Agulha Revista de Cultura: MARK STATMAN | Hidden Beauty, Willful Craziness – Teaching poems by Jayne Cortez and Lucille Clifton

Jayne Cortez & Lucille Clifton

UNDER THE EDGE OF FEBRUARY

Under the edge of February

in hawk of a throat

hidden by ravines of sweet oil

by temples of switch blades

beautiful in its sound of fertility

beautiful in its turban of funeral crepe

beautiful in its camouflage of grief

in its solitude of bruises

in its arson of alert

Who will enter its beautiful calligraphy of blood

Its beautiful mask of fish net

mask of hubcap mask of ice picks mask

of watermelon rinds mask of umbilical cords

changing into a mask of rubber bands

Who will enter this beautiful beautiful mask of

punctured bladders moving with a mask of chapsticks

Compound of Hearts Compound of Hearts

Where is the lucky number for this shy love

this top heavy beauty bathed with charcoal water

self conscious against a mosaic of broken bottles

broken locks broken pipes broken

bloods of broken spirits broken through like

broken promises

Landlords Junkies Thieves

enthroning themselves in you

they burn up couches they burn down houses

and infuse themselves against memory

every thought

a pavement of old belts

every performance

a ceremonial pick up

how many more orphans how many neglected shrines

how many more stolen feet stolen guns

stolen watch bands of death

in you how many times

Harlem

hidden by ravines of sweet oil

by temples of switch blades

beautiful in your sound of fertility

beautiful in your turban of funeral crepe

beautiful in your camouflage of grief

in your solitude of bruises in

your arson of alert

beautiful

Whenever I’ve taught this poem by Jayne Cortez (usually with ten-to fourteen-year-olds), I’ve always been surprised by how willing the students are to tackle the poem’s complexities: its harsh descriptions of urban life, its anger, and its notion –serious and ironic– of what, in all this chaos, is beautiful. Cortez’s ideas about beauty often frame out conversations. Most students are not used to thinking about beauty as something that isn’t obvious, something that can be hidden. They’re not used to taking images or ideas that are ostensibly “ugly” and thinking of them as beautiful in another context.

To get students thinking in this direction, I ask them to think about what “beauty” means, what they mean when they call something “beautiful.” Their initial responses are often conventional: from natures–flowers, a meadow, sun, stars, moon; from the urban–gleaming skyscrapers, glittering night streets, well-dressed people strolling; from people–those nice clothes again, muscular men, slim women, implications of good times.

A natural response to what Cortez describes is to look away. But Cortez demands the opposite: she wants us to look and to look hard. So where in the poem, I’ll ask the students, given what they’ve described as beautiful, is the beauty? The poem is full of sadness and grief (“broken / bloods of broken spirits broken through like / broken promises”), violence (“they burn up couches they burn down houses”), garbage (“mask of hubcaps mask of ice picks mask / of watermelon rinds mask of umbilical cords”). It's a poem of anger. And yet, Cortez insistently speaks about the beauty. How? Why?

As the students think about the poem and my questions, I’ll begin to discuss other possible conceptions of beauty, where else we can see it and of the possibility of beauty growing out of what we might also think of as “ugliness.” For example, they've all seen rainbow oil sheen in puddles on the street. Many know about the spectacular effects air pollution has on sunsets. I'll talk about London's mysterious, evocative fog of previous decades and its ordinary origins in coal smoke. I’ll mention Monet’s paintings of the Seine, where the magnificent colorations he depicts are actually a reflection of the river’s pollution, as well as the excitement of the billowing smoke in his railroad station paintings. I’ll talk about spiders spinning their gorgeous webs as a way to trap and kill. I’ll even bring up ambergris, which I’ll describe as "whale vomit," and how it is used in making fine perfumes. We’ll come up with examples of destructive beauty: hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes. Great structures like pyramids and sphinxes built by slaves. We’ll talk about perspective, how some people find things beautiful and others can’t see them, how this happens with art, poetry, clothes, music, weather. Finally, we’ll return to “Under the Edge of February.” “What's beautiful here?” I’ll ask again.

At this point, we’re able to read new things in the Cortez poem. We can talk about the action in the poem, the characters in it, the setting. I’ve taught this poem in different places, but when I teach it in New York City schools, the students will always relate it to their own neighborhoods. They think about their streets, the people they know, their own lives. We talk not just about what they see, but what they know about what they see. The students’ comments become both intensely observant and personal. They often remark on the fact that where they live is home: whatever the limitations, their neighborhoods are important to them. These are places where my students have friends, where they’ve played and been happy. They’ll talk about the life of where they live: the sounds and smells, people walking on the streets and hanging out in groups talking, the fact of people’s homes being here, that there are people eating, sleeping, dreaming.

