Showing posts with label Flirting with Poetry Analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flirting with Poetry Analysis. Show all posts
Let's jump right in: Jayne Cortez is definitely not Harryette Mullen, but their work compliments one another. While the Black Arts movement heavily influenced Mullen, her experience came through the filter of being states away from its locales (Texas versus California or New York) and was assuredly tempered by her collegiate career at the Universities of Texas and California, Santa Cruz. Cortez, who is twenty years older (b. 1936), began her career twenty years earlier, coming of age artistically at the height and center of the Arts and Civil Rights movements. While Cortez would later begin her own academic career as a lecturer and eventually professor, and the passion both poets bring to their work unites them, they remain distinct via a near mind (Mullen) versus body (Cortez) duality.
I Am New York City, written after Cortez’ move to New York and first collected in her 1973 “Scarifications,” appears first and foremost on many a website dedicated to her work. After watching her perform it I understand why. She has a powerful way of reading the poem, a pushing momentum which communicates not only a familiarity with her work, but blends a tone both proud and searching for connection. There is a way select stanzas are arranged:
“give me my confetti of flesh
my marquee of false nipples
my sideshow of open beaks
in my nose of soot
in my ox blood eyes”
-- suggesting an interplay of statements and asides familiar to African American tradition. This call and response, a musical tradition transposed from African song onto the blues, is reflected in the poem’s delivery and format. As published in “Coagulations: New and Selected Poems,” I Am is broken into short lines arranged in stanzas varying in length: pinpricks of thought, each one celebrating an aspect of the New York environment, and provoking the next into a turbulent, but near seamless reading of the piece. The effect is not the stream-of-consciousness embodied by Mullen’s work, but it does not have to be to remain potent.
Like I Am New York City, Do You Think continues Cortez’ use of call and response, but extends the rhythm and organization through the entire poem. Your understanding changes with the format; those pinpricks of thought now hang like an army of independent clauses, forcing you to ponder each individual image and its connotations before moving onto the next phrase. From the first stanza:
“Do you think this is a sad day
a sad night
full of tequila full of el dorado
full of banana solitudes”
-- the poems tone shifts very visibly; “full of tequila” calls to mind a faulty remedy for weighty issues, and “el dorado” an image of both elusive fantasy and epic heartbreak for those standing in the way of attaining something so impossible. The terms “chorizo,” “cuchifritos,” and “barrio” reinforce the cultural blending seen in I Am New York City. Do You Think lacks, however, the celebratory spirit of I Am; its tone instead feels pained and nostalgic (“in the crème de menthe of my youth, the silver tooth of my age”). It is hard to explain where your mind goes with the poem’s last lines:
“Do you really think time speaks english
in the men’s room”
-- but you get the sense that image, that “men’s room” is a locus for metaphors of regret, shame, miscommunication, and sexual and ethnic politics.
So Many Feathers, first collected in 1977’s “Mouth on Paper,” continues the use of political metaphor through invoking Josephine Baker: actress, entertainer, and banana-skirted Twentieth Century political/sexual/racial powder keg. In tone, the poem embeds hints of the bitter nostalgia permeating Do You Think within unabashed adoration for Baker and her legacy. In the first of three large, emotional stanzas, Cortez’ Baker dances a “magnetic dance,” and possesses “such terrible beauty.” The praise darkens when the second stanza invokes the political terrors of Durban, South Africa. It feels like Cortez -- reflecting on her own life in racially charged 1960’s Los Angeles and involvement in the Civil Rights movement -- pleads with Baker, who was unaware (but must have known) about the “death white boers” (Afrikaans) and their “torture chambers made of black flesh and feathers.”
The repeated image of the feathers refers to one of Bakers more famous costumes, itself topless by design, a symbol of beauty, but also the baggage attached to black sexuality: is it art, or exploitation? Cortez never answers the question, instead moving toward another tier of Josephine’s life, and the third (and longest) stanza of the poem. Here, “Josephine of the birdheads, ostrich plumes, bananas and sparkling G-strings” is also Josephine the “rosette of resistance;” the concept of doubling and “double-jointed” repeated a dozen times, implying the cascade of dualities Josephine’s (the name itself would later repeat into infinity) black body twisted and expanded to satisfy.
Cortez’ poetry is not always as nostalgic and loving like So Many Feathers. As a product of turbulent times, she also created works reflective of the tension, frustration, and bitchiness (as she describes it) necessary for creative expression at the time. While Rape is one of the better expressions of that explosive passion, the idea of where giants like Cortez think we will go from here appeals more strongly. Tell Me, from the 1984 collection “On All Fronts” blends the lamenting passion shown for Josephine Baker with the free jazz rhythm begun in Do You Think, with the rage expressed on Inez’ behalf and all the struggle of 40 years of attempted civil progress. Through images of “plutonium sludge,” “contaminated puss,” the vexation of nerves, ideals of being a “nameless homeless sexless piece of shit” getting high off of neutron bombs, and a desperate plea for it to be all a dream, she asks if, after everything we’ve been through, is this all we have?
