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Experimental Women's Writing (Categorization ("Poetry and…

- - - - In this portion of her work, Mullen depicts the main issue with trying to categorize one's writing, especially when one straddles a plethora of mainstream categories that seemingly do not go together. Mullen also illuminates the struggle for minority writers to find the best ways to share their work, as even something as minute as labeling becomes a huge aspect of who will read the work and thus be impacted by it.
- - - - In this passage, North is describing the impact of art on its inspirations and vice versa. The 'tension' present here lies in the rift between Europeans and those they were colonizing, as one party was allowed to take and appropriate from the other but not the other way around. North reveals a huge part of the Modernist movement's history in this short passage, revealing a small portion of the reality of just how problematic even subjects like art can be.
  - - - In Olympia by Édouard Manet, the white woman lying in the forefront has a skin tone similar to the flowers her servant is holding and the clean sheets below her. This, in contrast with a woman so black she nearly blends into the dark background, suggests the correctness and purity commonly associated with Western femininity, as well as the clear social divides which stood due to the perceived difference of races.
      - Mullen's poem also engages with the painting in that it comments on the profession of the white woman, which is suggested to be unclean by her dark-coated fingernails and proclivity toward nudity. Despite her lowering in society based upon her being a "mistress," this woman still holds power over another human being, which reveals just how much authority whiteness holds (l. 4).
- - - - Written/ Visual Poem - Though I struggled at first with this poem, both our class discussion and the author's reading made very clear to me many of Philip's motives as they are represented within this poem. For example, the ambiguity and confusion I felt during my first few readings mimic (though hardly to any extent near that of those involved) the experiences of the slaves as they were tossed from the Zong ship and into the merciless waves, all while still being bound by and to the shackles of the white men's authority. Additionally, like the slaves probably had very narrow understanding of what their captors were saying, the words that once belonged to a document placing a price on their heads are lost in communication due to Philip's manipulation of their letters and punctuation (spacing).
      - Philip's Oral Performance - Watching M. NourbeSe Philip perform this poem was hard. We in the audience are made to feel as though we are watching someone die of thirst, and though this is completely different than the images my initial readings conjured, it made me focus on an entirely different aspect of the horror that was this failure of a slave ship and its captain. Her reading also brought to my attention something I merely glanced over originally, that being the list of names below each of the first twenty-six poems. Though I am not entirely sure how I personally feel about this gesture, this imagined renaming of those black lives lost to the sea and the thirst, I do recognize its importance as an act of reclaiming those lives and placing higher value in the lives than the deaths, unlike the captain of the ship.
- - - - In the context of the book's general trend, this poem comes at the beginning of a reclamation of history, one consisting of first-person language which suggests her ability to understand herself within the confines of her poetry's themes. Starting the poem with "my" places a great deal of emphasis on the author and implicitly her speaker, pulling the poems away from the arbitrary and into more concrete imagery via their language (l. 1).
      - Additionally, repeating titles containing the word 'untitled' within this poem suggests the mass proliferation of rampant anonymity of people of color - particularly slaves - by and within white society. Lewis brings this trend into the present day with inclusions such as "Anonymous homage to an/ Unknown/ Suburban Black Girl," which serve to showcase the inordinate amount of power white males have held over black women due to both supposed racial and gender hierarchies (ll. 12-14).
  - - - Throughout the book, Rankine uses certain events to tether her themes, such as race as it is perceived in the media, particularly within the sport of tennis. Her last poem of the book, on page 159, depicts a storytelling involving another microaggression, this time one happening to the speaker whilst in her car before a tennis instruction. The last line, "It wasn't a match, I say. It was a lesson" quite literally states Rankine's main theme: Her book is about teaching society that the little actions are reflective of a larger, more problematic society.
- - - - For Mullen, the issue with attempting to write as both an experimental writer and a minority often results in a sort of miscommunication, one occurring because of the divide between what the masses can understand and what the writer is trying to say. Otherness can only be accepted, thus, in certain forms; once things get too complicated, the reader will be too distanced from the text's content to even be able to attempt to empathize with its themes and social revelations.
      - Being part of an 'experimental' group negates or complicates the issues presented by being black or a minority in Western society, thus creating a rift between the author and one of her desired audiences. Additionally, white readers find particular trouble with these kinds of works, as they straddle multiples worlds, all of which whiteness is not a part of (or at least not a positive part).
  - - - To me, nothing represents these two categories better than Kamala and Amala themselves, as their lives showcased the brutality of civilization as well as the spectacle Westerners love to make of otherness. In depictions of the Reverend 'fixing' the girls, their bones were broken, their manners were shunned, and their lives were ultimately ended before much progress toward 'humanity' was made. To me, these girls' stories (or lack thereof) call attention to the question, Should we be striving to change difference? Imposing normality upon others can be smart, even safe, in some senses, but those who attempted to 'civilize' these girls were ultimately responsible for many of the harms that fell upon them.
  - - - In this article, Hong attempts to reveal this struggles minority writers of experimental literature face, particularly when it comes to topic selection and balancing the emphasis of themes. Hong uses an example from her own life to show how people of color and their writing is typically viewed by the predominantly-white masses, and in doing so she portrays the 'otherness' whiteness creates out of minorities. Because minority viewpoints are so difficult to understand for the privileged, they are often trivialized rather than focused on as they should be.
- - - - "Every now and then you'd change/ from a prancing black buck/ into a small high yellow girl: pigtailed,/ patent leather, eyes spinning gossamer, begging/ for egg salad and banana pudding./ Or just as quickly you'd become/ the girl's mother, pulling/ yourself away from yourself. Because my whole head was covered/ with a heaving beehive, you thought/ I didn't notice. I noticed. I cried honey" (ll. 18-28)
        
