Tuesday, April 1 @ the Crossroads—A Sudden American Poem

In class: please turn in yesterday's work on Lamar and Brooks.
   Looking at two poems by Juan Felipe Herrera, followed by discussion questions and short response on "Blood on the Wheel". (class handout / copy below)

What is a poet Laureate? 

The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry is appointed annually by the Librarian of the United States Congress.  Laureates assume a highly visible role as a national advocate for poetry.

           Juan Felipe Herrera, 1948

On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was shot and killed by Jeronimo Yanez, a St. Anthony, Minnesota, police officer, after being pulled over in Falcon Heights, a suburb of Saint Paul





                                                        

  On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old African American was fatally    shot several times at close range by two white Baton Rouge Police Department officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 Slain Dallas Officer Lorne Ahrens

Michael Krol

Michael J. Smith

 

Brent Thompson

Patrick Zamarripa

           Juan Felipe Herrera, 1948

 @ the Crossroads—A Sudden American Poem

       RIP Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Dallas police
       officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith,
       Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa—and all
       their families. And to all those injured.

                                                Let us celebrate the lives of all

As we reflect & pray & meditate on their brutal deaths

Let us celebrate those who marched at night who spoke of peace

& chanted Black Lives Matter

Let us celebrate the officers dressed in Blues ready to protect 

Let us know the departed as we did not know them before—their faces,

Bodies, names—what they loved, their words, the stories they often spoke

Before we return to the usual business of our days, let us know their lives intimately

Let us take this moment & impossible as this may sound—let us find 

The beauty in their lives in the midst of their sudden & never imagined vanishing

Let us consider the Dallas shooter—what made him

                                                           what happened in Afghanistan

                                           what
            flames burned inside

(Who was that man in Baton Rouge with a red shirt selling CDs in the parking lot

Who was that man in Minnesota toppled on the car seat with a perforated arm 

& a continent-shaped flood of blood on his white T who was

That man prone & gone by the night pillar of El Centro College in Dallas)

This could be the first step 

            in the new evaluation of our society    This could be

                the first step of all of our lives
***************************************************************************
I went down to the river to pray; establishing rhythm

Blood on the Wheel

BY JUAN FELIPE HERRERA

     Ezekiel saw the wheel,
     way up in the middle of the air.
               TRADITIONAL GOSPEL SONG

1.Blood on the night soil man en route to the country prison

Blood on the sullen chair, the one that holds you with its pleasure

2. Blood inside the quartz, the beauty watch, the eye of the guard

Blood on the slope of names & the tattoos hidden

3. Blood on the Virgin, behind the veils,

Behind—in the moon angel's gold oracle hair

                 4.    What blood is this, is it the blood of the worker rat?

                    Is it the blood of the clone governor, the city maid?

                    Why does it course in s's & z's?

5. Blood on the couch, made for viewing automobiles & face cream

Blood on the pin, this one going through you without any pain

6. Blood on the screen, the green torso queen of slavering hearts

Blood on the grandmother's wish, her tawdry stick of Texas

7. Blood on the daughter's breast who sews roses

Blood on the father, does anyone remember him, bluish?

                    8. Blood from a kitchen fresco, in thick amber strokes

                    Blood from the baby's right ear, from his ochre nose

                    What blood is this?

9. Blood on the fender, in the sender's shoe, in his liquor sack

Blood on the street, call it Milagro Boulevard, Mercy Lanes #9

Blood on the alien, in the alligator jacket teen boy Juan

            10.         There is blood, there, he says

                    Blood here too, down here, she says

                    Only blood, the Blood Mother sings

11. Blood driving miniature American queens stamped into rage

Blood driving rappers in Mercedes blackened & whitened in news

Blood driving the snare-eyed professor searching for her panties

Blood driving the championship husband bent in Extreme Unction

                 12.   Blood of the orphan weasel in heat, the Calvinist farmer in wheat

                   Blood of the lettuce rebellion on the rise, the cannery worker's prize

13. Blood of the painted donkey forced into prostitute zebra,

Blood of the Tijuana tourist finally awake & forced into pimp sleep again

I14. It is blood time, Sir Terminator says,

It is blood time, Sir Simpson winks,

It is blood time, Sir McVeigh weighs.

