What's left is footage:
the hours before Camille,
1969—hurricane parties,
palm trees leaning in the wind,
fronds blown back, a woman's hair.
Then after: the vacant lots,
boats washed ashore,
a swamp where graves had been.
I recall how we huddled
all night in our small house,
moving between rooms,
emptying pots filled with rain.
The next day, our house
on its cinderblocks—seemed
to float in the flooded yard:
no foundation beneath us,
nothing I could see tying
us to the land. In the water,
our reflection trembled,
disappeared when I bent
to touch
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Flounder
Here, she said, put this on your head.
She handed me a hat.
you 'bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.
Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs dangle,
circling them just above water
and silver backs of minnows
flitting here then there between
the sun spots and the shadows.
This is how you hold the pole
to cast the line out straight.
Now put that worm on your hook,
throw it out and wait.
She sat spitting tobacco juice
into a coffee cup.
Hunkered down when she felt the bite,
jerked the pole straight up
reeling and tugging hard at the fish
that wriggled and tried to fight back.
A flounder, she said, and you can tell
'cause one of its sides is black.
The other is white, she said.
It landed with a thump.
I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,
switch sides with every jump.
Commentary:In this poem she is fishing with her aunt. Her father is white while her mother is black and that she is encouraged to take on a white identity due to her light skin. She was treated poorly when she was associated with her mother and her black history and treated with more respect when claiming she was white, like her father. Flounder are a group of flatfish species. They are demersal fish found at the bottom of coastal lagoons and estuaries of the Northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There's the metaphor of the fish flipping from white to black. "Jump" alludes to a slave jumping to his master's orders so he doesn't get whipped. "She handed me a hat" has alliteration with hat and handed; there's alliterations throughout, but this one is most visible. The tone is set by it being in the country fishing of relaxation and playfulness while luring in fish. So the tone is relaxed and playful, with a vengeful twist of getting back at whites; the black woman can say she's white and do vengeful acts on behalf of her other side of being black. But fishing with an aunt named Sugar might connote an ambiguous theme where the speaker could be luring in a white man, or a well-off black man with wants a white woman, to marry. The main focus on this poem is to talk about issue of racism.
She handed me a hat.
you 'bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.
Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs dangle,
circling them just above water
and silver backs of minnows
flitting here then there between
the sun spots and the shadows.
This is how you hold the pole
to cast the line out straight.
Now put that worm on your hook,
throw it out and wait.
She sat spitting tobacco juice
into a coffee cup.
Hunkered down when she felt the bite,
jerked the pole straight up
reeling and tugging hard at the fish
that wriggled and tried to fight back.
A flounder, she said, and you can tell
'cause one of its sides is black.
The other is white, she said.
It landed with a thump.
I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,
switch sides with every jump.
Commentary:In this poem she is fishing with her aunt. Her father is white while her mother is black and that she is encouraged to take on a white identity due to her light skin. She was treated poorly when she was associated with her mother and her black history and treated with more respect when claiming she was white, like her father. Flounder are a group of flatfish species. They are demersal fish found at the bottom of coastal lagoons and estuaries of the Northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There's the metaphor of the fish flipping from white to black. "Jump" alludes to a slave jumping to his master's orders so he doesn't get whipped. "She handed me a hat" has alliteration with hat and handed; there's alliterations throughout, but this one is most visible. The tone is set by it being in the country fishing of relaxation and playfulness while luring in fish. So the tone is relaxed and playful, with a vengeful twist of getting back at whites; the black woman can say she's white and do vengeful acts on behalf of her other side of being black. But fishing with an aunt named Sugar might connote an ambiguous theme where the speaker could be luring in a white man, or a well-off black man with wants a white woman, to marry. The main focus on this poem is to talk about issue of racism.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Domestic Work, 1937
All week she's cleaned
someone else's house,
stared down her own face
in the shine of copper--
bottomed pots, polished
wood, toilets she'd pull
the lid to--that look saying
Let's make a change, girl.
But Sunday mornings are hers--
church clothes starched
and hanging, a record spinning
on the console, the whole house
dancing. She raises the shades,
washes the rooms in light,
buckets of water, Octagon soap.
Cleanliness is next to godliness ...
Windows and doors flung wide,
curtains two-stepping
forward and back, neck bones
bumping in the pot, a choir
of clothes clapping on the line.
Nearer my God to Thee ...
