Erica Hunt: a critical cultural witness

Poet Erica Hunt gave the opening keynote at the "Celebrating Contemporary African American Literature: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry" conference at Penn State. Hunt raised the question of what's African American about African American poetics. She touched on a few different critical conversations and offered examples of works by contemporary poets, including Major Jackson and M. NourbeSe Philip.

In addition to the useful content of the presentation, what was unusual and refreshing was how Hunt moved around and spoke. She would read a few lines from her paper and then move somewhere else. She would read quotations and offer dramatic pauses and wordless phrases (i.e. "hmph.") in response.

Her style of delivery was in itself some mixed media event.  But for me that wasn't even the highlight of the Erica Hunt Experience.

Later, I got a chance to sit with Hunt for lunch, and let me tell you: she's one of those spectacular critical cultural witnesses that I've been trying to think about for years.  We talked about poetry, recognition, nonrecognition, her high school activist days, her growing awareness of feminism, Katherine Dunham, East East St. Louis; and she recalled a "teach in" back in the day as a teenager when Nikki Giovanni and Haki Madhubuti gave a reading.

As I've noted often here, poetry is one of our most densely populated fields. That makes getting heard difficult, but on the other hand, poets with extensive careers like Hunt have had the opportunity to observe quite a bit and interact with dozens and dozens of poets and other artists over the years. She's taken note of multiple trends and artistic shifts. In short, Erica Hunt is a critical cultural witness.

Related:
• Celebrating African American Literature: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry Conference at Penn State  

Photos from the Penn State Poetry Conference

Conference co-planner Shirley Turner-Moody opens the conference

Lovalerie King and Briana Whiteside

Poet Nikky Finney speaks with Meta D. Jones.

Nikkiy Finney's LaVena Johnson poem

By Briana Whiteside

Friday, I presented a paper on “Black Women Poets by the Numbers 2000-2013,” at Celebrating African American Literature: U.S and Afro-Carribean Poetry” conference at Penn State. I enjoyed the experience—meeting distinguished poets and scholars, and learning about various research projects.

I was really moved by Nikky Finney's presentation of a poem. The poem was about LaVena Johnson, a young woman from Florissant, Missouri, who entered the U.S Army at the age of 18. Johnson's death in Iraq was initially labeled a suicide, but after advocacy from her parents and further investigation, it was discovered that she had in fact been raped and murdered. Her body was set on fire in an attempt by the perpetrator(s) to conceal the crime. 

Finney's poem described aspects of the event. I was captivated by the intensity of her language and the elegance of Finney’s delivery. Hearing Finney read live gave me an appreciation for her work that I did not
previously have by reading her work on the page.

Her poem prompted awareness of the unjust, inhumane, sexist treatment that women may face who enlist in the U.S military. Finney's coverage of the injustice was delivered in a form of call and response. Finney made the call, and now, her audience is charged with the responsibility to respond.

Related:
• Celebrating African American Literature: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry Conference at Penn State  

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.   

Black arts scholars at Penn State

The conference on poetry at Penn State included several scholars doing work related to the Black Arts Movement. In fact, for a conference not necessarily focused on the 1960s/1970s, the gathering of black arts-affiliated scholars was especially large and inter-generational.

For one, you had scholars in attendance who began producing works several years ago in the field such as Keith Gilyard, Aldon Nielsen, and Tony Bolden. You had people who began producing books in recent years on black arts topics, including Evie Shockley, Meta Duewa Jones, and Margo Crawford. 

Keith  Leonard organized a panel on black arts, and he was joined by Crawford and Gershun Avilez. Two rising black arts scholars, Michael New and Sarah Rude Walker presented work in the field, and I got a chance to talk with Carter Mathes and Anthony Reed, both of whom have done and are doing black arts related work.

Related:
• Celebrating African American Literature: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry Conference at Penn State 
• The Black Arts Era
• James Smethurst's exceptionally thorough Black Arts Work

A Presentation on digital humanities and our poetry dataset

On Friday, October 25, at the Penn State poetry conference, Briana Whiteside and I made presentations concerning our dataset of 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets published between 2000 - 2013. Briana, and some of my former graduate assistants, Emily Phillips and Cindy Lyles, have been developing the collection of books for years now, so we appreciated the opportunity to present on our work for an academic audience.

Briana concentrated on three key poets from our dataset: Evie Shockley, Allison Joseph, and Elizabeth Alexander. She demonstrated how those three poets link to multiple poets throughout our collection. In the case of Shockley, Briana discussed how the designs of her work are particularly distinct and outstanding in our collection.

I provided a brief overview of our collection, and I devoted the majority of my time discussing how the work on this project had, among other things, prompted my activities on becoming a poetry genius. Overall, we were really trying to extend the conversation about black poetry and digital humanities.   

Related:
• Celebrating African American Literature: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry Conference at Penn State

Conference Notes: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry at Penn State

For the last 8 years, a group of literary scholars at Pennsylvania State University have organized a series of conferences highlighting different topics associated with African American literature. The themes have included: "Celebrating the African American Novel" (2005);  "Contemporary African American Literature" (2009); "African American Literature, Race and Sexual Identity" (2011); and just now "Celebrating Contemporary African American Literature: U.S. and Afro-Caribbean Poetry"  (October 25 - 26).

Shirley Moody-Turner and Lovalerie King served as co-planners for the event, but of course, as they noted regularly during the two-day gathering, they had help from a range of supporters, volunteers, and sponsors. Attendees at the conference covered numerous topics, which included keynote presentations by Erica Hunt, Nikky Finney, Kwame Dawes, Keith Leonard, Ishion Hutchinson, and Evie Shockley.    

A few notations:
• A Presentation on digital humanities and our poetry dataset 
• Photos from the conference
• Erica Hunt: a critical cultural witness
• Nikky Finney's LaVena Johnson poem
• Black arts scholars at Penn State
• Becoming a Poetry Genius and the annotated version

African American Literature courses

African American literature courses that we offer regularly:

ENG 111: Introduction to Literature (An African American Approach)*
ENG 205: Introduction to African American Texts
ENG 340: Literature of the Third World
ENG 341: African American Women's Writing
ENG 342: Movements in African American Literature
ENG 343: Topics in African American Rhetoric and Oratory
ENG 345: Topics in African American Poetry and Folklore
ENG 446: Studies in African American Literature
ENG 477: Toni Morrison--major author course

* not all ENG 111 courses focus on African American literary topics.

 Related:
• 10 Years of African American Literature at SIUE

Outliers & Cultural Legacies

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

In chapter 6 of Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell highlights cultural legacies. He opens with disturbing descriptions of how longstanding cultural patterns and beliefs influenced violent conflicts among generations of families in Kentucky during the 19th century.

The compelling research findings concerning long-term and deeply held values led Gladwell to the conclusion that cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them. He goes on to note the possibilities of “taking cultural legacies seriously” in order to learn “why people succeed and how to make people better.”

