Today's selection is by the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes.

Theme for English B

The instructor said,

     Go home and write
     a page tonight.
     And let that page come out of you--
     Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me--we two--you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me--who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records--Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white--
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me--
although you're older--and white--
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

Posted by: annika at 09:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The ghazal is a thousand year old poetic form, which can follow very strict structural and metric rules. It originated in Persia, but was also used by Hindu and other poets, up to today. The poems usually involve a series of couplets and often explore erotic or sensual themes.

i know very little about the form, except that the great Spanish poet/playwright, Federico García Lorca included a number of poems in his 1934 collection De Divan Del Tamarit, which he labeled Gacelas. Many of the poems don't appear to be true ghazals, since they don't strictly follow a couplet format, although some do.

One poem from De Divan Del Tamarit seems especially apropriate to my own dark mood, given the fearful state of our world as i'm looking at it today. García Lorca called it Gacela de la Muerte Oscura. The following translation is by Catherine Brown:*

Ghazal of Dark Death

I want to sleep the sleep of apples,
far away from the uproar of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the sleep of that child
who wanted to cut his heart out on the sea.

I don't want to hear that the dead lose no blood,
that the decomposed mouth is still begging for water.
I don't want to find out about the grass-given martyrdoms,
or the snake-mouthed moon that works before dawn.

I want to sleep just a moment,
a moment, a minute, a century.
But let it be known that I have not died:
that there is a stable of gold in my lips,
that I am the West Wind's little friend,
that I am the enormous shadow of my tears.

Wrap me at dawn in a veil,
for she will hurl fistfuls of ants;
sprinkle my shoes with hard water
so her scorpion's sting will slide off.

Because I want to sleep the sleep of apples
and learn a lament that will cleanse me of earth;
because I want to live with that dark child
who wanted to cut his heart out on the sea.

* from Selected Verse: A Bilingual Edition, edited by Christopher Maurer.

Posted by: annika at 05:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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