She beats time on the rugs,
blows dust from the broom
like dandelion spores, each one
a wish for something better
Commentary:Natasha Trethewey (born April 26, 1966) is an American poet who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in June 2012; she began her official duties in September. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and she is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi. Ms.Trethewey work combines free verse with slightly more structured and traditional forms similar to the sonnet and the villanelle. Her work studies "memory and the racial legacy of America". ‘Domestic Work, 1937’ is from her poem collection Domestic Work. The poem “Domestic Work, 1937” talks about a domestic worker, a maid, servant or housekeeper, who is appreciating her Sunday mornings, where she does not have to work. Imagery is used in line 9 15 to describe Sunday mornings to the readers. Sunday mornings are typically easy going and very calm. I like how the poem shows her life as organized and monotonous, with just a bit of a spark of light and color on Sundays Imagery and personification helps describe the little things in the poem. The imagery creates an impression of relaxing and clean compared to the first stanza where the speaker has to work hard.
The personification gives the readers a sense of how lively the house wason a Sunday morning The tone given in the poem is relaxed and also positive. This reflects on how the speaker feels on a Sunday morning with no work to do and only her house to clean. The one line stanzas give the readers a look inside the speaker’s mind and allows the readers to empathize with the speaker more. Line 16 is an idiom,which the speaker uses to reassure herself that what she is doing is important to other people.
someone else's house,
stared down her own face
in the shine of copper--
bottomed pots, polished
wood, toilets she'd pull
the lid to--that look saying
Let's make a change, girl.
But Sunday mornings are hers--
church clothes starched
and hanging, a record spinning
on the console, the whole house
dancing. She raises the shades,
washes the rooms in light,
buckets of water, Octagon soap.
Cleanliness is next to godliness ...
Windows and doors flung wide,
curtains two-stepping
forward and back, neck bones
bumping in the pot, a choir
of clothes clapping on the line.
Nearer my God to Thee ...
She beats time on the rugs,
blows dust from the broom
like dandelion spores, each one
a wish for something better
Commentary:Natasha Trethewey (born April 26, 1966) is an American poet who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in June 2012; she began her official duties in September. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and she is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi. Ms.Trethewey work combines free verse with slightly more structured and traditional forms similar to the sonnet and the villanelle. Her work studies "memory and the racial legacy of America". ‘Domestic Work, 1937’ is from her poem collection Domestic Work. The poem “Domestic Work, 1937” talks about a domestic worker, a maid, servant or housekeeper, who is appreciating her Sunday mornings, where she does not have to work. Imagery is used in line 9 15 to describe Sunday mornings to the readers. Sunday mornings are typically easy going and very calm. I like how the poem shows her life as organized and monotonous, with just a bit of a spark of light and color on Sundays Imagery and personification helps describe the little things in the poem. The imagery creates an impression of relaxing and clean compared to the first stanza where the speaker has to work hard.
The personification gives the readers a sense of how lively the house wason a Sunday morning The tone given in the poem is relaxed and also positive. This reflects on how the speaker feels on a Sunday morning with no work to do and only her house to clean. The one line stanzas give the readers a look inside the speaker’s mind and allows the readers to empathize with the speaker more. Line 16 is an idiom,which the speaker uses to reassure herself that what she is doing is important to other people.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Perseus
Her sleeping
head with its great gelid mass
of serpents
torpidly astir
burned into
the mirroring shield--
a scathing
image dire
as hated
truth the mind accepts at last
and festers
on.
I struck.
The shield flashed bare.
Yet even as
I lifted up the head
and started
from that place
of gazing
silences and terrored stone,
I thirsted
to destroy.
None could
have passed me then--
no
garland-bearing girl, no priest
or staring
boy--and lived.
Commentary:Perseus
is a really forward straight poem that talks about the death of Medusa. Medusa
was a wicked female monster, a Gorgon, generally described as having the face
of a hideous human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazing
directly at her would turn onlookers to stone. Perseus, the legendary founder
of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans, was the first of the heroes
of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters
provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians. Medusa was beheaded by the
hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon until he gave it to the
goddess Athena to place on her shield, that’s why he input in "Her
sleeping head with its great gelid mass" because it refers to the bloody,
dead head of Medusa This whole poem is the aftermath of a big fight scene to
the death between Medusa and Perseus; it gives you a sense of anger and hatred
towards a particular character in this selection. Also you can feel the relief
that the long had fought battle is done which gives a feeling of calmness. By
reading this poem you I noticed that Robert Hayden wasn't a one track poet that
only focused on black history, he expanded his poetry to go as far as the
lengths of a whole other culture and religion.
Monet's Waterlilies
Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.
O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.
O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.
