Black movie heroes read Ta-Nehisi Coates

A few years back when Ta-Nehisi Coates's book Between the World and Me was released, I tracked the coverage in various online publications. Recently though, I've seen the book cited in cinematic representations.

First, near the beginning of season 2 of Luke Cage on Netflix, we see the protagonist reading a copy of Coates's book. Through season one, Luke Cage was shown reading or possessing various books. So now Coates has entered the realm.

And now, just recently, I went to see The Equalizer 2, starring Denzel Washington. The film opens with Robert McCall (played by Washington) riding a train in Turkey and reading a book -- Coates's Between the World and Me. Later in the film while assisting a young black man become more educated, Mr. McCall gives the young man a copy of Coates's book to read.

In Luke Cage and The Equalizer 2, Coates's book is used to signal the consciousness or studiousness of the two main characters. How do you convey through silent cues that your main character is an intelligent black man, the filmmakers may have asked? Well, let's show him reading Between the World and Me. 

Related:
• A Notebook on the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Book History

Amiri Baraka's three most anthologized poems

[Update: an increase in the dataset shifted the findings initially reported in this blog entry. --Sept. 17, 2018]

Yesterday, I was mentioning to poet and scholar William J. Harris that whenever I work with African American high school students, I include "RhythmBlues." In a way, that poem is securely within my personal canon of poems that I've presented to high school and college students over the last decade and a half. So of course activities using the poem came up the last two weeks when I worked with students from Cahokia and Madison, Illinois.

I have my chosen Baraka poems, but I'm no anthology editor. They've made different choices. When I took a preliminary look at Baraka's appearances in approximately 50 poetry anthologies published over the last 56 years, I noticed that "RhythmBlues" has not been reprinted. Instead, Baraka's three most anthologized poems are "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" (17 times), "A Poem for Black Hearts" (15 times), and "Black Art" (13 times).*

Those three poems were first published by 1966. They've now become Baraka's most anthologized poems. It's not uncommon for poets' early poems to become their most frequently anthologized. That's certainly the case with Langston Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and Margaret Walker's "For My People," to name just two prominent examples.

Still, since I've studied aspects of Baraka's career so closely, I notice the limits of how he's presented a little more. I wonder why none of his post-1966 poems stuck the ways those early three did. Why have anthologists not come to a consensus about any of Baraka's post-1970s poems like they did with those early three poems?

Beyond these issues, I've enjoyed tracing Baraka's appearances in anthologies over a long period of time. I'm intrigued that he, more than most any other poet I've encountered, is included in so many different contexts. I'm looking forward to looking through more anthologies and seeing the routes of his poems.

Related:
• A Notebook on Amiri Baraka

---------
* I took a look at anthologies published between 1960 - 2016. A future project will take into consideration dozens more anthologies including his poems. Thanks to my graduate assistant Rae'Jean Spears for helping me assemble the collection and tabulate the poems.

Remixing Amiri Baraka's RhythmBlues

Last week while working with high school students from East St. Louis, Cahokia, and Madison, Illinois, we took some time to work on remixes of poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, and Adrian Matejka. At this point, I shouldn't be surprised that the students were really fascinated by the closing of Baraka's poem "RhythmBlues":

Slaveboy, leroy, from Newark Hill
If capitalism dont kill me, racism will.

Over the years, high school students have been intrigued when I explain that Baraka was once named Leroy and then LeRoi. They are also curious about how capitalism can kill someone.

I presented the students with lines from Baraka's poem and added blanks in places. So I re-presented those above lines as:

____________, ______________ from ________________ Hill.
If __________________ dont kill me, ___________________ will.

And from there, I invited students to create their own ending.

One student wrote:

Funny girl, Tay, from Cahokia Hill.
If food dont kill me, starving will.  

Another wrote:

Otaku, KeKe, from Arkansas Hill.
If living dont kill me, boredom will.  

