- Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” refers to a real-life event that took place in 1963, when a group of white supremacists planted a bomb in an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, to terrorize the local Black community. Four little girls were killed in the attack. Why, do you think, Randall chooses the form of a ballad – a very traditional, regularly rhymed and metered poetic form – to narrate that event? Is there any tension or contradiction between the form and the content of the poem? Why, do you think, the poet decided to tell the story from this particular point of view: of one of the girls’ mothers? What is the tragic irony about the mother not letting her child participate in a Freedom March?
2. Look up the definition of a haiku. What are some of the images represented in Richard Wright’s haiku? What mood/emotions/responses to these images evoke in you? Does your knowledge of Wright’s biography – that you got from reading the autobiographical “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” – affect the way you read, think about, or contextualize these poems?
3. How are Sonia Sanchez’s haiku different from those of Richard Wright? Are they traditional haiku, or do they experiment with the genre? Why, do you think, Sanchez decided to choose the form of the haiku to commemorate Emmett Till? (To learn more about Emmett Till’s murder, see: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till. You may Google the image that Jet magazine, addressed primarily to African-American readers, controversially placed on its cover after Till’s funeral – but please be advised that the image is extremely graphic and disturbing).
4. In 1971, Nikki Giovanni released a best-selling album Truth Is On Its Way, where she read her poetry accompanied by the music performed by the gospel ensemble The New York Community Choir. Listen to a song that combines the traditional spiritual song/hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul” (you can read the lyrics to the song here: https://library.timelesstruths.org/music/It_Is_Well_with_My_Soul/) and her poem “Nikki-Rosa”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dClTHcoPIXM.
How does the song correspond to the themes and the mood of the poem? (You may remember, from the previous semester, that spirituals are traditional songs with Christian themes that enslaved African-Americans have adapted to carry “hidden meanings” about their desire for freedom). Why, according to Giovanni, a white biographer would never understand her childhood?
(Fun fact, all these years later: Giovanni’s most esteemed academic biographer is a white woman, Virginia Fowler, who is also her life partner. Last year, I had the privilege to attend a workshop during which Fowler was presenting a critical reading of Giovanni’s early biography, with Nikki sitting in the back of the room. Asked to comment on one fact or another from her life, Giovanni replied with “I don’t know, you’re the biographer, not me.”)
5. Listen to Amiri Baraka read his poem “Black Art” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh2P-tlEH_w.
What emotions does this reading – together with the poem’s violent imagery of dying and degraded Black and mixed-raced women (“mulatto bitches whose brains are red jelly” because they worship Elizabeth Taylor), biological functions such as ejaculation and urination (“shoot/ come at you,” “shudder/ strangely after pissing”), and brutally murdering policemen (many of whom have traditionally been of Irish-American descent in the United States) – evoke in you? What, according to Baraka’s poem, should African-American poetry be? How is this view of poetry and its function different from what we traditionally think about poetry? Analyze the following fragments in particular:
“Poems are bullshit unless they are
teeth or trees or lemons piled
on a step.”
…
“we want ‘poems that kill.’
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns”
…
“Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly.”
…
“We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem”
6. Would you say that Nikki Giovanni’s “For Saundra” meets Baraka’s criteria for a revolutionary “Black poem”? Why can’t the speaker write a “poem that rhymes” or a “beautiful green tree poem”? What does she consider doing instead of writing a poem – and why, do you think, she eventually ends up writing the poem after all?
7. Listen (and read the lyrics) to “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” a song-poem by Gil Scott-Heron – a poet often credited as a “godfather of rap music”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBuXN6hp2iQ
What similarities – and/or differences – do you see between the visions of revolution in Giovanni and Baraka’s poems and that of Scott-Heron? Do you think Scott-Heron’s work is an example of a “Black poem” that Baraka calls for?
SERKAN CAMUZ-Question:2
Haiku is a traditional Japanese poem that is famous all over the world today. It is considered as the shortest kind of poetry in the world.
