Jean Michel Basquiat In Front of One of His Paintings

CITY-AS-SCHOOL
by Kevin Young

Day-trips
in Washington Sq
Park, dropping

out--STONED
ON SAMO. Two hits
of acid a day

& each night
his father Gerard
worrying. Searches

the weeks high
& low. Finds his son
deep in a dice

game wit God.
Blood
shot. Drags Basquiat

like a cigarette
back to Bklyn
to his high school

in the city--
"Papa I'll be very very
famous one day"

delirious Basquiat
declares. Hard
headed, mama's boy,

spleenless--
on a double
dare from Al Diaz,

fills a box with Papa's
shaving cream,
at graduation giving

Principal a white face
full of menthol.
NO POINT

IN GOING BAK--smart
ass Basquiat empties
his locker, heads

for the big city
with Papa's cash
loan. GOOD PLACE

FOR A HANDOUT.
EASY MARK
SUCKER. Surviving

CHILD WITH SEED OF LIFE--
knows only ow to move
forward like a shark

or an 8-track, going
out of style. For broke.
PLUSH SAFE HE THINK:

Only the good
die numb--Bird
& Billie & Jimi

& Jesus--
his heroes
crowned

like a tooth.
GOLD WOOD.
Basquiat begins

with hisself, writes
FAMOUS
NEGRO ATHLETES

on downtown walls,
spraying SAMO
across SoHo--

"royalty, hroism
& the streets"--
covering galleries

with AARON
& OLD TIN. ORIGIN
OF COTTON. NO

MUNDANE OPTIONS.


I will admit, as of right now, I am still in the process of dissecting this poem. A small amount of research helped me to figure out that "CITY-AS-SCHOOL," the title of Kevin Young's poem, is not in reference to one of Jean Michel Basquiat's paintings. However, the title is referring to the high school Basquiat's attended in his home state, New York (City-As-School Location). Therefore, this poem is not ekphrastic, as I thought it was, but it is biographical. With that said,

Toi Derricotte's Visit to the University of Missouri-Columbia!

Poet Toi Derricotte

Tender, University of Pittsburgh Press, ( 1997)

Family Secrets    They told my cousin Rowena not to marry Calvin―she was too young, just eighteen, & he was too dark, too too dark, as if he had been washed in what we wanted to wipe off our hands. Besides, he didn't come from a good family. He said he was going to be a lawyer, but we didn't quite believe. The night they eloped to the Gotham Hotel, the whole house whispered―as if we were ashamed to tell it to ourselves. My aunt and uncle rushed down to the Gotham to plead― we couldn't imagine his hands on her! Families are conceived in many ways. The night my cousin Calvin lay down on her, that idol with its gold skin broke, & many of the gods we loved in secret were freed. —from Tender 1997

When speaking about confessional poetry, Toi Derricotte quoted her former mentor, poet Audre Lorde, by explaining “Shame keeps everyone silent; and silence keeps everything the same.” Indeed, this is very true and was one of many statements that stood out from Derricotte’s visit to our class. After reading Derricote’s poetry, attending her reading and having her personally visit our Contemporary African-American Poetry course, I now have a better understanding of the need to break that “silence” through the use of poetry.  There is a necessity for this kind of poetry, because it acts as a medium for comprehending the reality of conventions and customs, the consciousness of opinion and the desire for equality. For example, in her poem, “Family Secrets,” the speaker explains how the concept of believing that lighter skin tones are superior to darker skin tones in the black community is an idea that is lost when those of different shades come into physical contact with one another. The speaker states “The night my cousin Calvin lay/down on her, that idol with its gold skin/broke, & many of the gods we loved/in secret were freed.” Derricotte’s enthusiasm and explanation of Cave Canem, the poetry foundation co-founded by her, was also very informative. In her explanation, she explained how the program came about, because there as a need for black poets to have a safe haven where they could write the poetry they really wanted to. She told our class that “there are a lot of black poets out there who are invisible,” and that there are “a lot of people ready to really write great poetry.” Derricotte’s notion of there being a strong desire for providing black poets with a place to congregate artistically as writers was, indeed, true. As a poet, I admire Cave Canem. Hopefully, I can attend a retreat with her one day and write under her guidance. 