My students also respond to the “negatives” of Cortez's poem, particularly the problems of outsiders misreading and misunderstanding the world they know. We’ll discuss the problems of public perception arising from skewed media depictions: that newspapers, television, and movies show one side of where they live (the crime and the violence, the poverty), and not the other side (schools, stores, churches, homes, the community). In other words, the not-so-obvious, the hidden in Cortez’s “beautiful.” When we’ve reached this point in the discussion, we’re also at the starting point for their writing: I ask the students to respond to Cortez’s poem by writing their own poems to, of, for, and about beauty, and where they find it.

POEM

Blue is cool

I found it in the sky

in the ocean, on pottery

Red is hot

I found it in the sun

the rainbow

on flowers, the outside of a building

on clothes

White is delicate

I found it in the clouds

in the classroom

in my house

on flowers

inside and outside buildings

on dogs

–Regina Smith, seventh grade

DREAMER

Once I had a dream

I could see all the places of the world

In my mind I could see

Japan, Russia, Germany

All the people wanted to sleep

and sleep on

Their sleep

seemed very beautiful to them

All I could see everywhere

was people with eyes

closed

–Tara Thomas, eighth grade

It’s winter in the morning

It’s snowing

It’s snowing white big flakes

Cars are covered with snow

Too many accidents

People are falling down

Breaking legs

Cars lose control of their breaks

There is no service

Cars hitting people

People bleeding through everywhere

Snow is getting red

Because of the bleeding

Of the person who had the big accident

Too many people are dying

This weather’s got to change

This weather is cold below

–Francisco Rodriguez, sixth grade

NIGHT

It was night

and it was 9:00

and I’m flying in the sky

and I can see the North Star

Some people are watching “The Jeffersons”

Some people are watching “Jeopardy”

There are people doing exercise

There is a person riding a bike in the street

I went to sit on a tree branch

It broke

I fell on a van

and hurt my back

and then I flew

I saw the Statue of Liberty

It is so beautiful

I saw the ocean

The world is so beautiful

I saw Broadway

The lights look wonderful

I can see people

The people are doing their show

–Charisse Robinson, fifth grade

BEAUTY

The feeling of beauty

It’s like

falling in

Love

Jewelry

It is such a good feeling

You feel like getting

Married

In a

White clean

Crystal

Dress

Your hair

long and

beautiful

The water in the Dominican

Republic

Crystal clean

The streets clean

No, no dirt, dust

Mud

but beauty like

Romeo and Juliet

Adam and Eve

Emotions of a

Dream

Love

Fantasy

It feels so real

having Beauty

But dream love fantasy

is all it is in this

Dirty World

–Jeanette Cortijo, eighth grade

It is black but the white

freckles of the stars stand out

I am blind but I can still

see the shining light of the

moon standing out in the

night

I am a person but

to the creatures that lurk

beyond I am prey

I look and listen

but there is nothing

nothing to see or hear

the sounds of

a furious river

the shadows of

a soundless bird

shows in the moon light

I think of what humans

Are

doing to the silent and

peaceful land

the animals, not mean but

nice

in a strange way

I was glad that we hadn’t

destroyed it all

Yet I had to go back

this was not my home

my home was in the smog of

technology

–Jason Ozner, sixth grade

WHAT IS BEAUTY

A cold January night

What happens at night

All the killing

All the shots in the wall

All the drugs in the world

Is this beauty?

Beauty.

I’ll tell you

about Beauty

What is good

Beauty is real

That’s Beauty

What about living,

is that Beauty?

I know it is for me

All the beauty in the world

is what I am living for

I know that’s what I am

living for

–Shantel Bumpurs, fifth grade

HAPPIEST

I was walking down

the street

I heard a noise and

I was looking

for it and I could

not see it

and thought it was

a cat

but when I saw

that it was

not a cat I saw

something big

it was bigger

than a cat and then

I thought it was a

dog but it

was not a dog

and when I saw it

was a poor man I

gave the person $20

because I was not

happy that

he lived in the

street so I

was going to take

him to a shelter

and he was hidden

because he was

afraid and when

I saw his face

he did look like

good people but

he looked like

a child and the

child was hidden

the man went to the

shelter and he

had a good life

and house

–Jose Martinez, fifth grade

If one way to read Jayne Cortez’s poem is to look for not-so-obvious beauty, Lucille Clifton’s poem “roots” is about the announcement of beauty, not necessarily as something we observe, but as something we assume: our beauty is in our character, it is active, about one’s self, and the identification of that self with a kind of spirituality that reflects hope and possibility about the way life ought to be. This is a poem I often teach after having taught “Under the Edge of February.” I like how they stand with and against each other: Cortez’s explosive barrage of images, her intense language, followed by Clifton’s language much more simple and direct, yet no less complex in its drive to think about the lives we lead.

