The Movement of Spoken Word Poetry vs. Written Traditional Poetry - Research Paper Example

? The Movement of Spoken Word Poetry vs. Written Traditional Poetry: The Effect the Black Aesthetic Has on Performance Poetry Word Count: 2500 (10 pages) I. Introduction African oral tradition has consistently been pervasive in the poetry of African-American writers. There are several poets who come to mind when one thinks of the plethora of African-American poets that flourished during the era of the Harlem Renaissance. It is true that many African-American writers made their particular mark on Black poetry in the Black Arts Movement, also known as Black Aesthetics. Spoken word poetry versus traditional written poetry will be analyzed in the following three entities: oral tradition and poetry in Black culture; poetry slams and the poetic play in the Black Arts movement; and African-American spoken poetry versus traditional written poetry which has been written by Anglos. II. Oral Tradition and Poetry in Black Culture The title of Maya Angelou’s book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is based upon the poem Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar—who was a famous Black writer and poet who educated himself during slavery, and was a very learned man. He wrote, “I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; ?When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass…the faint perfume from [the flower bud’s] chalice steals—I know what the caged bird feels!”1 Angelou recounts in her book the many trials and problems she had to face as a young African-American girl growing up in America at a time when Jim Crow laws were still in effect. She had to suffer many injustices as a young girl at the hands of white employers, doing the best she could without trying to get into trouble. Oral tradition, is, in Black culture, a statement about where someone is in life, and what that person’s status is. In olden days in Africa, there used to be one griot in every town, and he would keep the oral history of the town alive to pass on down to other generations; usually a family member of the griot would become the next griot. During the Harlem Renaissance especially, African-Americans started delving into their roots and realizing what was important to them. A kind of ‘urban griot’ developed, talking about the conditions of living in abject poverty and so forth. For example, Amiri Baraka (also known by his pen name LeRoi Jones) says, “Lately, I've become accustomed to the way/The ground opens up and envelopes me/Each time I go out to walk the dog./Or the broad edged silly music the wind/Makes when I run for a bus.../Things have come to that.”2 One can feel the pain in his writing, as though one were feeling the same pain oneself. This is the purpose of a modern, urban griot—to tell the story of the average Black American as seen through one’s own eyes, living in the city and trying to make a living. This is a feeling that many people can and did identify with, even though they might not have necessarily been Black Americans. They could identify with struggle, and that is a very human element to have to deal with in this life. Then, there was also the amazing Gwendolyn Brooks, who combined the griot tradition with a bluesy type of rhythm to it. “Brooks brought to modern American poetry her own peculiar sensibility which manifests at once the embodiment of both Wallace Stevens’s blue guitar and the African griot’s drum.”3 Then, there is another dynamic poet, Nikki Giovanni, who definitely brings out several different kinds of essences with her work. She is a master wordsmith, ensuring that no syllable, no problematic enigma gets past her. She is continually writing short little poems that make little lightning bolts in one’s brain, enervating a very primitive part of the reader. “In her poem Ego-Tripping, Nikki Giovanni writes, ‘I am a gazelle so swift/So swift you can't catch me.’ The image lingers, for Miss Giovanni resembles a gazelle, with her topaz skin, lustrous eyes, and nervous grace.”4 Langston Hughes similarly wrote poetry that was meant to be read aloud. However, he had a trick for writing his poetry. He claimed that it was important to just ‘keep it simple.’ For example: “In a 1927 address to the Walt Whitman Foundation in Camden, New Jersey, Langston Hughes remarked that ‘poetry should be direct, comprehensible and the epitome of simplicity.’ The graceful simplicity of Langston Hughes’s poems is, in part, what makes them such a pleasure to teach.”5 Certainly, African-American poetry as read aloud is anything but simple—rather, it may have simple sentence structure, but the meanings behind the words are complex, dynamic, and sometimes double or triple entendres. There is a wide variety of meaning that one can glean from these poets read aloud, and that is demonstrated in their work. III. Poetry Slams and the Poetic Play in the Black Arts Movement Poetry slams are famously renowned in the Black community. Def Jam Productions, for awhile, was hosting a program on TV called the Def Poetry Slam. Def Jam, headed by Russell Simmons and Mos Def (both musicians of some note) were usually either hosting or headlining the show. Poets featured included people from all walks of life—Black, white, Latino, Asian, and Native American. Poetry slams usually focus on the way a poem is put together rather than having