Again, I have to take issue with your reading, Mark, which reduces the
Baraka poem, this time, to a matter of "matter." The most striking
thing about Baraka's poem, for me, is that *he* at least has the utmost
faith in the danger of words and the capacity of poetry to be relatively
safe ground. The most striking thing about your post, for me again, is
that for you "rank stupidity" resides at a lower level than "dumb." I
would like to know more about your archaeology of brainlessness. And
Barake had two children in his first marriage.
Mairead
On Thu, 1 Jun 2000, Mark Weiss wrote:
> This sounds like you're asking for a freshman comp paper. In the context of
> recent threads (I'm thinking of Alison and John and the fallout thereafter)
> posting the Cope poem was on the dumb side. Posting the Baraka sinks to
> rank stupidity. Whatever else Baraka wanted, he was being deliberately
> provocative, which seemed to be the primary message of his poetry at that
> time: "see what a black guy can get away with, and let what I dare give you
> courage," in itself not such a bad message. But in the post-holocaust world
> a phrase like "steel knuckles in the jewlady's mouth" is hard to take for
> "derisive wit." And Baraka certainly knew this--when he was still Leroi he
> was married for a long time to and had a child by a Jewish woman. He also
> knew that he was attacking not the power center but the still very
> vulnerable. But he had reason to be angry. What's your excuse?
> Are you really sure that you wanted me to comment?
>
>
> At 10:48 PM 5/31/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> >Your comment, Mark (that Cope is hateful), set me wondering about hateful
> >poems (or at least about poems that pose as hateful). I've been compiling
> >a course packet of poems for a class I'm teaching in the fall (called
> >Hilarious Poetry) and I've run across some poems that border on both
> >hilarity and hate. My point, I suppose, is certain kinds of humor rely on
> >something akin to hate. Wimsatt said most "society wit" is, at heart,
> >derisive. Would you say the Baraka quote below is funny?
> >
> >Let me complicate that: it's obvious why the below +wouldn't+ be
> >considered funny, but can you tell me something about the below that could
> >be called funny? The quote below is on the one hand horrifying, and on the
> >other very slightly comic. If you don't want to comment, that's
> >understandable.
> >
> >
> >fr "Black Art"
> >
> >
> >"We want poems
> >like fists beating niggers out of Jocks
> >or dagger poems in the slimy bellies
> >of the owner-jews. Black poems to
> >smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches
> >whose brains are red jelly stuck
> >between 'lizabeth taylor's toes. Stinking
> >Whores! We want 'poems that kill.'
> >Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
> >guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
> >and take their weapons leaving them dead
> >with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff
> >poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite
> >politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrr
> >rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh
> >. . . rrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . Setting fire and death to
> >whities ass. Look at the Liberal
> >Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat
> >& puke himself into eternity . . . rrrrrrr
> >There's a negroleader pinned to
> >a bar stool in Sardi's eyeballs melting
> >in hot flame Another negroleader
> >on the steps of the white house one
> >kneeling between the sheriff's thighs
> >negotiating cooly for his people.
> >
> >Aggh . . . stumbles across the room . . .
> >Put it on him, poem. Strip him naked
> >to the world! Another bad poem cracking
> >steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth
> >Poem scream poison gas on beasts in green berets
> >Clean out the world for virtue and love,
> >Let there be no love poems written
> >until love can exist freely and
> >cleanly. Let Black People understand
> >that they are the lovers and the sons
> >of lovers and warriors and sons
> >of warriors Are poems & poets &
> >all the loveliness here in the world."
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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