I Am New York City, written after Cortez’ move to New York and first collected in her 1973 “Scarifications,” appears first and foremost on many a website dedicated to her work. After watching her perform it I understand why. She has a powerful way of reading the poem, a pushing momentum which communicates not only a familiarity with her work, but blends a tone both proud and searching for connection. There is a way select stanzas are arranged:
“give me my confetti of flesh
my marquee of false nipples
my sideshow of open beaks
in my nose of soot
in my ox blood eyes”
-- suggesting an interplay of statements and asides familiar to African American tradition. This call and response, a musical tradition transposed from African song onto the blues, is reflected in the poem’s delivery and format. As published in “Coagulations: New and Selected Poems,” I Am is broken into short lines arranged in stanzas varying in length: pinpricks of thought, each one celebrating an aspect of the New York environment, and provoking the next into a turbulent, but near seamless reading of the piece. The effect is not the stream-of-consciousness embodied by Mullen’s work, but it does not have to be to remain potent.
Like I Am New York City, Do You Think continues Cortez’ use of call and response, but extends the rhythm and organization through the entire poem. Your understanding changes with the format; those pinpricks of thought now hang like an army of independent clauses, forcing you to ponder each individual image and its connotations before moving onto the next phrase. From the first stanza:
“Do you think this is a sad day
a sad night
full of tequila full of el dorado
full of banana solitudes”
-- the poems tone shifts very visibly; “full of tequila” calls to mind a faulty remedy for weighty issues, and “el dorado” an image of both elusive fantasy and epic heartbreak for those standing in the way of attaining something so impossible. The terms “chorizo,” “cuchifritos,” and “barrio” reinforce the cultural blending seen in I Am New York City. Do You Think lacks, however, the celebratory spirit of I Am; its tone instead feels pained and nostalgic (“in the crème de menthe of my youth, the silver tooth of my age”). It is hard to explain where your mind goes with the poem’s last lines:
“Do you really think time speaks english
in the men’s room”
-- but you get the sense that image, that “men’s room” is a locus for metaphors of regret, shame, miscommunication, and sexual and ethnic politics.
So Many Feathers, first collected in 1977’s “Mouth on Paper,” continues the use of political metaphor through invoking Josephine Baker: actress, entertainer, and banana-skirted Twentieth Century political/sexual/racial powder keg. In tone, the poem embeds hints of the bitter nostalgia permeating Do You Think within unabashed adoration for Baker and her legacy. In the first of three large, emotional stanzas, Cortez’ Baker dances a “magnetic dance,” and possesses “such terrible beauty.” The praise darkens when the second stanza invokes the political terrors of Durban, South Africa. It feels like Cortez -- reflecting on her own life in racially charged 1960’s Los Angeles and involvement in the Civil Rights movement -- pleads with Baker, who was unaware (but must have known) about the “death white boers” (Afrikaans) and their “torture chambers made of black flesh and feathers.”
The repeated image of the feathers refers to one of Bakers more famous costumes, itself topless by design, a symbol of beauty, but also the baggage attached to black sexuality: is it art, or exploitation? Cortez never answers the question, instead moving toward another tier of Josephine’s life, and the third (and longest) stanza of the poem. Here, “Josephine of the birdheads, ostrich plumes, bananas and sparkling G-strings” is also Josephine the “rosette of resistance;” the concept of doubling and “double-jointed” repeated a dozen times, implying the cascade of dualities Josephine’s (the name itself would later repeat into infinity) black body twisted and expanded to satisfy.
Cortez’ poetry is not always as nostalgic and loving like So Many Feathers. As a product of turbulent times, she also created works reflective of the tension, frustration, and bitchiness (as she describes it) necessary for creative expression at the time. While Rape is one of the better expressions of that explosive passion, the idea of where giants like Cortez think we will go from here appeals more strongly. Tell Me, from the 1984 collection “On All Fronts” blends the lamenting passion shown for Josephine Baker with the free jazz rhythm begun in Do You Think, with the rage expressed on Inez’ behalf and all the struggle of 40 years of attempted civil progress. Through images of “plutonium sludge,” “contaminated puss,” the vexation of nerves, ideals of being a “nameless homeless sexless piece of shit” getting high off of neutron bombs, and a desperate plea for it to be all a dream, she asks if, after everything we’ve been through, is this all we have?
As you read this, I am now two full years into my love affair with Harryette Mullen and her poetry. For someone who never fully “got” what poetry was all about, who is just now building a lexicon of terms to define the types of prose I come across -- in rhyme, slant rhyme, iambic pentameter -- it came as a shock to read an author whose work almost instantly expanded my mindscape, whose words were no longer clumps of alphabet soup, but virile, moving images. A poet’s pressures, lifestyle, and location drastically influence the product they create, and Mullen crafts works endowed with such divergent meaning that her every stanza reflects the massive network of influences and emotions that culminate from a lifetime of teaching and absorbing. In doing so, her poetry pulls your mind outside itself: a sensual, psychedelic journey.
