Cultural Front: February 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

What it's like reading just one poem?

Back in 2011, I read an article by David Orr about a "special" poetry issue of Oprah Winfrey's O magazine. Orr documented the fashion, the superstars, the notable poets, and other topics presented in the magazine. Yet, he expressed his longing for something different. Beyond the various things included in the issue, Orr notes:

I wish, though, that they had found space for someone — not a critic, necessarily, just someone willing to be honest — to talk about the actual experience of reading a poem. Not why poems are good at rehabilitating people. Not where poems come from. Not what they can help us do, or forget, or remember. Not what the people who write them are wearing. Just what reading one of them is like to one person.

Orr's comments have usefully haunted me for a few years now. We don't hear enough about the actual experience people have of reading a poem. What I've been working on is trying to chart what it means for groups of students to read a poem. I've been interested in trying to ask about and document some of what people experience and feel and think when they read poetry.

Continuing that -- asking and documenting what it's like for people to read a poem -- is a major objective moving forward.

Scholars are usually inclined to focus on the poets themselves. We read various volumes and reviews. We research and write articles. We trace biographies; we do interviews; we assign books to read. Yes. Good. Very necessary.

But what about the readers out there? What's it been like for just one person or a group of people to read a poem?

Related:
• Reflections for Poetry Project
• Reading The Big Smoke with Collegiate Black Men
• Toward a Sociology of African American Readers & Their Relationships to Poetry

The Black Book exhibit

February 26, I coordinated an exhibit based on some of our Lit. Genius annotations of The Black Book. I usually produce projects related to African American literature and then transfer those projects to Genius. This time, I began on the crowd-sourced annotation site and then transformed that to a physical exhibit.

It was cool to start with what we had done online and bring that to the physical space of a library. Or really, the process was more extensive than that. We began by reading The Black Book, then we indexed and annotated aspects of the publication online, and then we developed an exhibit.

This first Genius-to-exhibit event was low-key. I was drawing more on my experiences organizing previous exhibits. Moving forward, I'll try to highlight more of the features of the actual Genius site into the design of the exhibits.

Link

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Reflections for Poetry Project

Last semester, a group of us covered Adrian Matejka's The Big Smoke. This semester, we're continuing our coverage of volumes of poetry by taking a look at works by Langston Hughes, Tyehimba Jess, Matejka, Jason McCall, Tony Medina, Frank X. Walker, and Kevin Young. What follows are reflections by some of the participants on what they've noticed about their approaches to reading and thinking while reading:

As I read and responded to the poetry, I realized that I never gave poetry enough of a chance in order to be able to understand its symbolism and power. When I read the poems of Langston Hughes and I was able to relate so much to his emotions towards societal and personal issues, it really opened my eyes to the beauty and power of poetry. --John H.

As a reader, I enjoy things that are not clear cut, but things that are multilevel and symbolic. I have learned that when I read things I try to think of a way to explain it so that it makes sense to me. By doing this, I can provide a new perspective on any topic and it is easier to remember because it is my original thought. --Isaiah B.

Something interesting that I learned about myself as a reader while reading the poems is that each time I re-read a poem my perception of the poem changes. There were many times that I have over-looked poems just because at first glance it seemed either confusing or boring. It takes a few times to pick up on all the little details that make a poem a masterpiece. --John K.

Something interesting and unusual that I’ve learned about myself is that not only do I enjoy reading poems, but I also enjoy writing and talking about them. Especially if they hold some relevance to my life like one of the volumes I had. But I also like the poems that have no relevance to me, but open my eyes to stuff that I hadn’t previously thought about, such as the struggles of the homeless. --Trion T.

One notable thing that I found myself doing while reading these poems is that when I read the poems slowly and multiple times, I really started to analyze the poems line by line and interpret what I think they mean. Even though I may be wrong trying to get what the author wrote, it was still kind of enjoyable thinking of what the author could possibly mean. -Xavier M.

Through the last reading responses I have learned that I enjoyed poems/writing that really connects with me, my interest, and shows me ways that can impact my everyday life. Although there can be many rough readings, there are indeed diamonds within them, diamonds definitely worth pursuing. --Joey N.