And another wrote:

Sleepy girl, D. R, from Centreville
If nuisance dont kill me, over-activity will.  

Related:
• Language arts activities with high school students
• Black poetry, high school students, and audio recordings

Ta-Nehisi Coates pushes back from being "the" spokesperson

Yesterday's news that Ta-Nehisi Coates is leaving The Atlantic was surprising in some respects, given how he's been linked to that publication for nearly a decade now. The Atlantic provided Coates with a powerful platform and introduced him to new audiences. In a different yet important way, Coates brought The Atlantic audiences and attention that the publication would not have otherwise had.

Coates's decision to step away from The Atlantic in fact fits with a pattern where he resists being thrust up front as the main or only figure in a particular realm. What stands out to me is that Coates is somewhat rare among some black public intellectuals in that he wants less fame and celebrity as a cultural figure.

Can you imagine scholar X or scholar Y stepping away from the limelight the way Coates has done in some cases? Can you imagine a writer with hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter deciding to abandon social media -- at the height of her popularity on the platform?

I assume that Coates is happy to be materially wealthy and to have his work taken seriously. But, we get regular indications from him that he's been displeased with how his celebrity has gotten in the way of him being a writer, or at least the kind of writer he wants to be. "When I used to write, it was like I felt like I had more freedom to write as I felt," he informed Erik Wemple from the Washington Post. "I didn’t think I was representing anything more than my own feelings and thoughts."

He's learned that's not the case. One example he gave was attending a protest rally with plans to cover the event. However, when some journalists discovered Coates was in attendance, they began to cover him more than the protesters and rally.

Beyond those issues, Coates is pushing back, as he's done in the past, from becoming seen too much as "the" spokesperson. He's tried to resist that designation with respect to being viewed as the spokesperson for all things black, and now, he's doing it with The Atlantic -- not wanting to be seen as the face of the magazine.

Related:
• A notebook on Ta-Nehisi Coates

Language arts activities with high school students

student looks at Black Panther variant covers 

 This week, I worked with several Upward Bound high school students on SIUE's campus. We covered a variety of language arts activities related to African American poetry. We made use of technology and also participated in writing exercises.

For one, we took a look at comic book variants using tablets. I wanted the students to consider what it meant for artists to take a common topic and then offer different or variant takes on that topic. We looked at Black Panther variants, Riri Williams/Iron Man variants, and Hip Hop variants.  

student works on sketch, using image from cell phone 

The variant exercise was a lead up to an exercise where we produced hand-drawn images to visually complement words we use.  I noticed that when students sought to draw something, they were inclined to pull up images on their cell phones to serve as models. What I liked about having the students do the word-sketch boards was that it gave them a chance to really work with their hands to create images. It was fascinating how much time they spent trying to get the illustrations right on two index cards.

student works on sketch, using image from cell phone

Last week, we took a look at various poems. So this week, I gave students prompts to remix works by Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, and Adrian Matejka. I reproduced poems by those poets but replaced various words with blanks, prompting the students to insert new words. The activity proved useful for figuring out what issues and topics the students find interesting.

Student works on poem remix exercise  

Related:
• Black poetry, high school students, and audio recordings

When black boys shoot black boys

"Why don't nobody care when black boys shoot other black boys?"

That was what one of the high school students in East St. Louis said to me last week as we were talking about challenges in our communities. She was expressing her pain and anger about the July 2 murder of a 15-year-old schoolmate Traenez L. Brown Jr. He was killed by another schoolmate, a 16-year-old, who turned himself in on July 5, and was charged as an adult.

The student discussing the situation with me was talking through a range of her feelings. She was upset that things like this are "always happening around here." She was upset that people her age could get and use guns to shoot each other. She was also angry that "black people had a lot to say when Mike Brown got killed, but nobody protesting about this."

I'm the teacher for this language arts program this summer, but I knew my role in that moment was to listen, offering nods and "unh-hunh" as she spoke.