Street Scene, Washington D.C. 1937 (Eyes of the Great Depression)

Street Scene, Washington D.C. 1937
Photograph taken by John Vachon

Frida Kahlo's "My Dress Hangs There"

An Uncollected Poem from Elizabeth Bishop: "House Guest"

Elizabeth Bishop in 1954

House Guest

The sad seamstress
who stays with us this month
is small and thin and bitter.
No one can cheer her up.
Give her a dress, a drink,
roast chicken, or fried fish-
it's all the same to her.

She sits and watches TV.
No, she watches zigzags.
"Can you adjust the TV?"
"No," she says. No hope.
She watches on and on,
without hope, without air.

Her own clothes give us pause,
but she's not a poor orphan.
She has a father, a mother,
and all that, and she's earning
quite well, and we're stuffing
her with fattening foods.

We invite her to use the binoculars.
We say, "Come see the jets!"
We say, "Come see the baby!"
Or the knife grinder who cleverly
plays the National Anthem
on his wheel so shrilly.
Nothing helps.

She speaks; "I need a little
money to buy buttons."
She seems to think it's useless
to ask. Heavens, buy buttons,
if they"ll do any good,

the biggest in the world-
by the dozen, by the gross!
Buy yourself an ice cream,
a comic book, a car!

Her face is closed as a nut,
closed as a careful snail
or a thousand-year-old seed.
Does she dream of marriage?
Of getting rich? Her sewing
is decidedly mediocre.

Please! Take our money! Smile!
What on earth have we done?
What has everyone done
and when did it all begin?
Then one day she confides
that she wanted to be a nun
and her family opposed her.

Perhaps we should let her go,
or deliver her straight off
to the nearest convent-and wasn't
her month up last week, anyway?

Can it be that we nourish
one of the Fates in our bosoms?
Clotho, sewing our lives
with a bony little foot
on a borrowed sewing machine,
and our fates will be like hers,
and our hems crooked forever?

Elizabeth Bishop's "House Guest" is a brilliant poem summarizing how exhausting life can be if we allow others to predict our fate. In the fifth line of the eighth stanza, the speaker is finally allowed the opportunity to have some sort of understanding of why the seamstress/house guest is so depressed. The speaker states "Then one day she confides/that she wanted to be a nun/and her family opposed her." Relationships are very important in this poem. Why did the seamstress/house guest's family oppose her decision to become a nun? How old is this house guest? How old is the speaker? How did the seamstress arrive as a house guest of the speaker and his/her family? If I had to guess, I would speculate that the speaker is speaking from remembrance, and that the house guest's despair was such a huge part of her personality, that it taught the speaker a life lesson.  Anyhow, age is of small relevance when dealing with missed, life opportunities at the fault of someone else. In the last stanza, the speaker asks "Can it be that we nourish/one of the Fates in our bosoms?" This is a very important question for all readers, because it asks us to analyze our own situations and make sure we aren't being held back because we are allowing what others have predicted in our fate to stop us from living happy and meaningful lives.

In reference to the form and style of the poem, Bishop does a great job of being descriptive in setting up the scene for her readers. Punctuation is precise in this poem as well. One of the most outstanding things Bishop does in this poem is tie in Classical Mythology. In the last stanza the speaker has a revelation: "Clotho, sewing our lives/with a bony little foot/on a borrowed sewing machine/and our fates will be like her/and our hems crooked forever?" This last stanza dealing with Clotho, or the fate who spins the thread of life, is the big what if. What if we are all like the seamstress in some way? If so, she is a perfect example of why we shouldn't allow ourselves to be that way.

Shan Shui Chinese Landscape Painting and Yu Xuanji "Poem for the Willows by the River"

Poem for the willows by the river


Yu Xuanji (844?–868?)

Jade’s colour joins the river’s barren banks;

smoky clouds dance themselves into distant mansions.

Reflections spread on the surface of the autumn river;

flowers fall on the heads of fishermen.

Old roots hide the haunts of fishes;

branches bend to moor visiting boats.

The night sighs and sighs with wind and rain,

and unsettling dreams return more sadness to me.