I have further enhanced my ability to think critically, after providing blurbs for two volumes of poetry that we have covered. When I say "think critically,” I am referring to the ability to make reasoned judgments that are well thought out. Thinking clearly and systematically can improve the way we express our ideas. --Nick M.

On Being Wrong, Chapter 5: Our Minds, Part Two: Belief

[Being Wrong]

According to Kathryn Schulz, her book Being Wrong is "about what happens when our beliefs, including our most fundamental, convincing, and important ones fail us" (91). She then goes into defining what belief is, and it turns out that Schulz's coverage of belief and how it works assists in illuminating why beliefs have consequences and carry weight.

Later, Schulz notes that "every one of us confuses our models of the world with the world itself--not occasionally or accidentally but necessarily" (107). That confusion and our assumptions about those who believe differently than we do explains why conflicts arise and become increasingly problematic.

Of the three assumptions that she mentioned (Ignorance, Idiocy, and Evil), which one was most compelling to you and why?

Smarter Than You Think -- Chapter 4

[Smarter Than You Think]

In Chapter 4 “The New Literacies” of Smarter Than You Think, Clive Thompson writes about the new ways that we communicate through written language and other mediums including television and internet. Thompson mentions several improvements in technology that allow us to communicate in ways that we could not just a few years ago.

Among the "new literacies" (i.e online video, images, data sets, and other digital-based tools) that Thompson discusses, which one has been particularly important for you? How so?

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Public Thinking Event: Survey on technology

On February 17, we hosted one of our Public Thinking Events where various students attend and participate in exhibits or other learning activities. For this event, students completed surveys related to technology based Clive Thompson's Smarter Than You Think. Some of us have been reading and discussing the book, and we were interested in how students utilize social media and technology.

We asked about texting frequency, preferences about online and hybrid courses, hindrances and advantages of using technology to communicate, and other tech-related issues. The findings will contribute to an upcoming exhibit.

Related:
• Spring 2015 Programming

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Spring 2015 Programming

• A photo-review of arts & humanities programming (Spring 2015)

• April 28: Poetry commentary exhibit
• April 23: Exhibit on Comic Strips and Illustrations
• April 13 – 15: Language Arts and Leadership Conference
• April 7: Caption This Activity: Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House
• March 31: EBR Collection audio exhibit
• March 26: Remixing Poetry, Pt. 2 at the SIUE/East St. Louis Charter High School
• March 24: Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House photo exhibit
• March 19: Remixing Poetry at the SIUE/East St. Louis Charter High School
• March 5: Toni Morrison Exhibit
• March 3: Smarter Than You Think Exhibit
• February 26: The Black Book Exhibit
• February 22: Public Thinking Event: Survey on technology
• February 11: Imagining increased opportunities for African American students
• February 10: Opening passages exhibit
• January 30: East St. Louis Charter School Students visit Chess & Hip Hop Exhibit
• January 29: Escape Artists and the East St. Louis Charter High School

Online Reading Groups for Spring 2015
• Clive Thompson's Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds For the Better
• Kathryn Schulz's Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error

Middleton A. Harris, Toni Morrison, and The Black Book

After several false starts, I'm finally coordinating a useful index for The Black Book (1974). My graduate assistant Jeremiah Carter thankfully did dozens of the initial identifications of entries, and now students in one my African American literature courses are helping me annotate the entries on Lit. Genius.

The Black Book is a large scrapbook. And although the publication is infinitely fascinating, it does not contain a table of contents or index, making it difficult for readers, especially younger readers unaware of the incredible source materials.

People usually refer to The Black Book as Toni Morrison’s book, mainly because she was an editor at Random House when the book was produced, and she contributed to the overall production. Too, she wrote two essays -- one for Black World magazine and then later one for The New York Times -- in 1974 to promote the book.

The Black Book actually owes much to a collector, Middleton A. Harris. In 1964, he founded an organization “Negro History Associates” to advance his interest in documenting black culture and history. He collected photographs, newspaper clippings, illustrations, and various other African American memorabilia. His materials formed the basis of the many, many items that appear in The Black Book.

