Claude McKay became one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. This cultural movement was a cosmopolitan grouping of racially black artists from diverse places and ethnicities. McKay was born in a farming family in Jamaica. He began writing poetry as a child. McKay's talent for poetry led him to immigrate to the United States in early adulthood. Once in the United States, McKay witnessed the extreme racial polarization, persecution and discrimination prevalent of the age.
McKay's work reflects the racial issues of the time. One of the unique aspects of McKay as writer though is his thorough integration of his Caribbean background; much of his work uses the dialect and local color details of his native landscape. While the Caribbean local color provides one paradigm to examine McKay's work, in another way McKay uses his heritage to address the racial problems in the United States that were current at the time.
Themes that McKay addressed included personal and collective identities, racial unification and resistance to oppression. McKay's poem, "A Midnight Woman to the Bobby," uses heavy Jamaican dialect and references that create local color. However, the plight of the woman who is harrassed by the police officer--the subject of the work--is a situation universal to the black American experience in the Harlem Renaissance and before.
In "The Harlem Dancer," the narrator describes a beautiful street performer that the audience admires. Despite the performer's beauty and passion, McKay's narrator senses that, "her self was not in that strange place," (501). Re-examining the poem, it appears as if the performer's "self" was absent because she lost her identity, her identification with her heritage and or race. McKay describes her performance as, "graceful[ly] and calm," and the appearance of her hair as, "her swarthy neck black shiny curls / Luxuriant fell;" (501). The narrator implies with these quotes that she is "passing" for white, that she has lost her true self under her "falsely-smiling face."
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Pushing Buttons in "Susie Asado"
In describing her work in Tender Buttons, Gertrude Steins states that, "I struggled with the ridding myself of nouns, I knew nouns must go in poetry as they had gone in prose if anything that is everything was to go on meaning something. And so I went on with this exceeding struggle of knowing really knowing what a thing was really knowing it knowing anything I was seeing anything I was feeling so that its name could be something, by its name coming to be a thing in itself as it was but would not be anything just and only as a name” (242). Her quote describes her struggle with sounds to accurate describe the objects that provoke her feelings. An excellent example of Stein's struggle with nouns, sounds, meaning and feeling is with her piece "Susie Asado' (185).
In "Susie Asado," Stein initiates the piece with the repetition of "sweet" over and over again. The repetition of the word leads the reader to hear the word sound differently and to separate the sign, the concept of "sweet," from it's signifier or word. At the last repetition, Stein adds the word "tea," completing a common phrase. However, the phrase takes on a sensual and seductive tone quickly because readers connect the "sweet tea" concept to Susie Asado which follows directly after (lines 1 - 2). Just the word choice "asado" connotes seduction because of its allusion to meat. The Spanish-English Collins Dictionary describes "asado" as "roast" or "barbecue" ("asado"). Susie is then viewed as a piece of meat, a carnal attraction.
Susie Asado is the narrator's fetish and object of desire.
Stein continues to separate signifiers from their signified---rambling mismatched words that have no meaning being next to each other. The meaning of the words and what they add to the sensual tone of the poem are clear even when they are mismatched. Sensual nouns and adjectives describe the narrator's opinion of the meaty Susie “...slips slips hers. /...This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly. These are the / wets these day the sets to leave a crown to Incy” (lines 6 – 9).
However, “Susie Asado” is an excellent example of Stein's struggle to express meaning without the use of nouns. The most evocative words in the text are the verbs; they express the most. “Tremble,” “shade and shove and render,” “drink,” “hold,” “lean,” and “slips” all express the sensuality of Stein's “rare bit” of Susie. Stein embraces the syllables and the constraints that the English language puts into meaning, how shaped by patriarchy and its constructions each words becomes. Repetition and rambling, she shows, are the mechanisms that start the deconstruction of language's conventions. Stein attempts to break the barriers of language conventions while flaunting her personal rebellion of social-sexual constructions with her poem's homoerotic topic. In short, Stein turns up the “tenderness” and pushes the “buttons” of her readers while exploring meaning, how to express feeling and language constraints under patriarchy with her heated poems.