Izabela Florczak. “Ballad of Birmingham”, question 1. In my opinion, Dudley Randall chooses the form of ballad to make reading easier, because it is regularly rhymed and light to read, what helps to remember the content of the story. He probably chooses ballad form, because it also describes specific situation as a story with dialogues. The stanzas describes situations and events one by one, so it is easy to understand what happens. I think that they are not tensions and contributions between the form and content. For me it is clear and does not cause problems in understanding. Probably, the poet decided to write this story from one of the girl’s mothers point of view, because in this way he could show us the tragic context of bombing an African-American church in Birmingham. We can understand how devastating it was, when mother found daughter’s shoe and then, probably found out about her death. Telling the story from mother’s perspective, the poet shows readers in the clearest way tragedy, which has taken place and causes that we start to imagine mother’s emotions. What is the worst, mother told daughter to go to the church. I can only imagine that she was filled with remorse after baby’s death. This is the tragic irony that daughter wanted to go downtown and march in a Freedom March, but mother was worried about her and feared of an attack. She asked her baby to go to the church, which apparently should have been a safe place, but turned out to be the place of the worst catastrophe, which could be for mother.
Karolina Nowak. Question 4. I think the song corresponds to the mood in the poem in a way they both have this hopeful theme. It might seem that they both talk about difficult things. However, when you look closely enough, you start to think that maybe it is not about the harsh reality but about finding happiness and hope despite the pain and fear. I believe the white biographer would never understand the feeling of how happy it was to be able to enjoy the time and love of your family when every day you had to worry about the fact that someone might not come back home or something terrifying might have happened. To understand that the most precious thing was to have your family right by your side. To feel their love that gave you the strength to keep going: “And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that concerns you and though they fought a lot it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes difference but only that everybody is together and you an your sister have happy birthdays […] Black love is Black wealth.”
Liza Pototska.♥ Q.5.
First thing that catches my eye is the beginning of the poem – “Poems are bullshit unless they areteeth or trees or lemonspiledon a step.” From the first lines we see that author is quite aggressive about poem’s situation among black artist. I have a feeling that author tries to tell us what black poetry must be. And his vision is confusing. According to Baraka, poetry by black people should kill other people with its sense and truth. According to the author, in every black poem should be responses to racism and hard life of black people. These poems should scream out loud about their origin: “We want live words of the hip world live flesh & coursing blood. Hearts Brains Souls splintering fire. We want poems like fists beating niggers out of Jocks or dagger poems in the slimy bellies of the owner -jews.”
To be honest, my feeling is quite controversial. I like this poem for its honesty but I’m not agree with author’s position. It is quite hard for me to understand it fully because I’m not a black person, so I can’t imagine their pain. Maybe it is acceptable for such poet for his desire to show the pain but it is too radical.
This poem evokes in me hard feelings, as it must be. Every powerful and significant poem should evoke your feelings from the deepest parts of your heart. The mood of this poem is aggressive and full of pain. Such type of a mood can be used in each another poem connecting to the race problems in America. And we can also say, that every black artist should refer to his origin, maybe to pay more attention to different race problems. And it concerns not only black people but can be also used to talked about other races such as jews. In additition, I would like to say, that such poem can’t be bad if it talks about problems.
Author calls for freedom of speech of all black people. Calls for the pursuit of thought and act freely: “Poem scream poison gas on beasts in green berets. Clean out the world for virtue and love, let there be no love poems written until love can exist freely and cleanly.” For Baraka there is no world if it is not free for everyone. He sees black people as people who can’t get enough love from the world “Let Black people understand that they are the lovers” and it is the main reason, as for me, why he is so violent and truthful in his words.
Jakub Wojciechowski, question 6
I think „For Saundra” could be considered a „revolutionary black poem” by Amiri Baraka. I feel Baraka wants peotry to be different from the „old school” and show the current reality. „For Saundra” definately fullfil both of these criteria. It shows the world the way it actually i for countless people and gives up on the embellished narrative. Nikki Giovanni shows the world as it really is, ultimately concluding that fight and resistance is now more important that poetry. And, ironically, writes a poem to share this idea with the world.