Harris died in 1977, a few years after the book was published. He wasn’t an “author” in the traditional sense, which helps explain why he’s mostly loss to literary history. Still, he's in the tradition of some of our great collectors and bibliographers like Arthur Schomburg and Dorothy Porter.

Harris and Morrison worked with collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith on the construction of The Black Book. They received assistance from a Random House designer Jack Ribik and a production manager Dean Ragland. In one of her essays about the publication, Morrison noted that those 6 men and she:

built the book, item by item, page by page, signature by signature. It was more like planting a crop than making a book, but that was precisely the spirit we wanted--an organic book which made up its own rules.

That collaborative spirit is fascinating.

In her later novels, Morrison drew on materials that she encountered in The Black Book. Most notably, she heard of the case of Margaret Garner, an enslaved woman who killed her own daughter to avoid having the child live a life in slavery. Garner's story served as a vital muse for Morrison's novel Beloved (1987).

In the opening of Song of Solomon (1977), one of Morrison's characters mentions that "I loved you all" in his suicide letter as he prepares to leap from a hospital to his death. Those words resemble an excerpt from the closing lines of Gwendolyn Brook's poem "the mother" included in The Black Book:

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

Perhaps what drew Morrison to the project and what she gained or solidified by collaborating with Harris, Levitt, Furman, and Smith was the whole art and practice of collecting. Beyond the plots of her novels, Morrison's narratives serve as special collections showcasing or even preserving aspects of black history and culture. The Black Book gave her and many others blueprints for what a remarkable, wide-ranging African American collection might look like.

Related:

• Middleton "Spike Harris papers
• Toni Morrison

Opening passages exhibit

On February 10, I organized an exhibit concentrating on opening passages from various notable African American-authored publications. The exhibit was designed to give students a glimpse of some of the books published over the decades.

In one case, I included the famous passage from the first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal:

We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the publick been deceived by misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly.

I also included the opening lines from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon:

The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o'clock. Two days before the event was to take place he tacked a note on the door of his little yellow house:

At 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me. I loved you all.
(signed) Robert Smith,

At the start of the exhibit, students were given forms with quotations. They moved around the room and filled in blanks on the forms identifying the sources.

Related:
• Spring 2015 Programming

Zombies vs. Malcolm X

Early in the semester in my Malcolm X class, I was talking to students about "consciousness." But if we're going to talk about consciousness, I was noting, we need to start with the opposite. What does it mean to be unconscious, especially in the context of black folks seeking to build knowledge and liberate themselves?

Maybe we could begin by considering zombies. Not just those we see on The Walking Dead but those from far back like where the idea originated in Haiti. In Haitian folklore and traditions, the idea of a zombie emerged among enslaved populations to describe someone who brought back to life to serve as a slave even in death. In this context, zombies may have been viewed as the working dead. Or put another way: who provides all the mindless, dehumanizing free labor? Zombies.

Black folks in this country have been building knowledge and displaying an awareness of their conditions for...well, since the beginning. Nonetheless, it was not really until the 1960s that this word "consciousness" or the phrase "black consciousness" began to really gain considerable traction. Malcolm X frequently spoke of the "masses" who "awakened" and came to a new understanding of things. He often spoke of what it meant for black people to be intelligent and lively aware of many trappings of physical and mental oppression.

He was inclined to view some modes of activism as too passive, perhaps zombie-like? In "Message to the Grassroots," he offered the following analogy:

That’s Tom making you nonviolent. It’s like when you go to the dentist, and the man’s going to take your tooth. You’re going to fight him when he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to make you think they’re not doing anything to you. So you sit there and ’cause you’ve got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully. Blood running all down your jaw, and you don’t know what’s happening. ’Cause someone has taught you to suffer — peacefully.

In our day, the notion of someone with "blood running all down your jaw and you don't know what's happening" parallels scenes of zombies covered in blood and having limbs severed while mindlessly stumbling along.