It’s worth noting that highlighting cultural legacies can easily give way to problematic racial and gendered generalizations—generalizations we have necessarily been inclined to critique or avoid.

How did his narratives or claims alter or confirm your views about the significance of cultural legacies? 

Chapter 11: Denial and Acceptance

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

Chapter 11 on denial and acceptance in Kathryn Schulz's book Being Wrong is one of the most gripping that we've read so far. She shares a story about a woman who falsely identified her attacker only to learn many years later that she was responsible for sending the wrong man to jail.

What aspects of the story, and more specifically, what aspect concerning the processes of denial or acceptance of error was most compelling or notable to you? Why or how so?

Becoming a Poetry Genius

[Presentation from the Penn State Poetry Conference on October 25. An annotated version here.]

By Howard Rambsy II

My presentation today is about the process of becoming a Poetry Genius because that process involves engagements with technology or what some folks refer to as digital humanities. If you haven’t been keeping score lately, allow me to tell you that in terms of the academy, scholars of African American literature have been somewhat excluded from the conversation on DH. For instance, to take one example, over the last four years, the Modern Language Association (MLA) annual conference has featured approximately 195 sessions on digital humanities with only 4 of those sessions focusing primarily on African American topics, none of which were on black poetry. By the way, in January, there will be 76 DH sessions, with two focusing on African American literature.

Let’s take another example: the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) now spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on DH projects, which are coordinated by scholars from across the country. You’ll have difficulty identifying large-scale DH projects run by scholars of African American literature. And you better believe that those thousands and now millions of dollars also include job creation. In fact, the fastest area of job growth based on job ads at MLA over the last 10 years has been in the realm of technology and digital media. Conversely, the fastest…one of the fastest declining areas in jobs over the same 10-year period has been in African American literature.

But what do these challenges about the lack of DH projects in African American literature have to do with our dataset of 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets published since 2000? And what do these challenges have to do with a site like Poetry Genius and with my process of becoming a Poetry Genius? Good questions. And I’m pleased to have the opportunity to address them.

The Redmond Effect at SIUE

Professor Redmond and Katherine Dunham at SIUE in 2005

Few English departments and even universities in the country can boast to have hosted a large number of prominent African American cultural figures in just a few years. Hosting prominent figures is especially unlikely, it must be said, when and if the sponsoring department and institution have little funds. Nonetheless, between 2003 - 2012, we managed to have an extraordinary line-up of visitors on campus: Maya Angelou,  Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Quincy Troupe, Mari Evans, Joy Harjo, Haki Madhubuti, the late Jayne Cortez, and the late Katherine Dunham.

[Related: 10 Years of Poets Reading at SIUE]

Different events led to those visits, but one common thread running through those multiple esteemed guests coming to campus was the presence of what we might call "the Redmond Effect," the involvement of Eugene B. Redmond in humanities activities taking place at SIUE. Maybe Redmond already had his sights on a 2007 retirement when I arrived in the fall of 2003, because in short order, he was organizing an all-star cast of poets, artists, and cultural workers.

In the fall of 2003, he hosted Quincy Troupe. Sanchez and Harjo were here at different times a year later. In 2005, Baraka, Cortez, Madhubuti, and Dunham visited. In 2006, it was Mari Evans. Although Redmond retired in 2007, he was actively involved in visits to campus by Angelou in 2008 and Giovanni in 2012. Believe it or not, those visits did not take place during the month of February.

And those were the nationally known figures. Between 2003 and 2007 alone, I witnessed Redmond hosting events that featured more than 100 local writers, musicians, visual artists, and dancers. During that time, we coordinated several exhibits based on Redmond's photographs, which led to the development of the Underground Reading Room. 

Among other results, the Redmond Effect has been a defining force in the development of African American literature at SIUE during the last ten years.   

Related: 
10 Years of African American Literature at SIUE 

Allison Joseph and Sonnet Sequences

By Briana Whiteside

Few poets of her generation can proclaim that they have written as many volumes of poetry as Allison Joseph. With 7 total volumes of poetry, 4 written between 2000-2013, Joseph displays a high level of productivity. Her poems reflect daily struggles such as body perception, success, jealousy in friendships, and sexuality, to name a few.

Among other features of her body of work, Joseph’s production of 34 interrelated sonnets in My Father’s Kites that focus specifically on memories of her father and his death stands out as an example of her concentrated prolific output.

Using her father as a muse, Joseph, writes about grief, relief, disappointment, and shameful memories of him. Joseph’s publication of an extended sonnet sequence corresponds to similar compositions by other poets in our dataset such as Nikky Finney’s Head Off & Split (sequence of 19 sonnets), Patricia Smith’s Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (crown of 15 sonnets,) Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard (crown of 10 sonnets), Tyehimba Jess’s Leadbelly (a crown of 7 sonnets) Marilyn Nelson’s A Wreath for Emmett Till (a crown of 15 sonnets), A. Van Jordan’s The Cineaste (crown of 44 sonnets), Elizabeth Alexander’s & Marilyn Nelson’s Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color (24 sonnets) John Murillo’s Up Jump the Boogie (a crown of 7 sonnets).

The appearances of those sonnet sequences in volumes reflect the extents to which contemporary poets utilize a historic poetic form in order to present a variety of ideas concerning African American culture and history. Allison Joseph’s My Father’s Kites serves as an entry into those aforementioned volumes and contributes to our overall view of sonnet sequences as a valued composition form.

Related:
An Introduction to 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets, 2000-2013  

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.  

Elizabeth Alexander as a link between generations of poets

By Briana Whiteside

Elizabeth Alexander's Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 provides us with an opportunity to consider approximately two decades of a poet's work. Such coverage is rare for poets born after 1960 in our dataset. Poets under the age of 50, in our dataset at least, typically do not publish collected works. Alexander, who was born in 1962, serves as a connector between previously established generations of poets and a younger group of writers.

For instance, Alexander's book links to the collected works in our dataset by Lucille Clifton, Ai, and Nikki Giovanni as well as works by Michael Weaver, and Carl Phillips. Alexander’s poems and volumes of poetry have also linked to works by poets born after 1965. Her concentration on history and series of poems on the Amistad in American Sublime correspond to Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard (2006), and Kevin Young’s Ardency (2011), respectively.

Of the 151 poems in Crave Radiance, “The Venus Hottentot” and “Praise Song for the Day” have become Alexander’s two most widely well-known pieces. “The Venus Hottentot” first appeared in Callaloo in 1989 and then in book form as the title poem for her volume The Venus Hottentot. Alexander first read “Praise Song for the Day” at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, and Graywolf released the book later in the year as a pamphlet.

“The Venus Hottentot” generated interest because of its focus on the exploitation of black female bodies; the poem is also an extended persona poem, a mode that has become increasingly utilized by contemporary African American poets. Alexander read “Praise Song for the Day” in front of a live audience of around 1.8 million people and millions of television viewers, guaranteeing that her poem would have one of the largest audiences ever.

Related:
An Introduction to 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets, 2000-2013 

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.   