Adam Sakowski. Question no.3 Before I start comparing Richard Wright’s and Sonia Sanchez’s haiku, I should say first what traditional haiku is. So, this is the shortest written form consisting of 17 syllables (one verse in Japan and 3 verses [5-7-5] in other countries). Traditionally, it’s themes describe momentary impressions, experiences an thoughts formerly related to nature, although nowadays any subject is possible. It is important that it is a simple form, so it’s devoid of any stylistic measures such as metaphor or animalization. Okay, since we have it explained, let’s move on to the comparison. Both R.Wright and S.Sanchez experimented with haiku. In case of R.Wright, the syllable system is standard (each haiku has 17 syllables, 5-7-5) but he uses metaphors (“Red sinking autumn sun took my name away”) and antopomorphizations (“A dog reads a telegram”) that are not the standard for this form. Whereas S.Sanchez is his complete opposite; all haiku have different number of syllables, e.g. the first haiku has 15 syllables (4-7-4) and the fourth has 10 (2-5-3). And what’s more, her haiku are simple without any stylistic measures. But one thing they have in common, they use haiku to express their opinions and thoughts about black people situations. In my opinion Sanchez decided to choose the form of the haiku because this form allows her to pay him tribute and express her feelings about the tragedy that happened in Money. Because of the form it’s understandable to everyone, thanks to which she makes a kind of promise to him that he will be remembered as a victim of the fight for freedom of black people and his suffering won’t be in vain.
Patrycja Ciupińska question 5
According to Baraka’s poem, African American poetry should be primarily with a strong message. Topics should be controversial and attract attention. Poetry should not be about simple topics such as love, but it should move us by containing truth about the world, the truth that is happening. And these are not situations that send us positive vibrations. The poem is full of anger and aggression – that is, how the world looks according to the author who strives for equality for each person. No matter who he is and where he comes from. Baraka shouts that love poems are nothing if not everyone has a chance to feel „her”. And this is probably not about finding love, but more about acceptance in the world. That’s what love is to him. We, as people reading poetry, are accustomed to reading about, for example, love that is breathtaking, rather than aggressively counting the errors of the world and people. Poetry, according to most people, should inspire us to feelings of bliss, falling in love should be written in beautiful and unusual words. The emotions that a poem evokes in me are nothing more than a surprise by the message of the poem.
Karol Grzegorzewski Question.4
I think that the song used in the poem is very unusual choice. When we are in sorrow we rather use some kinds of sad musics express and deepen our actual mood. The jazz music used in that is pretty happy and highlights the religious theme of the song which tells us to find a peace in our hearts and look for salvation in Lord rather than giving up to our pain, sorrow and anger. I think that the song correspond to the themes and the mood of the poem in a very similar way. The song is very happy and even is it isn’t shown very obviously in text the Giovanni’s mood seems also to be happy. She went through a lot during her childhood. General poverty of her family, her father’s drinking problems and the fact that she was changing her residence quite a few times would be a good reasons for her to hate her childhood and could result on her change on worse in the future. But in spite of everything she grew up on a normal and good person and what is even more surprising she enjoy her childhood. In the poem she said that she was a happy person because she had simple things like her mother all to herself when she needed her, normal happy birthdays and very good Christmases. All of these adversities were nothing to her because she had that one thing that kept her happy, her family. I think by her words that a white biographer would never understand her childhood she meant that at those times white people looked on blacks like on a worse people even if they didn’t show it openly. She wanted to emphasize that even if someone is black and isn’t wealthy , his childhood also can be beautiful and full of happiness.
Patrycja Kubacka response to Jakub’s answer question 6. I agree that Nikki Giovanni’s “For Saundra” meets Baraka’s criteria for a revolutionary “Black poem” . Amiri Baraka writes his poem in aggressive and violent tone. He writes different name-callings and uses bad words like “fuck, whores or niggers”. But he uses it for some purpose. His aim is to motivate others to write poems,that really gets to people’s hearts and minds. Poems should have some meaning and to have influence on readers. “we want “poems that kill.”” Poems should have really strong impact on the people. He uses a lots of words like “niggers, jews, whites” because he wants to pay attention on race topic and situation connected with it – prejudice and racism. “Let there be no love poems written until love can exist freely and cleanly” . He wants people not to write poems, until everyone lives in love and tolerance, not in hate. To stop racism and hate poems should show reality and truth even it is brutal, they should “kill”. In ” For Saundra” I can see that she resigned from beautiful words and narrative and she focused on what really matters – the meaning. The poem shows the situation in real view. She shows that fighting against it is better than writing beautiful poetry with rhymes. She fights against discrimination and obviously she is a participant of “Black Power” movement. Instead of writing poems she decides to “clean my gun and check my kerosene supply”. What counts is action, not beautiful words. What’s funny, she decided to write a poem about it. Maybe because it is the best way for her to put her thoughts and feelings into. She also wrote it, because she wanted to motivate others to action and change something.
History of Literature II: Spring 2020 