After Malcolm X was killed (50 years ago today), people began more actively studying his speeches and philosophies. What they found or rediscovered was a champion of black consciousness. He opposed the idea that black folks might continue to wander around aimlessly as if sleepwalking, or as if they were zombies.

Related:
• Malcolm X

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

The many characters in Smarter Than You Think

One of the cool, unexpected outcomes of reading Smarter Than You Think with the students in my literature course has been the process of occasionally discussing Clive Thompson as a literary artist, not only a journalist. In particular, because we've covered Thompson in the company of William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Ralph Ellison, we've been inclined to discuss how the author of Smarter Than You Think foreshadows, sets a scene and tone, and most notably, introduces and develops "characters."

Actually, what Thompson has done by introducing us to so many characters in his book about technology has been the topic that we've returned to again and again. We've encountered an M.I.T. professor who coordinated a complex video system to record every moment of his newborn's first year. We've followed some, ummm, interesting life loggers. We began with chess players who teamed up with computers. We checked out a Kenyan-born activist blogger. We were introduced to this thoughtful Breaking Bad fan jcham979.

Listen: I've just barely touched the tip of the ice-berg. Thompson has introduced us to dozens of characters and connected their subplots to this larger conversation about technology. Two or three or ten of the people we've encountered in the book are like us or someone we know. That seemingly personal connection, I think, is part of what drives our interest as readers.

I was pleased to see this guy, Ta-Nehisi Coates, show up in the book. A couple of years ago, I was on Coates's blog when Thompson dropped in to ask some questions for a book he was working on at the time. That book, of course, became Smarter Than You Think.

I've been intrigued that the issue of characters became so pronounced in part because of the context (a literature course) in which my students and I read and discussed Thompson's book. I'm simultaneously covering Thompson's book online with a group of students not in my class, and we've been less interested in characters, plot lines, and Thompson as a writer. By contrast, in the literature course, even though none of the students are English majors, the course somehow prompts us to highlight literary qualities concerning Smarter Than You Think.

How might we view Thompson's book if I read it in my African American literature class? In a Black Studies course? A computer science class? Some other realm?

The first major paper assignments are due soon. I'm curious how our discussions of a journalist as a literary artist might inspire students to view themselves as writers.

Related:
• Reading Smarter Than You Think

Jean Kittrell, Eugene B. Redmond, and Jazz Literature at SIUE

Eugene B. Redmond performs at SIUE with Reggie Thomas and Hamiet Bluiett in 2005.

Langston Hughes was an important pioneer of representations of jazz and jazz musicians in poetry as early as the 1920s. And during the Black Arts era of the 1960s and 1970s, writers such as Amiri Baraka, Etheridge Knight, Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Michael Harper, and many, many others incorporated jazz into their works and even collaborated with musicians. Nonetheless, the terms "jazz poetry" and "jazz literature" as a points of reference in scholarly discourse did not begin appearing with frequency until the mid to late 1990s.

Jazz poetry and literature have a distinct history in the department of English at SIUE. Most notably perhaps, Eugene B. Redmond has long produced what would be known as "jazz poetry." For decades now, he has composed and performed poems that showcase the music, and he regularly collaborated with jazz musicians. During readings of his well-known tribute entitled "Milestones" for Miles Davis, Redmond often begins by humming Davis's tune "All Blues."

In the process of documenting a wide rang of artists over the decades, Redmond frequently photographed blues and jazz musicians. Miles. B. B. King. Wayne Shorter. Eddie Fisher. Herbie Hancock. You name it. Redmond is widely known as a literary historian, but in fact, his massive record collection, his role as a organizer for events showcasing jazz artists, and his many writings reveal that he is also something of a musical historian as well.

[Related: The Redmond Effect]

And it turns out that the department's links to jazz literature or jazz and literature even predate Redmond's work as a professor. By the time Jean Kittrell arrived at SIUE in 1972, she was already more than 15 years into a career as a jazz artist that persisted until 2008 when she officially retired. (And even after that, she would still make special appearances). Kittrell was an English professor by day and the lead vocalist, and sometimes pianist too, for jazz bands on the weekends.

