Responses to poems by Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan

Responses to poems by Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan

“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou speaks in second person to her audience unapologetically, resoundingly rejoicing in her own personal freedom of being woman full of personality, versatility, and most of all, resilience. The concept of “rising” is instrumental to the extinguishment of a history saddled with centuries of pain and intergenerational trauma. Her poem raises the question of the significance in granting an audience second person, and the agency of the reader’s ideologies compared to an individualist perspective of the author.

Lindsey Norward
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Lucille Clifton in “homage to my hips” asserts an understanding of one’s black female body as one that does not fit into societal standards, yet as a result, have been free from the spiritual chains of an oppressive society. This poem embodies the significance of self-love, body reclamation, and a pride of oneself. How does the concept of “put a spell on a man and spin him like a top” relate to feministic power, asserting oneself into a realm of black feminism?

Lindsey Norward
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In “Won’t you celebrate with me” Lucille Clifton describes to us one of the many ways that black women make something out of nothing, carve their own way when there is none and conjure a life for themselves in spite of everything working against them. Must be that black girl magic. I do wonder though, how tired she (and those other black women) must be?

Chelsea Irvin
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June Jordan “Poem About My Rights”
Jordan describes the limitless assaults women of color have endured and continue to endure. She paints a verbal picture about the dangers of walking alone at night, pointing out that the significance is not in that a woman is alone but more so in the fact that she is just that, a woman. The issues of racially motivated and gender motivated crimes has been identified, you (June Jourdan) and the marginalized individuals you speak of have been identified. Does the anonymity of the accused torcher your thoughts, do you question your own motives?

Emily Hemmitt
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Related:
• AALCI 2017

Deborah Willis's Black, Notes #2

More of our writings on Deborah Willis's Black: A Celebration of Culture.

[Related: Deborah Willis's Black: A Celebration of Culture, Notes #1]

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Lil’ Kim at the ‘White Party’, NJ, 2001 (“The Arts”, pg. 149)
Kim Jones is standing in front of a long, white Victorian couch, at an all white party, wearing a long white skirt. The flash mingles with her iridescent dark skin, brilliant teeth, and shakes the hand of the gold on her wrists and platinum blondness of her wig. The Queen Bee’s got one hand supporting her lower back, the other holding an invisible wand. Makes me wanna ask: Geneva Diva, [can you tell me how] you throws it down

Samantha L. Adams
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Pg. 226
A little girl sits in what seems to be a church pew, in her Sundays best; an all-white dress, white hat, and white shows with the beautiful touch of the all to recognizable ruffle fringe socks. She looks downward as if something shiny and new has caught her eye. Do you question you position, do you feel the pressures of conformity, do you love your people/identity, your skin? Do you find salvation in divinity/ the spiritual entity they tell you has paid for you sins?

Emily Hemmitt
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pg. 64
Darryl Sivad’s “Grandma Mamie’s Living Room” holds the decorative items of a living room clearly intertwined within years of history and meaning, yet is also very minimalist in appearance. On the wall hangs a single photograph in a frame, making it seem as if the white of the wall is a blank canvas, and the photograph a figure of an angel of a black family hanging high in the sky. This legacy brings the question and complexity of kinship, and the significance of black spaces in understanding black community and intergenerational lineages.

Lindsey Norward
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Carrie Mae Weem’s Kitchen Table Series
In Carrie Mae Weem’s image Kitchen Table Series, a Nubian Queen sits at the table with a detangling savior running through her kinky crown with a chest-full of confidence glistening in the light. Her facial expressions along with her wine and Camel Menthol cigarette supports her inner feelings of being in an aroma of a peaceful Saturday night. Tell me, how long did you rob yourself of such a deserved and beautiful peace?

Tarzra Jones

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Black Ballerinas (p.13)
Most of the young girls have slicked back ballerina buns, but there is one girl wearing a black bandana, who is having mascara applied by another girl. The image of the mascara being applied made me think of beauty standards applied to all girls, and how beauty standards specifically affect young black girls. What standards of femininity are black girls held to, and how can we teach them to defy these expectations?