In Mullen’s first book, Trimmings, she fashions a collection of “serial prose poems that use playful, punning, fragmented language to explore sexuality, femininity, and domesticity,” corresponding to the “Objects” section of Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons (Mullen, ix). In reading Tender Buttons as a reference point, I found that Mullen’s style -- sexual, entendre-laden stream-of-consciousness -- was indeed a direct reflection of Stein’s influence. While Trimmings poems go unnamed, their structure -- often short bursts of streaming thought -- allow for many of the one to five line pieces to be quoted in their entirety:
“Starving to muffler moans, boa scarfs her up. Feathers tickle
her nose. Kerchief, fichu. Gesundheit.” (Mullen 6)
When this collection was published in 1991, Mulled had just begun teaching at Cornell University in New York. I find it hard to understand just what this poem’s tone is, but the many ways the language could be dissected keep the mind occupied past the initial mood assessment. The muffler could be a scarf, connecting to the boa the unknown subject wears, or could refer to stifling her moans, which connects to “fichu” in the second line. Fichu is a French word, from the past participle of “ficher”: to stick in. Muffler: scarf, as moans: stick in. The feather boa calls to mind a provocatively dressed woman, while “boa” itself could refer to a snake, and, in turn, a (large) penis. “Scarfs her up,” suggests the garment wrapped around her, or the woman gobbled down via oral sex.
In all, Mullen’s work forces us to ask just what is poetic language? Does a simple sentence like the previous work qualify? How should the way the words are structured compare in importance to the actual words? Is it enough for a poet to choose language that sets the reader off their expectations, or does it need to be eclectic as well? Consider the final poem from Trimmings:
“Thinking thought to be a body wearing language as clothing or language a body of thought which is a soul or body the clothing of a soul, she is veiled in silence. A veiled, unavailable body makes an available space.” (Mullen 62)
Formatted with no particular structure save that dictated by the confines of the page, this poem is a great capstone for the poet’s first collection. The interplay between alliteration, repetition, and the varied interpretations of tense mood and bundled symbol goes off like a subconscious explosion. There is nothing extraordinary about her vocabulary here, but her form suggests a connection between the mental and the tangible, that the two are intertwined and inseparable.
S*PeRM**K*T, released one year after Trimmings, again responds to Stein’s Tender Buttons, albeit this time the “Food” section. Appropriately, the collection was fully realized through Mullen’s culinary memories with Cornell friend Gil Ott, who provided the photographs of his local supermarket. In her own words, S*PeRM**K*T materialized from an interest in “the stuff of life” combined with “the collision of contemporary poetry with the language of advertising and marketing, the clash of fine art aesthetics with mass consumption and globalization, and the interaction of literacy and identity.” (Mullen, x) As a result, many of the works read like this (also unnamed) poem:
“Plushy soft tissues off screen generic rolls as the world turns on re-vivid revivals rewinds reruns recycling itself. A box of blue movie equals smurf sex. Poor peewee couldn’t shake it. Wished he had a bigger one. Per inch of clear resolution’s color window, more thick squares snag a softer touch.” (Mullen, 78)
Mullen represents branding and pop culture via “Pee-wee Herman” (Paul Reubens) and his 1991 indecent exposure arrest and the daytime soap opera “As The World Turns.” This and further brand imagery gets swirled with technology references (clear resolution and color window could refer to a television), an aside of sexual anxiety (penis size being a major component of masculine identity), and the supermarket consumer conflict of generic versus name brand purchasing power. Mullen never attempts to provide a sort of answer or solution to the images she summons; that would be anathema to her style -- as poet, her words merely point you in the right direction. It becomes the reader’s job to interpret the prose accordingly.
By the time Muse & Drudge was published in 1995, Harryette Mullen had returned to California, and was teaching at UCLA. Her poems changing structure reflects the change in situation. In a pattern holding throughout the entire book, four tight, lyrical stanzas have replaced Mullen’s trademark sips of lucid thought. An imagined meeting of Sappho, the Greek poet, with Sapphire, “an iconic black woman who refuses to be silenced”, inspired the shift. (Mullen, xi) The overall effect is not as poignant as her first two collections, but she still provides her reader with intriguing imagery:
“I dream a world
and then what
my soul is resting
but my feet are tired” (Mullen, 101)
Through this first stanza of yet another unnamed poem, Mullen asks the reader (and, more importantly, herself) the most inspiring or damning question available to an artist: what next? What is the point of dreaming these perfectly false landscapes if all we create are shadows on a cave wall?
Continued next week in Part 2: Jayne Cortez