After the student mentioned Brown, I paused for just a moment.

The student followed up: "Yeah, yeah, I know it's different when the police kill someone. I'm just, you know, angry, that it's like nobody even cares."

"I got you," I said. And I did. I understood where she was coming from.

I've become accustomed to having conversations with black folks in St. Louis, East St. Louis, and the region, where we discuss gun violence, and someone invariably brings up the fact that it seems harder to get national attention or strong public outcries when a black person kills another black person. I almost never have these kinds of conversations with white people or black people who live in non-black communities.

On some level, I think the response to the shooting death of Brown reshaped what people think can and should happen when black boys are killed. Here in St. Louis and the region, you constantly hear references to the response to Mike Brown when loved ones are discussing the seeming lack of attention for a black boy or young black man killed killed. The student talking to me wanted people to care about her schoolmate Traenez Brown the way they did in the aftermath of other high-profile cases.  

Related:
• A notebook on gun violence

Poems by younger poets for younger students

Student views and listens to video of poet Jae Nichelle reading

What if we offered younger students more opportunities to study younger poets, that is, poets under the age of 30 in our classes? That's a question I've been asking myself lately as I've studied sounds of poetry and worked with high school students and first-year college students.

Based on self-reports from teachers and students and from my observations at conferences and of scholarly journals, I sense that many college professors favor conventionally established poets, under-studied yet important poets, or emergent contemporary poets who possess the requisite cultural capital, such as degrees and award-winning volumes of poetry from prestigious institutions. Many of the poets covered are over the age of 40.

I've heard less discussion of ways that college professors are seeking to meet the needs and interests of younger generations of black students though (That's not to say the conversations don't take place). Over the last few years, I've worked much harder to expose students to a large inter-generational cohort of poets. Some of the poets are canonical and born over a hundreds year ago, like Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Others are in their early twenties and thirties.

When the younger students are presented with images and sounds of poets reading their works, they strongly favor the younger poets over much older poets. The students also prefer poets who recite their works over those who read from the page. The students, especially my black women students, have the strongest positive reaction to Jae Nichelle's "Friends with Benefits," a piece about her internal struggles with anxiety. Seeing a woman in their age range discussing a struggle many of my students know all too well really resonates with them.

The students have similar positive reactions to readings by Mahogany L. Browne, Porsha O, Ebony Stewart, and Jasmine Nicole Mans. None of what I'm saying means that we should stop covering Hughes and Brooks, Lucille Clifton and Sonia Sanchez, and so forth. However, we might have something to gain by additionally considering why students are drawn to a younger generation of black poets as well as dynamic presenters.

Related:
• A notebook on the sound of black women poets

Fear of language -- the art & pain of insults

Image source

Several years ago, Jerry W. Ward, Jr., responded to a question I posed about barriers preventing students from engaging poetry by noting that one possible challenge for students was "fear of language, or, perhaps to be precise, fear of language that one does not participate in creating." Among other things, his phrase "fear of language" served as a point of departure for me to explore a range of thoughts.

Last week and this week while working with high school students from Cahokia and Madison, Illinois, I returned to considerations of the fear of language, especially in relation to the art and pain of insults.

Like many of my fellow African American literary scholars, I spend considerable time speaking about the power and artistry of language, primarily in favorable ways. We discuss and in many cases celebrate works and words by Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and many others. However, we've had less to say, at least in formal ways, about the damage that people, black people, can do to other black people with language.

During the course of my conversations with high school students, some of them talked to me about their experiences being bullied. They discussed being called names and being regularly targeted as the subject of jokes. One student told me that the students at her school were relentless: "They always saying how bad I look, how funny I dress, and how dumb I talk."

She told me that she was relieved that her family had recently moved and that she would get a chance for a new start at a new school. She and a couple other students noted that the insults at their expense apparently had noticeable receptions. "Everybody laughs," they said when I asked about the responses to the negative insults hurled at them.

