Toward a Sinners Poetry Reading List

• "tell the black girls" by Lamont Lilly (2016) --- Lilly toasts Black women in his poem, noting an inheritance passed down to them as one of natural beauty, power, and, and most notably, wonder-working. The poem calls to mind Annie, situating her among the lineage of Black women Lilly praises. Her dark-skinned, full-figured, natural-haired beauty matters as much as the power that comes from being her own boss. What's more, Annie's ways of being and knowing move from folk and speculative to real and practical in consequential ways (ask her man). Annie's abilities to read people, protect, and problem-solve save the day. --Cindy N. Reed

• "Molly Means" by Margaret Walker (1942) --- A poem about the spells of a Black woman witch in a southern town reminds contemporary audiences that the American South has long been a setting in creative representations for exploring the speculative and otherworldly, a tradition in which Coogler's film joins. --Cindy N. Reed

[Related: Toward a Sinners Nonfiction Reading List]

• "Flight to Canada" by Ishmael Reed (1976)  -- a comical poem about a fugitive slave on the go, which connects in some ways with the audacious Black men twin brothers in Coogler's film. --Howard Rambsy II

• "I Sing of Shine" by Etheridge Knight -- A poem derived from black men's folk songs and stories of bad men, a subject that connects with the experiences of Smoke and Stack. 

• "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem" By Helene Johnson -- A Harlem Renaissance-era poem about a confident and bold Black man strolling down the street. It's an early 20th century bad man poem, linking to the twins Smoke and Stack. 

• “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay (1919) — A sonnet situated in the bloodstained grips of Red Summer when white supremacist terrorism wreaked havoc on Black communities across the country.

 The poem reads like a pep talk before the fight for one’s life and calls to mind Grace’s speech to the crew before she escalates the drama. —Cindy Reed 

• “Hey-Hey Blues” by Langston Hughes (1939) — A blues poem loaded with levity that boasts of a musician’s ability to keep the juke lively as long as he has the right drinks and a fellow musician on par with his skills. It’s reminiscent of early dialogues between Delta Slim and Preacher Boy. —Cindy Reed 

• “Share-Croppers” by Langston Hughes (1942) — A poem that highlights the labor, objectification, and destitution of many Black folks in the Jim Crow South who worked the land. Preacher Boy, Cornbread, and their fellow laborers understand the injustice of the job firsthand. —Cindy Reed 

• “For Saundra” by Nikki Giovanni (1968) — This free verse reminds us that if Black poetry is meant to reflect its times, then it won’t always be pretty or peaceful because times are rarely pretty and peaceful if you’re Black in America. Instead, the times are overtly and covertly violent and must be treated as such if we expect to survive, which is what the remaining jukers realize as they gather anything they can use for weapons. —Cindy Reed

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners

Seeing Sinners in IMAX

Howard Rambsy: You mentioned seeing Sinners in IMAX—was that for both viewings? If not, how did the IMAX experience compare to the other one?

Daria Spencer: The first time I watched the film it was a standard viewing with the traditional screen. The second time viewing (post watching clips of Ryan Coogler explain his film process and filming with IMAX), I went to AMC in Edwardsville and bought the IMAX tickets... That experience was INSANE. I feel like the story really came alive with the change of the aspect ratios

Rambsy: What made the IMAX experience stand out to you? What felt different or especially memorable?

Spencer: I feel like the change in how we view the film on screen helps put the story in perspective. Forgive me on terms, I'm still learning. Coogler talked about how he shot the film with two different camera systems, providing the aspect ratios of 2.76:1 and 1.43:1. (This is the first movie to do something so remarkable and it shows).

  

I noticed that scenes that were dialogue heavy or anything that provided back story had the wide format or 2.76:1. However, for the action and fight scenes, the aspect ratio would expand to the full screen or 1.43:1 which was pretty mind blowing because you can see everything. 

Rambsy: Can you describe one scene that really stood out in IMAX—something you think wouldn’t have had the same impact on a regular screen? What made it feel different?

Spencer: The fight scenes and Remmick flying through the sky was cool and all to see in full and up close, but I think the impact of seeing Sinners in IMAX really hit for me is when you see everyone's memories before the juke joint in the 1.43:1 (IMAX full screen ratio). That moment highlighted how things were really supposed to be simple and they were coming together in community to really have a good time and make some money out of it. 

