When I recently read "song at midnight" by Lucille Clifton and attempted to look it up online certain things about this poem stuck out and how it was presented bothered me. Though, stylistically, this poem is somewhat different, being completely in lowercase and none of the lines being longer than eight syllables, it is not too outlandish in terms of poetry, but the way that two sections are separate and yet work together to form the whole picture of the poem caught my attention.
When I began to do research multiple things bothered me including the fact that poem, online at least, is normally broken up into two very distinct sections that are not shown together. Though this poem certainly is easily seen in two distinct sections I saw no reason for this poem to broken up in this fashion and when I looked closer at analyses of this poem I saw that people were analyzing only one part. This seems like an injustice to the poem considering how well the two sections combine and how who is being addressed and the speaker is changes throughout.
The reasoning for this separation seems to be based on the audience and how in the first section Clifton uses the term brother multiple times, talking to a specifically male audience whereas later in the poem she speaks to you, giving no indication as to who she wants to be reading the poem. This could also relate to the fact that the first section of the poem talks about a maternal figure receiving recognition and love of her body and the second a celebration of the speakers ability to overcome the challenges in her own life.
Not taking this poem as a whole limits the audience and the message of the poem greatly. Stylistically and message wise this poem is unique, yet fits well into the body of work that Clifton spent much of her life working on. In case you wanted to read the poem in it's entirety it is below, (I hope that's not too illegal),
brothers,
this big woman
carries much sweetness
in the folds of her flesh.
her hair
is white with wonderful.
she is
rounder than the moon
and far more faithful.
brothers,
who will hold her,
who will find her beautifulif you do not?
won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had
no model
born in babylon
both non white and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight,
my other hand; come
clebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
When I began to do research multiple things bothered me including the fact that poem, online at least, is normally broken up into two very distinct sections that are not shown together. Though this poem certainly is easily seen in two distinct sections I saw no reason for this poem to broken up in this fashion and when I looked closer at analyses of this poem I saw that people were analyzing only one part. This seems like an injustice to the poem considering how well the two sections combine and how who is being addressed and the speaker is changes throughout.
The reasoning for this separation seems to be based on the audience and how in the first section Clifton uses the term brother multiple times, talking to a specifically male audience whereas later in the poem she speaks to you, giving no indication as to who she wants to be reading the poem. This could also relate to the fact that the first section of the poem talks about a maternal figure receiving recognition and love of her body and the second a celebration of the speakers ability to overcome the challenges in her own life.
Not taking this poem as a whole limits the audience and the message of the poem greatly. Stylistically and message wise this poem is unique, yet fits well into the body of work that Clifton spent much of her life working on. In case you wanted to read the poem in it's entirety it is below, (I hope that's not too illegal),
song at midnight by Lucille Clifton
this big woman
carries much sweetness
in the folds of her flesh.
her hair
is white with wonderful.
she is
rounder than the moon
and far more faithful.
brothers,
who will hold her,
who will find her beautifulif you do not?
won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had
no model
born in babylon
both non white and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight,
my other hand; come
clebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
I can't imagine why people would be deliberately cutting the poem in half like this--I wonder if it's a case where the two sections had been published independently and then later joined for a particular collection. Because in our class discussion, so much hinged on the movement from the first to the second part, and as you say, that's not too shocking or radical, in terms of contemporary poetry. This movement is what makes the poem *go* somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe thing with that is if they were published separately wouldn't the two sections have different names? Because when you search it you get both under this one title.
ReplyDelete