Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone. Molly is a teacher, and last week she shared a charming interaction she had at a Staples store with a boy who was soon to enter kindergarten. He expressed in an adorable way the excitement and uncertainty about this new beginning. The end of Summer is an exiting time of year for many.
This week I decided to participate in the Sealey challenge. I wanted to make a commitment that I could actually keep, and I pulled this book off my shelf: 100 Poems To Break Your Heart by Edward Hirsch.
As we all know, poems have layers of meaning. Hirsh has chosen 100 poems, great poems old and new, and in two or three pages tells us the history of the poem and the author’s craft. I am reading at least one a day. Today I read this poem written in 1927 by Langston Hughes, about a time many Americans want to forget: the Jim Crow era.
history:
SONG FOR A DARK GIRL
by Langston Hughes
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
This is a short poem, three quatrains. The language is direct but complex in terms of meaning. I’ll mention some of what I learned. First “Way Down South in Dixie” refers to a popular song from the segregated South. We all know this song. It was written to be song by someone in black face who, playing a slave, longs for a return to the South that is so dear to him. This is placed in contrast to the reality of lynching, in a place and time of cruelty that few black folks would long to return to. The song was propaganda..
Also in contrast are the phrases “black young lover”in the first stanza and “White lord Jesus,” in the second. What god, white or otherwise, worthy of worship would allow lynching to happen, and is this white god or the young black lover, more worthy of praise?
Anyone reading this poem will understand, if they didn’t quite before, why book banning and revision of history is taking place in America. Our true history, involving such crimes as slavery and lynching, and the hijacking of Christianity, are all true, facts to remember, as teachers and librarians understand.
I look forward to exploring more of the poems in this Hirsch’s book.
On a different note, more I can share this week. First, I have been trying out water color painting. It’s fun to try and I’ve found some books to get me started.
I love the painter Wayne Thiebaud, who painted cupcakes and gum ball machines among many other things. This spring I saw a Thiebaud exhibit at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. He wrote about being a thief, an artist stealing ideas from other artists. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I painted a donut as he might. In a book entitled, WATERCOLOR: Success in Four Steps, by Marina Bakasova, I found instructions on how to draw a donut.
It’s not hard to paint pastries or veggies, it just requires some patience. Faces and landscapes, well, that takes more study. Still it was fun sending this postcard to my sister.
I also happened upon and snapped a picture of a red tailed hawk this week, in a grassy area, enjoying a tasty catch.
I think I’ll try to draw him soon. Not sure about drawing feathers but will try. His tail was a deep and bright brick red. He was gorgeous and let me watch him for a while.
Red Tailed Hawk
Enjoy the rest of summer. Thank you Molly Hogan for hosting! Best wishes to all those returning to school classrooms and libraries soon..