Like seeing the sharecroppers on the back of the truck driving to the barn; Sammie with his guitar riding with Stack, Delta Slim and Cornbread; Annie cooking with some other ladies in the kitchen and Bo Chow stealing a piece while Grace laughs. Seeing those moments in that ratio really gave it a POV feel for me, like I was in the space with them.

Related:

• A Notebook on Sinners

A Notebook on Sinners

Last Thursday the day after checking out Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners, I sent out message to the folks in our African American literary studies (AALS) crew to see what they thought about the film. We then began participating in an expansive thread.  

With permission from participants, I’ve posted parts of what we discussed:

• Some Initial Impressions (J. White, Dixon, E. Cali, R. Holmon)

• Women and Sinners (N. Dixon, H. Rambsy, C. Reed, E. Cali, J. White) 

• More on Annie (R. Holmon, C. Reed, E. Cali)

• More on Mary (C. Reed)

• Seeing Sinners in IMAX (D. Spencer)

• That music scene (H. Rambsy, N. Dixon, E. Cali)

• The Power of Non-Western information (J. White)

• Smoke, Stack, Black Men, and Movement (J. White, H. Rambsy)

• Toward a Sinners Nonfiction Reading List (H. Rambsy, C. Reed, D. Hall)

• Toward a Sinners Poetry Reading List (C. Reed, H. Rambsy)

• Assimilation and Temptation (R. Holmon)

Related:

• Ryan Coogler, C. Liegh McInnis, and Black Convergences

• Ryan Coogler, Amiri Baraka, and Black Music

That music scene

For now, I'll say this: that music scene where the guy is playing the blues and then things shift, and we're led to think about West African music, that Zaouli dance, funk, hip hop all in a matter of minutes. Coogler rose based on that scene alone for me. Well, really, right before the movie, I saw him discussing his interest in different kinds of film formats. His passion for the art form really came through in a way that was really admirable. Is that scene the new bar in film for representing the power of Black cultural space in a single scene?

I got a live primer last month. As I was telling you Dixon, the saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin played in St. Louis. During her cover of Trane's cover of "My Favorite Things," Benjamin incorporated "Wade in the Water" into the song. Whew. It was something. –Howard Rambsy II

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That scene, thee scene, alone could've been the whole film for me. It has marked a shift in Coogler's career from director to auteur for suuureee. Along with this, I feel that this film is sort of a(n) (re)introduction to his artistic capabilities. The worlds have, for the most part, been established for him in many of his previous works. This film was his imagination playground, and boy, did he stretch, run, and fly. --Nicole Dixon

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That incredible music scene: I had a moment where I was both thrilled I was first seeing the scene in a theater and real mad because I couldn't rewind. Coogler was just perfection there. –Elizabeth Cali

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners

Assimilation and Temptation

Rie'Onna Holmon

What struck me most, though, is how that act of mimicry isn't just visual—it’s spiritual theft. Remmick is the embodiment of this evil presence, one that shapeshifts to fit into spaces it was never meant to occupy. His connection to music, especially as the so-called villain, evoked biblical undertones. The idea that “the devil was once the angel of music” doesn’t feel like a coincidence here. It’s a chilling parallel—he walks, talks, and plays the role so well that you don’t realize you’ve let him in until it’s too late. Sinners uses that as a warning: assimilation and temptation don’t always come in the form of brute force—they seduce, they blend in. Aye, I would even go further and say we see it in the main characters. I mentioned earlier how each of them represents a deadly sin:

• Slim: Gluttony 

• Pearline: Lust 

• Cornbread: Sloth 

• Smoke: Pride/ Wrath 

• Stack: Greed 

• Mary/ Sammy: Envy

Also, the imagery of the scene where the vampires first approach the juke joint - The dim red lighting in the juke joint as Remmick plays—the color of danger, blood, and spiritual warfare - even just as a warning light. mm!

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners

Smoke, Stack, Black Men, and Movement

One more thing, Smoke and Stack alone demands a deep dive into this film. As a twin, I have to say this is by far the best portrayal of twins in any film I’ve ever seen. Also was free game for a fire Halloween costume. –Jalen White

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In Sinners, we see men driving cars and trucks and even riding horses. Not the women. You know, so far, when I hear folks talking, they're most focusing on differences between Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku...more Black diasporic casting, Dixon). So basically a lot of the typical white woman vs. Black woman. But, I haven't seen many folks note the commonality with both of them in the position of being left by men and then waiting for those men to return. --Howard Rambsy II

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Re: More on Black men and movement I started thinking about how travel and movement with mobile Black men are embedded deep in our psyches, the culture, and folklore. All those songs and stories about guys traveling or longing to travel. Toni Morrison talks about how much Black men loved trains, because they were oriented to traveling, and then you look at Sinners and see that the main characters are named Smoke and Stack as in the Smokestack of a train. 