Pieter Brueghel's The Wedding Dance in the Open Air

The Wedding Dance in the Open Air

William Carlos Williams

Disciplined by the artist

to go round

& round

in holiday gear

a riotously gay rabble of

peasants and their

ample-bottomed doxies

fills

the market square

featured by the women in

their starched

white headgear

they prance or go openly

toward the wood's

edges

round and around in

rough shoes and

farm breeches

mouths agape

Oya !

kicking up their heels

"The Blues is Not My Name" Reflections on the Carl Phillips Reading (and the age old question geared towards most poets of African descent)

Poet Carl Phllips

Passing

When the Famous Black poet speaks,

I understand

that his is the same unnervingly slow 

rambling method of getting from A to B 

that I hated in my father, 

my father who always told me 

don't shuffle.

The Famous Black Poet is 

speaking of the dark river in the mind 

that runs thick with the heroes of color, 

Jackie R., Bessie, Billie, Mr. Paige, anyone 

who knew how to sing or when to run. 

I think of my grandmother, said 

to have dropped dead from the evil eye, 

of my lesbian aunt who saw cancer and 

a generally difficult future headed her way 

in the still water 

of her brother's commode. 

I think of voodoo in the bottoms of soup-cans, 

and I want to tell the poet that the blues 

is not my name, that Alabama 

is something I cannot use 

in my business.

He is so like my father, 

I don't ask the Famous Black Poet, 

afterwards, 

to remove his shoes, 

knowing the inexplicable black 

and pink I will find there, a cut 

gone wrong in five places. 

I don't ask him to remove 

his pants, since that too 

is known, what has never known 

a blade, all the spaces between, 

where we differ . . .

I have spent years tugging 

between my legs, 

and proved nothing, really. 

I wake to the sheets I kicked aside, 

and examine where they've failed to mend 

their own creases, resembling some silken 

obstruction, something pulled 

from my father's chest, a bad heart, 

a lung,

the lung of the Famous Black Poet 

saying nothing I want to understand.

Earlier tonight I attended a poetry reading by Carl Phillips, poet and professor of English and African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis (one of my top choice schools to apply to for my graduate studies). Expectantly, the event went well. The poetry Phillips read seemed to have come very naturally to him. Such as water to a faucet, it seemed as if the pieces just flowed out of him because they were obligated and expected to.

Although I haven't studied much of his work, my favorite poem of his thus far is Passing. Coincidentally, one of my favorite books is Harlem Renaissance writer, Nella Larsen's novel Passing. Anyway, Phillips' piece is one that addresses the age old question to all poets of African descent or that identify themselves with the Black community: Are you a "Black Poet" and if so, how can/do you prove it in your art? That question is one that has taunted poets of African descent since the days of Phillis Wheatley, the fore-mother of African American poetry, disliked ironically by two opposing characters, Thomas Jefferson and Amiri Baraka for being "too black" for one and not "black enough" for the other. In the poem, the speaker informs readers that he "want[s] to tell the [Famous Black] poet that the blues/ is not [his] name!" Metaphorically speaking, the poet is stating that his existence is not defined by his socially constructed race. Of course he's of African descent, but why does he have to write for the sake of being Black?

During the  Q&A Discussion session of Phillips' reading, I inquired him about the concept of identity in African American poetry and whether or not he wrote intentionally from the perspective of any particular group or region he identified with or if he just wrote from the perspective of oneself.

He responded by notifying the audience that when he writes, he doesn't think of any particular audience. However, he added, that there are the obvious backgrounds that are within him consciously and subconsciously, such as being Black, gay and whatever else he could be considered. Furthermore, he answered that anything he writes is a general representation of humanity and "at the end of the day, all you can do is write what you write."

William Blake's "The Little Black Boy"

MY mother bore me in the southern wild,

    And I am black, but O, my soul is white!

White as an angel is the English child,

    But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree,

    And, sitting down before the heat of day,

She took me on her lap and kissèd me,

    And, pointing to the East, began to say:

'Look at the rising sun: there God does live,

    And gives His light, and gives His heat away,

And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive

    Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

'And we are put on earth a little space,

    That we may learn to bear the beams of love;

And these black bodies and this sunburnt face

    Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

'For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,

    The cloud will vanish; we shall hear His voice,

Saying, "Come out from the grove, my love and care,

    And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice."'

Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me,

    And thus I say to little English boy.

