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