[New-Poetry] Langston Hughes/ W. Dixon, Robert Johnson, etc--

[TheOldMole]

The best film noir poet was Kenneth Fearing.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jeff Newberry 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views 
  Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 4:43 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Langston Hughes/ W. Dixon, Robert Johnson, etc--


  Hi Chris,

  Good questions.  Like Tad, I've used blues lyrics in the classroom, and for me, they do hold up on the page--though as you point out, that argument is moot and trite.

  I'm trying to think of some contemporary poets who've adopted "popular" (note my scare quotes) genres for "artistic" reasons.  Kevin Young's *Black Mariah* comes to mind, a book in which (I think) Young uses the conventions of film noir.  I've not read it, so I don't know how he uses said conventions--if he tries to subvert them in some way or if he puts them to work illuminating or illustrating some point. 

  A poet I've written about before, Tom Hunley, comes to mind, as well.  Even moreso than, say, Billy Collins, Hunley seems to draw as much inspiration from stand-up comics as he does poetry.  He studied with David Kirby down at FSU, so his poems have that same "talky" quality that Kirby's have.  I think that our own David Graham wrote an essay about this a while back--was it in the VPR, David?  

  I've also said before that I'm a fan of some hip-hop.  The stuff that sells, the MTV stuff, isn't my can o' beer.  But, I do like hip-hop lyricists who use language in interesting ways.  I like an Atlanta-based rapper who calls himself MF Doom.  I also like a guy named Paul Barman.  Both of these guys do radical things in their raps:  Barman even has one song (if I'm remembering correctly) that's composed of lines of palindromes.  And it rhymes.  I assume that there are poets using this kind of hip-hop structure (whatever that means), but I don't know who.  

  (On a side note, I wonder if any poets have tried to use "sampling" in thier writing--you know, the way Grandmaster Flash--among others--has used bits and pieces of other songs to create something new.  Art from art.) 

  I'll give some more thought to Hughes and try to post my thoughts.

  Thanks Chris.

  Jeff Newberry

   
  On 7/2/06, Chris Stroffolino <cstroffo at earthlink.net> wrote: 

    Hey, I got in a really good discussion the other day about Langston
    Hughes' blues poems
    (and yes I know that he recorded quite a few of them) and their 
    relationship to the blues lyrics
    of, for instance, the folks above, or John Lee Hooker, Big Mama
    Thornton, Ma Rainey, etc---

    And if anybody else here would maybe be interested in talking about
    that relationship here-- 
    Does it matter that Hughes worked primarily in a different field (in
    the artistic specialization sense) than these other folks?
    Is it somewhat analogous to the difference between, say, million
    selling hip hop artists today vs. a slam poet aesthetic which 
    utilizes many devices of rap/hip hop?
    Or, for that matter, even the difference between say Bob Dylan and
    Allen Ginsberg's songs?

    There's alot of room for discussion (and, sure, bring on the "blues
    bashers" though I'm definitely trying to
    avoid the tired argument "it doesn't stand up on the page" and will
    try not to engage it here if it comes up)--
    Also, if anybody knows of any good essays on the subject---- 
    specifically about Hughes and some of the other recorded bluesmen of
    the 20th C---that'd be a nice supplement, but I really am not a big
    fan of posts that just send LINKS
    without any commentary as to why I'm supposed to check out the 
    link......
    a discussion might be nice (but be careful what you ask for, Chris---)

    C

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  -- 
  "Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death." 
                                                     --Miguel de Unamuno

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