PI chose James Weldon Johnson as my poet for the 10th day in honor of Black History Month. He was a civil rights advocate and helped build the Harlem Renaissance. One of the strong features of James Weldon Johnson's work is it's musicality, the sense that just reading it is like a song. That's why I chose the black castanets below, they offer rhythm to any music or dance and are helpful and low-cost way to establish a beat while you write or read or edit your poems.

Rather than talk about the most famous poem of his work known as the black national anthem or "Lift Every Voice and Sing" I chose another of his poems, "Art Versus Trade" on the Poetry Foundation website which also has a biography along with the one found if you click the first mention of his name. "Art Versus Trade" is something every artist must face and every poet. It's a poem that shares the same style that is used by Ice-T or Ice Cube with paired lines of rhymes. Except he chose to break the singsongness of paired rhymes with one line that doesn't rhyme, the last line of the first stanza. It looks like the poem will have five-line stanzas, except he merges two stanzas together adding additional lines in order to make it sound chatty. He then uses three pairs of rhymed lines followed by an additional line. 

One of the rules poets can break is the format of the stanza. Traditionally, poets wrote to form, here the poet wrote to keep the song and to remain on topic with what he wishes to say. His life ended just as the Great Depression hit, so perhaps the bad times he speaks of reflect that time period. The two lines:

"Oh, that mankind had less of Brain and more of Heart,   
Oh, that the world had less of Trade and more of Art;"  

appear in the last stanza, showing almost hope despite the octopus crushing the throat of poor art.  These lines serve as a turning point for the poem that ties back to the first stanza, before going back to being bleak. Contrast it with the joy in the video below. 

Assignment: Write a poem about the business of poetry, whatever you have learned about the struggle between work and art or music.

​Here's a video of Ray Charles performing James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

For a black poet for the letter "i", I needed to go to the "Anthology of Rap" edited by Adam Bradley and Andrew Dubois. Rap is poetry backed by a lot of music or little bit and is quite contemporary, two examples provided are work by rappers Ice-T and Ice Cube. The streets that appear in both rappers music are much gritter than the photography below of a New York City intersection. They are places where people trade drugs and use guns. Rap tends to be much more profitable than poetry because of the music business and people's desire to connect and dance.

Both rappers use pairs of rhymed lyrics in long stanzas of song. Both are narrative poets, they tell a story of events that continue for the duration of the poem. I will discuss Ice-T's rap "6 'N the Morning" while my other option was Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" that I provided below in Youtube format.  This latter rap has an element of humor because it ends with a famous "Not" meaning he laughs at the very idea of his poem.

Ice-T's rap "6 'N the Morning" is very long, separated by the use of Word to mark changes in the story. His rap starts vividly with action everyone can relate to "Fresh Adidas squeak across the bedroom floor, out my back window I make my escape, Didn't even get a chance to grab my old school tape" to the event of having the police arrive at his home. Most of the events are about being out on the street which many in the poetry world could not relate to: "Didn't want trouble, but the shit must fly, squabbled with this sucker, shanked him in the eye." Part of his appeal is the series of events, getting paid lots of money, getting dressed up, making love, escaping the cops, which can be as exciting as a movie, thus narrative poetry.

Writing Assignment: Write a narrative poem with pairs of rhymed lines making your day seem exciting

For February 7 2022, I selected poet Charlotte L. Forten Grimke in honor of Black History Month. This US poet who lived until the First World War is important as a writer, political activist and one of the founders of the National Association of Colored Women. Read her biography.

I chose her poem "The Angel's Visit" because it recorded how she felt at the loss of her only child's life and is the most heartfelt. Other poems she wrote are dedicated or cite famous works of art or people like Wordsworth.

"The Angel's Visit" is written as ten stanzas of eight lines and tells a story of a mother grieving. It has two major turns in the poem, one when grief is answered by an angel, and a second turn when grief departs. Charlotte L. Forten Grimke's life changes as she goes on to be politically active, beginning a new life in Washington, DC. What is apparent in the poem is that she exhibits honest faith and real loss. Yet her poem is able to be measured and careful to convey meaning without sacrificing form.

The picture above is from the bridge of Angels in Rome, Italy at sunset. Below is an alternate use of an Angel by a modern band. It is one of the valuable aspects of poetry is it makes music lovely.

Writing Assignment: Write about an Angel that visits you for some reason. Use a fixed form but convey strong emotion.

Title :               All Souls

Author :           Michael Coady

Publisher:        Gallery Press
                        Loughcrew
                        Old Castle
                        County Meath

ISBN:              1 85235 211 6

All Souls by Michael Coady is a wonderful collection of poems filled with the deep meaning of the community life surrounding the Irish poet’s hometown Carrick-on-Suir, and the river that runs through it and shows the history of family through migrations to the United States and back.

One of the first thing a reader notices about the collection is the merging of prose, poetry and photographs and the ease in which the poet brings to life the world around him, particularly the people, how they meet, how they talk, what they say and the music that binds their down time. The collection is structured much the same way, with sections titled Voices, Visitations, three longer pieces, one titled All Souls and then Five Airs from Older Music followed by the use of Memory.

The title poem “All Souls” serves to bind the piece and is an elaborate, hearty trip of saying goodbye to friends while stumbling home after drinking and relaxing with friends. It is built using repetition and rhythm but is in essence a list poem, this is the second stanza:
...
after the last of the round and yarning
about the charms of the women of Cork
about Plunger Maher and Sheet Metal’s missus
about Bugler Whalen and Butt O’Spuds
about nights of promise in Ballyneen
about Lucius O’Niell who could converse in Latin
...

This stanza on its own showcases humor, gossip, romance, language, and the essence of yarning, which is knowing about others and their doings. The piece continues on with a litany of people met, and places he’s been to a moment that catches him lost in time with awe.

Orates Fratres (Pray brethern) follows with a musical list poem that ties in the tradition of praying for the sick, dying, and needy in the Catholic church service that is a list of all the people in town, here’s an example of the third page:

for Edmund Green the sieve maker
                        and Nick Faolain the priest
for Henry Hayden the watchmaker
                        and John Power the proctor
for Mary Brennan the charwoman
                        and Daniel Ryan the doctor.

 ...

Oremus
Let us pray

Ar son gach n-aon
For all of these,
Amen
...
 
Michael Coady is showing the jobs, the lives, and the languages in use including Latin, English, Gaelic and the power of community, tradition of Catholicism and prayer in a simple poem that is meant to be read out loud—the meter, the rhyme, the repetition, the solemnity, and different emphasis comes out in how he has set the poem up.

For the reader, these poems are like an anthropological study of life in Ireland.

In "Time’s Kiss", Michael Coady writes a unique three stanza poem that shows the transition between a young girl and a woman, with a hidden secret in between. It tells a tragedy with subtlety and emotion.  Throughout, the reader often finds traces of humor, sorrow, or a touch of spite. Often the words used are quite Irish such as “ruz him up” meaning to dig up or that gormless pit, which maybe be obvious and lots of musical terms such as jigs, reels, and bodhran.

People that will enjoy this collection are those interested in history, the Irish, music, family backgrounds, humor, poetry and the telling of a rich tale.