kept pouring in, I recognized that the looks on my students' faces were of admiration and high respect. Finally, someone spoke up and complimented me on my knowledge of the music. "It's like," another student contributed with praise, "you know everything." Apparently, these folks thought I was some kind of fountain of rap wisdom, a hip hop oracle or sorts. 

Too much or not enough African American poetry?


Ask the students in my courses about the amount of black poetry we cover, and they'll be quick to inform you that we cover too much. They understand that the more poems we cover in a class, the more that they will be responsible for knowing about for essays and exams. More importantly, they feel somewhat overwhelmed by encountering so many new and unfamiliar poets and poems.

Ask contemporary poets about my list of poems and list of volumes of poetry, and most of them could, in a matter of seconds, tell you who and what's missing. Their profession and expertise incline them to have knowledge of a large number of poets and poems, so they can easily spot omissions or what they view as insufficient treatments of the field. In fact, almost every time I publish a poetry list, a poet contacts me to inform me of a poet or poem that I left off.

The discrepancies concerning too few vs. too many prompt me to regularly think about different quantities related to African American poetry. For my courses, I'm always wondering what's the optimal balance of poems so that students are not overwhelmed beyond the point of information or poetry overload and then not under-exposed to the broad range of works out there. Given my sense that fields of poetry are quite expansive, I am also inclined to think about presenting representative bodies of work.   

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Aaron McGruder, Colson Whitehead, Kevin Young & Hip Hop Aesthetics

"My aesthetics were pretty much shaped by hip-hop." -- Ta-Nehisi Coates

When and if you read Ta-Nehisi Coates, Aaron McGruder, Colson Whitehead, and Kevin Young, you'll notice, among other features, references to rap music and rappers. That's especially the case with Coates and McGruder, but you also witness rap references and related practices in Whitehead's and Young's works. Like several artists of their generation, these four writers' works absorb and display hip hop aesthetics.

Hip hop aesthetics are an outgrowth of black aesthetics--that broad label for concepts and ways of knowing rooted to African American interests, audiences/communities and distinct artistic and social practices. At the same time, hip hop aesthetics comprise a range of presumably non-black worldviews, artifacts, modes of expression, and pop culture phenomena. For decades now, rap artists have been known to search for and utilize a broad body of multi-cultural and multi-racial source materials.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

When students confuse a poem for a rap

On the final for my folklore course, I gave students excerpts of poems and rap lyrics, which we had covered during the semester. As I was looking over the exams yesterday, I noticed that several students misidentified one item in particular.

The excerpt that I presented went as follows:
I can fade worlds in and out with my mixing patterns
letting the Earth spin as I blend in Saturn
niggaz be like spinning windmills, braiding hair,
locking, popping, as the sonic force
Many students read those lines and assumed that they were from a rapper. People inserted Jay-Z, Jay Electronica, and the names of a few other rappers. At least one person presented Erykah Badu as the answer. Presenting an incorrect name for an entry is not unusual. What caught my attention, though, was that students confused a poem for a rap.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The (Early) Rise & Coverage of Ayana Mathis

Not long ago, Ayana Mathis received the call many novelists and especially their publishers long for. Yep, she got the call from Oprah Winfrey. Her debut novel The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was selected as an Oprah book club selection. Mathis was quite pleased by the news, and so was her publisher Alfred A. Knopf. They increased the print-run of Mathis's novel from 50,000 to 125,000 and pushed the release date up to this month as opposed to January when the book was initially set for release.

Winfrey had high praise for Mathis's novel. "I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me in quite this way," Morrison was quoted as saying, "besides the work of Toni Morrison."

The world of contemporary literature remains incredibly crowded and competitive. Novelists must have an edge, some extra boost in order to have their voices heard and get their novels read by large numbers of readers. The Winfrey endorsement has so far served as that boost for Mathis. The Oprah seal that will now appear on her book ensures that she will receive what eludes so many writers: an expansive audience.

What follows are a selection of articles (reviews, interviews, news articles) featuring Mathis: 

Monday, December 10, 2012

Why Michonne Matters


Since I'm sometimes critical of the television representation of Michonne on The Walking Dead, I had to remind myself recently why I, and apparently others, like her so much. She's often projected as angry and thus not complex and contemplative. Yet, she's still special for a few different reasons.

