Preamble: about the choice of the McKay sonnets ...
One of poetry’s great effects, through its emphasis upon feeling, association, music and image — things we recognize and respond to even before we understand why — is to guide us toward the part of ourselves so deeply buried that it borders upon the collective.”-- Tracy K. Smith Staying Human: Poetry in the Age of Technology: https://fourteenlines.blog/category/tracy-k-smith/
I was fortunate to attend the Folger Education series for High School teachers, looking at Sonnets and trying to connect them to students interested in social justice. At first glance this doesn't seem like a natural fit, but Donna Denizé (poet and award-winning English teacher) showed how the sonnet has been used not just in the early 20th century but contemporary times and new and powerful ways to engage students in the analysis.
She started with he 1919 sonnet of Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay, "If we must die" written with the backdrop of the story of 12 year old Eugene Williams, a black boy who didn't know how to swim who drifted into "white territory." It is a response to mob attacks of white Americans upon African-American communities during the "red summer".
In discussion: the question came up: Just because there are 14 lines, is it a sonnet? We noted the difference between McKay's work from 1919 and Robert Hayden's free verse 14-liner written in 1966.
Reading Szymborska at Friday Harbor by Patrycja Humienik
because it is "after Aria Aber, I gave the link to her poem. America
America; If We Must Die; The Lynching; by Claude McKay
Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden (published in 1966)
October Sonnet by Adrian Matejka
Whipping by K.D. Harryman
Rose Colored Glasses by Kenneth Rexroth
Nutshell
Reading Szymborska: If you don't know the "Friday Harbor" in the title, the poet does hint about
where it is (San Juan Island, Washington State). The mention of Szymborska's poem about the Yeti
also comes in handy, as "the everlasting/snow" as the final words of it are turned to current events of
climate change. 1996 is the year of Szymborska's acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize.
The opening line is an interesting question. Whether or not it is about the poet's concern about Szymborska or in general, wanting more music from language doesn't really seem to be the point of the poem. Instead, after seven lines which hint at someone thinking back about her high school self, it feels like what I call an "overloaded diary poem" with an assemblage of thoughts punctuated by what the poet sees.
Does the poet still not like to admit how little she knows? Unanswerable. The poem moves us to the present, amazing scene, and unusual image of an eagle as white-headed metronome. Poet, rapt... as she watches the raptor. The next question, "how can I trust myself when I am so seduced by beauty?" also melts into the jumble, unanswered. Perhaps there is something about missing homeland? I referenced Aria Aber's poem America, and the haunting line asking "who am I becoming here with you?" The reference to "Sweet Pea Lane" and whoever Gabby is, saying it makes her teeth hurt, is
perhaps a clue.
We weren't sure what to make of "muscle of petals" although Judith gave it a whack. Here, there is plenty of individual association ripe for application.
At the same time, it all seemed to be making perfect sense in the spirit of a collective complicity.
3 sonnets by Claude McKay
America: : alliterations, add punch to a cauldron of terms better suited to a monster than a country. Not/ a shred/ of terror. The line, "I love this cultured hell" brought up a comparison with unrequited love... and indeed, as another put it, America, giving hate, also gives strength to fight it. What does it mean to look at the worst-- and wonder if that the best there is?
The last 4 lines give dark prediction indeed.
If we must die: In the context of the 1919 tragedy of the drowning of Eugene Williams whose raft drifted into the "white" shores of the river and mob attacks during Red Summer, the effective use of a short form where meaning is compressed also suggests the constraints beyond the form. The capital O's, the play between long and short o sounds in an emotion-packed roll of sound act as a call to action. The constrained form of 14 lines... the idea of a stanza being a room, and the idea of being "pressed to the wall" -- and fighting back-- not to be "penned in like hogs" while all around the mad and hungry dogs, is highly effective, with the sounds of O (O let us nobly die; O Kinsman) contrasting well with hogs, inglorious spot, accursèd lot... It is a call to face the common foe.
The Lynching: (written in 1920) Here, with three sets of abba (no stanza breaks however), the first, establishing the subject; second, its development; third, a rounding off (in this case, the crowd coming to view the hanging body without any sorrow) and the uncanny and unexpected conclusion in the final couplet: "little lads, lynchers" clearly formed and ready to carry on...ironic rhyming of "to be" with their "fiendish glee."
Frederick Douglass: We were struck by the repetitions of "when" in the first 6 lines, broken by three semi-colons to a colon ending line 6. And then the continuation in 5 more comma-filled lines with 6 demonstrative adjectives (this) before man, Douglass, slave, Negro, man, man. As Judith put it,
where lacking in rhyme, the rhythm and music flow; the phrasing propels the liquid of legends to lives grown out of his life, the lives fleshing his dream. We had read a while back Ross Gay, "A small needful fact" -- which echos Hayden's ending words: the beautiful, needful thing. Hayden creates compelling proof of what humans can do to overcome odds, but more. How do we remember legendary figures such as Douglass? Not rhetoric of statue, wreaths-- but that carrying on of the work for freedom so that it continues to live.
October Sonnet: It's called a sonnet, and indeed, has 14 lines. Since the epigram says "after Ted Berrigan" this snapshot of Berrigan's Sonnets might help: https://poets.org/book/sonnets
We had fun with the halloween flavor, the 13th floor (which superstition would say to avoid), the playful
"wind winds" which could be both a verbal wind or a winding. Enjoyable unforced quality, but a rather enigmatic ending with reference to "autumn of my reproduction" gusty apparitions, untethered things.
I loved the wind's singsong, fine-tuned, perfectly pitched and humor in the 2nd and 3rd tercets.
Whipping introduced us to the technicalities of rope and how to twine it. Without the comment, we were lost and would have been far-fetched to find a mother's advice to a daughter on being female.
Raw, fierce. Knotty. One of the associations and references that came up from Judith.
Rose Colored Glasses: we loved the visuals... went straight to Venice, how a song about love cannot be locked up-- and why not 100 pure voices of pickpockets and prostitutes singing "La vie en rose"
hopefully remembering the feelings that polish those glasses that see the world that way. What's lovely is the polishing of details of daily life by its infiltration.
**
As ever, a rich and rewarding discussion-- I hazard the guess, that it's not the poems so much as the desire of everyone to collaborate in the effort of making sense.
As ever, heartfelt thanks.
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