Outliers and Meaningful Work

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

In his chapter “The Lessons of Joe Flom,” Malcolm Gladwell traces the backgrounds and experiences of a select group of people whose “world -- culture and generation and family history – gave them the greatest opportunities.” In particular, he pays close attention to the importance of ethnic background, demographic luck, and meaningful work. Given my remark that “hard work is often overrated” in the comments section of our last post, I was especially intrigued with Gladwell's alternative or refined consideration of work.

According to Gladwell, meaningful work is characterized by
1) autonomy – processes that yield senses of independence;
2) complexity – work that engages the mind and imagination;
3) a connection between effort and reward – a noticeable return on the uses of time and energy.

So rather than champion “hard work,” Gladwell makes distinctions and highlights “meaningful work,” indicating that such work heightens people's possibilities for success when they find their efforts freeing, thought-provoking, and fulfilling. What aspect of the chapter did you find most compelling or interesting, and why?

The New Jim Crow: Chapter 4

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

"Today a criminal freed from prison has scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a freed slave or a black person living 'free' in Mississippi at the height of Jim Crow" (141). --Michelle Alexander

In chapter 4 of The New Jim Crow, Alexander focuses on the many challenges that people face once they have been released from prison. Clearly, things do not magically change for the better after release. In fact, as Alexander shows, a stigma remains and excessive denial of opportunities occur that sometimes far outweigh the wrongs committed.

What aspect of the chapter were you most interested in? Why?

Chapter 10: How Wrong?

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups 

"Figuring out where we went wrong can be genuinely puzzling--the conceptual equivalent of trying to retrace your steps in a dark woods" (207). -- Kathryn Schulz

“Our beliefs come in bundles.” (209 )-- Kathryn Schulz

Kathryn Schulz's book Being Wrong is about wrongess and error, but it's also about, we've come to understand, the nature of our beliefs. In multiple chapters, she discusses how our belief systems affect our thinking and actions and contributing to our mistakes. Beliefs are important, as Schulz shows, when we people are trying to discover "how wrong" they were. Their belief can determine how they pursue the answer to that query.

In each chapter, members of our reading group are making distinct discoveries and learning key and different lessons. What about this chapter? What idea did you come across that you found most fascinating or notable? How so?

Is Jack Johnson book a sports book in verse or verse about sports

The guys in my class have been enjoying reading Adrian Matejka's The Big Smoke, a volume of poetry about legendary boxer Jack Johnson. We've been reading several "bad man" poems as well as Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination and Tyehimba Jess's Leadbelly. On some days while covering The Big Smoke, there's been considerable discussion about this looming figure Jack Johnson, who seems  to serve as a precursor to several contemporary high-profile athletes.

In fact, the overall interest in sports in the class, which is comprised of all first-year black men, has been one reason so many of the students have found the book appealing. On occasion, I wonder if the guys view The Big Smoke as a sports book first and a volume of poetry second.

The guys informed me that prior to our class that had not owned a volume of poetry. That's not surprising nor unusual, as relatively few of my students have ever purchased poetry, especially not contemporary volumes. Beyond the field of rap, the guys in fact had little experience engaging poetry in past classes. So, one way in to Matejka's book was through the world of sports.

Floyd Mayweather, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Michael Vick, all those cats, I was telling the guys early on, were distant echoes of the showman Jack Johnson. When put that way and while offering various tales of Johnson's exploits, the fellas demonstrated even more active interest in the volume than I've usually seen among students.

To be fair, the bad man angle helps. It's also important that Johnson himself and the Johnson Matejka envisions is so eloquent and braggadocios. Of course, a later challenge involves getting the guys to stretch beyond topics that are seemingly readily available to them.

When we read from the book together in class, we are easily aware that we're reading poems. But there are extended moments in our discussions when we're mentioning Jack Johnson and talking about him and his cars or his problematic behavior toward women in his life or how his presence sparked racist rhetoric and actions from large numbers of white people or how competitive and athletic he was. During those moments, The Big Smoke seems like something other than a volume of poetry. 

Related:
• A Notebook on Adrian Matejka 

From Carver, Leadbelly & Brutal Imagination to 208 contemporary volumes

Somewhere at the root of my collection of 208 contemporary volumes of poetry are Marilyn Nelson's Carver (2001), Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination (2001), and Tyehimba Jess's Leadbelly (2005). Those were perhaps not the first volumes of poetry that I purchased during the 21st century, but those three definitely prompted me to start building a larger collection.

[Related: An introduction to 208 volumes]

I came across Eady's book about a year or so after it was published. I received Nelson's book as a gift in 2003, and I got Jess's book around the time came out in 2005. I was really compelled by the persona poems in Brutal Imagination and Leadbelly, and the focus on a historical figure in Nelson's volume drew my interest as well.

I started trying to think about connections between those three books and poets and others as well. Over the years, I've observed and acquired books featuring persona poems and historical figures. At the same time, I branched out to other writers linked to the growing number of poets in my collection.

Eady is a co-founded of Cave Canem, and not surprisingly, many of the volumes in my collection are by CC poets. During a reading at SIUE in 2005, Tyehimba Jess read a poem by Gary Copeland Lilley The Subsequent Blues before reading from his own Leadbelly. Shortly thereafter, I purchased Lilley's volume and his other volumes over the years.

Looking back, I've traveled some distance in my engagements with poetry since those initial encounters with Carver, Brutal Imagination, and Leadbelly. But I haven't forgotten my roots nor the routes. Just last week, Nelson's A Wreath for Emmett Till (2005) and Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color (2007) co-written with Elizabeth Alexander were two of the featured works in our browsing session. And, one of my classes is now reading Eady's Brutal Imagination and Jess's Leadbelly.  

Related:
An Introduction to 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets, 2000-2013

A List of volumes featuring Persona poems (by year)

• 1998: Tony Medina's Sermons from the Smell of a Carcass Condemned To Begging.
• 2001: Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination. 
• 2002: Natasha Trethewey's Bellocq's Ophelia.
• 2003: Ai's Dread: Poems.
• 2004: Frank X. Walker's Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York. 
• 2004: Thylias Moss's Slave Moth: A Narrative in Verse
• 2004: Quraysh A. Lansana's They Shall Run: Harriet Tubman Poems.
• 2005: Tyehimba Jess's Leadbelly. 
• 2005: Kevin Young's Black Maria.
• 2006: Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard.
• 2008: Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler.
• 2008: Frank X. Walker's When Winter Come: The Ascension of York. 
• 2010: Ai's No Surrender: Poems.
• 2010: Frank X. Walker’s Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride
• 2011: Kevin Young's Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels.&nbs
• 2011: Tony Medina's Broke on Ice.
• 2013: Adrian Matejka's The Big Smoke.
• 2013:  Ai's The Collected Poems of Ai.
• 2013: Tony Medina's Broke Baroque.
• 2013: Frank X. Walker's Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers.