ROOTS

call it our craziness even,

call it anything.

it is the life thing in us

that will not let us die.

even in death’s hand

we fold the fingers up

and call them greens and

grow on them,

we hum them and make music.

call it our wildness then,

we are lost from the field

of flowers, we become

a field of flowers.

call it our craziness

our wildness

call it our roots,

it is the light in us

it is the light of us

it is the light, call it

whatever you have to,

call it anything.

My students are often initially quite puzzled by the poem–what is she talking about? What does she mean by “the light,” what does she mean about death, what is this thing of becoming the field? Although the Cortez poem is much longer and much more detailed, the immediacy of the details, coupled with forcefulness of the long lines and the repetition, helps the students to enter the world of the poem. But Lucille Clifton’s seeming simplicity confuses them.

To help them, I’ll ask the students to think about themselves: “What makes each one of you who you are? What makes you different, not just from the person sitting next to you, but different from the person you’ve been?” They find it easy to talk about this: physical growth, personality development. They know how much has changed in their lives. But I’ll then ask: “What do you think makes you the same person now that you were five years ago, ten years ago? What makes you the person you’ve always been?”

Sometimes this is hard. For many, these are odd questions because this kind of self-analysis is unfamiliar and difficult terrain for them. They’ll note certain kinds of things: “I’ve always liked pizza but I haven’t always liked basketball, before I just liked to run. I couldn’t read before, but I always liked when someone read me books. I used to like ‘Sesame Street’ but now I prefer horror films.” But students quickly see that none of these things, while perhaps significant, is essential to their lives. But the initial thinking about such significant things can help them, through deeper analytical thinking, to see other, more essential sides of themselves: they can figure out that basketball and running demonstrate a need or desire for movement, activity, play with others, friendships. Pizza translates into the need or desire for food pleasure, for enjoyment. Books, whether read by or to them, suggest a growing desire to learn, to imagine, to know about the world they live in. The very fact that the children are changing often leads them to conclude that change itself is a necessary constant. As we continue to talk about the important things in their lives and figure out why those things have meaning, the students are able to see much more clearly the whys behind what they know about themselves; they are able to see constants in their thoughts and emotions, in their creating and dreaming.

Sometimes the students and I will venture into the notion of the spirit and the spiritual. They’ll get the connection between the spirit (sometimes they’ll call it soul) and Clifton’s “light,” the “life thing in us / that will not let us die.” We’ll contrast this with her image of “death’s hand,” noting that–if Clifton is right–if we cannot die, then death is not something to be afraid of. The hand might extend itself, but we can fold its fingers up, and take control of death. The green that death becomes is about renewal, the humming about joy. For Clifton, the life thing that is in us, that is us, the craziness and wildness, is so powerful that even when we think we are lost, it’s only a matter of perspective. You are not lost from the field if you allow yourself to become part, because, as part of the field, you’ll know exactly where you are (I think of Wallace Stevens’s idea that to understand the snow and ice and the snowman, we must have a “mind of winter.”)

Finally, I’ll ask my students why the poem is called “roots.” Their answers vary but they are all related to a single idea–that roots nourish us, they keep us grounded, allow us to live. The craziness Clifton speaks of in the poem is not madness, but fearless excitement, willful ecstasy. Being rooted in the earth means that craziness and wildness need not be aimless and destructive because, as with the “we” and “our” of the poem, Clifton means they are part of history, family, and community.

Before my students begin to write, I’ll sometimes read them another Lucille Clifton poem, “new bones”:

NEW BONES

we will wear

new bones again.

we will leave

these rainy days,

break out through

another mouth

into sun and honey time.

worlds buzz over us like bees,

we be splendid in new bones.

other people think they know

how long life is

how strong life is.

we know.