Smarter Than You Think -- Chapter 3

[Smarter Than You Think]

In Chapter 3 “Public Thinking” of Smarter Than You Think, Clive Thompson writes about how public thinkers -- all of us who write on the web in social media, on blogs, and public forums -- enjoy finding others with related ideas and sharing information.

When discussing the vastness of our internet use, Thompson writes

Consider these current rough estimates: Each day, we compose 254 billion emails, more than 500 million tweets on Twitter, and over 1 million blog posts and 1.3 million blog comments on WordPress alone. On Facebook, we write about 16 billion words per day. That’s just in the United States: in China, its 100 million updates each day on Sina Weibo, the country’s most popular microblogging tool and more on social networks in other languages worldwide, including Russia’s VK. Text messages are terse, but globally they’re our most frequent piece of writing: 12 billion per day” (46-47).

The statistics presented in this chapter about internet use are beyond compelling. What was one aspect of what he presented that you find especially notable or interesting? Why? Please cite the page number.

On Being Wrong, Chapter 4: Our Minds, Part One

[Being Wrong]

"Wrongness knows no limits...there is no form of knowledge, however central or unassailable it may seem, that cannot, under certain circumstances, fail us" (69). --Kathryn Schulz

In chapter 4 "Our Minds," in her book Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz discusses how seemingly accurate memories of events end up being inaccurate. Over time, our memories can become "riddled with errors" yet continue "to feel so right" (73). She later points out that "we are bad knowing we don't know," and most of us "are noticeably better at generating theories than registering our own ignorance" (82-83).

After reading Schulz's chapter, what's one specific way you now view the accuracy or inaccuracy of your memory? Or, how did the chapter influence your view concerning the limits of your knowledge?

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Jean Kittrell, Barbara Schmidt & Af-Am literary studies at SIUE

The histories of African American literary studies at SIUE extend well over 30 years. That's no minor accomplishment since so many universities only began regularly offering African American literature courses in the last 20 years. I was recently looking over academic cvs of two faculty members from the department of English here, and was fascinated to learn about their efforts in the 1970s and onward.

The professional activities of Jean Kittrell and Barbara Quinn Schmidt established an important foundation for the many African American literature courses that we offer now. Schmidt began as an instructor at SIUE in 1964, and became a faculty member in 1977. Kittrell began at SIUE in the early 1970s. Schmidt and Kittrell were actively teaching and proposing courses related to African American literature early on, and they made presentations at conferences related to the developing fields of African American literary studies and Black Studies.

Kittrell proposed and taught a course entitled "The Black Image in Autobiography and Essay," which as she noted "provides intellectual backgrounds for new Minor in Black American Studies." She also proposed a course, "Black Drama," which surveyed "twentieth-century dramatizations of black life in America." In addition to giving presentations on black literature at conferences, Kittrell, a musician, regularly presented on the histories of jazz and the blues. (You can see her, on piano and singing, as she leads a group covering Bessie Smith's "Downhearted Blues").

Imagining increased opportunities for African American students

SIUE students meet with Chancellor Julia Furst-Bowe

For years now, I have been organizing "listening sessions" on campus, where groups of people discuss barriers and opportunities concerning "students like us," as one participant put it. On Wednesday, February 11, Chancellor Julie A. Furst-Bowe joined and co-hosted one of the sessions with me. The gathering included about 25 students and a few faculty, staff, and administrators.

During the one-hour event, participants offered suggestions on how we might expand university services to address the paucity of African American students involved in extracurricular academic and professional activities at SIUE. As more than one commentator noted, black students are largely excluded from special opportunities like the university's full-scholarship program and the honors program.

Even though some sectors of the university have touted the record high enrollment of black students at SIUE, there are areas that have not changed. For instance, black faculty have remained somewhere around 5% to 6% for at least the last 20 years. Many academic departments struggle to offer courses that reflect the shifting diversity of the student body.

Our gathering gave us an opportunity to address some of those concerns and others with the lead university official. The event was notable, among other reasons, for suggesting that the lives, experiences, and perspectives of African American students at our university matter. Too often, black students are viewed as mere objects to help diversify marketing photographs or to serve as potential audience members to be talked at.