When I from black and he from white cloud free,

    And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,

I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear

    To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;

And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,

    And be like him, and he will then love me.

The coincidence happens to be that by chance, while studying Phillis Wheatley as the African poetess prodigy and fore-mother of African American poetry in my Contemporary African American Poetry class, I came across William Blake's "The Little Black Boy" in  Songs of Innocence. Indeed, some English majors, literary critics, poetry scholars and practicing poets may not understand the connection between Wheatley and Blake. However, I do. Many of Wheatley's critics have accused her of not being in tune with her African or Black culture. What they failed to realize and furthermore recognize is that, like in all poetry, the poet has a certain audience to attend to. Even though, primarily her poetry seems to renounce the African slave's struggle in (what were then) the British Colonies, a strict and thoughtful analysis of her work reveals that she was very in tune with what needed to be said by her for her people. 

Shortly after Wheatley's  inconspicuous death, Blake published "The Little Black Boy" in Songs of Innocence. Like most of Wheatley's poetry, this poem acknowledges its audience. That audience consisted of middle-class white citizens living in a patriarchal and pro-slavery society. Speaking to the same audience Wheatley spoke to, Blake was able to use his poetry in a  more direct way opposed to Wheatley due to their different social statuses. Socially critiquing the unjust ways of the American people, in "The Little Black Boy" Blake discusses race relations, religion, and equality for all mankind (just as Wheatley does indirectly in her poetry). The imagery of the poem is astonishing. The speaker in the poem, a Southern born black youth, explains that through folklore, his mother tells him that God is a giving God and has given them "a little space/That [they/everybody] may learn to bear the beams of love." Although there are many illusions and symbolic poetic aspects I can pull from this piece, I'll use that quote as the central thesis for Blake's poem. Within those two lines, Blake is stating that God has given everyone the ability to love and care for one another. That opinion is a counterargument against most of his peers who viewed white people as being superior to the enslaved Africans whom most thought were emotionless and unable to understand the theological virtue of love. 

Cento Poetry!!!

A Cento Poem (or At least an attempt)

Well, son, I'll tell you: (Hughes)

Abortions will not let you forget (Brooks)

the pleasure of loneliness (Giovanni)

against the pain (Giovanni)

of loving you (Giovanni)

[and]

Because I could not stop for Death (Dickinson)

yours is the Earth and everything in it (Kipling)

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my Son (Kipling)

I took lines from some of my favorite poems to create this Cento Poem (collage poem). The first line is from Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son." The second line comes from Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Mother." Lines 3, 4, and 5 come from Nikki Giovanni's "Balances." Of course, [and] comes from my head. Line 7 comes from Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." Lastly, lines 8 and 9 come from Rudyard Kipling's "If."

This Cento Poem (or poem quilt as I like to call it) somehow, by the grace of poetry, makes sense. Each poem ties into one another in such a way that allows for various lines to be pulled from their original setting and placed in a collage that flows. The first line of the poem is the first line of Hughes' "Mother to Son." In the poem the speaker is addressing the hardships of life and how quitting is not an option to her son. The second line is the first line of Brooks' "The Mother." "The Mother" is a poem in which the speaker addresses the issue of abortion and how mothers who fall victim to aborting their unborn child(ren), for whatever reason, place guilt upon themselves due to their child's missed chance(s). I chose Giovanni's "Balances" because I feel like balancing is very importing when dealing with life and death and the relationships we experience in between the two events, especially those between parent and child. In "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," the speaker tells the tale of how s/he, never really chose death, but rather it chose her. The last two lines from Kipling's "If" is the concluding message the speaker gives to his or her son following an instruction guide of how to live life.

By far, this is one of my favorite poetry exercises!

Spoken Word!

Kevin Young's "Lullaby" and Romare Bearden's "Early Morning"

Lullaby 

Sleep, shelter me.

Shuffle

me back into the deck

where I belong—

Sing no shout

your favorite song

until I fall

into your empty arms.

Let me be what

dust has to be, settling

over everything

& I promise to dream

of new houses & old

loves no longer. I swear,

sweet sleep,

I will summon no one

if you make me 

again mine.

