In folklore writer Sterling A. Brown’s most renowned poem, “Ma Rainey,” the music of the blues (specifically, the abridged version of “Backwater Blues” found in-text) validates a number of hardships seen in African-American daily life—from problems of poverty and segregation to issues of identity formation—and unifies African Americans in the validation of their shared histories. In his 1932 poem, “Ma Rainey,” Brown uses Rainey’s music to fulfill both of the above purposes and immerse and implicate the audience so that they become active participants. This, in turn, allows for audience members’ spiritual catharsis: rather than being saved by God, blues music empowers African Americans to rescue themselves from a tragic plight
Initially, Brown’s “Ma Rainey” uses the music of the blues to address hardship, a thematic centrality of the musical genre. The poem begins by referencing Rainey’s “Backwater Blues” with the following line: “It rained fo’ days an’ de skies was dark as night” (42). The lyrics describe a tempest, which regularly symbolizes internal or external unrest in works of art. In the unabridged version of “Backwater Blues,” the preceding line is immediately repeated; this repetition works to establish and reinforce a mood that is suggestive of people quite literally experiencing the blues. Another line found in both the poem and the song explicitly refers to hardship: “Trouble taken place in the lowlands at night” (43).
“Ma Rainey” validates the hardships that are symptomatic of being a poor African American in the racist, 20th-century South. The speaker’s use of the vernacular captures the setting: “She jes’ catch hold of us somekindaway” (40). Brown portrays African Americans as facing “hard luck…[and] lonesome road...
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...elief in bleak futures, isolation, and reluctance to leave their own doors in the morning to confront the allegorical road of life. It is apparent that Rainey’s song resonates with the audience members when they “bow dey heavy heads, set dey moufs up tight an’ cried” (49). This line is repeated once more, reaffirming that the audience is bowing in reverence for words that ring true to them, speak to them, and move them to acknowledge the common pains of their personal microhistories. “Backwater Blues” describes situations that African Americans endure every day; Brown illustrates this poignantly when he notes that there is nothing more to say but that Ma Rainey catches hold of her listeners and their problems (40, 52). It is interesting to note the parallel between the poem’s focus on unifying different people and the unification of poetry and song within the poem.
For centuries, music has been defined by history, time, and place. To address this statement, Tom Zè, an influential songwriter during the Tropicália Movement, produced the revolutionary “Fabrication Defect” to challenge oppression as a result from the poor political and social conditions. On the other hand, David Ramsey discusses, in mixtape vignettes, the role of music to survive in New Orleans’ violent setting. Furthermore, “The Land where the Blues Began”, by Alan Lomax, is a film and perfect example to understand under what musical conditions profound ways of communication are made to stand the hard work of cotton plantations. As a result, music plays a crucial role in the sources’ cultures and its creation relies on particular conditions such as the social
Nikky Finney (1957- ) has always been involved in the struggle of southern black people interweaving the personal and the public in her depiction of social issues such as family, birth, death, sex, violence and relationships. Her poems cover a wide range of examples: a terrified woman on a roof, Rosa Parks, a Civil Rights symbol, and Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, to name just a few. The dialogue is basic to this volume where historical allusions to prominent figures touch upon important sociopolitical issues. I argue that “Red Velvet” and “Left”, from
Johnson begins his poem on behalf of the hardships of African Americans by acknowledging that after all the Africans hardships and pain they’ve been through, they are on the verge of freedom as long as they stick together. The way Johnson uses diction to show his audience how to face hardships with unity, is by the use of the strong phrases or words used. Johnson implies, “Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,” (28), and “Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last.”(19-20). The outpour of emotions with the use of strong diction words in that quote, informs the reader that as long as we the people
The South is a region of the United States known for lively bluegrass and jazz music, African American literature, fine cuisine, family unity, a strong prevalence of religion and racial stereotypes. These customs, important to this area, have spurred artists to write about their experiences in the South. Black American poet and educator, Terrance Hayes, has been greatly influenced by the culture of the Southern United States. Terrance Hayes’ works reflect Southern influences and how being a member of the black community in the South has shaped his identity and his perception of the world.
The book, The Spirituals and the Blues, by James H. Cone, illustrates how the slave spirituals and the blues reflected the struggle for black survival under the harsh reality of slavery and segregation. The spirituals are historical songs which speak out about the rupture of black lives in a religious sense, telling us about people in a land of bondage, and what they did to stay united and somehow fight back. The blues are somewhat different from in the spirituals in that they depict the secular aspect of black life during times of oppression and the capacity to survive. James H. Cone’s portrayal of how the spirituals and the blues aided blacks through times of hardship and adversity has very few flaws and informs the reader greatly about the importance of music in the lives of African-Americans. The author aims to both examine the spirituals and blues as cultural expressions of black people and to reflect on both the theological and sociological implications of these songs.