By contrast, on Wednesday, students had the opportunity to actively participate in sharing and producing knowledge. In addition to having the Chancellor in attendance, the event was significant because of the diversity of the participants, which included students from different majors, at different stages of their academic careers, and from multiple groups around campus.

The gathering was an important step in a longer process of increasing academic and professional opportunities for African American students.

Related
• Collegiate Students
• Spring 2015 Programming

When the Poet and Rapper are One

Last week, one of my students came by my office to share some of her poetry. We’re organizing a solo show featuring her work next month on campus, and she was giving me an opportunity to hear some of the pieces she planned to showcase.

She read. I listened.

When she was done, I was like, “yooo, who are you? You sound so…so, I don’t know, so different. Timid even.”

We laughed.

Yeah, this is how she sounds “as a poet,” she explained. I had previously only heard her as a rapper, so her identity as a poet initially caught me off guard. She signs her poetry with one name and her raps with another name--a rap persona. As a rapper, she projects a bold, brash demeanor; when she’s a poet, her voice is softer; her pace slower; she reads more cautious.

When she's rapping, she sounds tough. When she's reading poetry, she sounds vulnerable.

After more conversation, we decided that her exhibit will include a selection of her poems and her raps. Ideally, the exhibit will, among other things, give audiences a sense of her diverse artistic identities. They'll see what happens when the poet and rapper are one.

Related
• Collegiate Students

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

On Being Wrong: Our Senses

[Being Wrong]

"Of the very long list of reasons we can get things wrong, the most elementary of them all is our senses fail us" (53) --Kathryn Schulz

In the chapter 3, "Our Senses," in her book Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz discusses illusions and especially "the processes that give rise to them--processes that would be far harder to study (or even know about) if they didn't occasionally produce surprising erroneous results." Scientists who study illusions "aren't learning how our visual system fails. They are learning how it works" (61).

Later, Schulz explains that "illusions teach us how to think about error" (65). And she also mentions the curiosity and pleasure that emerge as a result of illusions we encounter.

What did you think? Based on Schulz's discussion, what processes or effects of illusion that she covered were most compelling to you and why?

Smarter Than You Think (Initial Reflections)

[Smarter Than You Think]

We're just a couple of chapters in on Clive Thompson's Smarter Than You Think, a book that offers multiple perspectives on how technology actually strengthens our cognitive abilities, but what do you think so far? What key reflection or observation have you lingered on for a while and why? Please provide a page number when possible.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Tony Medina's poetry books

The books by year
1996: No Noose is Good Noose
1998: Sermons from the Smell of a Carcass Condemned to Begging
2003: Committed to Breathing
2011: My Old Man Was Always on the Lam
2011: Broke on Ice
2012: An Onion of Wars
2013: Broke Baroque

The volumes by Tony Medina that I own hold a special place in my poetry collection. Medina is one of the most prolific writers among the many poets whose books I have studied over the years. His work is inventive and powerful in all kinds of ways.

Medina is also an important connector between older generations of writers, including Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, and others. At the same time, he's a notable contemporary of writers like Adrian Matejka, Tyehimba Jess, Frank X. Walker, and Kevin Young. Further, his work links to a host of younger writers; check, for example, how Medina's anticipates this whole #BlackPoetsSpeakOut project.

I've been spending considerable time lately thinking about creativity among writers, and Medina's productivity and originality are useful for shaping my developing ideas. I've wondered if there are links between how much poets produce and the level of their creativity. Reading Medina's works over the last couple of months certainly reveals that he covers a wide range of subjects, and his prolific writing has in part helped make that possible.

That his books span considerable time is helpful for additional reasons. Tracing his career over several volumes allows me to see him moving in new directions and returning to familiar themes throughout his writing. Of course, it's both noble and admirable on his part and unfortunate for our society that police brutality has been an important subject, if not muse, for Medina.

Medina's concern for black well-being and his critiques of excessive and murderous force are really admirable. In his poetry on those subjects, he's clearly fighting the good fight. And who would've known that Medina's book title Committed to Breathing (2003) would resonate with today's haunting phrase "I can't breathe"?