Let's also consider some metaphorical movement within a production—so Michael B. Jordan moving back and forth from Smoke to Stack. By doing that, Jordan is now in a continuum that includes the ultimate single-film Black character shifter--Eddie Murphy. If we view Coogler's five films as an interconnected body of work, then we'd have to acknowledge Jordan moving across various roles within that collection. Back on Sinners, it's fascinating to consider that within a single day, Smoke and Stack move around and interactive with several different people: preacher, preacher's son, children, criminals, plantation workers, musicians, store owners, white people, love interests, old friends, vampires, Black townspeople. It's a lot of moves being made for all of that to happen. --Howard Rambsy II

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners

Toward a Sinners Nonfiction Reading List

• Blues People (1963) by Amiri Baraka is a pathbreaking cultural history that traces the continuum of Black music, from spirituals and blues to jazz, all of which came to mind while watching Sinners. I later learned that Ryan Coogler cited the book as an influence.  --Howard Rambsy II

• Chapter 10 of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) --- Douglass has a chance encounter with a fellow enslaved man, who gifts Douglass a protective root that saves and changes his life in an ultimate battle with an infamous slave breaker. Almost two hundred years later, Coogler signifies on this long, Black tradition of Hoodoo spirituality for protection through the mojo bag Smoke wears, keeping him safe and alive throughout his death-defying fight scenes. --Cindy N. Reed

[Related: Toward a Poetry Reading List]

 

Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934) by Zora Neale Hurston is a semi-autobiographical and fictionalized portrayal of her parents’ lives—particularly Hurston's father, a Baptist preacher. As Hurston debut novel, it explores the tension between the sacred and the secular, as well as personal desire, a thematic conflict portrayed through the character ‘Preacher Boy’ in Sinners. –Danielle N. Hall 

“Characteristics of Negro Expression” (1934) by Zora Neale Hurston is a foundational essay in African American literary and cultural studies, that catalogs and analyzes African American cultural expression, particularly in language, dance, music, and storytelling, including social spaces like “Juke joints”—one of the main settings in the Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners. –Danielle N. Hall 

Mules and Men (1935) by Zora Neale Hurston is one of the first major texts in African American literature to present Black folklore and Hoodoo spiritual practices, from the perspective of an initiate (practitioner). The second part of the book documents Hurston’s experiences learning Hoodoo in New Orleans, all of which came to mind through Annie’s character in Sinners. –Danielle N. Hall 

The Sanctified Church (1981) by Zora Neale Hurston with a foreword by Toni Cade Bambara, is a compilation of short stories and ethnographic essays that examine Hoodoo practices, Black Christian worship traditions, and African American folklore, offering a nuanced exploration of Black cultural expression and spiritual life in the Black American South—all of which converge in the film Sinners. –Danielle N. Hall

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners

The Power of Non-Western information

Jalen White 

[Sinners] is also such a great portrayal of the power of non-Western information. The characters who are confined by the rules of a western world have a hard time in this film, and the speculative elements must be accepted in order to survive. This is demonstrated in such a dope way: through the two twins’ love interests. For example, one refuses to take money, even accepts valueless vouchers as forms of payment. The other interest sees the potential for money to get ahead. You can assume who makes the right decision.

But then the movie is also a strong critique of the indoctrination of religion. What I love so much is how the vampires pattern their appeals like traditional Christianity (everlasting life after death, a colorless community based on fellowship) yet still manages to point a finger at the destructive nature it can cause. Preacher boy being who he is and choosing what he chooses makes it very clear where Coogler stands in that conversation, and I’m interested to see if that messaging overshadows the other topics of the film.

Thematic elements aside, it’s a tightly written script that remixes From Dusk Till Dawn (another example of a cultural catalog) and has an extremely entertaining falling action. The cinematography is top notch, possibly his best looking film, and the directing is a perfect blend of flash and finesse. There are visual callbacks to a few horror classics, my favorite being The Shining, of course. I’m making plans to see it for a third time. Yes, it’s that good. 

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners