Vi börjar i Harlem med "Theme for English B" av Langston Hughes (1902-1967). En dikt med samma sprängkraft som "Strange Fruit" av Abel Meeropol, som bloggen berättade om i sin Billie Holiday-fredag. Langston Hughes dikt är högt älskad, inte bara av afroamerikaner, och tar upp olikheter, perspektiv och sanningar. Jag publicerar andra halvan av dikten.
Theme for English B, by Langston Hughes
(From The collected poems of Langston Hughes. New York : Knopf, 1994.)
...
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
***
I nästa dikt försöker poeten/läraren att med hjälp av humor väcka studenternas kärlek för poesi. Med roliga katalysatorer vill han få dem att använda sina egna erfarenheter för textanalysen. Dikten speglar syftet jag har med Poetry with Blues, att skapa poesiglädje.
Introduction to poetry, by Billy Collins (f. 1941)
(From The Apple that Astonished Paris. Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 1988.)
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
***
Slutorden går till den välrenommerade brittiska poeten Carol Ann Duffy (f. 1955). I en intervju hon gav The Guardian i september 2011 uttryckte hon att farhågorna kring framtidens poesi, och vem som ska skriva den, är kraftigt överdrivna. Tvärtemot vad PISA-rapporter säger om läs- och skrivutveckling så tror hon att SMS-generationen kommer att bli alldeles utmärkta poeter.
Citat från intervju med Carol Ann Duffy i The Guardian, 5 september 2011. Journalist Joanna Moorhead.
"The poem is a form of texting ... it's the original text.
"It's a perfecting of a feeling in language –
it's a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.
We've got to realise that the Facebook generation is the
future –
and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them.
It's a kind of time capsule –
it allows feelings and ideas to travel big distances in a very condensed form."
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