american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
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110 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY<br />
<strong>the</strong> Blackbird” (Pyramid of Bone 1989) Thylias Moss re-imag<strong>in</strong>es <strong>the</strong><br />
pernicious effects of racism by “reconsider<strong>in</strong>g” <strong>the</strong> object of one of<br />
<strong>the</strong> most famous twentieth-<strong>century</strong> American poems, Wallace<br />
Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Look<strong>in</strong>g at a Blackbird” (Harmonium<br />
1923). 17 Like Simic’s especially, Moss’s modus operandi falls squarely<br />
with<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> rhetorical strategy of equivocal agency. And unlike most of<br />
Stevens’s, Moss’s <strong>poetry</strong> engages press<strong>in</strong>g social issues, such as racism,<br />
violence, and misogyny. Jahan Ramazani writes that Moss’s “approach<br />
to this weighty material is oblique, riddl<strong>in</strong>g, and gnomic.” As<br />
Ramazani po<strong>in</strong>ts out, her poems are “digressive, elliptical, allusive”<br />
pieces that “ramble associatively,” but “tend to return to <strong>the</strong>ir central<br />
<strong>the</strong>mes” (999). In “A Reconsideration of <strong>the</strong> Blackbird,” <strong>the</strong><br />
elements Ramazani describes are all <strong>in</strong> play; <strong>the</strong> poem is so fragmented<br />
and elliptical that <strong>the</strong> <strong>political</strong> import is mostly felt ra<strong>the</strong>r than rationalized,<br />
as is often true of poems of equivocal agency.<br />
Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Look<strong>in</strong>g at a Blackbird” is well-known<br />
for its multiple perspectives, cubist <strong>in</strong>fluences, and its celebration of<br />
movement. In Stevens’s poem <strong>the</strong> blackbird “whirled <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> autumn<br />
w<strong>in</strong>ds, / It was a small part of <strong>the</strong> pantomime.” Whereas Moss’s<br />
reconsiderations are often prosaic and flat, Stevens’s are often haikulike<br />
and cubist-<strong>in</strong>fluenced: “I was of three m<strong>in</strong>ds, / Like a tree / In<br />
which <strong>the</strong>re are three blackbirds” (The Collected Poems 92–94). In<br />
Moss’s poem, though, <strong>the</strong>re is little motion or faith <strong>in</strong> language to<br />
remake <strong>the</strong> world for <strong>the</strong> better. Stevens’s poem enacts <strong>in</strong> part <strong>the</strong><br />
modernist impetus to create a world out of <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividual’s imag<strong>in</strong>ation<br />
and consciousness, and he was primarily concerned with a world<br />
that is <strong>in</strong> constant motion. However, for Stevens and for some of his<br />
readers, <strong>the</strong> negative counterbalance to this cont<strong>in</strong>ual movement is<br />
<strong>in</strong>stability and uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty, two notions that Moss explores <strong>in</strong> her<br />
“reconsideration.”<br />
Stevens’s propensity for l<strong>in</strong>guistic play is <strong>the</strong> primary element that<br />
Moss takes on <strong>in</strong> her poem. But unlike Stevens’s poem, which is<br />
methodical and ordered, Moss’s is explosive, snarled, and difficult to<br />
sort out. It is immediately obvious from <strong>the</strong> visual texture of<br />
“A Reconsideration of <strong>the</strong> Blackbird” that it is even more fragmented<br />
than Stevens’s thirteen well-marked sections; Moss’s poem proliferates<br />
with italicized terms and phrases, questions answered elliptically if<br />
at all, and three pairs of “Problem” and “Solution” l<strong>in</strong>es. 18 On this<br />
surface, <strong>the</strong> poem’s ma<strong>in</strong> l<strong>in</strong>guistic play and conceit emerge—that a<br />
crow is a blackbird and a blackbird is a symbol for a black person.<br />
Accord<strong>in</strong>gly, <strong>the</strong> first l<strong>in</strong>e is a declarative statement with just such an<br />
implication: “Let’s call him Jim Crow” (10–11; orig<strong>in</strong>al emphasis here