Commentary: “Monet's Waterlilies” is about the Mr.Hayden
escaping the world of war and devastation, from the famous war torn country of
Vietnam and even Civil Rights, by visiting his favorite piece of art: “Monet's
Waterlilies”. “Monet's Waterlilies,” by Robert Hayden, is a very thoughtful
and reflective poem. In
this piece, he demonstrates metaphor, in the line, “the scene, and the
known/dissolve in iridescence, become /illusive flesh of light”. In
another he shows how similes can be use by using the line “the eye like the eye
of faith believes”, also personification as seen in line 1 and 2 when he
writes “...news from Selma and Saigon/poisons the air like fallout.” He is
talking about a famous painting; this work of art is a master piece and a thing
of gorgeousness with a personality of an angle. This is more than a painting of
a simple pacaso, this painting holds precious memories and history He doesn’t
use a specific pattern for line breaks, but it seems like he starts a new line
whenever he begins a new idea. This poem affects a lot of because mostly
everyone has that one special place the go to escape their negative thoughts
and clear their head to think about life in itself.
Full Moon
No longer throne of a goddess to whom we pray,
no longer the bubble house of childhood's
tumbling Mother Goose man,
the brilliant challenger of rocket experts,
the white hope of communications men.
were watchers of the moon and knew its lore;
planted seeds, trimmed their hair,
as it waxed or waned.
It shines tonight upon their graves.
its light made holy by the dazzling tears
with which it mingled.
of Him who was The Glorious One,
its light made holy by His holiness.
an arms base, a livid sector,
the full moon dominates the dark.
Commentary: In the poem full Robert Hayden basically talk about the human prospective on the moon and how over time it changed. The meaning of the moon has changed over the years, some people think it has to do with spirituality and others think its just a plain moon to cover up and brighten the night sky.Robert Hayden wrote this poem long before man actually set foot on the moon but he knew it was only a matter of time and unavoidable to reach the moon. The Moon is the Earth’s only natural satellite and the it orbits the Earth every 27.3 days. "Full moon" speaks about the absence of the throne of goddess and bubble house of childhood, this creates of symbol of depression because his is missing certain things apart of his childhood. this gives a signal that the tone in the beginning of the poem is despaired. Free verse is the main structure, most of Robert Hayden poems does not have a sense of rhythm or rhyming. There aren't many figurative languages seen, but there's a few personifications. "Full Moon" expresses a deeper connection to the moon and its affect on the people that admire it.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) by Robert Hayden
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) by Robert Hayden(Malcolm X) by Robert Hayden
O masks and metamorphoses of Ahab, Native Son
I
The icy evil that struck his father down
and ravished his mother into madness
trapped him in violence of a punished self
struggling to break free.
As Home Boy, as Dee-troit Red,
he fled his name, became the quarry of
his own obsessed pursuit.
He conked his hair and Lindy-hopped,
zoot-suited jiver, swinging those chicks
in the hot rose and reefer glow.
His injured childhood bullied him.
He skirmished in the Upas trees
and cannibal flowers of the American Dream--
but could not hurt the enemy
powered against him there.
I
The icy evil that struck his father down
and ravished his mother into madness
trapped him in violence of a punished self
struggling to break free.
As Home Boy, as Dee-troit Red,
he fled his name, became the quarry of
his own obsessed pursuit.
He conked his hair and Lindy-hopped,
zoot-suited jiver, swinging those chicks
in the hot rose and reefer glow.
His injured childhood bullied him.
He skirmished in the Upas trees
and cannibal flowers of the American Dream--
but could not hurt the enemy
powered against him there.
COMMENTARY: El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz is about Malcom X's life, discriminated/ criticized, trauma,
and his dream.Robert Hayden looms as one of the most technically gifted and
conceptually expansive poets in American and African American letters.
Attending to the specificities of race and culture, Hayden's poetry takes up
the sobering concerns of African American social and political plight; yet his
poetry posits race as a means through which one contemplates the expansive
possibilities of language, and the transformational power of art. The theme of
this poem was to tell the reader about struggles of Malcolm X being lost and confused in this
work and himself and changing his life around to help others. Also it show that
Malcolm X changed his way of life around and he started living a better life
and helping people. He compared the evil that struck his father down to ice
because the evil was so cold and un-human like. The structure of this poem was
free verse, there was no rhyming in the poem. There are one or two ending thats
that rhyme in the stanzas but they had very little effect on the poem. I would
say that the tone in this poem is very solid and stern when Robert Hayden
explains the undergoing Malcolm X went through and how his character was lost
as a black man in this world
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