to have everything necessarily rhyme correctly. Poetry slams are all about spoken word poetry, which is most important. Since African-American culture is largely focused upon the oral tradition, it only makes sense that poetry slams and the emphasis upon oral speaking abilities is particularly enhanced. This is mainly because, during the time of slavery, Blacks were not allowed to write, and thus an even greater emphasis was placed on speech and its formulation. Blacks had to be particularly careful what they said around white people, and also learned to speak in codes. These sorts of codes were different cultural codes than what white people were familiar with, so they were probably largely ignored. However, when these cultural codes are placed within a poem, they become accessible to anyone who can understand the meanings behind the particular words. The entendres are endless. Plays have been started which include Black poetry and African-American themes. A movie came out by director Tyler Perry, based upon a poem by Ntozake Shange. The poem is entitled, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf.” There are, of course, many difficult parts of being not only Black but also being a woman which are particularly difficult for young African-American women growing up today. In particular, Ntozake Shange writes, “dark phases of womanhood/of never havin been a girl/half-notes scattered/without rhythm/ no tune/distraught laughter fallin/over a black girl’s shoulder…”6 In fact, as Shange states, Black women most times do not even have a childhood. They are robbed of childhood by guns, gangs, murder, drugs, and having to act much older than their age when it should be the age of innocence for them. This is a part of Black culture that a lot of people don’t acknowledge. They don’t acknowledge that there are babies having babies. They don’t acknowledge the kinds of things that go on in the Black community to Black women—including molestation, rape, murder, incest, child abuse, and domestic abuse which Black women suffer, all in silence. Because people don’t speak out about these issues, poets and writers do. And that is exactly what happened when The Color Purple was made into a musical, with Oprah Winfrey at its helm. “The Color Purple” was turned into a musical with lyrics—which is a type of poetry all its own. Of course, one must wonder how that probably turned out, and, in fact, The Color Purple didn’t do that well at the box office. Perhaps it might have been due to the sensitive nature of some of the scenes in the book. Musicals are usually reserved for happy topics. Spousal abuse, verbal abuse, and so forth—are not necessarily what one might consider topics ripe for appearing in a musical. But, art does indeed reflect life and that is what definitely happened when The Color Purple was turned into a musical. The book’s author, a female Black author, Alice Walker, definitely was another major literary figure who could be identified as someone who relied on people to speak her work aloud in order to have it be read to others. This is a sort of tie-in to how Black women were treated in the old South, even after slavery had become a non-issue. Black women have definitely been the focus when it comes to African-American literature—not because there are not a lot of Black male writers, but perhaps because they haven’t been as encouraged as women to become empowered and educated. The Black man still has a lot of elements which work against him in society, trying to bring him down. Luckily, slowly but surely, people are beginning to see that Black men, and women, will be empowered with the fomenting of such literature (poetry and writing) in all kinds of schools everywhere. IV. African-American Spoken Poetry vs. Traditional Written Poetry Written by Anglos Black poetry has a certain essence to it, a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, that Anglo poetry lacks. Maya Angelou is one of the most famous African-American women poets of all time in the United States. A woman wearing many hats, Angelou at one time worked for a woman who tried to change her name to Mary. Maya’s friend, a servant, a Miss Glory, worked for Mrs. Cullinan (a white woman). Glory said not to mind too much what she was being called. However, Maya was upset about it and went home and decided to write a poem about it. She intentionally eventually broke the favorite casserole dish and four other dishes in front of Mrs. Cullinan in protest, kind of as payback for her being called Mary instead of Margaret. Back in those days, Black people had to take whatever name that the white people called them, because if not, it could be considered an insult and the Black person could get in a lot of trouble. This was due to the fact that she was growing up in the South, at a time when the Jim Crow laws were still in full effect. Before Maya carried out her little plan to ruin the mistress’s dishes, she decided to write about what had made her upset, and talk about how the mistress’s life was. “That evening [Maya] decided to write a poem on being white, fat, old and without children. It was going to be a tragic ballad. [Maya said she] would have to watch [her boss Mrs. Cullinan] to capture the essence of her loneliness and pain.”7 What seemed to be painful for her mistress was the fact that she could not have children, and her husband had two children by