Related:
• An Introduction to 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets, 2000-2013 
• Persona poems

Kamilah Aisha Moon's other kinds of love poems

Mention "love poems," and people usually think you have writings where one person expresses romantic love for someone else. But reading Kamilah Aisha Moon's She Has a Name is filled with love poems of a different kind. Her works evoke the love for a sister and daughter from various family members.

Moon's poem "Love is a Basic Science" opens by noting that "They ran tests," presumably on a girl with autism, who is the subject of much of the volume. The doctors "looked for reasons / she learned like molasses." Despite any seemingly perceivable flaws or shortcomings the girl seemed to possess, for her family, "It wasn't extraordinary in our minds / to love her"  (15).

In "Directions," the mother gives the other two sisters instructions on how to best care for their sister. "I don't believe," she says that "you care as much as I do. I want to, but / how could you, really?" And later, the mother says, "But I need you / to carry her, to want to carry her" (40).

Poems in the book are told from multiple perspectives, including the parents, the mom and dad individually, and the sister. As a result, the love or loves expressed toward and about the sister are multifaceted. The sisters, for instance, love their sister naturally, so to speak, but we also witness the mother giving them directions on how to care for their sibling even more.     

Moon's poems are touching and charming. She writes love poems of a different order.

Related:
A notebook on Kamilah Aisha Moon

Kamilah Aisha Moon's She Has a Name

For years, I was aware of poems here and there by Kamilah Aisha Moon. Seems like I was seeing her name attached to poems in that anthology or this anthology, so I was somewhat surprised to see the label "debut" attached to write-ups about her volume She Has a Name (2013).  I assumed she already had a book. 

Whatever the case, I'm pleased to have my hands on her book now, and I'm excited to add her volume to my growing collection. Her book extends that growing body of works in more than one way.

For one, her book contributes to the numbers of "first books" by poets that I've collected. I've been thinking about various poets such as Tara Betts, Jericho Brown, Camille T. Dungy, Adrian Matejka, and several others who produced their debut collections in the 21st century.

More importantly, I've been thinking about persona poems for a while now, and Moon's volume is the first one to offer an extensive treatment of a disability. Her volume focuses first-person perspectives of family members as they comment on living with a relative who has autism. So many of the volumes featuring persona poems that I have covered in the past have concentrated on historical figures like Frederick Douglass, the Venus Hottentot, Leadbelly, and others.     

So Moon expands our line of vision. We hear from parents collectively who observe that "Our child's mind is on lease to her / from the stingiest of lenders" (8). We hear from the parents individually, the child's siblings, and teacher. Moon also presents poems as letters from her sister, and Moon also offers her own observations about challenges that her sister faces.

In future entries, I'll write about individual poems that caught my attention. For now, I was just thinking about these turns and how She Has a Name makes this important contribution to the larger body of works that I've been reading and how Moon's book gives us reminds us of the value of poetry to provide essential family histories.

Related:
A notebook on Kamilah Aisha Moon

Getting to Kamilah Aisha Moon's current volume and other work

I first read one of Kamilah Aisha Moon's poems over ten years ago. One of her pieces "Daughter-to-Father Talk" appeared in the anthology Bum Rush the Page (2001). Perhaps I came across her name and poems in magazines over the years, but I distinctly remember noticing her work in  a few different anthologies in recent years: Gathering Ground (2006), Ringing Ear (2007), and Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009).

Those previous individual poems by Moon hadn't prepared me for her volume She Has a Name. Prior to the publication of Tyehimba Jess's Leadbelly, I came across poems on the subject, the same with Matejka's The Big Smoke about Jack Johnson. Accordingly, the poems in Moon's book came to me as a surprise.

Reading the poems in book fresh has been a good experience. I'm encountering the premise of the book for the first time. And as I was noting, that's certainly a positive, given that the book expands my thinking about autism, a subject that I had not come across in many of the previous volumes I've read.

On the other hand, I wish that there were more viable and visible outlets for "previews" of upcoming volumes of poetry. Although I blog about poetry and poets quite a bit, I still do not have a systematic way of learning about upcoming publications. That's my problem, of course, but it also seems like a challenge for poets and the overall field or market.

Related:
A notebook on Kamilah Aisha Moon

A notebook on Kamilah Aisha Moon

What follows are links to some pieces on the work of poetry Kamilah Aisha Moon. Her book She Has a Name was recently published by Four Way Books.

Entries:
• Kamilah Aisha Moon's She Has a Name  
• Using Images to annotate Kamilah Aisha Moon's "Directions" on Poetry Genius
• Getting to Kamilah Aisha Moon's current volume and other work 
• Kamilah Aisha Moon's other kinds of love poems

Using Images to annotate Kamilah Aisha Moon's "Directions" on Poetry Genius

A few weeks ago, I received permission from Kamilah Aisha Moon to upload and annotate her poem "Directions" on Poetry Genius. I really enjoyed the experience.

For one, I got an opportunity to paraphrase and notate a poem on a public site. I'm often dissecting poems and taking notes about works, but rarely do I get the chance to make those notations available to broad audiences.

The Poetry Genius annotation experience is also unique from my typical approaches to analysis because I have the option of complementing descriptions with images. The myriad and vast number of photographs and images out there on the web make the experience of annotating with images really exciting and challenging.

I utilized 21 different images while annotating lines from Moon's poem. Doing so gave me a chance to see and re-present the poem in ways that would have been difficult for me otherwise. The images also allowed me to have some fun while analyzing the poem.

For example, I added an image of the above cartoon saying "stop" to go along with Moon's opening words "Don't drop your sister." Next, I added the image of a stern faced block figure toy to accompanying the stand alone word "Ever." 

My use of images to annotate Moon's poem actually enriched how I now read some of the other pieces in her volume.
 
Related:
A notebook on Kamilah Aisha Moon

Huey's keen, humorous intellect

By Demetrius Coleman

Riley: Gangstalicious got shot.
Robert 'Granddad' Freeman: Again?
Riley: We got to do somethin'!
Huey: I got an idea - why don't we go to college so we don't end up like Gangstalicious?

This exchange occurs in the Boondocks Season One episode entitled “The Story of Gangstalicious.” In the episode, Riley looks up to rapper Gangstalicious and is distraught when he is shot and hospitalized. This scene summarizes Huey’s entire view on the situation and serves as an exemplary instance of Huey’s keen and humorous intellect.

At ten, children are normally in a stage where they base their futures on role models whether they are negative or positive. Huey is well above this level of thinking already being able to distinguish between positive and negative influences. His observation shows a more future-oriented level of thinking, as well as an understanding of how actions in the present effect future aspirations.

Here McGruder is trying to emphasize the importance of youth avoiding negative role models. He highlights how the media’s portrayal of these negative role models influences young minds, which inevitably leads to future failures. He also proposes that education is key in avoiding a future filled with downfalls and tragedy.

Related:
• Huey and Skeptical Faith 
• Huey and the Christmas Episode
• On McGruder’s portrayal of Huey 
• Huey’s High-Level Intellect 

Demetrius Coleman is an English major at SIUE and serving as a contributing writer for the Cultural Front this semester.   