Works Cited
"asado" http://dictionary.reverso.net/spanish-english/asado
"Susie Asado." Tender Buttons. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, Eds. W. W. Norton & Co: New York, 2003. 185.
In "Susie Asado," Stein initiates the piece with the repetition of "sweet" over and over again. The repetition of the word leads the reader to hear the word sound differently and to separate the sign, the concept of "sweet," from it's signifier or word. At the last repetition, Stein adds the word "tea," completing a common phrase. However, the phrase takes on a sensual and seductive tone quickly because readers connect the "sweet tea" concept to Susie Asado which follows directly after (lines 1 - 2). Just the word choice "asado" connotes seduction because of its allusion to meat. The Spanish-English Collins Dictionary describes "asado" as "roast" or "barbecue" ("asado"). Susie is then viewed as a piece of meat, a carnal attraction.
Susie Asado is the narrator's fetish and object of desire.
Stein continues to separate signifiers from their signified---rambling mismatched words that have no meaning being next to each other. The meaning of the words and what they add to the sensual tone of the poem are clear even when they are mismatched. Sensual nouns and adjectives describe the narrator's opinion of the meaty Susie “...slips slips hers. /...This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly. These are the / wets these day the sets to leave a crown to Incy” (lines 6 – 9).
However, “Susie Asado” is an excellent example of Stein's struggle to express meaning without the use of nouns. The most evocative words in the text are the verbs; they express the most. “Tremble,” “shade and shove and render,” “drink,” “hold,” “lean,” and “slips” all express the sensuality of Stein's “rare bit” of Susie. Stein embraces the syllables and the constraints that the English language puts into meaning, how shaped by patriarchy and its constructions each words becomes. Repetition and rambling, she shows, are the mechanisms that start the deconstruction of language's conventions. Stein attempts to break the barriers of language conventions while flaunting her personal rebellion of social-sexual constructions with her poem's homoerotic topic. In short, Stein turns up the “tenderness” and pushes the “buttons” of her readers while exploring meaning, how to express feeling and language constraints under patriarchy with her heated poems.
Works Cited
"asado" http://dictionary.reverso.net/spanish-english/asado
"Susie Asado." Tender Buttons. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair, Eds. W. W. Norton & Co: New York, 2003. 185.
Walker's Eyes Were Watching Hurston
Alice Walker adored the writing of Harlem Renaissance-era writer Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston wrote the black Southern woman's experience without apology or self-consciousness. In Walker's book, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, Walker writes of her quest to find Hurston's unmarked grave in Florida and give her memory the honored she felt she was owed. In Walker's The Color Purple, she memorializes her idol by using similar themes, especially those demonstrated in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Both novels incorporate themes of sensuality, connections with nature, female relationships and the post-slavery black experience. In Walker's novel The Color Purple, the main character is Celie a black woman in an abusive marriage whose life is marked with suffering. As a very young teenager, Celie's children are taken from her by their father, her step-father. Shortly after, Celie is married off to an abusive man. Celie's husband separates her from her anchor in life, her sister, Nettie. incorporates the tone and style of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie goes through tragedies similar to Celie's. Janie transforms from a naive little girl to an independent woman who realizes that she must value herself. Janie's pubescent changes is symbolized by the blossoming pear tree. Hurston writes of Janie's pear tree, "It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; for the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously," (Hurston 10). Janie experiences sexuality through her identification with nature, she observes the bees harvesting pollen from flowers. "She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace ad the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight! So this was marriage!" (Hurston 11). Janie's innocence and naivete are reflected in Celie's character, despite Celie having birthed two children as a teen. Janie's ideas and observance of sensuality in nature express a more fulfilling and idealistic view of love; something that neither of these women probably every received.
