Let America Be America Again From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. There are few writing forms as beautiful as pictographs. I have fiddled with Chinese brush writing and calligraphy, and loved studying cuneiform in World History sophomore year. (Had fun composing incomprehensible messages …!) Persian figural calligraphy loops and flutters like the most beautiful artwork, a sort of flowing dance in ink that reminds me of watching flickering flame. Each figure that makes up this horse is a word in the poem found below by the 14th century metaphysical poet Hafez of Shiraz. You can imagine the little spark of pleasure I felt when I saw this gorgeous shape poem in **my library the other day. The rose opens crimson Bring only wine to the throne of Heaven, Our time of joy comes tied to care, Each shining arrow soars a while O Hafez, rejoicing in the beauty of your pen, — Hafez of Shiraz Sufism is the inner or mystical dimension of the Islamic faith, and the poet, Hafez of Shiraz, was a 14th century practitioner. I’m probably too much a literal thinker to be a good practitioner of mysticism. I have no idea who the historical Assef might be, nor do I know the significance of a crystal chalice to a Sufi. But there is still so much to take from this poem. The use of the animal shape conveys a poetic ideal of motion and life. Living in the now and rejoicing in the beauty of the present is a single facet of the work; another viewpoint is the transience of the natural world, the “here today, gone tomorrow” nature of every living thing. Somehow, the Sufis — and the horse — are happy anyway. Please take a few minutes to look at all ten of Jila Peacock’s animal shape poems, and learn a little more about the process and the artist. Passing our words from heart to heart this week is Elaine Magliaro who graciously hosts Poetry Friday at Wild Rose Reader. **Ah, yes, “my” library, with the coffee shop and the art gallery on the top floor and the little theater, and the glass domes and mandolin wielding statuary up top — sigh! In spite of the fact that the librarians think I’m insane, the Mitchell rejoices in lovely architecture and good funding. Though some days I just scurry in and scurry out, it’s a cool place.) Another lovely jaunt through the Dickensian countryside of dry, witty lines, but the tone of the novel already grows a bit more dark… So, our Mr. Jarvis Lorry has taken the mail packet to Dover, and is prepared to see a young lady. He relates to her a story — and continues to say that his connection with it is simply a matter of business, with no feelings involved. “A matter of business — don’t be distressed.” Hmm! But the more Mr. Lorry says this phrase, the more distressed both he and Miss M. become! HEE! The woman has bonnet like a “Grenadier wooden measure” or a great wheel of STILTON!? p. 23 Oh, this is a very bad hat indeed. According to Wikip., 19th c. grenadiers had hats like bishop’s mitres. Poor wimpy Mr. Lorry! (And equally wimpy Miss Manette!) Oh, all right. Granted, she’s just received news that a parent might be alive. It’s a little startling when you *thought* you were an orphan. Ch. 5 Deepest, darkest foreshadowing: “The time was to come when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and the stain of it would be red upon many there.” p. 26 Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette arrive in the dirt poor and starving suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris, and find Monsieur Mamette, who is a broken shadow of a man, in a broken city suffering from hunger and want. His daughter finally comes unglued from her perpetual state of girly fear, and goes straight into being sort of motherly, and they swoop him away… and Madame Defarge knits, and sees nothing. I remember her. She “sees nothing” a lot. Meanwhile, it’s the end of the first book, and Mr. Lorry has peculiar worries about what all has been lost from Monsieur Manette. What mysterious old life is it to which that poor imprisoned man can’t say he cares to be recalled? Mysteries abound. It’s actually really cool to read this in bits like this; I’m getting a much more nuanced version of events, and remembering tiny details — that will probably come back and give me that “Aha!” feeling later. Ciao, ciao, ’til next we meet our mysterious benefactor and all other players. Dear World, We need to talk. Oh, yes, I’ve been guilty of hyperbole, of overweening enthusiasm for stupid things. And yes, I’ve fluffed my bit of purple prose; it’s the lot of a linguist. However. I’ve noticed, World, that lately you’re ever so full of the superlatives. You gush in the media — in scholarly papers, on lip serum ads — about “fuller explanations,” fuller lips, and being prosecuted to the “fullest extent of the law.” Let me explain this again to you: you cannot get more full than full. The word that can be used as an adjective, noun and a verb is full. There is no such thing as “full, fuller, fullest.” I’m sorry, but that usage is dumb, dumber, and dumbest. Can you be more wrong than wrong? Wrong… wronger, wrongest? No. So, stop being so lame. A Fuller is …a brush company. A theological university on the West Coast. The last name of some dude named Buckminster. Or, what you do to make pleats in fabric. But it is not a superlative. World. Stop pouting, now. It’s an easy mistake to make. Just… don’t do it again, okay?
by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Poetry Friday: Rejoicing In the Beauty of Your Pen
The horse was written into life by Iranian-born painter and print maker Jila Peacock. Jila made a pearlescent color silkscreen on Japanese paper of each of the poems in animal form, to create a book called Ten Poems from Hafez. She recreated this painstaking process and bound fifty volumes. The books are large and gorgeous, and the design won the British Book Design Award in 2006.
And the nightingale is drunk with love
Happy news, you reveling Sufis,
For the rock of your resolve is
Shattered by the crystal chalice.
For when the time of parting comes
From this tavern of two doors,
Sentry and sultan, wise man and fool,
Lofty or low and without worldly gain,
All must pass through.
As bliss was bound to loss at time’s dawn.
Even Assef’s pomp and splendor,
His horse of the winds,
And the language of birds
Are lost with the wind, a traceless void.
But must return to dust.
So do not waver from the path
Or wrestle with being and nothingness
Love life now,
for oblivion completes all things.
See how we pass your words from heart to heart!
TBR3: A Tale of Two Cities – Ending the First Book
Ch. 4
So many 19th century novels have people striding off to Bath, or to take the water in various places, that this description of Dover really amuses me. “The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea.” p.16 Smells like Pier 39!
The best definition of cobblestones yet: “The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them…” p.24 Dickens might have been describing the roads here in Glasgow, I kid you not. Fuller Is Not A Word