Last month, for Black History Month, I blogged about some of my favorite films and books. Although it is no longer February, I am posting this one late, in early March. Until today it was still in my notebook, handwritten. I had hoped to get to more in February, but I will be adding some of the Black American poets I admire and enjoy in National Poetry Month in April.
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and "Harlem" by Langston Hughes
Last time I discussed the film Glory, followed by the book The Gold Cadillac, followed by the film Green Book. I wish to continue with the ever-famous classic A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry, which in book form is preluded by the Langston Hughes poem often known as "a dream deferred" or "a raisin in the sun," yet its title is "Harlem." Yjr porem captures the theme of the book, about dreams deferrred when a Black American family wants to move out of their apartment and into a house but the house happens to be in an all-white neighborhood. The play was first produced in 1959, after the American Civil Rights Movement began in the mid-50s.
Throughout this film, so much symbolism is given in little windows of time in different scenes, the most well-known or talked about symbol being the half-dead plant sitting in the one tuiny little window in the apartment that the motherwants to take with her and her family into a new house--where it and they can all thrive and not just merely and barely survive.
Civil Rights and Women's Rights both are examined in this play (which did later become a film), such as when the daughter contemplates having an abortion because of no money and cramped living conditions. room in the small apartment she and her husband and son share with her husband Walter's mother and his sister Beneatha. The name Beaneatha sounds like "Beneath ya," symbolizing the oppression of Black American women; yet, the Women's Rights Movement was happening for all women of all cultures and ethnicities at that time, too. Again there is the theme of survival or life being able to thrive in its environment.
Beaneatha and Walter have had no financial way out, but when Walter's mother receives a life insurance check upon her husband's death, Walter who is currently tired and bitter of being a chauffer wants to invest it in a liquor store to create a family business. However, his mother wants to use it to buy a nice house for everyone.
Beaneatha meets a professor at college who teaches her to honor her African heritage. She learns she does not have to try too much to assimilate into the white American culture. Her boyfriend does not approve of her wearing traditionakl African garb to go out to the movies with her on a Friday night.
This film looks at so many different conflicts all at once that it is richly textured. I used to use this book in my English Composition class as fulfillment of the requirement that students write about a play and/or film. As mentioned above there is so much symbolism in the play that it offers ample content about which to write in learning to analyze literature. Forever an opportunist, I was happy to have the opportunity with this book (film script published in book form) to introduce the study of poetry into the classroom. Here there is also the opportunity to not just talk about the play or talk about the poem but to synthesize them in thought, in critical thinking, and in writing.
Here is a link to the poem Harlem, from the Poetry Foundation website:
"Harlem" (Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46548/harlem)
A Brief Comment on Movements: Civil War, Civil Rights, and Symbols of Movement in These Stories
In these works, we have moved from the film Glory from the Civil War into films and books and poetry from the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s; these all have involved movement as a theme. We have the archetype of movement in these works and we have the literary and archetypal symbols of that movement as the images of the vehicles and in Glory the feet in movement and marching. In Glory the soldiers needed shoes so their feet would not blister, cut and bleed. In The Gold Cadillac we have the gold Cadillac quite obviously. In Green Book we have not just the Green Book about which hotels or motels a Black American is allowed by law to stay in but we have the Cadillac and the chauffer that drives him there and to all his places of performance (and a few other surprise places not on the schedule.)
Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, and Other Black American Woman Voices
I had read Nikki Giovanni years ago, back in high school and in my undergraduate years in college in a Creative Writing program. She is known as an American classic of a poet. She too was creating poems during the times of Civil Rights. For Black History Month of this year of 2022, I read her more recent collection titled Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea with the subtitle Poems and Not Quite Poems (and I liked how she did not capitalize the words in the subtitle). The book contains a poem by the same title as the title of this book, "Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea" (it is worth repeating): Quilting as an art. Quilting as a tradition. Quilting words together into poems and prose poems. On the inside of the dust cover, it mentions how her poems "first emerged during the Civil Rights Movement and Black Arts Movement of the 1960s." Yes, of course, how brilliant! I thought, to mention the Black Arts Movement! Arts depict life, so why would anyone leave the arts out of it and how impeccable it is to mention this! For now all I will say is I love this collection, for I love the dynamics of her voice. Her voice, even though different from Maya Angelou's is still like Angelou's in the sense of being dynamic. It is the dynamics here that I love, and also in that like Angelou she transcends race and culture by speaking universally to women's experience. Whether Black American or other American ethnicity, these poems have contents for most Everywoman.
National Poetry Month in April Coming Up with More About These and Other PoetsI am going to talk more about these poets mentioned above during April, National Poetry Month. During National Poetry Month, I plan to also discuss some song-poets here and there, or the music in poetry.
Coming Soon in March, my YouTube Music and Arts Channel
Too, I will be launching my You Tube Channel on mostlyu music but also other fun arts for both children and adults, and all kinds of music, from Classical to old Folk to newer Rock Folk to Pop and Rock. I am very excited to offer these videos on music and fun things about music. More description to come.