Talking to those young people last week and this week has been a reminder for me to expand the discussions about the power of black words in my classes. It was a reminder to why, for good reason, some young people have a fear of the ways language is used against them.

Related:
• Fear of Language

Black poetry, high school students, and audio recordings

Source

Last week, I got the chance to put into practice some of the concepts concerning sound that I was studying related to audio recordings of poetry. I worked on language arts activities in East St. Louis with two groups of high school students from Madison and Cahokia -- small towns in southern Illinois. By highlighting features such as volume, pitch, tempo, and dramatic pauses, we studied individual compositions, and at the same time, we spent worked on sharpening our communication skills.

We listened to and read (in that order) to works by 6 poets and rappers:

• "A Song in the Front Yard" by Gwendolyn Brooks
• "RhythmBlues" by Amiri Baraka
• "won't you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton
• "Sporting Life" by Adrian Matejka
• "Lost Ones" by Lauryn Hill
• Verse from "Triumph" by Inspectah Deck of Wu-Tang Clan

On Monday, we first spent some time talking and thinking about the kinds of speakers we enjoy and value. Next, we used audio devices to listen to the 6 pieces and offer initial impressions. During the rest of the week, we re-read and produced audio recordings of us reading the poems and raps.

Recording, listening, and then re-recording gave the students opportunities to think about ways to study and improve their delivery styles. The students were initially amused to hear the playback of audio recordings of themselves reading (i.e. "uhhh, I hate my voice"). Eventually, they began to listen closer to how they sounded and made adjustments and improvements for subsequent recordings.

For years now, revision and edits in my college classes have focused on writing. For the students I worked with last week however, revision was about improving vocal variety.

Related:
• Language arts activities with high school students

A Notebook on digital tools, devices

The following entries chart the work that I've done that makes use of various digital devices in educational contexts.

2018
• June 16: Black Panther, Riri Williams, and Hip-Hop Variant Digital Collections
• June 11: Frederick Douglass, Octavia Butler, and Digital Collections
• June 9: Digital devices and African American literary studies
• April 13: Curating a Malcolm X digital collection
• March 22: Silent listening session in East St. Louis
• January 29: Black boys and audio production

2017
• September 29: A Digital look at postcards from the Andrew J. Theising Collection

2016
• November 4: From MP3 Players to Touchscreen Tablets
• November 4: Kristine Hildebrandt & Jessica DeSpain's Digital Motivations
• November 1: Viewing Andrew Theising's East St. Louis postcards on tablets

• July 29: Listening to Dometi Pongo's Creative Work on Malcolm X

2015
• October 12: African American literary studies and technology
• September 24: Listening session activity at the East St. Louis Charter High School
• April 4 An audio exhibit concerning the EBR Collection

2014
• November 11: Quietly listening to African American poetry at Venice Elementary School

• May 1: A glance at mixed media exhibits  

2012
• February 4: Black Studies and Listening Devices

Related:
• Assorted Blogging Notebooks

Coverage of Captain America, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Selection of Variants for Captain America #1

Today, Marvel released Captain America #1, with Ta-Nehisi Coates as writer. I tracked the initial coverage when it was announced that Coates would take over. Now I'm tracking coverage on the release.