Kevin Young's Watching the Good Trains Go By: A Suite of Poems to Accompany Collages by Romare Bearden is an extraordinary response to Bearden's works of art. Of course, I am very well aware that art generates and inspires art. However, Young's collection of poems in response to Bearden's collages exemplifies how brilliant art can inspire great poetry. Intuitively, my response to the poetry was to acknowledge  the heavy Blues aesthetic each piece contains. Just like Blues music, each poem expresses the speaker's raw emotion whether it be despair, hope, or  happiness. The reason Young's poetry works so well with Bearden's art is because Young's poems have layers to them like Bearden's collages. Obviously, Blues music is influential in both Beardern's and Young's work. I admire Young's poems because they add a contemporary twist to the genre of Blues poetry. Unlike traditional Blues poems, which are composed of repetition and have a specific rhyme scheme, Young's poems are not repetitious and are written in free verse. His use of line breaks is also very unique and mastered. The poet's style helps me as a reader to feel the emotion of the speaker of the poem. In the poem "Lullaby," the speaker metaphorically addresses Sleep as a superior with the power of allowing him or her to grasp a peace of mind. Out of all of the poetry responses, "Lullaby" is the most mellow. The poem shows the speaker softly requesting Sleep to allow him/her to return to his/her own peace of mind. For me, the poem raises the question: How important is ownership of one's self and being at peace with oneself? 

Kevin Young's "Watching the Good Trains Go By: A Suite of Poems to Accompany Collages by Romare Bearden"

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

The Poetry Game (Round 2)!

"A Children's Poem (realistically speaking)"

by El Williams III

Sporadic laughter
on early Sunday mornings
is always good

The flow of
green giggles makes
fantastical
the innocence of
the unsuspecting child

Like water,
the harmonic joy
should always be there

However,
life shares no empathy

The Poetry Game (Round 1)!

"A Poem, because I Can't Sleep (now)" 

by El Williams III

Behind the "Mighty Mo"
rises an attractive hotel
positioned to pay 10 times more
a compliment
than the insipid stream deserves

Elevated in luxury
(or what working folk would consider luxury)
the prying eye
is always
sucked into considering
what's on the outside

Soiled, but serene,
like bitter poetry
from the heartbroken,
the liquid flows
on and on

Soiled, but serene.

They never could understand
how something so natural
such as
God's work
or our love
could be contaminated

And neither could we,
but it's there.

Maya Angelou & Jean-Michel Basquiat Collaboration!

This is my very amateur interpretation of Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting for the cover of Maya Angelou's book of children's poetry "Life Doesn't Frighten Me." This piece came about as a project for my Art Appreciation class during my senior year at Cardinal Ritter Prep (Saint Louis, MO). I believe Angelou couldn't have chosen a more imaginative artist to produce the artwork for her book. Basquiat is one of the best. The poem itself isn't just a children's poem, it's an everyone's poem. The simple message of not being afraid of life is very powerful. Angelou is one of my favorite poets (of course) and Basquiat is one of my favorite artist!

Life Doesn’t Frighten Me

Shadows on the wall

Noises down the hall

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking loud

Big ghosts in a cloud

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Mean old Mother Goose

Lions on the loose

They don’t frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame

On my counterpane

That doesn’t frighten me at all.

I go boo

Make them shoo

I make fun

Way they run

I won’t cry

So they fly

I just smile

They go wild

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Tough guys fight

All alone at night

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

Panthers in the park

Strangers in the dark

No, they don’t frighten me at all.

That new classroom where

Boys all pull my hair

(Kissy little girls

With their hair in curls)

They don’t frighten me at all.

Don’t show me frogs and snakes

And listen for my scream,

If I’m afraid at all

It’s only in my dreams.

I’ve got a magic charm

That I keep up my sleeve

I can walk the ocean floor

And never have to breathe.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Not at all

Not at all.

Life doesn’t frighten me at all.

- Maya Angelou

Gotta Love Dr. Seuss!

"The Soiling of Old Glory," Stanley J. Forman's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. Boston, April 5, 1976.

Although this photograph deals more with American politics and history, rather than American literature (particularly poetry), I believe that any picture can be viewed as poetry captured. The irony of this photograph is extremely poetic. Of course, art inspires art. However, History and Politics inspire art as well. Embrace it and make it beautiful.