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

Fri Jul 7 19:40:44 EDT 2006

Jeff----thanks for these comments. Paul Barman, oh yeah, he's got  
some silly lyrics that utilize the old form of the "Jewish Joke" if  
I'm not mistaken (heard on college radio)---kind of fun. Okay, I'm  
not being profound or anything now, but just wanted to acknowledge  
your contribution to this discussion.....
Oh, and in "avant" largely white NYC poetry scenes "sampling" became  
a big buzzword as an aesthetic device in the last decade or so. It's  
tempting, given the glut of recorded music (as well as other cultural  
fields), and weird cultural anxieties about 'originality' (against a  
backdrop of tightened intellectual property laws and such), for many  
to argue that we live in a 'sampling culture' (or in some poetry  
circles, the embrace of the phrasal 'fragment' and such). But I  
personally don't feel much of a need to make that argument (even if  
some people have said that some of my own published poetry utilizes  
the 'sampling' technique----one could also make the argument it's  
very much in Pound, Eliot, Ashbery, to name but 3.....but maybe  
that's not what you mean....)

Chris
On Jul 3, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

> 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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