For one, she breaks the mold of the typical helpless woman in the zombie genre. As Lorraine Berry has noted, in The Walking Dead "white men rule. Men of color are reduced to occupying a nebulous space, and women (with rare exception) are to be protected." In the comic book and on the show, Michonne hardly needs protection and ends up demonstrating remarkable skills destroying zombies and saving others.

What if poets, taking a signal from Jay-Z, "decoded" their works?

Wouldn't it be fascinating if the market supported the production of books by poets that resembled Jay-Z's Decoded? Imagine reading what artists had to say about their writing processes over an extended period of time, the creation of key works, their feelings about their receptions, and how they engaged other artists and the overall field. I'm aware that folks can sometimes fictionalize narratives about their careers and artwork. Still, we'd have something to gain by learning what Elizabeth Alexander, Amiri Baraka, Elizabeth Alexander, Natastha Trethewey, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove, Kevin Young, and many others have to say about their careers as poets and their individual poems.

For the most part, you gain first-hand accounts from poets about specific works in bits and pieces--from interviews, during the setup of poems at readings, or during question and answer sessions after a poetry reading. So much depends on the questions posed and how willing the poet is to share. Rarely do we have book-length prose treatments by prominent poets about their development over a course of years and about their thoughts on some of their signature pieces.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Michonne and Caesar Valenzano


I can't remember the last time I spent so much time thinking about comic book characters. But this past semester, I ended up having extended conversations about Michonne from The Walking Dead and Caesar Valenzano from Chew. I know, I know: seems so cliché for the black studies guy to be interested in black characters. I'll have you know, though, I'm into more than just those characters, though,admittedly, those two have drawn me in for particular reasons.

Michonne appears in the television and comic book versions of The Walking Dead, so I'm likely to have more talks about her than Caesar. Relatively few folks in my circles follow comic books, but I know many who watch the television show. The rarity of seeing an ass-kicking sister in a key role on such a popular show opens up all kinds of discussion. Too often perhaps, I end up complaining about how angry they make the television Michonne. She's still my favorite character.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Briana Whiteside's Markups of poems by Tyehimba Jess & Evie Shockley

Briana Whiteside's mark-up of poems by Jess and Shockley 
Early this semester, I shared a print-out of a few poems with my first-year graduate student Briana Whiteside. She said she had had little exposure to African American poetry in undergrad. If you're in my circle, I told her, you gotta read, among others, Tyehimba Jess and Evie Shockley. 

I gave Briana a print-out of Jess's "When I Speak of Blues Be Clear" and Shockley's "mesostics from the american grammar book," because the plan was to have her follow-up by reading Jess's leadbelly and Shockley's the new black.

A couple of days later, Briana stopped by my office to ask follow-up questions about the two poems. I was surprised and impressed to see her engaging mark-ups of the poems and decided to take a photograph.

Related:
Marking up Robert Hayden's "Frederick Douglass"

The daily existence of narratives vs. special moments of poetry

For some reason or another, I'm frequently thinking about barriers that prevent people from engaging poetry. I was thus interested when I recently came across an interview with the novelist Ian McEwan, where he was asked whether he reads poetry. McEwan opened by responding that "We have many shelves of poetry at home, but still, it takes an effort to step out of the daily narrative of existence, draw that neglected cloak of stillness around you — and concentrate, if only for three or four minutes."

He then goes on to note that the "greatest reading pleasure" involves becoming "so engrossed that you barely know you exist." By way of illustration of his point, he describes an experience when he read Elizabeth Bishop's “Under the Window: Ouro Preto” and lost track of the time and people around him. Among other things, I was inclined to go read Bishop's poem.

Friday, December 7, 2012

A Visual Notebook on Engagements with Poetry, Aug - Dec. 2012

During the course of the Fall semester, I was fortunate to capture several images of attendees at our events engaging poetry. Some of our "visual chronicles" on our facebook page also featured poetry, and I included images of volumes of poetry with some of my blog entries. What follows are some of the photos--providing you with visual images on what it looks like as folks participate in humanities projects focused on African American poetry.

Book image for an entry on tonalities of black women's poetry, Aug. 20


Books for an entry on 25 poems for class, Aug. 27


Cover for 30 Days of Black Arts Artifacts series, Sept. 1

Briana Whiteside's markups of poems by Tyehimba Jess and Evie Shockley



7 Key African American Poems exhibit, Sept. 11

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

AOC: Choice Remains an Art

Haley Scholars Fall 2012 Reading Groups     

By Danielle Hall

Over the course of this semester, we have read and discussed varying choice processes including informed intuition, collective choices, and limited or restrictive choices. The processes all point to the myriad ways that we are informed and impacted by choice.

In the epilogue, I found the following statement by Iyengar a useful point to consider that sums up her main thoughts and arguments throughout the book: "Science can assist us in becoming more skillful choosers, but at its core, choice remains an art" (268). In order to benefit the most from our choices, we must be willing to accept its ambiguity as well as its paradox.

How about you -- what's one concept raised in the epilogue that drew your interest? In brief, explain why that concept or example was notable or intriguing to you?

The Power of Habit [Reflections]

Haley Scholars Fall 2012 Reading Groups    

So now that you've read Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit, what will you do tomorrow? That is, what's one distinct way you are inclined to approach activities or sharpen or alter your outlook based on a specific finding or idea raised in the book?

In many respects, our decision to organize common reading groups on interrelated books allows us to participate in extracurricular or beyond-the-classroom learning activities that enhance our  overall knowledge and strengthen our reading and web-based communication skills. Thanks for joining us on the journey.

We're not curious: how will your tomorrow or future now be shaped by what you discovered reading in The Power of Habit?

Notes on the History of the term "Black Aesthetic"

The January 1968 issue of Negro Digest contained writers' comments about a black aesthetic

I was recently rapping with my friends/guides Maryemma Graham and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. about buzzwords and the lack of discussion concerning "keywords" in our field. Often, a focus on "key"  and "major" authors, as opposed to concepts and phrases, end up driving our scholarly discourse. I began to think about the histories of key key terms and started thinking about “black aesthetic,” which, more so than “Black Arts Movement,” during the late 1960s and 1970s, inspired really extensive conversations and serious debate even at the time of the phrase's inception.

Usually people give credit to Addison Gayle for the term "Black Aesthetic," but we should go back a few years and note that Hoyt Fuller, editor of Negro Digest/Black World, did important organizing and advocacy work to bring the phrase to a broader arts public. Fuller had written a draft of his article “Toward a Black Aesthetic” as early as 1967.

Just as important, at some point in 1967, Fuller “polled some 38 writers, both famous and unknown” raising several questions. For number 19, he asked “Do you see any future at all for the school of black writers which seeks to establish ‘a black aesthetic’?”

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Jeffrey Skoblow Reads Whitman, Ginsberg, and Baraka

 

On December 3, literature professor Jeffrey Skoblow read a few poems at the library as part of our annual book festival, where we showcase books, authors, and ideas. Skoblow read Walt Whitman's "Respondez!," Allen Ginsberg's "America," and Amiri Baraka's "Hymn for Lanie Poo" and a selection from Baraka's volume
The Dead Lecturer

Skoblow is one of our university's most active public readers. Every fall semester with Erick Ruckh from the department of history, Skoblow does a reading of Ginsberg's "Howl" to celebrate the occasion of the poet's initial public presentation of the poem. Ruckh and Skoblow do the reading outside, and I'm always pleased when I can catch them. They've also done a reading of Ginsberg's work in the Underground Reading Room.

Race and Outliers - epilogue

Haley Scholars Fall 2012 Reading Groups     

The epilogue at first appears to be the final presentation of a randomly selected and researched outlier. But we soon learn that the closing outlier narrative is in fact a narrative about the author, Malcolm Gladwell. We learn, perhaps not surprisingly at this point, that Gladwell’s own success emerges from the hidden advantages and multiple opportunities that his parents and grandparents received.

Among other important issues, Gladwell explains how light skin color allowed his otherwise disadvantaged black relatives to excel in ways that their fellow dark-skinned Jamaicans did not. Having an ancestor who had “a little bit of whiteness” or having one who got a chance at meaningful work became an “extraordinary advantage.” It was an advantage not simply based on working hard but rather on arbitrary yet powerful cultural and structural factors.

What stood out to you most concerning Gladwell’s discussions of skin color and advantage (or disadvantage)? Why?

Academically Adrift [Reflections]


Haley Scholars Fall 2012 Reading Groups    

In many respects, our decision to organize common reading groups on interrelated books allows us to participate in extracurricular or beyond-the-classroom learning activities that enhance our  overall knowledge and strengthen our reading and web-based communication skills. Thanks for joining us on the journey. 

So now that you've read Academically Adrift, what do you do tomorrow? That is, what's one distinct way you are inclined to approach activities or sharpen your outlook based on a specific finding or idea raised in the book?

Monday, December 3, 2012

Photos from EBR 75th Birthday Festival

Related: Celebrating Eugene B. Redmond's 75th Birthday

Eugene B. Redmond and poet Afaa Weaver

Poet Allison Funk

Celebrating Eugene B. Redmond's 75th Birthday

Eugene B. Redmond making remarks at the close of the ceremony, Dec. 1

On December 1, in East St. Louis, about 150 or so of us gathered to celebrate with poet Eugene B. Redmond for his 75th birthday. There was jazz and blues, African drumming, tributes, and of course poetry. The celebration was a lively affair.
 
During the course of the evening's program, a dozen or so people made short statements honoring Redmond. Haki Madhubuti spoke about working with Redmond on projects since the 1960s. Local journalist Vicki Bennington spoke about her experiences writing about Redmond for different news articles over the years. The Mayor of East St. Louis, Alvin Parks, read a proclamation acknowledging Redmond's accomplishments over the years.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Briana Whiteside's Journey: From Illinois to Mississippi back to Illinois

By Danielle Hall 

Briana Whiteside, one of our program's lead contributors, has made a fascinating journey to SIUE. A native of Chicago’s South Side, Roseland area, she headed south to attend Tougaloo College, a small historic black college in Mississippi, where she earned a degree in English in May of 2012. This fall, she returned to Illinois and entered SIUE as a first-year graduate student in the English, Language and Literature department.

Briana described the challenges of her migration to and from Mississippi back to Illinois after four years as follows:
Leaving Chicago and attending Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, was difficult because of the regional and cultural barriers that I faced. Transitioning from a fast-paced, large city to more of a rural slow paced setting was difficult primarily because I was uncomfortable with settling down and not having everything accessible to me.

100 Poems read & re-read in 2012

Here we go, 100 poems (including raps) that I enjoyed reading and discussing with my students in my various literature courses in 2012.

• "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou
• "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou
• "The RhythmBlues" by Amiri Baraka
• "Digging" by Amiri Baraka
• "Monday in B-Flat" by Amiri Baraka
• "In the Funk World" by Amiri Baraka 
• "Dope" by Amiri Baraka
• "Jungle Jim Flunks His Screen Test" by Amiri Baraka
• "75 Bars" by Black Thought
• "kitchenette building" by Gwendolyn Brooks
• "a song in the front yard" by Gwendolyn Brooks
• "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

The empowering yet fragile nature of spoken word poetry

On Thursday, we organized a poetry reading in Lovejoy Library in celebration of Eugene B. Redmond's upcoming 75th birthday. After the gathering, folks continually approached me telling me how "powerful," "dynamic," and "amazing," they felt that the readings by our program coordinators Danielle Hall and Cindy Lyles were. I agree: the sisters are incredibly impressive performers of verse.

Prior to arriving to our program over a year ago, they had both already become experienced spoken word artists at their undergrad institutions and then on the St. Louis poetry scenes. Among other attributes, their poems and styles of delivery are filled with the signature aspects of empowerment or cultural strength that characterize so much of spoken word poetry. When Danielle and Cindy read, you hear multiple African American verbal and performance traditions--sermonic, consciousness raising, militancy, and emphatic testifying.