To begin a discussion, I'll talk about Clifton’s certainty that there are things others may think they know, but which we know we know. I’ll ask them to think about things in life that seem absolutely real and certain to them and to think how that certainty might give them “roots”–just as Clifton’s confidence comes so much from her own sense of that light inside. What would they call their roots? What is their light? What runs with them, sings with them and in them? I’ll ask them to think about their own ideas of what is possible for the world and for them. To describe their own lives, what words could they use?

I am born as I get

to see nature

flowers blooming I nature

is in my hand

as I see the

earth start

spin as I feel it in my

soul as I admire myself as it is

a picture of myself as

I am going to live or

die as

I feel the sun bursting

on me as I am myself

I start

grow as God is

talking to me don’t

fear if death

I am

Here

with you

As I talk to

Myself

I feel in my blood as

I feel healthy not sick

as nature is

blowing away until I

listen to what

they are

saying as

beams feel

like they

are taking me to heaven

or hell as I get scared

I feel haunted but

I get a family. As

I feel in my mind

as I sing to myself

as I celebrate because

I had parents

as it never ends

as it shines

to heaven as

there is no such

thing of hell as they bring me

for as my soul stays gold as

God stays I am myself

–Chris DeMeglio, sixth grade

who are you?

what are you?

the moon and

the stars

roots go with me

everywhere

I breathe it

I see it

what are roots?

–Aracelis Roman, fifth grade

CALL ME

Call me sweet

call me friendly

call me pretty

but do not call

me ugly

because you will

see me get ugly

very ugly and you will

not want to see me

again

–Sophia Negron, fifth grade

I have sunshine each and every day

but as I focus out my window

sick from the cold weather

I can feel my solemn soul

translating through my body

a tear falls from my dark

brown eyes

When I start to cry my fulfilling

angels tell me to fulfill

my happiness

–Erica Hardaway, fifth grade

BONES TO OUR ROOTS

Bones by day roots by

night, you think you

know when it is night

you think you know not

to fight. But you don’t

know and I don’t know

when we will die, we

could die right now.

One day when you

and I die we will

walk in a field of flowers

and dream about day and

night, think about when to

fight. Maybe we will

come back in a new

form and we will still

dream about day and

night.

–Mikel Murray, fifth grade

GOOD-BYE

Good-bye to you

I will be back

I promise I will

I will not be gone as long as the universe exists or as long as the air is here

Remember

my living soul will always be with you when I’m gone

I will come back through the light

say hello

touch your hand

–Michael Schiralli, sixth grade

MARK STATMAN (United States of America). Is the author of four poetry collections, most recently That Train Again (2015) and A Map of the Winds (2013). He is the translator of Black Tulips: The Selected Poems of José María Hinojosa (2012) and Never Made in America: Selected Poems of Martín Barea Mattos (2017), and cotranslator of Garcia Lorca’s Poet in New York (2007, with Pablo Medina). Statman has also written extensively on teaching creative writing, including Listener in the Snow: The Practice and Teaching of Poetry (2000) and The Alphabet of the Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing (2007, with Christian McEwen).

TARŌ OKAMOTO (Japão, 1911-1996). Filho do cartunista Ippei Okamoto e da escritora Kanoko Okamoto. Estudou na Sorbonne nos anos 1930 e criou muitas obras de arte, após a II Guerra Mundial. Foi um artista e escritor prolífico até sua morte. Entre os artistas com os quais Okamoto se associou durante a sua estadia em Paris estiveram André Breton e Kurt Seligmann, este último uma autoridade surrealista em magia e que conheceu os pais de Okamoto durante uma viagem ao Japão, em 1936. Okamoto também se associou com Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Robert Capa e sua parceira, Gerda Tarō, que adotou o primeiro nome de Okamoto como seu próprio sobrenome. Em 1964, Tarō Okamoto publicou um livro intitulado Shinpi Nihon (Mistérios no Japão). Seu interesse em mistérios japoneses foi provocado por uma visita feita ao Museu Nacional de Tóquio. Depois de ficar intrigado com a cerâmica Jōmon que encontrou lá, ele viajou por todo o Japão para investigar o que entendia como o mistério que se encontra sob a cultura japonesa e, em seguida, publicou Nihon Sai hakken – Geijutsu Fudoki (Redescoberta do Japão – Topografia de Arte). Tarō Okamoto é o artista convidado desta edição de Agulha Revista de Cultura, e sua presença entre nós se deu graças à generosidade do bailarino e tradutor Daniel Aleixo. Sugerimos visitar o Museu de Arte Tarō Okamoto: https://taro-okamoto.or.jp.