        Not only does this passage introduce a plethora of examples of the ways in which women are diminished as people everyday through Lewis's depictions of sexual and racial exploitation, but it also serves to showcase the lasting impacts of a society which refuses to account for the point of view of the minority.
        
        in describing this make-pretend historical reenacting, Lewis emphasizes the dominant character (the presumably white male) and his ability to act as any participant within history's hierarchy of power and freedoms. The speaker, however, with her clearly-African features ("Because my whole head was covered/ with a heaving beehive"), does not have this luxury, nor does she hold enough value, in her counterpart's mind, to understand what lies underneath his dramatic, 'playful' actions.
    - - "You broke inside, but took nothing except/ Pleasure's location within the Temple/ Understanding/ (But I wanted to be razed. I wanted to be plundered)" (ll. 44-48)
        
        Lewis often touches upon the topic of female consent, something which, in "Plantation," takes on a bleak tone which mirrors the valuation issues arising from the leftovers of colonization. In this poem, however, sexuality is questioned in terms of who is allowed pleasure versus who is not, and Lewis uses religious references to contrast what is traditionally 'right' and what individuals want, particularly individuals who, until very recently, had very little sexual autonomy.
        
        This poem contradicts stereotypical images of femininity with the inclusion of a confident prostitute figure and a speaker who clearly desires things women were often punished for even speaking of until the recent past (ll. 16-21). This forces readers to envision a 'sinful' woman without the judgement normally reserved for her kind.
  - - - Picasso's portrait, from this passage, reveals a great deal about societal opinions toward lesbians at this time. It is clear that Stein's non-normative sexuality intrigued Picasso, but oddly enough it seems to almost have attracted him, as if her difference placed her on a level not even comparable to the hierarchies currently in place. This oddly mimics society today within the trend of heterosexual men being interested in female homosexuality but blatantly put-off by male homosexuality.
    - - One of the violent acts proliferated throughout colonization was the notion of taking from the 'civilized' without really giving back. Here, North makes clear the injustices of this period, especially in the hypocrisy of those who benefited from African art's influences while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge the artists as human.
- - - - In this passage, Stein's interest in categorization is clearly portrayed, this time via a dichotomy between black and white laughter. What is perplexing here is the supposed positivity and radiance of black happiness, characterizations which were not normative for these times. Perhaps, despite Stein's displayed racism, she felt a certain amount of joy coming from this 'other,' and maybe this is part of the reason she chose to write about black bodies in this piece.
      - This passage also touches upon normative ideas of femininity, in that women have always been charged with upholding the joy while men deal with the dirtier parts of life. It seems as though Stein is commenting not just on Rose's race, here, but also on her femininity, suggesting that this woman, whether it be due to race or due to other 'inadequacies,' is not the perfect image of womanhood.