If fact, rather than looking for romantic satisfaction, Celie endures more sexual abuse than Janie---almost as if Walker wanted to emphasize the black woman's struggle more than Hurston. Also, as characters, Janie has more awareness than Celie has at the beginning of The Color Purple. Janie's experiences are more poignant.
Both novels incorporate themes of sensuality, connections with nature, female relationships and the post-slavery black experience. In Walker's novel The Color Purple, the main character is Celie a black woman in an abusive marriage whose life is marked with suffering. As a very young teenager, Celie's children are taken from her by their father, her step-father. Shortly after, Celie is married off to an abusive man. Celie's husband separates her from her anchor in life, her sister, Nettie. incorporates the tone and style of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie goes through tragedies similar to Celie's. Janie transforms from a naive little girl to an independent woman who realizes that she must value herself. Janie's pubescent changes is symbolized by the blossoming pear tree. Hurston writes of Janie's pear tree, "It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; for the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously," (Hurston 10). Janie experiences sexuality through her identification with nature, she observes the bees harvesting pollen from flowers. "She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace ad the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight! So this was marriage!" (Hurston 11). Janie's innocence and naivete are reflected in Celie's character, despite Celie having birthed two children as a teen. Janie's ideas and observance of sensuality in nature express a more fulfilling and idealistic view of love; something that neither of these women probably every received.
If fact, rather than looking for romantic satisfaction, Celie endures more sexual abuse than Janie---almost as if Walker wanted to emphasize the black woman's struggle more than Hurston. Also, as characters, Janie has more awareness than Celie has at the beginning of The Color Purple. Janie's experiences are more poignant.
Color Sparkles in Prismatic Color
Marianne Moore gracefully etched her way into a lasting place in poetry when it was overwhelmingly masculine. She did so by composing her poetry with unique style and many meticulous details. At first glance, Moore's poetry appears to be nature-oriented and full of facts. However, upon closer examination, Moore uses nature and natural descriptions to illustrate the narrator's deeper feelings and conflicts.
For example, "In the Days of Prismatic Colour," Moore describes the "murkiness" and "opacity" of truth. The way Moore writes the poem seems to describe the evolution of human beings from the general chaos of the depths of the ocean. She describes the the evolution in an objective, distanced way, "Part of it was crawling, part of it
was about to crawl, the rest
was torpid in its lair." In the short-legged, fit-
ful advance, the gurgling and all the minutiae--we have the
classic
multitude of feet." If one transposes this general struggle of the human condition into the context of era of the "Lost Generation" that Moore participated in, her poem takes on further meaning. Suddenly, the struggle becomes the animal against "the wave" that threatens to obscure truth in its murkiness. Moore's narrator seems to acknowledge and respond to this struggle with the statement, "The wave may go over it if it likes.
Know that it will be there when it says,
'I shall be there when the wave has gone by'." Moore uses the nature imagery to describe society's deep angst and search for meaning in the wake of the first World War.
For example, "In the Days of Prismatic Colour," Moore describes the "murkiness" and "opacity" of truth. The way Moore writes the poem seems to describe the evolution of human beings from the general chaos of the depths of the ocean. She describes the the evolution in an objective, distanced way, "Part of it was crawling, part of it
was about to crawl, the rest
was torpid in its lair." In the short-legged, fit-
ful advance, the gurgling and all the minutiae--we have the
classic
multitude of feet." If one transposes this general struggle of the human condition into the context of era of the "Lost Generation" that Moore participated in, her poem takes on further meaning. Suddenly, the struggle becomes the animal against "the wave" that threatens to obscure truth in its murkiness. Moore's narrator seems to acknowledge and respond to this struggle with the statement, "The wave may go over it if it likes.
Know that it will be there when it says,
'I shall be there when the wave has gone by'." Moore uses the nature imagery to describe society's deep angst and search for meaning in the wake of the first World War.
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