tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595859379914711075.post3126776591625011917..comments2024-03-19T18:51:58.496-05:00Comments on Cultural Front: 10 years reading Leadbelly, Pt. 1: Amiri Baraka and Tyehimba Jess H. Rambsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16862209871277442972noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-595859379914711075.post-66227287899837192742015-11-04T04:38:12.930-06:002015-11-04T04:38:12.930-06:00I have been thinking about Baraka and his relation...I have been thinking about Baraka and his relationship to music on the page for a while. I can see his embrace of sound and the improvisational (that comes out of practice and mastery). I have been lately thinking that he was in pursuit of the frequency (actual or metonymic) of Great Black Music so that he might wage a sonar attack on oppression (as he describes in one of his early short stories). Perhaps one of his aesthetic wranglings was to approach the writing as if the organization of sounds, words, and what exists behind/between the sounds and words could not only deconstruct oppression, but set our ears/eyes for a new world. What we experience propels us forward.<br /><br />Brother Jess seems more set on notation. It seems for him the notes are atomic and contain the weight of history both personal and cultural. He seems to be in pursuit of re-presenting those notes through his very inventive approaches to form, and he seems to be seeking a way to make the form resonate with the personal and cultural in a way that makes us rethink what is going on in those notes. Perhaps his aim is for us to feel about his poems like the viewers of "Men in Black" feel when they see the galaxy on Orion the Cat's belt. What we see makes us pause.<br /><br /> I'm still thinking through this comparison, but Baraka is like Ras the Exhorter and Jess is like Rinehart ?????<br />Or, maybe "A Love Supreme" and "All Blues"??Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com