Category Archives: Quicksand & Passing

An Analysis of a Poem Extracted from FIRE

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It is told from the beginning of this magazine that FIRE is the Negro Quarterly that was born during a young Negros’ rap hangout. Led by Langston, FIRE is devoted to young Negro artists. Therefore, the poem extracted from FIRE, From the Dark Tower by Countee Cullen, becomes the voice made by Negro artist with the purpose to speak up for Negro people.

It is made obvious due to the background information given about the magazine that this is a poem talking about race. However, the poem wisely uses metaphors and details of African Americans’ characteristics to deliver the message that it is about race talk. For example, the phrases about color are directly mentioned in the poem: white stars, being dark, and dark tower. Furthermore, Cullen features African Americans’, more precisely for its written back during a time in which white people and African Americans had conflict, Cullen features slaves’ life by saying: “Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute.” It is a tradition that after a harvest, the slaves of African descent would get together and play their music where the flute that makes mellow sound is a common instrument to use.

This poem also sheds light on the suppression and negative effect on African American during the conflicts with white people. Starting from the first line, “we shall not always plant while others reap”, Cullen uses this symbolism tells the unfair treatment received by slaves which are that they are the providers of labor while white people are just rip off the result fruits of their labor.

Hope, is another voice I hear by reading this poem. “We are not made eternally to weep.” Eternally means permanently, lasting forever. Through this lie, Cullen is saying that African Americans are suffering, but it is not what they are born to be doing. Cullen denies the inferiority placed on Africans and African descents by white people, from which I drew a sense of hope—at least someone sees through the justice and knows what they are meant to be even if they don’t seem to be so now. “And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.” It sounds like a slogan talking to white people, Cullen is asking those who exploit Africans to wait and see the better result coming after their hope—their next generation.

Jealousy

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Color Struck’s title focuses on colorism- the idea that people in the black community were judged based on the hue of their skin. Emma, the protagonist, is scared that John, the man she’s in a relationship with, will leave her for a lighter-skinned woman. Throughout the play, Emma exhibits extreme jealousy; a word, and emotion that can be clearly seen throughout the text. Emma even admits to these self destructive feelings when saying to John, “I loves you so hard, John, and jealous love is the only kind I got.” John is constantly reassuring Emma of his love, yet she is still jealous of a lighter-skinned woman named Effie.

In the last scene, John returns after 20 years to propose to Emma and take in Lou Lillian, Emma’s daughter, as his own child. Emma is excited, but wary. As Emma is about to leave to find a doctor to care for her sick daughter, John is tending for Lou Lillian. Emma becomes furious and jealous, once again, and believes John is only tending to Lou Lillian because she is light-skinned. Emma did not realize how destructive her behavior was, not even towards her own daughter. Due to Emma’s jealousy, she faces adverse consequences, such as losing John and tragically losing her daughter to death. While Emma let her insecurities encompass her thoughts and behaviors, those surrounding her were suffering as a direct result of her jealousy.

Graphic Narrative Assignment Due 4/12 (Plus Examples from Past Students)

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Hey Everyone.

Remember your graphic narratives are due, Wednesday April 12th by 5 pm.  Your narrative should add or revise some aspect of your final project book. Think about it like fan fiction.  You can add a deleted scene, or a piece of back story, or a memory, or add a minor character, or change an ending, etc.  Just make sure you have some reason for your choice and some main objective that you hope to accomplish by way of the choices you make for this revision.

Please upload your picture as a compressed, jpeg file to the site.  Remember to check all appropriate category boxes.  If you feel extremely shy about your graphic narrative, you may email it directly to me.  Please know that being a perfect or super-skilled artist isn’t necessary.   What I’m looking for is thoughtfulness about all your choices from  panel size and layout, to color, to inking, and dialogue.  I am also looking to see that the product looks complete and finished.  While it’s not required that you ink, inking does help give the graphic a sense of completion, so you should consider inking, or at least inking the panel frames.

Don’t be afraid to do more than one draft!

Click Here: We Monsters to see examples of students’ finished graphic narratives.   Please note in the past the graphic narrative workshop was part of my Young Adult Literature course (ENG 3045) and not Great Works, so their assignment was different.  Instead of creating a graphic related to their final project book, their assignment was to make a graphic that engaged the ideas of adolescence and monstrosity.    All the same, I hope these examples  give you a sense of the range of possibilities.

 

Graphic Novel Wkshp. – Bring Three Panel Graphic Strip Idea

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For next Wednesday you should come to class with an idea of what you want to represent in your three panel graphic.   Think about a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end.  Having a beginning, middle, and end doesn’t necessarily mean you  have to squish a novel’s worth of action into three panel.  You can think about a scene or a moment.

Your moment, scene, panel should in some way engage the book which  your group is working on for the final book project. Think about the assignment as fan fiction in a a graphic art form.   So, for example, you might revise a scene in your primary text, or maybe you add an additional scene, or change the end or beginning.  Or perhaps your panel is something like a prequel, or the beginning of a spin off.  You can also insert  other characters from other stories, from  history, or your own life into the story.

While I hope you find the experience fun, you should also keep in mind how revision and adding and mixing can actually be a powerful way to make a point about  what a text is doing or about it’s limitations and possibilities.   Remember how in ABC the image of Chin-kee is a visual allusion and revision of the 1882 political cartoon in a way that calls forth so as to challenge and put pressure on the racist imagination at work in that image and how that racism persists even into the 20th and 21st century imagination of the Chinese/Asian other.  You might consider how your own graphic illustrations might engage something in the book you’re focusing on in such a way that helps make an argument or emphasize your interpretation of a key part of the novel.   Your group might decide to use some of the graphic illustrations in the final project.