                 15.   Her nuclear blood watch soaked, will it dry?

                   His whitish blood ring smoked, will it foam?

                   My groin blood leather roped, will it marry?

                   My wife's peasant blood spoked, will it ride again?

16. Blood in the tin, in the coffee bean, in the maquila oración

Blood in the language, in the wise text of the market sausage

Blood in the border web, the penal colony shed, in the bilingual yard

                 17.    Crow blood blues perched on nothingness again

                    fly over my field, yellow-green & opal

                    Dog blood crawl & swish through my sheets

18. Who will eat this speckled corn?

Who shall be born on this Wednesday war bed?

19. Blood in the acid theater, again, in the box office smash hit

Blood in the Corvette tank, in the crack talk crank below

20. Blood boat Navy blood glove Army ventricle Marines

in the cookie sex jar, camouflaged rape whalers

Roam & rumble, investigate my Mexican hoodlum blood

                  21.   Tiny blood behind my Cuban ear, wine colored & hushed

                    Tiny blood in the death row tool, in the middle-aged corset

                    Tiny blood sampler, tiny blood, you hush up again, so tiny

22. Blood in the Groove Shopping Center,

In blue Appalachia river, in Detroit harness spleen

23. Blood in the Groove Virus machine,

In low ocean tide, in Iowa soy bean

24. Blood in the Groove Lynch mob orchestra,

South of Herzegovina, south, I said

25. Blood marching for the Immigration Patrol, prized & arrogant

Blood spawning in the dawn break of African Blood Tribes, grimacing

& multiple—multiple, I said

26. Blood on the Macho Hat, the one used for proper genuflections

Blood on the faithful knee, the one readied for erotic negation

Blood on the willing nerve terminal, the one open for suicide

27. Blood at the age of seventeen

Blood at the age of one, dumped in a Greyhound bus

28. Blood mute & autistic & cauterized & smuggled Mayan

& burned in border smelter tar

                  29.   Could this be yours? Could this item belong to you?

                    Could this ticket be what you ordered, could it?

         30.  Blood on the wheel, blood on the reel

          Bronze dead gold & diamond deep. Blood be fast.

Discussion questions

1.      Why does Herrera include lyrics from a traditional gospel song as a prelude to the poem?

2.      Using poetic language, how is the poem organized?

3.      Describe the rhythm of Blood on the Wheel.

4.      What is the dominating rhetorical device throughout the poem?

5.      Why select the word “blood?”

 ******************************************************************************

Name____________________________________”Blood on the Wheel” by Juan Felipe Herrera

From the poem “Blood on the Wheel”, beginning with the stanza number, write out and explain 5 meanings for the word blood that used throughout the poem and to what the circumstances the word may allude.  These do not need to be in any particular order.

Model example: stanza 28: “Blood mute & autistic & cauterized & smuggled Mayan.”  This refers to immigrants from Mexico who to survive must leave their homeland and silently move into a new, incomprehensible social order to survive.

1.___________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

2._______________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

3._______________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. _______________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

5._________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, April 30 Boy Breaking Glass / the Caterpillar

In class: looking at two poems: Gwendolyn Brooks "Boy Breaking Glass" and Kendrick Lamar's "The Caterpillar" (class handout / copy below)

Please turn in your responses to The Highwayman and Annabel Lee from last Friday, if you have not already done so.

Of note: check your grades. There is a substantial amount of missing work!

What is a Pulitzer Prize?

The Pulitzer Prize  is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American Joseph Pulitzer who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher. The Pulitzer Prize and is administered by Columbia University in New York City. Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a U.S. $15,000 cash award. 

“English.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English.

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1917. She became the first black author to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for her writing and also the first black woman to hold the position of poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. As Poet Laureate of the State of Illinois, Brooks encouraged many aspiring poets, often funding prizes herself.

Her first poem was published when she was thirteen years old and by the time she was seventeen her poems were being published regularly. Many of her later poems deal with the civil rights activism of the 1960s and reflect her experience as an African‑American woman in a society largely dominated by white men.