Frances E.W. Harper and James Whitfield are two of the most influential anti-slavery poets of all time. Both individuals use poetry as a form of resistance and as a way to express themselves during a time of great racial tension. Their poems reach out to many different audiences, shedding light on racial injustices that were present in America. Harper’s and Whitfield’s poetry, like many other works that were written during this time, help us to better comprehend the effects of slavery on African Americans.
Perhaps the blues was representation of optimism and faith for the entire city of Harlem and all of African-American descent. Music is portrayed fluently and abundantly throughout the entire story of “Sonny’s Blues”. Despite the fact that Sonny frequently plays the piano, there is always a juke box playing, the “humming an old church song”, a “jangling beat of a tambourine”, a tune being whistled, or a revival meeting with the singing of religious words (Baldwin 293-307). The repetition of music in the short story is a realistic portrayal of how regular the blues, musically and emotionally, was present in an African-American’s life during the era of racial discrimination. Flibbert explains that the rooted, burdensome emotion felt by African Americans is difficult to put to words, other than describing it as the blues. He best defines the blues as “a mental and emotional state arising from recognition of limitation imposed-in the case of African-Americans-by racial barriers to the community” (Flibbert). Though a definite definition exists, the blues cannot simply be construed. To cope with this unexplainable feeling of blue, the African-American folk genre of jazz music was created. Finally, the blues was something African-Americans owned and that the white man could not strip them of. Though music appears to show up at the most troublesome times in “Sonny’s Blues”, it brings along “a glimmer of life within the
In “Blame It On the Blues” the author Angela Davis, argues against critics, like Samuel Charters and Paul Oliver, who say that the Blues lacks social commentary or political protest, by saying that the Blues was a subtle protest against gender and racial inequality. Davis uses various songs from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to prove this.
The poem also focuses on what life was like in the sixties. It tells of black freedom marches in the South how they effected one family. It told of how our peace officers reacted to marches with clubs, hoses, guns, and jail. They were fierce and wild and a black child would be no match for them. The mother refused to let her child march in the wild streets of Birmingham and sent her to the safest place that no harm would become of her daughter.
The content is written in the style of the blues not only in the music but in the social perspective of the times in Harlem in respect to the sufferings and struggles of the African-American past and present experiences, and what they were going to encount...
When discussing the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, due to the strength of their relationship, one must look at Blues and Jazz. Many viewed this genre as a voice for the black communities and as “the New Negro poets expressed a deep pride in being Black” (Smith, 1983, p. 37) it is easy to see how this influenced their poetry. The main theme of Blues were the troubles of life and finding an escape, and this underlying dissatisfaction was incorporated into poetry as a response to many of the injustices present. For example, a clear example of this is Langston Hughes’ Homesick Blues which uses many of the key techniques from Blues songs, such as short lines to create urgency. The poem discusses the effect of prejudices and injustices on the black communities, especially when it comes to finding a home and an identity. There is a subtle, irregular rhyme scheme from words such as “sun… done” (Ramazani, 1994, pp. 152-3) which strengthens the influence. The dull, full rhymes create a sense of dissatisfaction and boredom, as if the speaker has given up on life. Hughes similarly uses many colloquialism and phonetics, which were common in Blues songs, such as “De Railroad Bridge/ a sad song in de air” (Ramazani, 1994, pp. 152-3), which furthers racial pride and identity, present in Blues and Harlem Renaissance poetry. However, perhaps the strongest example of how the Blues genre infl...
Society is made up of individuals – individuals with passions, dreams, fears, and regrets. The society where Sonny existed was hell to say the very least. They lived in the shadow of two wars: one where both brothers served for their country and the one that each man must fight from within. Both brothers survived the Second World War but no one knows the outcome of the wars that rage inside. The Second World War caused people grief and suffering but I think that both brothers experienced more pain with their internal conflicts. And they were mere reflections of what was happening at every urban black American house hold. Sonny summed up what was happening in his life and in their society when he partly agreed with his brother when he said;
It’s 1920 in Harlem New York. Hopeful they were when they moved to the North think they would escape the pain of the South. Only to find that where they went prejudice would only follow. Filling each building with people to the top. There minds and eyes hopeful yet there dreams would soon be crushed. See it was still bad to be African American in a place that preached that all were ‘free’. A very different song would be sung. As I read ‘Harlem Shadows’ by Claude McKay I can see the struggles and pain of a people that only wanted to be free. Claude Mckay states, “stern hard world… of poverty, dishonor and disgrace… has pushed the timid little feet... “ (Stanza 3, lines 1-3). These word bring such a vivid Image of a girl, a little girl running from the struggles of a place she did not
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
Hughes, Susan. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” American Literature Since the Civil War. Create edition. New York, NY: McGraw - Hill, 2011. 166-175. E-Book.