Black women. In Maya’s poem Phenomenal Woman, Maya Angelou gives away a secret about being a woman, that shows what is phenomenal about a woman has nothing to do with lookism, or people judging one by one’s looks. “Pretty women wonder where my secret lies./I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size/But when I start to tell them,/They think I’m telling lies…Men themselves have wondered/What they see in me./They try so much/But they can’t touch/My inner mystery.”8 Another person who wrote about a man, describing him smell of limestone, sweat, and roses, sucking his cigarette to give his hatred head—was a famous African-American woman poet by the name of Zora Neale Hurston. “Of course [Zora Neale Hurston] wrote poetry. It would have been very unlikely that such a wordsmith would not ever write poetry. Poetry was a rich, full presence in the linguistic air she breathed from her time as a child…later, during her association with the Harlem Renaissance, poetry was like a signature genre of the time…”9 Of course, African-American spoken word poetry—the kind that was meant to be read aloud, like Angelou’s and Hurston’s—differs significantly than the kind of poetry written by Anglo-Saxon poets, like John Donne’s “To His Fair Mistress,” and other sorts of poems. Shakespearean work is witty as well, but not like in the way that spoken-word African-American poetry is. For example, there are more likely to be puns in Anglo-Saxon poetry, while in African-American poetry, the main theme of the poetry has a lot to do with being subtle, and making miniscule references and allusions—the likes of which only an African-American audience would be able to appreciate, either that or people who were raised in the South or a place where African-American colloquialisms were in use. Black poetry especially deals with many issues that Anglo-Saxon poets have difficulty in discussing—particularly, topics regarding the body, sex, and other taboo entities. There are no limits in Black poetry as to how one can “structure a sentence,” how one can “spell,” etc. Therefore, Black poetry can be a form of liberation, because it frees the mind of the writer. There are no rules, no Jim Crow or Anglo-Saxon “rules” to be followed. There need not be iambic pentameter, and so forth—all there needs to be is a message behind the words, and demonstrates that the kernel of African-American spoken poetry is the meaning behind what is actually being said. That there is a subtext within African-American poetry is very important. “Reading between the lines” is crucial in such a venture. For certain, that is the difference between Black spoken word poetry and traditionally written (usually) Anglo Saxon poetry. V. Conclusion Reflecting upon what has already been touched upon here in this writing, African-American spoken word poetry has obviously become more popular over the years, increasingly popular at that. Since the days of the Harlem Renaissance, and even up to, through, and after the Civil Rights Movement, African-American poets have continued to impress those who have been studying their work judiciously over a period of years. These poets span the likes of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Ntozake Shange and many, many others—who we remember not only in name, but in spirit here. Because African-American poets have been so versatile and diverse in their particular specialties, there is a wide plethora of authors who still continue to speak to our minds, and our spirits—rising above the stereotypes placed on them by society. In essence, they create their own constructive escapes when, indeed, the “rainbow is enuf [sic].” For far too many people, Jim Crow laws, though now not in effect, are still in effect in full force in certain parts of the South, where the old ways still dominate, and Blacks are still demeaned—and little is thought of hurting innocent people just because of their skin color. Until this kind of racism ends, Black poets will still be there to reveal such apostasies. Spoken word poetry versus traditional written poetry has been analyzed in the following three entities: oral tradition and poetry in Black culture; poetry slams and the poetic play in the Black Arts movement; and African-American spoken poetry versus traditional written poetry which has been written by Anglos. WORKS CITED Angelou, Maya. Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women. US: Random House Digital, Inc., 2011. Pp. 3-4. Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. US: Random House Digital, Inc., 2002. Pp. 106. Baraka, Amiri. Preface To a Twenty Volume Suicide Note. Accessed 16 Oct 2011 at: . Dunbar, Paul L. “Sympathy.” Published in Lyrics of the Hearthside. US: Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1899. Retrieved 16 Oct 2011 at: . Pgh. 1. Giovanni, Nikki, et al. Conversations with Nikki Giovanni. US: University of Mississippi, 1992. Pp. 61. Plant, Deborah G. ‘The Inside Light’: New Critical Essays on Zora Neale Hurston. US: ABC-CLIO, 2010. Pp. 93. Shange, Ntozake. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. US: Simon and Schuster, 2010. Pp. 17. Soto, Michael. Teaching the Harlem Renaissance: Course Design and Classroom Strategies. US: US: Peter Lang, 2008. Pp. 131. Wright, Stephen Caldwell. On Gwendolyn Brooks: Reliant Contemplation. US: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Pp. 246. Read More