• June 23: 10 Things We Can Tell You About Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America #1 - Rich Johnston - Bleeding Cool
• June 25: Midtown’s Retailer Variants for Captain America #1 - Rich Johnston - Bleeding Cool
• June 29: Ta-Nehisi Coates' new take on Captain America - Christian Holub - Entertainment Weekly
• July 2: Advance Review: Captain America #1 - Rich Johnston - Bleeding Cool
• July 2: Captain America #1 - Eric Cline - Adventures in Poor Taste
• July 3: Captain America #1 'a Triumph For One of Marvel's A-Listers' - Justin Partridge - Newsarama
• July 3: 'Captain America' #1 Introduces a Greater Threat Than Any One Villain - Chase Magnett - ComicBook.com
• July 4: Captain America #1 Teases the Utter Decimation of [Spoiler] - Ian Cardona - Comic Book Resource
• July 4: Captain America No. 1, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Annotated - Kwame Opam - New York Times
• July 4: Coates writes a ‘Captain America’ filled with star-spangled doubt - David Betancourt - Washington Post
• July 4: Captain America #1 Review – The Fresh Start Cap Needs - Alden Diaz - We the Nerdy
• July 4: Captain America #1 - Brett - Graphic Policy
• July 4: Captain America #1 - Michael Hale - Comicosity
• July 5: Captain America #1 confronts Cap’s time as a fascist - Meg Downey - Polygon
• July 5: Coates' Captain America about Steve Rogers, Country We Live In - Charles Pulliam-Moore - io9
• July 7: Coates & Yu Come Out Swinging in Captain America #1 - Mike Fugere - CBR
• July 12: Captain America #1 Review: Relaunch with Ta-Nehisi Coates - Alex Widen - FanSided
• July 14: Review of Captain America - Ryan Perry - World of the Nerd

Related:
• Early Coverage of Ta-Nehisi Coates as new Captain America writer
• A notebook on Ta-Nehisi Coates
• A notebook on comic books

Matt Daniels, The Pudding, and African American literary studies

Source

A few years back, my younger brother Kenton, a literature professor who collaborates with me on digital humanities and other projects, contacted me and insisted that I stop whatever I was doing at the moment and check out some work by Matt Daniels. At the time, Kenton was noting Daniel's "The Largest Vocabulary in Hip Hop" or perhaps it was "Outkast, in Charts." Either way, by now, it's become habit at this point for us to check out the work that Daniels is doing or the work being done at The Pudding, a company that "explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays." There's also a sister site, Polygraph.

This fall, I'll cover a few projects by Daniels and The Pudding in my African American literature courses. Below is the checklist I'll pull from to examine with students in my classes.

• OutKast in Charts - Daniels provides visual displays and other information about the rap group over the years.

• The Largest Vocabulary in Hip Hop - perhaps the first breakout hit by Daniels, this project presents an exploration and ranking of rappers based on their use of unique words. The project generated extensive coverage in 2014 when it was released.

• The 2,452 Wikipedia Pages on which Miles Davis is Mentioned - Daniels considers the jazz musician's legacy by tracking every Wikipedia page that mentions him.

• The Largest Analysis of Film Dialogue by Gender, Ever - In this project, Daniels and Hanah Anderson took a look at 2,000 screenplays by Gender and Age. The project received widespread coverage when it was released in 2016.

• The Shape of Slavery - Daniels and Bill Rankin examine the historic incarceration rates in relation to slave states and non-slave states.

• Where Slang Comes From - Daniels takes a look at the emergence of popular slang searched for on Google in 2016.

• Newspapers: A Black & White Issue - Daniels and Amber Thomas offer a measure of racial diversity in journalism. For Polygraph, there's "How Diverse Are US Newsrooms?," which "measures the percentage of women and minorities working in US newsrooms."

• The Structure of Stand-Up Comedy - provides an interactive analysis of a successful joke by comedian Ali Wong’s performance for Netflix.

• The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs - offers analysis of the declining originality of popular music

• How Music Taste Evolved - provides a listening history of every top 5 song from 1958 - 2016.

• The Language of Hip Hop - determines what words are "most hip hop" based on a comparison of word usage across multiple genres.

Blogging about poetry in June 2018

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry]

• June 28: An Index for Eve L. Ewing's Electric Arches
• June 28: A glossary for Eve L. Ewing's Electric Arches (by page number)
• June 27: Jason McCall's afrofuturist views on Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown
• June 4: Eve L. Ewing, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Black Studies, and creativity
• June 4: Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, and Jay-Z
• June 1: Blogging about poetry in May 2018