The Political Consequence of Natural Hair at SIUE

Naturals talking hair

This current "natural hair movement" is one of the more politically consequential happenings at SIUE at least among black folks, since I've been here. It's "political" in the sense that you have groups of young sisters talking about natural hair, self-image, history, standards of beauty, and progressive models and transformation; you have them organizing events and activities; and you have them engaging deeply in modes of technology to learn and share ideas.

Sure, sisters with naturals have been around for decades, centuries in fact. But close observers recognize that something else is taking place in this moment. I mean, the growth of "YouTube naturals" as they are called, or the whole hair diaries on Instagram and Pinterest, and the blogs speak to something contemporary and hi-tech about this incarnation of discussions with naturals. The science of it all with people talking and writing about and people even producing natural hair products.

A couple of years ago, I worked with some of the sisters in my circle to organize some public exhibits concerning natural hair on campus. Those were graduate students leading the charge. Later, a few undergraduates approached me and asked me to serve as the adviser for the natural hair club that they were starting. And then here now, for the last several months, our contributing writer Briana Whiteside has been writing about her own big chop and natural hair journey.

The inter-generational nature of the natural hair discussions and practices really stand out and give it added weight in my mind. There are no protests and deliberately public statements, but what we're witnessing with natural hair talk and acts among the young sisters stands out in comparison to various other organizing that does not seem to span as wide and as long across groupings of African American students who arrived at the university during the last 10 years.

Related:
Style and Knowledge

Natural Hair—5 months

By Briana Whiteside

Yesterday was my 5-month natural hair anniversary! 5 months ago, I cut my relaxed hair off and was left with 3 ½ inches of hair. My previous posts talked about discomforts, insecurities, highs and lows of this journey. Now, and only now 5 months later can I utter the words “I am comfortable with my natural hair!”

I suppose others pick up on my new found confidence because I get tons of question about my hair. It’s like I’ve become a pro, or the go to person when newly naturals have questions.

Back in the day (when I had a relaxer) the only time I would be caught wearing a ponytail was on a bad hair day under a polo hat. No one would see me with a ponytail because I was attached to straightened hair. Now, however, I’m excited that I can pull my hair into a ponytail. Well, in the natural hair community it is referred to as a puff.

When I walk outside and pass another natural almost always we give each other a smile. That smile indicates that we are a part of a collective community, and share, or have shared similar experiences and frustrations going natural. I absolutely love that I went natural.

Funny thing is, when I had straightened and relaxed hair, a lot of people would ask “is that your real hair?” I’d say “yes” with an air of confidence. Now, I’m receiving those exact comments, “Is that your real natural hair?” I was asked yesterday. I replied, “Absolutely, and it has taken 5 months to grow it!”

In retrospect, I am glad that I made the difficult decision to cut my hair, but I am grateful that I continued on the journey.

Related:
Style and Knowledge

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.  

A Notebook on work by Courtney Thorsson

Here are links to a few notes that I've taken on the works and organizing of literature scholar Courtney Thorsson. She's somewhat emergent in the field, but we expect to see more and more of her work over the years.

Entries:
2016
• May 21: Talking comic books, rap music, and African American literary studies 
• May 17: Women's Work, Between the World and Me & accumulated knowledge

2015
• August 12: Cultural Nationalism and Black Women's Poetry 
• August 11: Women's Work and Black Poetry

2013
• December 29: Courtney Thorsson's Women's Work
• October 18: Courtney Thorsson's look at Black Women Novelists
• October 18: The black nationalist work of anthologies
• October 18: Black Women's Literary Scholarship
• October 18: Recovering the 1980s
• April 29: The Lit. Scholar as Organizer: The Case of Courtney Thorsson
• April 29: The value of a small scholarly gathering

Courtney Thorsson and the black nationalist work of anthologies

Toni Cade Bambara's The Black Woman anthology

"Pairing the force of BAM [the  Black Arts Movement] with the diversity of anthologies, The Black Woman  is a happening as well as a text" (21). --Courtney Thorsson.

Given the work I've been doing on anthologies for the last several years, I was certainly intrigued with Courtney Thorsson's discussion in her book Women's Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels (2013) of Bambara's well-known collection The Black Woman (1970). At one point, Thorsson notes that "naming a nation is the task of African American anthologies both before and after The Black Woman" (21).

Indeed, anthologies are nationalist projects, not just communal or community ones. All those collections of "black" literature confirmed or even helped materialize the idea of African America as a kind of nation.  There were more than 100 anthologies featuring black literary art.

Thorsson rightly gives special attention to the remarkable collection The Black Woman, a work that includes prose, fiction, poetry, and an engaging introduction by Bambara. Thorsson's book largely concentrates on fiction by a select group of black women writers; however, she spends some time in the introduction analyzing Bambara's anthology.   

As Thorsson makes plain: Bambara's black and feminist political perspectives, her organizing work and editorial work, and  her fiction are all interconnected.

Related:
• A Notebook on work by Courtney Thorsson 

Courtney Thorsson's look at Black Women Novelists

Often, discussions of black cultural nationalism focus largely on the artistic productions of black men. Consequently, Courtney Thorsson's book Women's Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels (2013) makes a useful intervention. She verifies and highlights a nationalist spirit running through the fiction of black women writers. 

Thorsson's book opens with a chapter on Toni Cade Bambara and closes with a chapter on Toni Morrison. In between, there are chapters on Ntozake Shange, Paule Marshall, and Gloria Naylor.

For the last two decades, Morrison has received the most scholarly discourse among the writers whose works Thorsson analyzes. In fact, in the scholarly discourse on African American literature, Morrison has received far more attention than nearly all writers. Thorsson expands the Morrison critical discourse, though, by highlighting her novel Paradise (1997), which tends to receive less attention than The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), and Beloved (1987).

For readers less familiar with African American literature, works by Bambara, Shange, Marshall, and Naylor might be less known. Yet, those figures are essential writers in the realms of black women's writing. Early on, Thorsson notes that those writers "adopt the term cultural nationalist to describe themselves and nation to hail African America," and "this strand of African American fiction uses scenes of organizing, cooking dancing, mapping, and inscribing to create a distinct national discourse."   

Given my previous interest in Bambara's work, I was especially excited to read Thorsson's chapter on Bambara's novel The Salt Eaters (1980). I'll write about that chapter in a later entry. I'm looking forward, though, to the other chapters on Shange, Marshall, and Naylor, whose works I've only read in small doses.

For now, the frame and early portions of the book have my mind running about the possibilities of expanding views of black cultural nationalism. Perhaps we might even think more about nationalisms.

Related:
• A Notebook on work by Courtney Thorsson 

Black Women's Literary Scholarship via Courtney Thorsson's work

I was recently talking with some friends about citations and the lack of references to women's creative and critical work in scholarly writings. That's a problem, but not in the case of Courtney's Thorsson work.