Boy Breaking Glass

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

To Marc Crawford
from whom the commission

Whose broken window is a cry of art   

(success, that winks aware

as elegance, as a treasonable faith)

is raw: is sonic: is old-eyed première.

Our beautiful flaw and terrible ornament.   

Our barbarous and metal little man.

“I shall create! If not a note, a hole.   

If not an overture, a desecration.”

Full of pepper and light

and Salt and night and cargoes.

“Don’t go down the plank

if you see there’s no extension.   

Each to his grief, each to

his loneliness and fidgety revenge.

Nobody knew where I was and now I am no longer there.”

The only sanity is a cup of tea.   

The music is in minors.

Each one other

is having different weather.

“It was you, it was you who threw away my name!   

And this is everything I have for me.”

Who has not Congress, lobster, love, luau,   

the Regency Room, the Statue of Liberty,   

runs. A sloppy amalgamation.

A mistake.

A cliff.

A hymn, a snare, and an exceeding sun.

An existential crisis is a moment at which an individual questions if their life has meaning, purpose, or value. It may be commonly, but not necessarily, tied to depression or inevitably negative speculations on purpose in life. (e.g., "if one day I will be forgotten, what is the point of all of my work?") 
***************************************************************

KENDRICK LAMAR

Educational Background and Location

Centennial High School - Straight A Student, Compton CA

Brief Personal Bio

Lamar's parents had moved from Chicago to Compton (where Lamar was born) to escape Chicago's gang culture even though Lamar's father was associated with the Gangster Disciples gang. Lamar was a good student (straight A's) and he enjoyed writing, he first wrote stories and poems and then moved on to lyrics. His writing/lyrics are inspired by the gang violence he observed and saw in the streets of Compton.

These are a Few of his Favorite Things

·         Favorite Food – Fruity Pebbles

·         Favorite Rappers – Jay-Z, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Nas

·         Favorite Color – Black

·         Favorite Song – Theme song to DuckTales

·          

Common Literary Elements/Structure/Themes in their Work

Lamar's music (in his album To Pimp A Butterfly) adds unique presence and dimension as well as a old-school vibe. Lamar also incorporates personal issues into his music. His album "has more sophisticated devices that weave the tracks of this album into one seamless package" and "at the end of every track on this album, Kendrick adds one line to a poem...each added line smoothly transitions into the next song and new theme".

the caterpillar

 the caterpillar

The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it

Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it, in order to protect itself from this mad city

While consuming its environment the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive

One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him, but praises the butterfly

The butterfly represents the talent, the thoughtfulness, and the beauty within the caterpillar

But having a harsh outlook on life the caterpillar sees the butterfly as weak and figures out a way to pimp it to its own benefits

Already surrounded by this mad city the caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon which institutionalizes him

He can no longer see past his own thoughts

He’s trapped

When trapped inside these walls certain ideas take roots, such as going home, and bringing back new concepts to this mad city

The result?

Wings began to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant

Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations that the caterpillar never considered, ending the internal struggle

Although the butterfly and the caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same."

Accompanying questions for the above poems.

Name__________________________ Accompanying questions to “The Caterpillar” by Kendrick Lamar and

“Boy Breaking Glass” by Gwendolyn Brooks

“Boy Breaking Glass”

1.       To whom is the poem addressed?_____________________________________

2.      To what is the “commission” referring?_________________________________

3.      What act has Marc committed?____________________________________

4.      What does Marc wish to do? _________________________________

5.      Why rearrange “pepper” and Salt in the couplet? ___________________________________________

6.      Carefully read through the poem and list all the words associated with music.

1._________________________________2. ______________________ 3.__________________

4.___________________________5.______________________

7.      An “amalgamation” (24 )is a combination, a blend, a mixture of things. What mistake has Marc made and how is he handling it?

___________________________________________________________

“The Caterpillar” by Kendrick Lamar

8.      Identify the metaphor in line 1._________________________________________________

9.      What is the irony expressed in line 5? ________________________________________________________________________________

10.  What does the butterfly represent? ________________________________________________________________________________

11.  Using textual evidence, explain  how does the caterpillar exploit the butterfly?

__________________________________________________________________________________

12.  How is the “internal struggle” between the butterfly and the caterpillar resolved?

__________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________