Jena Roberston
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Stephen Marc, Ghana, 1988, pg 173
A woman, her serious face dark and lovely, sweeps past the open doors of the shop with the skirts of her dress gathered in both hands. Behind her, on the doors, are advertisements for Revlon where a smiling black woman’s face sits above the slogan, “The difference between looking good and looking great.” The first thing I wonder is: has Revlon ever sold a skin bleaching cream?

Chelsea Irvin
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Related:
• AALCI 2017

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Deborah Willis's Black, Notes #1

We've been reading, discussing, and writing about images from Deborah Willis's Black: A Celebration of Culture. Here are a few of our notations on images from the book so far.

[Related: Deborah Willis's Black: A Celebration of Culture, Notes #2]


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Roland Freeman, Saturday Night at the Top Shelf Lounge, West Philidelphia, PA, 1989, pg. 198

The bar at the Top Shelf Lounge is packed, the patrons enjoying the band on stage—a lil’ jazz with their liquor. The singer is crouched low in her heels, her hand tight around the microphone, her eyes closed and moth open wide as she reaches for that note with her whole body. “Baby,” I say, “who’s got you belting those blues?”
Chelsea Irvin
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Pg. 201
A girl sits at a bar, she looks to be a bar tender, three older men stare in her direction, on looks to be telling a story, another is looking her directly in the eyes and smiling as if wanted attention or affection. The last gentlemen seem to be in the conversation but looks blank his expression flat as the the man telling the story leans on his shoulder. What is the conversation about, are you honestly interested and engaged in the conversation? Do you think they care about your thoughts or is your captivation temporary- terminal?

Emily Hemmitt

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White and Black Christianity (p. 230 My Aunt Leslie Outside of Church)
The black woman dressed in all black contrasts the white North Penn Baptist Church behind her. The contrast brings to mind the contradictions and complexities that exist between black Americans and Christianity: many white Christian slave owners forced Christianity onto black slaves, erasing any native religious views and Christianity has often been used to justify colonization. How can we, as black Americans, create a form of religion or spirituality that is separate from white Christianity?

Jena Roberston

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Unidentified photographer, The Grape Vine Swing, ca. 1895
In a forest of thick trunks, there are two Black children, dark skinned and dressed in white smocks and shirts (one older boy and younger girl). They have the largest smiles, the boy pushing the girl on the grape vine swing. Dear beautiful children: thirty years after that momentous year, did the vine whisper any promise of a lasting freedom, or were you praying on it to be a slingshot?

Samantha L. Adams

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Eli Reed’s Sunday Morning
In Eli Reed’s Sunday Morning, a black couple is walking together. They share each other’s company gracefully aging together on a blessed Sunday morning while the traces of their endearment is recorded in the lines of the highlighted sidewalk. Tell me, what’s it like to leave your mark in Harlem’s streets?

Tarzra Jones

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pg. 116
Surlock Studio, Courtesy of the National Museum of American History, features a young, shimmering ballerina upon a wooden floor. Perhaps most intriguing is her reflection, containing both her full face in one panel, and only her body in another. What does the separation of face and body say about the perspective of the black woman’s body from both the individual and societal view?

Lindsey Norward

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Related:
• AALCI 2017

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The Underground Railroad, Notes #1

We've been reading Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad. Here are a few of the editorials we wrote in response to what we've covered.

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Underground Railroad:
Lovey, the epitome of a Hob women; fighting for those you love and ultimately paying for your individuality. You ran to find freedom and wound up in the hands of a new enemy, your mothers love and wonder betrayed you, but your curiousness did too. Do you regret leaving the plantation, did you idolize the wrong women?
Emily Hemmitt

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One of Cora’s* struggles in The Underground Railroad is trying to secure her grandmother’s plot of land. One of the institutional causes of the socioeconomic gap between black Americans and white Americans is the passing of property from generations: Cora’s grandmother did not actually own the plot of land, so she was unable to legally pass it on to Ajarry or Cora. How does this fact effect the formation of black community or kinship?

Jena Roberston

*Cora is the protagonist of the novel.