On the surface, her book Women's Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's Novels is primarily about Toni Cade Bambara, Ntozake Shange, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, and Toni Morrison. But in the background, or read through the notes, her book is also about the accumulated knowledge and scholarly work among black women thinkers over the years.

What follows are just a few of the scholarly writings referenced at least a couple of times in Thorsson's work. I'm organizing the list chronologically to give a sense of the progression over the years.

1970: Toni Cade Bambara, "On the Issue of Roles."
1975: Mary Helen Washington, Black-Eyed Susans: Stories by and about Black Women. 
1979: Beverly Guy-Sheftall, "Commitment: Toni Cade Bambara Speaks."
1980:  Barbara Christian, Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976.
1981: Toni Morrison, "City Limits, Village Values: Concepts of the Neighborhood in Black Fiction."
1982: Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place. 
1982: Audre Lorde, "Learning from the 60s."
1983: Alice Walker, In Search of our Mother's Gardens. 
1983: Claudia Tate, Black Women Writers at Work.
1984: Eugenia Collier, "The Closing of the Circle: Movement from Division to Wholeness in Paule Marshall's Fiction."
1984: Toni Morrison, "Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation." 
1984: Eleanor Traylor, "Music as Theme: The Jazz Mode in the Works of Toni Cade Bambara." 
1985: Gloria Hull, "'What It Is I Think She's Doing Anyhow': A Reading of Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters.
1988: Gloria Naylor, Mama Day. 
1989: Cheryl Wall, editor, Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women
1990: bell hooks, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. 
1993: Barbara Christian, "Naylor's Geography."
1994: Madhu Dubey, Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic.
1995: Farah Jasmine Griffin, "Who Set You Flowin'?" The African-American Migration Narrative. 
2006: Cheryl Wall, Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition.

Related:
• A Notebook on work by Courtney Thorsson 

Recovering the 1980s: A note on Courtney Thorsson's work

Three of the four main works that Courtney Thorsson writes about in her book Women's Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women's novels were published during the 1980s. She devotes extended attention to Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters (1980), Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow (1983), and Gloria Naylor's Mama Day (1988). She also has a chapter on Toni Morrison's novel Paradise (1997).

Outside of a couple of exceptions, discussions of black novels of the 1980s seem to come up infrequently. Alice Walker's The Color Purple, especially the popular movie version, stills receives frequent mentions, and so does Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987). Beyond those two authors' novels, for those of us not specializing in, say, black women's literature, it's possible to go for long periods without hearing much conversation about those 1980s books by Bambara, Shange, Marshall, and Naylor.

In the discourse on black poetry, I've often been curious about the silences concerning the 1980s. Contemporary commentators often jump over the 80s in favor of discussing the 1960/s70s, especially the Black Arts Movement. Even people who critique aspects of that movement tend to spend far more time thinking and talking about it than they do writers and their compositions of the 1980s.

At least as far as novels go, Thorsson takes us beyond those two signal works by Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Thorsson helps us begin piecing together aspects of a seemingly forgotten decade.

By the way, it's worth noting that a considerable number of scholarly works, cited by Thorsson, were published during the 1980s. Thus, we do witness essential moments of progression in the scholarly discourse on black women's writing during that time period

Related:
• A Notebook on work by Courtney Thorsson 

Style, Politics, and Inter-generational Links Among young Black Women

The first week back to school, I noticed that one of the young sisters was rocking her hair natural. She had gone through the big chop on June 5, she said. (They always know the exact date). She told me the reason why was because she'd often noticed our sister-contributors--Danielle Hall, Cindy Lyles, and Briana Whiteside.

 I was of course pleased to hear that those young sisters had a notable effect on the growth of consciousness for an even younger sister. One of the main reasons to put the "older-younger" sisters in touch with the young sisters was to provide models, and here, I was seeing it working in a distinct way. Those inter-generational links between groups of students, and in this case, black women are crucial.   

There's so much useful knowledge that can be passed along through non-verbal rhetoric (i.e. hair and clothing styles) and regular, passing conversations. Since so many young people are inclined to stay within their relatively small circle of friends, I learned that the public events I was arranging over the years operated as important convening moments where folks who might not normally get together had a chance to talk. 

One of the challenges that the university faces is creating more opportunities for a larger number of first- and second-year black women to come into contact with older-younger sisters. Campus organizations for young black women have not been so durable over the last few years, so younger sisters likely have a harder time getting a sense of institutional memory and advice about navigating the university.

Related:
• Collegiate Students
• Style & Knowledge   

Outliers: Reflections

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

We've covered several concepts and ideas so far in Malcolm Gladwell's  Outliers.

Of the issues that we've covered concerning Gladwell's book, what's one topic or concept that you've found yourself continually think about since you read it? Why? 

Chapter 9: Being Wrong

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups 

Chapter 9 of Kathryn Schulz's book Being Wrong "is about what happens during wrongness--about the moment when the feeling of being right seroconverts to the feeling of being wrong. Psycholoically as well as structurally, this moment forms the central experience of error" (183-184).

Schulz covers several aspects of that "during" phase. For you though, what's one idea or observation that she made in the chapter that caught your attention? For a couple of us who were talking, the following line from Schulz was striking: "We are quasi-rational actors, in whom reason is forever sharing the stage with ego and hope and stubbornness and loathing and loyalty” (195). Her eloquent assessment of why human s have a hard time making rational decisions was usefully explanatory. 

What's one line, phrase, or idea that captured your interest? Provide the page number as well. Then, explain your reasoning.

Huey and Skeptical Faith

By Demetrius Coleman

In the season one episode of The Boondocks entitled “The Passion of Reverend Ruckus,” Huey makes the statement “I never prayed before. I don't even know who I'm praying to. Maybe I'm too young to know what the world is supposed to be, but it's not supposed to be this. It can't be this.” This quote occurs in the context of the chaos that surrounded Uncle Ruckus deciding he wanted to start his own church. He (Ruckus) has a dream where he ascends to heaven and is instructed by Ronald Regan that the only way for him to get into heaven is to convince society to hate black people.

As Ruckus tries to convince others to believe this, Huey watches in disgust and turns away because he is simultaneously facing his own problems. He hopes to free his friend Shabazz K. Milton Berle who is on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. At the end of the episode Huey has exhausted all of his plans and they have failed and even though prayer is usually against his beliefs, he decides to pray to save Shabazz’s life.

The scene with Huey’s quotation about praying quote is exemplary of Huey’s high level intellect because it shows an advanced perception of religion and self awareness. At only ten years old, Huey shows a great level of persistence in not praying because he claims he doesn’t know who he’s praying to. He capitalizes on this persistence with an incredible level of self awareness. In matters of religion, most children do as they are told, or either just simply adopt whatever religious practices their parents have. Huey however and was intelligent enough to be able to form his own beliefs and follow his own practices.

