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Post by Gerry on Jan 27, 2019 20:59:15 GMT -5
Much has been said about this poem, and some of it by me. Hell, this poem even gave name to a "form" (the golden shovel). Still, in all the talk about this poem, I think some gets missed that I mentioned in my discussion. Now what do you see?
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Post by lildawnrae on Jan 28, 2019 19:55:53 GMT -5
It's difficult for me to comment on a poem so stark and powerful. It's a perfect poem, all words of one syllable, and the rhymes buried, all syncopated. Yet I do not great this poem with joy. Perhaps after teaching high school for so many years, I've unpacked this perfect poem too many times. More likely I've seen the truth of it too often--young lives wasted and so on. But it is still brilliant. The first couplet alone sums up the gorgeous bravado of certain song men I've met, and of course it also sums up the ultimate destination of that bravado (even before the last line--die soon.
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linm
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Post by linm on Jan 29, 2019 11:06:57 GMT -5
For me, this poem works as persona poem —and Dunbar’s does too, although they use the “mask” differently.
Brooks speaks as the voice of a collective group of men, whose unspoken / unconscious attitudes she dramatizes— their mode of handling their situation as black men. They are rebellious, quitting school, spending their time in the pool hall, not buying in to the mainstream economy of work and responsibility. In this, they are self-destructive, & also pulling everyone down with them. The behavior of the young men is a “mask” by which they assert themselves against the majoritarian culture.
In addition to the rhyme, there are lots of sound relationships, using only a few sounds: “s” “l” “g / j” — as sound goes, the poem is closely argued, which fits because these young men’s lives are so completely constrained, so narrowed to a few desperate choices.
To me, “sing sin” also conveys their flouting of the regular rules of comportment; they break ‘em and are proud of it. “Jazz June” —since June is also a girl’s name— suggests their careless, improvisational relationships with women
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Jimmy
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Post by Jimmy on Jan 30, 2019 22:21:31 GMT -5
I like to imagine Brooks writing this poem. How she observed the young men and then set about writing. I can picture her writing the lines first with the “we” placed at the beginning of the lines and eventually sensing that that poem as is lacked something central it needed: tension, a punch. And then she gets the radical idea that we see i in the finished version, placing the we at line end and creating all that wonderful tension.
This poem’s power is in how it works against itself - this enacts the self destruction of the young men. Each line seems to be working against its own sound. I feel this with the exhale running out of breath at the end of each. The synchopated rhythm is itself a “working against” as this is what synchopation does. The end rhymes are pushed to the side by the word we which technically creates another end rhyme but the poem does not feel as it it really rhymes when you read it. The couplets are a sort of joining but each presents a dichotomy between beauty and destruction.
In the end I think of the poem as almost killing itself. After the incredible tussle among all the above noted forces we are left with an end line that speaks only about death. “We” no longer exists in the poem.
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Post by betsey on Jan 31, 2019 21:08:39 GMT -5
I'm so glad Jimmy or Derek suggested listening to Brooks read this poem on youtube. Fantastic, the way the we falls off each line, and her voice falls off as well. I would never have gotten to the depth of Gerry's analysis - the 7 pool balls, etc. What a tight little poem, and devastating.
Matt Haig wrote recently (on Rattle, perhaps?) about words he will say to his sons (and it applies to daughters too):
"Never be cool. Never try to be cool. Never worry about what the cool people think. Head for the warm people. Life is warmth. You'll be cool when you've died."
I think GB would agree.
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Jimmy
New Member
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Post by Jimmy on Feb 2, 2019 13:25:11 GMT -5
I love that quote, Betsey. Thanks for sharing and I will share it with my kids as well.
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Post by Gerry on Feb 2, 2019 16:00:47 GMT -5
I tell my students all the time, "Don't front in my class. You do enough fronting outside of class. Who do you think you're impressing here?" But, to take this to the Dunbar poem, don't people wear the mask of cool to mask some insecurity, some fear, some feeling good enough and so try to redefine what good is?
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