1994-02-06: Pride and Prejudice: African-American Poetry in American Culture

Vol. II, No. VI

Transcription:

Rita Dove, UVA
JoAnne Gabbin, VFH&PP
Pride & Prejudice:
WITH GOOD REASON
Volume II, Number 6
African-American Poetry in American Literature
MUSIC
GREETING
This is "With Good Reason." I'm Laura Womack. Today we're talking
about African-American verse with the U.S. Poet Laureate and a
literary scholar.
MUSIC
BACKGROUND
African American women in literature had a stellar year in 1993.
Maya Angelou read one of her poems at President Clinton's
inauguration. Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize. And Rita Dove was
named the Poet Laureate of the United states. What are these women
writing about that has so touched the literary community? Is it
different from what other authors are saying?
We hear Rita Dove read from her Pulitzer Prize-winning book and
talk about her plans as Poet Laureate to broaden the appeal of
verse.
Right now, critic JoAnne Gabbin shares her opinions on why African-American
women authors are so successful. Dr. Gabbin is a scholar
associated with the Virginia Foundation for Humanities and Public
Policy. She says black women have always written important works,
but they were not accepted by the white critical establishment.
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Gabbin:
We went through a political kind of period there where women didn't
even have the vote at the turn of the century. Where women were not
considered to be thought of as writers, per se. Now, you have women
starting with in the 19SO's, women poets like Gwendolyn Brooks,
really making the scene and and clearing the way for other poets.
Uh, uh, like Maya Angelou and and Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni
and Rita Dove -- who've come later. Uh, Gwendolyn Brooks did the
phenomenal thing of winning the Pulitzer in 1950 for her volume of
poetry, Annie Allen. And that was unheard of. She was the first
Black woman to get such an honor.
So there was, the voice was always there, however, the social
environment, the cultural environment that allowed that voice to be
heard was not very friendly to women.
Womack:
Now that African-American women writers are more accepted
mainstream. That people are now listening. to their voice, and
interested in the sound of their voice, do you think that's a
change in the subject they're writing about? Um, Nikki Giovanni
became very famous in the 60's writing Black Power poetry, now
she's not necessarily writing Black Power poetry anymore. Uh, Rita
Dove when her first novel, "Through the Ivory Gates," is writing a coming
of age story about a middle-class woman, um, who happens to
be black but the issue is not that she is black. Do you think that
the voice is saying new things now? That the voice is being
accepted in the mainstream?
Gabbin:
I think we had to get free first and then our voice was free to
sound any kind of note that is possible. And I think, uh, poets,
writers, but especially poets have demanded all along that they not
be confined to a subject matter. Um, long ago in the 1920's, ,
Langston Hughes said, uh, in a famous manifesto, "Uh, you know if
we write for um, if if we write for whites, if they are happy with
what they write, then so be it. If they are not, then so be it. If
blacks are satisfied with what we write, then good. But if they
aren't, then so be it."
He was basically saying, writers, artists have to write for
themselves, you know, uh, Langston Hughes on that subject of that
racial mountain, he's not going to be confined to writing about a
subject matter just because it's prescribed by the the audience or
by the critics but he's going to choose his own subject matter. And
I think that's the happy situation that we have now.
Womack:
In an article that you wrote, you talk about African-American women
writers laying on of hands. What do you mean by that phrase?
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Gabbin:
Well, in the religious parlance, there is this act of laying
on of hands. A healing of the body, because of some power that
comes, spiritual power that comes through the body into the woun~
person's body. So there is a laying on of hands. And what I did
with -- in that article -- was I used the laying on of hands image 1
as a kind of metaphor for what women writers are attempting to do, /
uh, in the American literary scene because of their spiritual
strength, because of their power, they are now able to lay on hands
and heal this, um, the images or change the images, if you will,
that have come to represent them over the last century.
When women, Black women, thought about themselves as they viewed
themselves in books, in movies, in plays, they were often whores or
mammies or pickaninnies, or bitches or sapphires. They were
stereotypes. They were not able to live realistically. And they
were not able to see themselves as they were. Women writers, Black
women writers, especially are attempting to dispel the stereotypes
with truer and better images of themselves. You have Margaret
Walker in Jubilee, talking about Vyry who was a mulatto, who was
able to get through slavery and get through reconstruction and what
her what what her life was like, what her life's experiences were.