With this quote, McGruder could be attesting to a number of things. The first and most obvious is the belief that he doesn’t know that there really is a God. Just the same, taking into account that just as Huey began to pray his prayer was answered, McGruder could also be hinting that prayer really does work. With Huey’s high level intellect, he also revealed that some things that happen could also be sheer coincidence. Having a ten year old be smart enough to make this statement is something that really stands out to us a viewers. With Huey’s intellect holding our attention, McGruder seemed to then make the point that religion can go either way, and that there are some things we just may never know.

Related:
• Huey and the Christmas Episode
• On McGruder’s portrayal of Huey 
• Huey’s High-Level Intellect 

Demetrius Coleman is an English major at SIUE and serving as a contributing writer for the Cultural Front this semester.  

The Nature of Family in Wild Seed (part 4)

By Briana Whiteside

“ ‘He will never leave us alone,’ Anyanwu said flatly.
“Margaret blinked, looked at Anyanwu. ‘What shall I do?’
“ ‘Answer his questions—all of them, even if they are personal and offensive. Answer and tell him the truth.’”
“He scares me.’”
“Good. There is very much to fear. Answer him and obey him. Leave any criticizing or disagreeing with him to me.’”
There was silence until just before they reached the house. Then Margaret said, ‘We’re your weakness aren’t we? You could outrun him for a hundred more years if not for us” (219).

In this scene, Doro has tracked Anyanwu after a century of searching for her. Instead of killing her like he initially planned, he brought two of her descendants to live on her plantation. One of the descendants, Joseph, had killed Anyanwu’s son in his sleep by controlling his feet causing him to walk off the balcony and fall to his death. In turn, Anyanwu killed Joseph while she was in animal form. Doro has just come back to the plantation and wants to know the details of the event; he summons Margaret, Anyanwu’s daughter and Joseph’s wife.

The scene implies that Anyanwu still recognizes Doro as a potential threat to her life and her children’s. However, it shows that even as a potential threat, Anyanwu still plans to stand her ground against Doro and his breeding communities. Even after spending a century in animal form, the scene still exposes unresolved tension between Doro and Anyanwu.

Butler highlights the complications surrounding motherhood to expose how Anyanwu becomes trapped between the decision to gain her personal freedom or protect her children. Anyanwu has the ability to survive and outrun Doro, but her children will be tortured and killed because of her disobedience. This small yet crucial scene calls into question the consequences and extent of which mothers, parents, or guardians must sacrifice themselves for their children.

Related:
• Troubled Relationships in Wild Seed (pt3)
• The Nature of Family in Wild Seed (pt 3) 
• The Nature of Family in Wild Seed (pt. 2)
• Troubled Relationships in Wild Seed (pt 2)
• Troubled relationships in Wild Seed (pt 1)
• The Nature of Family in Wild Seed (pt1)
• A Notebook on Octavia Butler

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.   

Troubled Relationships in Wild Seed (pt3)

By Briana Whiteside

“ ‘I want you to remember,’ Doro said to her. ‘You’ve come to think I couldn’t touch you…”
“ ‘Bury that,’ Doro said to her from Thomas’ mouth. He gestured toward his own former body. She began to cry…”
“ ‘I have nothing to dig with,’ she whispered”
“ ‘Use your hands,’ he said” (159-60)

In this scene from book 2 chapter 8 of Wild Seed, Doro has snatched the body of Thomas—the poor vermin infested farmer that he ordered Anyanwu to live with to punish her. He killed Thomas because he realized that Anyanwu was healing more than Thomas’ body: she was repairing his belief in love. Doro is now aware that Anyanwu enjoyed living with Thomas, and that she was even pregnant by him, willingly. Thus, in order to chastise her further he took a patient from her in the midst of healing—something he had never done before—and ordered her to single handedly bury Doro’s old body.

This scene exposes Doro’s frustration and disdain for Anyanwu and his inability to break her spirit. Her ability to endure silently and carry out his orders without full commitment to him angers him. Until now, Doro had not been able to draw full emotion from Anyanwu and make her submit to him. He just discovered one of her weaknesses, the need to fully heal her patients.

Butler is writing about egotistic issues that surround relationships, in this case, Anyanwu and Doro’s relationship. She highlights how jealousy and the need for absolute control can overturn moral decisions.

Related:
• The Nature of Family in Wild Seed (pt 3) 
• The Nature of Family in Wild Seed (pt. 2)
• Troubled Relationships in Wild Seed (pt 2)
• Troubled relationships in Wild Seed (pt 1)
• The Nature of Family in Wild Seed (pt1)
• A Notebook on Octavia Butler

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.  

Evie Shockley’s unusual poem designs

By Briana Whiteside

Evie Shockley’s illustrative poem designs are among the most compelling in relation to the 93 poets on our dataset. Even at first glance, poems from the new black such as “mesostics from the American grammar book,” “x marks the spot,” and “at the muse de l’homme” captivate readers’ attention, drawing them to closer examinations of the poem’s unusual structure and possible meaning.

In “mesostics from an american grammar book” the vertical phrase “TRAGIC MATRIARCH AT YOUR SERVICE” intersecting with the horizontal names of historical black women protagonists, black actresses, writers, character types, and singers encourages readers to dissect the poem to discover possible ways in which the women named could be related.

“x marks the spot,” the poem shaped like an x that takes up the entire page, leaves readers wondering and reflecting on the complexities surrounding the merging of the “african” and the “american,” as all of the pairing words begin with “af” or “am.” And, the poem “at the muse de l’homme,” shaped like a giant orange prompts readers to read more into the shape and its meaning.

Shockley’s out of the ordinary poem diagrams present readers with new ways of reading standard poetry. Her knowledge of African American traditions, coupled with the resistance to avoid typical and conventional ways of arranging poetry on page, allows Shockley’s the new black to stand out from the other 208 volumes, though as noted Reginald Harris is known to "play across the page" as well.

Related:
• An Introduction to 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets, 2000-2013
• A notebook on Evie Shockley

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.  

The New Jim Crow: Chapter 3

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

Based on our readings of chapter 2 of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, people mentioned being unsettled by "harsh sentencing of non-violent crimes," inadequate legal representation, and "innocents becoming caught up in the system." Folks offered useful and valid points.

So now we turn our attention to chapter 3, "The Color of Justice." Alexander notes that the "rates and patterns of drug crime do not explain the glaring racial disparities in our criminal justice system" (99). She goes on to point out that the reason that so many more black men are incarcerated though is a result of "racial bias inherent in the drug war" (100).

Alexander spends considerable time in the chapter addressing the question: "how exactly does a formally colorblind criminal system achieve such racially discriminatory results?"

What aspect of Alexander's explanation did you find most compelling or worth considering and why?

  

Reflections: Being Wrong

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

We've covered considerable ground so far in Kathryn Schulz's Being Wrong.

Of the issues that we've covered so far concerning Schulz's book, what's one topic or concept that you've found yourself continually thinking about since you read it? Why? 

