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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30 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY<br />
American culture, but also what <strong>the</strong>y perceive as <strong>the</strong> vacuity, ignorance,<br />
and greed of ma<strong>in</strong>stream hip-hop. Even though KRS-One’s 1989<br />
proclamation <strong>in</strong> my <strong>in</strong>troduction’s epigraph that “<strong>the</strong> age of <strong>the</strong><br />
ignorant rapper is done” has sadly not come to pass, much hip-hop<br />
reta<strong>in</strong>s <strong>the</strong> promise of a dynamic art with resistant <strong>political</strong> power.<br />
The impact of hip-hop on generations of young people <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
United States is palpable. Poetry, whe<strong>the</strong>r written by Emily<br />
Dick<strong>in</strong>son, Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, or Lucille Clifton,<br />
may be a beneficiary. Houston A. Baker, Jr., writes that hip-hop has<br />
revised <strong>the</strong> current generation’s expectations of <strong>poetry</strong>, which suggests<br />
<strong>the</strong> need for fur<strong>the</strong>r work on hip-hop as a dynamic, popular form<br />
of <strong>poetry</strong>. If pr<strong>in</strong>ted <strong>poetry</strong> is to flourish <strong>in</strong> secondary schools and colleges,<br />
where many students listen to hip-hop everyday, <strong>in</strong>structors<br />
could exploit students’ knowledge of hip-hop as an entry way to<br />
teach<strong>in</strong>g o<strong>the</strong>r types of <strong>poetry</strong>. Baker’s understand<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>poetry</strong> as<br />
“disruptive performance” and as a “sound<strong>in</strong>g space of opposition”<br />
also opens up space for hip-hop lyrics to be read as poems. Poetry, for<br />
Baker, is an “alternative space of <strong>the</strong> conditional,” a notion important<br />
<strong>in</strong> many formulations of <strong>political</strong> <strong>poetry</strong> (94–96), especially <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
ways that poems can create imag<strong>in</strong>ary visions of justice and <strong>in</strong>justice.<br />
Mark Costello and David Foster Wallace, too, claim that hip-hop is<br />
“serious <strong>poetry</strong>” and that it was <strong>the</strong> first music to beg<strong>in</strong> creative work<br />
on <strong>the</strong> “threat of economic <strong>in</strong>equality to American ideals” (98–100).<br />
Joseph Harr<strong>in</strong>gton opens up fur<strong>the</strong>r space for <strong>the</strong> study of hip-hop<br />
as <strong>poetry</strong> when he writes that “<strong>poetry</strong>” overdeterm<strong>in</strong>es poems. He<br />
claims <strong>the</strong>re is no a priori essence to <strong>poetry</strong>; it is important, he <strong>in</strong>sists,<br />
to look at non<strong>in</strong>stitutional forms of <strong>poetry</strong> that “decenter and decentralize<br />
art-writ<strong>in</strong>g from <strong>the</strong> norms and sites of literary authority”<br />
(10–11). Of course, however, much hip-hop is thoroughly<br />
<strong>in</strong>stitutional—<strong>the</strong> command<strong>in</strong>g roles that corporate conglomerates<br />
MTV (owned by Disney), Viacom, Clear Channel, 16 Sony, and o<strong>the</strong>rs<br />
play <strong>in</strong> produc<strong>in</strong>g, promot<strong>in</strong>g, commodify<strong>in</strong>g, and controll<strong>in</strong>g much<br />
hip-hop music co-opt large swaths of its cultural landscape. Moreover,<br />
Harr<strong>in</strong>gton writes that <strong>the</strong> cultural uses of <strong>poetry</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> 1990s shifted<br />
as radically as <strong>the</strong>y did <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> Romantic period, an important po<strong>in</strong>t for<br />
a study that charts <strong>the</strong> strategies of <strong>political</strong> <strong>poetry</strong>, especially as I consider<br />
<strong>the</strong> ways hip-hop has emerged as <strong>political</strong> <strong>poetry</strong>. He also notes<br />
that critics and poets tend to def<strong>in</strong>e <strong>poetry</strong> with reference to “<strong>the</strong><br />
public”—“ei<strong>the</strong>r as an alternative to or refuge from <strong>the</strong> public, as a<br />
vehicle or mode for participat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> and engag<strong>in</strong>g with <strong>the</strong> public, or<br />
as a way of negotiat<strong>in</strong>g or problematiz<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> separation of public<br />
and private spheres” (168). Much of <strong>the</strong> hip-hop that I discuss can