Lately, I've been most interested in Medina's Broke series: Sermons from the Smell of a Carcass Condemned To Begging, Broke on Ice, and Broke Baroque. The poems are engaging, humorous, and bitingly satirical. I was laughing at his jokes throughout those three books, and also compelled to make quick turns to seriousness on Medina's social commentary about the struggles of someone living in poverty in this day and age.

Related:
• The Divergence of Tony Medina's Persona Poems
• Tony Medina and the Top 5 (blues poets)
• Notes on Tony Medina's Sound
• Persona poems

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Reading Groups

Each semester since 2009, we have organized online reading groups for Haley Scholars and other groups of students at SIUE. So far, we have involved more than 2,000 students in over 50 different reading groups.

Links to reading groups
• Spring 2022: Haley Reading Groups

• Fall 2021: Haley Reading Groups

• Spring 2021: Haley Reading Groups

• Fall 2020 Haley Reading Groups

• Spring 2020 Haley Reading Groups

Here's a list of books we've covered:

• Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
• Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
• Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
• Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Beautiful Struggle
• Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me
• Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze's Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet: Book One (2016)

• Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
• Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success
• Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
• Brian Hill and Dexter Soy's Batman and the Outsiders (2019)

• Sheena Iyengar's The Art of Choosing
• Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden's Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America
• Keith Knight's Are We Feeling Safe Yet?
• Sarah Lewis's The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery
• Adrian Matejka's The Big Smoke
• Aaron McGruder's A Right to Be Hostile
• Emily Nussbaum (select articles)
• Alyssa Rosenberg (select articles)
• Kathryn Schulz's Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
• Clive Thompson's Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds For the Better
• Paul Tough's Whatever it Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America
• Lauren Wilkinson's American Spy (2019)

• Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

• Rebecca Skloot (editor) The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2015)
• Amy Stewart (editor) The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2016
• Hope Jahren (editor) The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2017)
• Sam Kean (editor) The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2018)

Spring 2015 Haley Reading Groups

This semester for our Haley Reading Groups, we'll cover:

• Clive Thompson's Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds For the Better
• Kathryn Schulz's Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
• Poetry Reading Project

Danice Brown and #BlackLivesMatter

One of the ways to make #BlackLivesMatter is to talk about it. And that's what Professor Danice Brown did. On Wednesday, February 4, she led a discussion of students, staff, and faculty at SIUE's Lovejoy Library concerning the hashtag and its overall implications.

In the days after after Michael Brown was killed, Professor Brown went to Ferguson to offer assistance and to help with projects. As a psychologist, she has devoted considerable time to studying and addressing the mental well-being of citizens. In addition, she has studied racial socialization and discrimination, as well as African American resiliency.

Multiple versions of Kevin Young's To Repel Ghosts

Of the more than 300 volumes of poetry by African American poets that I own, Kevin Young's To Repel Ghosts is the only one that appears in so many versions. The hardcover and paperback versions were published in 2001 by Zoland Books. A paperback "remix" of To Repel Ghosts: The Remix was published by Knopf in 2005. Since that time, there have been multiple printings of The Remix; I own a 2014 sixth printing.

The 2001 versions include Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting To Repel Ghosts on the cover. The hardcover and paperback of To Repel Ghosts include 368 and 366 pages, respectively. The books contain 43 footnotes, an indication of Young's identity as a poet-scholar of sorts. Years later, the publication of his book The Grey Album (2012) would more clearly display his capabilities as a researcher and nonfiction writer. He had been producing essays here and there over the years though.

Zoland Books closed in 2002. Consequently, as Young's career began to flourish and To Repel Ghosts was out of print, Knopf decided to publish a new version: To Repel Ghosts: The Remix (2005). Maybe the altered title served to slightly distinguish the Zoland Books and Knopf versions. The Remix contains 320 pages, and 32 footnotes.