Outliers & Practical Intelligence

Haley Scholars Fall 2013 Reading Groups

Extending his “Trouble with Geniuses” concerns, Malcolm Gladwell explains how particular skills give talented people the extra edge to become outliers. Gladwell notes that we too often assume that success is based purely on intellect or physical talents. Genetics tend to play vital roles, but they are hardly the sole determining factors.

To describe the differences between a highly intelligent yet underachieving person and a highly intelligent and successful one, Gladwell highlights psychologist Robert Sternberg’s concept “practical intelligence,” which includes “'knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.’” Practical intelligence is “knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want. And, critically, it is a kind of intelligence separate from the sort of analytical ability measured by IQ.”

The practical intelligence that Gladwell presents can also be thought of as a kind of “social savvy,” an ability to skillfully negotiate multiple social and professional environments. People with high IQs who seemed to squander their talents were actually people who lacked “a community around them that prepared them properly for the world.”

How did you respond to Gladwell’s ideas about practical intelligence?

Small Presses Make the Poetry World Go Round

Reviewing the list of publishers for the 208 volumes published between 2000 - 2013 I've collected prompts me to place even higher value on small publishers for the service that they provide poets and poetry. Large and well-funded publishers like Knopf and W. W. Norton have an outsized  share of the market. However, the many, many smaller presses allowed for such a wide range of poets to come into print.

48 of the 85 publishers represented on our list published just one volume, and many of those imprints are relatively small. Without the services provided by those small presses, the landscape of poetry and African American poetry in particular would look quite different than it does now. Most notably, we'd have far fewer poets and poetry in print.

Poetry, as I've noted before, is a densely populated field. Nonetheless, a lion's share of the awards and recognition go to poets whose works are published by major publishers. Those awards and recognition do not necessarily mean that those major publisher poets are always somehow better; what's more important is that major publishers can better position their writers to receive attention in the field and consideration for awards.

Small presses typically do not have considerable reach.

But collectively, small presses still create a range of opportunities. For better and worse, when poets at small presses become more well known and "successful," they receive the chance to publish at larger publishers. Small presses also develop notable reputations for themselves and thus draw emergent writers and also nurture long-term relationships with readers.

Taken together, small presses are largely responsible for the diversity of poetic voices that we witness in book form. Scholars of print culture tend to concentrate on historical works; however, if there was more scholarly attention to contemporary, we would certainly get a better sense of the significant efforts performed by small presses to bring so many African American poets into print.      

Related:
An Introduction to 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets, 2000-2013

85 publishers of 208 volumes of poetry, 2000 - 2013

The following list of 85 publishers facilitated the production of 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets published between 2000 - 2013.

[Related: 208 volumes of poetry, 2000-2013 (by publisher)]

1. Alice James Books
2. Ausable Press
3. Beacon Press
4. Bloodaxe Books
5. Belladonna
6. BOA Editions
7. Bucknell University Press
8. Carnegie Mellon University Press
9. Carolina Wren Press
10. Cavakerry Press
11. Cleveland State University Poetry Center
12. Coffee House Press
13. CeateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
14. Curbstone
15. Cypher Books
16. Da Capo Press
17. Epic Press
18. EM Press
19. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
20. Fence Books

From Cornel West to Ta-Nehisi Coates: Shifts in the idea of Black Male Public Intellectuals

During the mid to late 1990s around the time I began undergrad, I noticed the growing coverage of "black public intellectuals," the phrase used to refer to some highly visible African American academics, commentators, and artists.  Among those frequently mentioned were Cornel West, bell hooks, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Michael Dyson. West was particularly prominent, based on a combination of factors--his popular book Race Matters, his vibrant intellect, his charisma, and his signature afro.

Since at least the fall of 2008, journalist and blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates has been the "black public intellectual" that I've followed most closely and consistently. Of course, black public intellectual might not be the phrase we'd use these days, and maybe the formal academic and university credentials associated with PhDs like West, bell hooks, Gates, and others prevents us from referring to journalists/bloggers as intellectuals. Still, Coates's musings, analyses, and coverage concerning a wide range of "race matters," pop culture, and politics  in public venues resemble all the features that folks used to associate with those intellectuals. Of course, there are some key differences as well.

Early on, West built a following from the ranks of college students and academics employed at universities. When his book Race Matters was published, the work was read, discussed, and assigned on college campuses across the U.S., and West became a really popular invited speaker on campuses. Eventually, he left Princeton to work at Harvard and become a part of Gates's famed "dream team" of black public intellectuals.  

Coates had been a journalist for years prior to 2008, but becoming a blogger for The Atlantic during the Presidential primary and campaign was a major professional breakthrough. He became one of the relatively few black bloggers at a high profile magazine and thus had an especially visible platform to discuss a range of issues pertaining to race, and more specifically black people.  Clearly, Coates was and is not the only thoughtful African American journalist and blogger. Yet, few have the institutional backing and visibly that he has with a venerable magazine like The Atlantic. By the way, an article "The New Intellectuals" in The Atlantic (then known as The Atlantic Monthly) helped spark that conversation in the 1990s about "black public intellectuals."

From the standpoint of generation, much separates West (b. 1953) and Coates (b. 1975). One is viewed as an academic/intellectual. The other is defined as a journalist/blogger. Thus, their most consistent institutional support has come from different places: from American universities for West, and from newspapers and magazines for Coates, though he has been doing a teaching gig at MIT the last year or so. West has long demonstrated a high regard for MLK and philosophy, his main field of study.  Coates, on the other hand, seems to prefer Malcolm and the lessons one gains from rap music, oh, and the Civil War. 

Cornel West authored several publications over the years, but his public presentations and persona have really been central to his identity as a black public intellectual. Coates, on the other hand, has not been particularly drawn to public speaking. He prefers to write, and does so often--publishing approximately 3 blog entries per day Monday - Friday between the fall of 2008 and 2012. He's somewhat slowed his pace over the last year.


Among various other similarities, West and Coates have offered critiques of Barack Obama over the years,
though Coates has not been defined by his assessments of Obama the way West has. Given the sheer volume of Coates's non-Obama writings, he escapes being only linked to Obama discourse in a way that is a little more difficult for West and his frequent collaborator Tavis Smiley. West has produced a tremendous body of works over the decades, but I sense and fear that these days many "new" readers know him primary based on his critiques of Obama. 

If we are inclined to define Coates as a black public intellectual, then a major difference between West and him might be their most prominent mediums of expressions: writing vs. speaking. And again, I recognize that West has been a prolific academic writer over the years. Yet, his charisma , persona, and public speaking appearances have been far more central to his popular cultural identity. Conversely, while Coates has appeared on television programs as a commentator and although he speaks at events on college campuses, his identity as a journalist and blogger have been vital to why and how audiences know him.  

Coates's medium of blogging has made his writings and ideas available to me on a daily that is less likely with West, but I imagine that the different kind of blog-less reading I was doing back in 1995 and 1996, which included Race Matters, helped me establish the framework that allows me to keep up with the range of topics Coates covers now.  

Related:
• Black Intellectual Histories 
• Ta-Nehisi Coates