You see in that novel, Jubilee. You have Gwendolyn Brooks talking
about Maude Martha in a novel or Annie Allan in a book of poems, in
which both characters deal with their dark skin and try to see
beauty for the first time in that dark skin. When it has been made
ludicrous by such images as the mammie.
Womack:
So they're exploring the images not through stereotype or
making fun of or caricature. But through the images they're finding
out more about themselves and who they are.
Gabbin:
Exactly and that's what I meant by the laying on of hands
metaphor. It's a healing that is happening by their simply creating
these new images.
Womack:
one of the things that you write about that I thought was
interesting, in terms of the way African-American women are
writing, is using the tradition of folk-telling, folk-legends in
the way they write. Um, tell us a little bit about that.
Gabbin:
Well, certainly, the master in doing that was Zora Neale
Hurston. She listened very carefully to the tales that were told in
her all-black town in Etonville, Florida. And she didn't dismiss
those tales, she wasn't ashamed of those tales. But what she did,
was she collected them and she put them in books like Mules and
Men. And she uh, put those same tales in her own novels. You can
see some of that folklore in Their Eyes Were Watching God. So you
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have, uh, black writers really appreciating and honoring the oral
tradition. And I think sterling Brown, the poet I spent most of my
life working on, uh, did that in a very masterful way. He took the
ballads and the blues and the folktales in the oral tradition and
he connected them with the literary tradition. And I think that's
the challenge that Black writers have today of getting the racial
strength, if you will, the creativity, the originality, that you
will find in the oral tradition and taking those qualities and
representing them in the written or literary form.
Womack:
Tell us about the conference you're putting together for the
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
Gabbin:
Well, the conference is called Furious Flower, a Revolution in
African-American poetry and it will be held on James Madison
University's campus, September 29 - October the First of 1994 and
I'm very excited about it because I'm going to be able to bring
together major voices in African-American poetry, including:
Gwendolyn Brooks, Michael Harper, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez we
hope that we will also have there Ethel Burton Miller, Toi
Derricotte and many, many others who are now very, very important
significant figures in African-American poetry -- and certainly in
American literature. Period.
Womack:
A lot of the people that your talking about are popular
outside of the African-American community. How do you, what do you
do attribute that success to something in particular? Is there
something in the stories, in the legends that they are recounting
that speaks to all of us? Or is it a new curiosity about AfricanAmerican
culture? Why are these people successful outside of that
community do you think?
Gabbin:
I think its because what they're saying speaks to our interest
in the human experience. Period. I think that's the reason you can
have a person like Rita Dove as the poet laureate of the United
States or Toni Morrison as a Nobel Prize winner. Because what
they're writing speaks to more than their intimate community.

Womack:
Thank you so much for joining us on "With Good Reason."
Gabbin:
Thank you.
Womack:
Poet Laureate Rita Dove joins us now. She begins by reading one of
her poems from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Thomas and Beulah.
The book is about her grandparents. In "Company, " Beulah is
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remembering Thomas after his death.
Dove
COMPANY
No one can help him anymore.
Not the young thing next door
in the red pedal pushers,
not the canary he drove distracted
with his mandolin. They'll be
no more trees to wake him in moonlight
nor a single dry spring morning
when the fish are lonely for company.

She's standing there telling him: give it up.
She is weary of sirens and his face
worn with salt. If this is code,
she tells him, listen: we were good,
though we never believed it.
And now he can't even touch her feet.
Womack:
The way you write about Thomas and Beulah, your grandparents,
uh, we get a very good sense of their relationship -- the fact that
they loved each other but that there are problems there. But -- How
were you able to distance yourself from your grandparents and write
about their relationship so objectively?
Dove
I think it is disconcerting for some people when they read
Thomas and Beulah and think about the fact that uh, it's based on
my maternal grandparents lives. They think, "Well, how can she
write about her grandparents in this way." The first thing I really
wanted to do, was to write about their lives and their lives
separate from grandchildren, and in a certain way, from their
children. Uh, mainly because, when I was growing up, I thought of
my grandparents simply in terms of their function as my
grandparents. I mean, I loved them and all of that. But I didn't
think about what their lives had been like up to that point, when
I entered their lives. l And I think it's very important to think of people -- or to
consider other people in their entire, the entire rainbow of their
life, rather than just how they impinge upon us. So that, by trying
to concentrate very much on their early life, their early marriage
together, and also just how they feel, the Thomas and Beulah feel,
as they go through the days of their lives -- not how their
grandchildren remember them -- I thought I was doing something for
them, giving them, in a certain way a part of their lives back.
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Womack:
When we read um, works of fiction, we tend to -- most fiction
seems to concentrate on a grand romance -- no matter what the plot
line is. There is a grand romance that overcomes everything and
we're all very familiar with that, especially if we've ever been to
a single movie produced by Hollywood. The feeling I got from Thomas
/ and Beulah, though, was that there was this great affection and
love for them but that it wasn't a grand romance. That they
definitely felt the stresses of living closely with another human
being. Is that an accurate reading? Is that there? Or?
Dove
I think that is there, yes. That's accurate and it's not -- I
don't find it as depressing as I think some people have~ I've had
some people say, "Well, it's such a sad book," and I think, "Well,
it's not really a sad book. It's just not a glamorous book." Let's
put it that way.
I think that um my grandparents loved each other very much. I
think they had a great affection for each other, as you said, which
is sometimes more important than love. My grandparent in their time
in their c ass -- and they were working class people -- I think
that all of the longing for grand romance had to be kind of -- had
to be made subservient I guess you could say -- to the necessity of
surviving, too. So there's a lot of that feeling I think in the
book of them having to get on with the business of living and
relying on one another, trusting one another, having affection for
one another. But there's no time or means to have this grand
romance.
Womack
You write about their courtship in a couple of the poems and you
write about it from both of their perspectives and one thing that
figures in both of those poems is a yellow scarf. And, um, that
yellow scarf sounded so familiar to me because it also appears in
another one of your books um Through the Ivory Gates. And when
you're writing about -- when the poem is written from Thomas's
perspective um he I think if I remember correctly, he drapes the
scarf around her neck (Dove: Yes.) to keep her warm and it's a
gesture of love. And then when--in the poem that she-from her
perspective, Beulah, um says something to the effect that she
doesn't want that yellow scarf "bright as butter." (Dove: UJa luma.)
um, I thought that was interesting that it appear later in Through
the Ivory Gates (Dove: Yeah.) Are those the same characters?
Dove
You know, they are the same characters, ):tut they do different
things. I'm really fascinated by the conflicting emotions we can
have at any given moment. And I think I also wrote about that
moment in the novel as well as in the poems because I thought I
hadn' quite gotten all of those aspects. I think that for instance
in Beulah's poem where she says that he's playing his mandolin and
nd courting her and she's talking to herself saying this is cigar-
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box music, but even while she's trying very hard to remain a bit
contemptible about this whole thing, she's being taken in just
because the scarf slips through his figures and you can tell that
she's uh does look favorably on the scarf even while she's fighting
it. I wanted to get that feeling of her fighting being wooed by
this man and succumbing, um, in spite of herself. And she fights it
because she at some point Beulah does have this vision of a grand
romance. She wants to be swept off her feet and she likes him but
he's not, he doesn't really correspond to that image she has of
that tall, dark and handsome man who's going to come and change her
life. Um. That conflict is why I wanted to have two versions of the
same courtship. His version, her version and why I think again in
the novel I wanted to get another version, which is the version of
the grandmother looking back on the courtship after all the years
are gone by and she realizes it was a good match after all so you
get all of these viewpoints.
Womack
Let's hear the two poems we've been talking about:
"Courtship" and Beulah's "Courtship, Diligence."
Dove
COURTSHIP
Fine evening may I have
the pleasure
up and down the block
waiting -- for what? A
magnolia breeze, someone
to trot out the stars?
But she won't set a foot
in his turtledove Nash,
it wasn't proper.
Her pleated skirt fans
softly, a circlet of arrows.
King of the Crawfish
in his yellow scarf,
mandolin belly pressed tight
to his hounds-tooth vest
his wrist flicks for the pleats
and in a row, sighing
so he wraps the yellow silk
still warm from his throat
around her shoulders. (He made
good money; he could buy another.)
A gnat flies
in his eye and she thinks
he's crying.
Then the parlor festooned
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Thomas's

like a ship and Thomas
twirling his hat in his hands
wondering how did I get here.
China pugs guarding a fringed settee
where a father, half-Cherokee,
smokes and frowns.
I'll give her a good life
what was he doing,
selling all for a song?
His heart fluttering shut
then slowly opening.
COURTSHIP, DILIGENCE
A yellow scarf runs through his fingers
as if it were melting.
Thomas dabbing his brow.
And now his mandolin in a hurry
though the night, as they say,
is young,
though she is getting on.
Hush, the strings tinkle. Pretty gal.
Cigar-box music!
She'd much prefer a pianola
and scent in a sky-colored flask.
Not that scarf, bright as butter.
Not his hands, cool as dimes.
Womack:
Do you consider it fact or fiction? And let me just sort of
explain what I'm asking by that. I know that this is based on your
grandparents, but, you know you're uh, it's your vision of them and
their relationship and from what you're saying, it seems like you
didn't necessarily talk about these things with them. About their
relationship together, that sort of thing, so
Dove:
Yeah, no, I never did talk with them about it because by the
time I began writing the poems, themselves, both my grandparents
were dead.
Well, you know, there's a saying and I believe it was,
actually it was Picasso, who said this. He said, "Art is the lie
that tells the truth." That's kind of how I think of the book.
There are part of the book which are based absolutely on fact. Um,
there are many scenes, there are many moments, which are imagined,
and therefore you could say they are fiction. I really cannot
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presume to know how my grandmother felt um, when say she was
ironing in the back room of a dress shop. I can imagine how she
must have felt. But I can't really say that those are her thoughts.
so in that sense there is fiction in the book.
My main purpose though, in writing the book was not onl~ to
give a portrait of my -- of an age and of my a type of um, marriage
-- but I wanted to get at the essence of my grandparents. And so
it's the essence that I think is not fiction. Okay?
Womack
Each time you publish a book of poetry it's better and better
received, and Thomas and Beulah won the Pulitzer. Um. The novel was
well received but not quite as well received. How do you feel about
that? Are you interested in doing more novels or are you going to
go back to poetry? (Laugh.)
Dove
Well, I don't. I can't really chose what I'm going to do. That
sounds kind of mystical but I wrote the novel because I had a
character that wouldn't leave me alone and I wanted to know more
about her. I wasn't disturbed at all by the reception by the novel
of the novel. I felt--I was actually very pleased with it because
I'd thought that the uh -- First of all I recognized that there's
a great difficulty when you're known in one genre to hop to
another. I think that I did--that my novel does have some of the
marks of a first novel. Uh, that is that it feels its way a long
and I learned a lot from it. So I also feel though that now that
I've learned a lot that it would be a shame not to do another
novel, you know continue with what I've learned.
Womack
You're the Poet Laureate. What do you do? What does that
mean? (Laugh.)
Dove
(Laugh.) I give interviews. No. Um. Well, the poet laureate
is such a curious thing. Um. Originally the poet laureate, um the
position was called the "Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congress. " And that is one of the basic functions that I have.
hat I um consult with the Librarian of Congress in terms of
literature in the country, um, so he can keep his or her finger on
the pulse of the literature in the country.~I plan a reading series
at the Library of Congress. And beyond that there is what I think
becomes very important, the poet laureate serves as a kind of a
focal point for concerns about literature, -~pacifically poetry in
he country.
I think that the symbolic value of having a poet laureate is
very um great and and necessary. That what it says is that: We have
a nation that is concerned with more than just matters of of the
body and matters of finance and and um commercial well-being. That
we're also looking after the well-being of our souls and our
hearts.