Escape Artists and the East St. Louis Charter High School

"I emerge to the amazement of all." --Allison Funk

The ex-slave Henry Box Brown (who lived from 1816–after 1889) and the contemporary poet Allison Funk share a common interest: they are intrigued by great escapes. Henry “Box” Brown was once a slave living in Virginia. However, in 1849, he escaped bondage by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a large wooden box. In recent years, creative writer and SIUE professor Allison Funk wrote a series of poems about the literal and symbolic acts of escape artists—people who perfect the art of getting out of tight spaces and difficult constraints.

Last Thursday, January 29, I created a series of activities where I encouraged students at the SIUE/East St. Louis Charter High School to channel the great escape act and writing of Henry Box Brown and Allison Funk, respectively.

Amiri Baraka and Outness

"The real question is not how to keep from going to hell. The real question is: how to get out?" --Amiri Baraka

"Nothing happening but out and way out." --Amiri Baraka

"His inside music was 'out' and his outside music was 'in.'" --Amiri Baraka referring to Monk

Several years ago, I was in the audience as Amiri Baraka was mentioning various jazz musicians whose works were "far out." I forgot the people he included in his list, but how he closed stuck with me. "[Thelonious] Monk was the outest of the out," he said.

A few days ago, I was viewing a YouTube clip of Baraka reading his poem "Revelations," where he closes mentioning that the real question is "how to get out" of hell. That prompted me to return to a few more of his poems and see if I noticed instances of Baraka mentioning "out" in distinct ways.

At one point in his poem "Digging Max," a tribute to the jazz drummer Max Roach, Baraka describes three superb qualities of the musician: "Out Sharp Mean." In his poem "Kutoa Umoja," from his record It's Nation Time (1972), Baraka encourages his African American audience that we "need to get on out side ourselves. "In "Wise 1," he explains that if "enemies" destroy your culture, then you are in "deep trouble," and it will "probably take you several hundred years to get out!"

Smarter Than You Think -- Chapter 2

[Smarter Than You Think]

In Chapter 2 "We, the Memorious" of Smarter Than You Think, Clive Thompson discusses the concept of memory. He writes about how memories are formed, how we extract what we remember, and how technology relates to this process.

Thompson writes “The way machines will become integrated into our remembering is likely to be in smaller, less intrusive bursts. In fact, when it comes to finding meaning in our digital memories, less may be more” (37).

What did you gain from Thompson’s discussion of memory in this chapter? What made that idea particularly useful?

Being Wrong - Chapter 2: Two Models of Wrongness

[Being Wrong]

"To err is to wander, and wandering is the way we discover the world" (42). --K. Schulz

In chapter 2 of Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz discusses pessimistic and optimistic models of error. She explains that the optimistic model is often "harder to recognize around us, since it is forever being crowded out by the nosier notion that error is dangerous, demoralizing, and shameful" (27).

Schulz makes several claims about the vital interplay of optimistic and pessimistic models of error. Of the ideas she raises in the chapter, what did you find most fascinating and why?

Monday, February 2, 2015

That Penn State Experiment in the English Department

In the late 1990s, someone made a proposal in Penn State’s English department to really elevate the number of black students pursing advanced degrees. Prior to that, the program had enrolled a really small number of African American graduate students.

So in the spring of 1998, the department recruited and then admitted (with funding) 2 black MAs and 2 black Ph.D. students in the fall. The department repeated the recruiting process in spring 1999, and in the fall of 1999, they admitted 2 more black MA students (I was one of those students). The next year, 2 black Ph.D. students and one black MA student (or maybe two) arrived. The next year, they admitted two more black MA students.

Thus, between 1998 and 2002 alone, the English department admitted approximately 10 black graduate students in English. In January 2004 shortly after I completed my Ph.D. requirements, the English department's graduate office administrator, who was filing the paperwork for my dissertation, said to me, “I’ve done perhaps something no other English department secretary in the whole country has done: In 12 months, I’ve filled out paperwork for 4 black men earning Ph.Ds.”

She was referring to Adam Banks, who was headed to Syracuse; Les Knotts, headed to West Point; Cedrick May, headed to Auburn University, and me, headed to SIUE. Over the next year or two, Vorris Nunley, Timothy Robinson, Aesha Adams, and Chaunda McDavis earned their Ph.Ds.

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