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In Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, Miss Lucy, a woman with a “quick smile” that “told the story of the woman beneath,” constantly “corrects” Bessie to say certain words in a Proper, traditional English way, such as “Dormitory” instead of quarter and “Going to” instead of gonna (89). The history of black people being forced to conform to a society that never even catered to their education in the first place is questionable. What does the silencing of one’s black voice mean for the black community’s individuality and collectivity?
Lindsey Norward

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Cora is the woman that every black woman has been or is going to experience. At some point, every black woman will identify with her through the external and internal conflicts that manifests from within. Undoubtedly, black women are assumed to be the “mules of America.” Despite such assumptions, we’ll get through because it’s in our DNA.

Tarzra Jones
North Las Vegas, NV
June 9, 2017

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Ridgeway,*

How does it feel to carry so much anger in your chest? To see the resentment you have for your own self projected onto others? That fire you claim is hot and hungry, boy; don’t let it swallow you whole.

Chelsea Irvin
Plano, TX 2017

*Ridgeway is a notorious slave catcher in the novel.

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Scene: page 101-104, the social/dance in South Carolina

Dear Cora,

You’ve got your new pretty blue dress on, that you didn’t spend much on because “money was new and unpredictable and liked to go where it pleased” (101-102). Do you feel the same way about intimacy with the one who ran with you? You avoided Caesar’s kiss, and even though compliments are being made to each other, flowers are being given, and Caesar’s work at the factory “agrees with him,” you still sense that he is “joining a performance” when he compliments how you look. What is the right time to address attraction, when you’re running for your life? How could that potential intimacy shape the rest of the flight?

Sincerely,
Samantha

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Related:
• AALCI 2017

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Course packets and reading materials

We have a range of reading materials for the summer. In addition to handouts, I produced a course packet. We're also reading Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2016), Deborah Willis's Black: A Celebration of Culture (2004), and Katharine Harmon's You Are Here: Mapping the Soul of the City (2016).

What I like about the course packet is that it accumulates much of what we've gathered over the years. There are sample writings from past Fellows, and there are write-ups based on what I've learned over the years working with the students. The course packet, as a form, enables me to bring an assortment of ideas together in something resembling a sense of order. I hope, too, that some of the materials contained in the packets will serve the Fellows well beyond the Institute.  (I wrote more about the value of the course packets in 2016).

Related:
• AALCI 2017

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Joycelyn Moody and the 2017 AALCI Fellows

On June 4, we welcomed the 2017 cohort of AALCI Fellows.

• Tarzra Jones (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
• Emily Hemmitt (University of Texas at San Antonio)
• Lindsey Norward (Swarthmore College)
• Samantha L. Adams (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• Chelsea Irvin (Howard University)
• Jena Robertson (University of Albany)

Related: 
• AALCI 2017

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AALCI 2017

On Sunday, June 4, we began our activities for the 8th cohort of the African American Literatures and Cultures Institute. The following entries present some of our activities and writing.

Entries
• Reading maps, browsing books & comic books in NYC
• AALCI in NYC #2
• AALCI in NYC #1
• Emily Hemmitt's poster presentation
• Lindsey Norward's poster presentation
• Chelsea Irvin's poster presentation
• Jena Robertson's poster presentation
• Tarzra Jones's poster presentation
• Samantha Adams's poster presentation
• Poster Session 2017
• Another sketch to near-complete poster (poster preparation)
• From Sketch to Finished Poster (poster preparation)
• Working quickly & quietly (poster preparation)
• Poster in process (poster preparation)
• Preparations for the poster session
• The Magical Moments of Bridget Drinka
• Joycelyn Moody and the Coltrane Quartet
• The Navigator: Tara Schmidt
• Agnes Czeblakow, Special Collections, and Teleportation
• Responses to poems by Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, and Ishmael Reed
• Responses to poems by Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton
• Deborah Willis's Black: A Celebration of Culture, Notes #1

• Deborah Willis's Black: A Celebration of Culture, Notes #2

• The Underground Railroad, Notes #1
• Course packets and reading materials
• Joycelyn Moody and the 2017 AALCI Fellows

Related:
• AALCI 2016
• AALCI 2015
• AALCI 2014
• AALCI 2013
• AALCI 2012
• AALCI 2011
• AALCI 2010