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Womack
And you're goal is to make this a more inclusive position to
include more people in the appreciation of poetry and literature I
understand. How do you expect to do that? How does one go about
doing that?
Dove
Well, um I think one of the--I'm doing several very specific
things to do that. Um. One of them, and it's no small feat, is to
try to answer all the correspondence I get and it's quite a bit. On
a much more um let's say administrative slash practical level, I've
planned a few readings and events at the library, which seek to
combine poetry with other media because I think this is one way to
reduce the anxiety level that people may have about poetry.
Womack
You mention people's fear about poetry. Um. I can really relate to
that because I remember in high school analyzing poetry, and, um,
it always seemed such a -- it almost seemed cold and clinical the
way we went about looking at poetry. It wasn't what you think of
poetry being -- very emotional, personal thing. It was okay you
know "The poet used this word. Why is this particular word used?"
I think it traumatized me. I never liked poetry that much. I think
that's part of it. Is that um...
Dove
I think it um--I think you've hit the nail right on the head.
n1s is the biggest problem we have in this country -- that so many
of us have gone through traumatic experiences with poetry and the
interpretation of poetry.
Okay you can talk about metaphor. An
a point where you can actually talk about the things that
actually go into making a poem which will increase the appreciation
particular poem in much the same was as in music. I
And I think that one of the problems is -- with poetry today -
- is again people read it and they still have this trauma from high
school. "Well, what does this mean?" Um. With poetry we have to
fight around that that voice saying, "What is the symbolic you know
content of this poem?" Yeah.
Womack
The feeling I got was that there was some key to unlocking
poetry and you were either right or wrong and you could either get
it or you couldn't. ~
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Dove
I know and it's so unfortunate. I'm sitting here nodding
because I mean I went through that, um, in some classes as well. I
was fortunate that I had a couple of teachers who really throw the
books out the window and said -- you know and really did it in a
very different way. And that, combined with he fact that I think I
began to read poetry before I had to interpret it and loved it
already, is probably what carried me through.
Ieally I think a poetry book, if it's a collection that
doesn't have a certain theme, should be read, dipped into. You know
it's like you know it's like you read one poem and then some other
day you pick up another piece of candy.
THE STROKE
Later he'll say Death stepped right up
to shake his hand, then squeezed
until he sank to his knees. (Get up,
nigger. Get up and try again.)
Much later he'll admit he'd been afraid,
curled tight in the center of the rug, sunlight
striking one cheek and plaited raffia
scratahing the other. He'll leave out
the part about daydream's aromatic fields
and the strap-worn flanks of the mule
he followed through them./When his wife asks
how did it feel, he won't mention
that the sun shone like the summer
she was pregnant with their first, and
that she craved watermelon which he smuggled
home wrapped in a newspaper, and how
the bus driver smirked as his nickel
clicked through -- no, he'll say
it was like being kicked by a mule.
Right now, though, pinned to the bull's-~ye1/
he knows it was Lem all along:
Lem's knuckles tapping his chest in passinf,
Lem's heart, for safekeeping,
he shores up in his arms.
Womack
Rita Dove, thank you so much for joining us on "With Good Reason."
Dove
You're welcome. It was my pleasure.
OUTRO
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MUSIC
HOST
Our guests today are Rita Dove--professor at the University of
Virginia and Poet Laureate of the United States. And Joanne Gabbin
of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy
also joined us. She is organizer of a conference on African-American
poetry September 29th to October first.
on our next show we'll talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Roger Wilkins about race relations.
This is "With Good Reason." I'm Laura Womack. Thanks for
joining us.
ANNOUNCER
"With Good Reason" is a production of Virginia's public radio
stations and the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium.
This program was produced with the assistance of Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, and the University
of Virginia. Special thanks to WMRA Radio.
The views expressed in this show are not necessarily those of
the consortium or this radio station.
The Project Coordinator for "With Good Reason" is Michael
McDowell. Laura Womack is the Producer. Carolyn Elliott Sundquist
is the Associate Producer. Kevin Piccini wrote the theme music.
If you would like to receive tapes or transcripts, please call
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MUSIC
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