BIG Journal: Poetry

A few others (Mitch, Gabi) and myself presented works of poets originally from Nigeria. I gathered that in all of the presentations, styles and context changed regionally. I was able to draw some connections between landlocked countries and coastal countries. It is very important to discuss where a poet is from, giving us context. Just as one would first say that a Renaissance painter is from Italy rather than Sweden (or somewhere else in Europe), it is important to mention/give a setting and background for an poet.
As I touched on in the early slides of my presentation of Femi Fatoba, Nigeria (the country from which Fatoba came from):

• is on the west coast of Africa, bordered by the Niger River on the north.
• has a population of approximately 137, 253, 000 (7th largest population in the world).
• has capital: Abuja
• has these languages spoken: English (official), Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba and more.
• is run under a Federal Republic modeled after that of the United States'.

1.) What did you do well? Which areas of your presentation need improvement? What did you like and/or dislike about the poetry project assignment?

I think I speak well. I have always been a good public speaker as well as one to enjoy speaking/presenting. My presentation, being in form of a powerpoint presentation, really helped with organization. Things seem to be much easier to present/ flow better when they come slide after slide. I provided lots of background on Nigeria as well as on my poet, Femi Fatoba.
I included that Fatoba, though a very learned man, was also a man of many other arts. He was a well-renowned actor and painter as well as poet. I drew observations based on my readings; I concluded that his political stances and struggles are alluded to frequently in these selections. I informed the class that Fatoba is no longer alive due to an unfortunate automobile accident in 2008. He was also a professor.
I could have included more on my 'abstract/concrete idea' slides, although I found it somewhat difficult to formulate abstract ideas.
What I did deduce from my readings of Fatoba, was that perhaps he was psychologically troubled (he was never diagnosed), may have had a bad history with women, bad history with law/police/authorities and finally, he alludes to God/religion several times. In my research, I found that he was known to be a very pious individual.
In terms of concrete observations, Fatoba had lots of variance in the physical structuring of his poems. The structure of 'In America' (page 270), is representative of some of the verbs and nouns within the poem and is sort of shaped like a land form:

               In America

               In America
                  The highway runs too fast
                      For men to feel the ground underneath;
                         The mirage does not have time
                            To look like water:
                                And too many rainbows
                                   Strangle the clouds.



A majority of the poems have broken stanzas with little-to-no punctuation. I observed that along with the informal content came an informal formatting. There was also a lot of repetition in 'Hooker' of the phrase:

"The god of..." (271-272)

Overall, I really liked the poetry projects. Through the means of powerpoint or just speech presentations, the class was able to convey lots of information about a poet/country's history in just 8-10 minutes. I noticed that there were a few instances in which students dragged on a bit and some listeners zoned out, but for the most part, these presentations were enlightening and fun.

2.) Develop more fully the thesis you introduced in your presentation: Put into writing the ideas you articulated in speech. Explore your argument in more detail.

African Lit has taught me the importance of reading in context. Before making any assumptions/critiques, I feel that it is very important to know the background of a writer. This is why I included a lot of basic information about Nigeria and Femi Fatoba before even opening my poetry book. After actually reading Fatoba's pieces, I made some assumptions like (aforementioned):

• Fatoba was psychologically troubled perhaps?
• Content is eclectic/nonlinear.
• He most probably had some sort of bad history with women.
• Bad history with law/police/ authorities.
• Alludes to God/religion several times (in research, I found that he was a very pious man).

I noted that Fatoba probably had a wide perspective of the arts, seeing as he was a poet, actor and painter. He also seemed to know a fair amount about America. I learned that he visited several places in the United States including New York, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and Chicago.
It is likely he had formed some sort of preconceptions before going on to write 'In America,' as it reads to me in a bit of a sour voice.

3.) Identify a similarity between the works you studied and the material presented by a classmate: Show originality and depth of thought. Establish a connection with material from a nation other than the one you studied. 

I think something that distinguishes Femi Fatoba from other poets is his ability to switch styles/structure in his writing. On the last slide of my powerpoint, I noted that it seems like some of the works seem like they could have been written by different poets. Contrast between different works of Fatoba have led me to believe that he is really a special artist. I did not really see too much of a contrast within the works of others presentations. Specifically, 'In America'  and 'Hooker' were written in contrasting styles in completely different voices (refer to 'In America' above).

Fatoba was quite different from most other authors: he did not face Apartheid, nor did he struggle a lot with entrance into Europe/Americas. BUT, similarly to my Femi Fatoba (other than Mitch's and Gabi's Nigerian poets), Austin's poet, Syl-Cheney Coker (Sierra Leone) and Julia's poet, Dennis Brutus (South Africa) are similar in that they studied and achieved higher educations. I think in retrospect, Fatoba's style and topics of poems were very different from others presented and this is one of the predominant reasons in my choosing him.














 
 

Poetry Analysis: Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard

The selection starts with four poems from Poemes de la mer (1968) which literally translates to Poems of the sea. In these four poems, we see the recurring theme of water and the sea. Seeing that these stories are written by a Congolese (Congo-Brazzaville), we can connect the subject of the poems to the geography of the country. Time also seems to play a part in these pieces. There is some reminiscence of the past and perhaps Tati-Loutard could be alluding to his childhood in certain lines.
Tati-Loutard frequently uses words related to nature, especially in News of My Mother, the first piece. Progressively throughout the four pieces, the language becomes a bit harsher and darker.
I thought that Submarine Tombs was an interesting piece. It took me a few times of reading it to realize that Tati-Loutard seems to be speaking in the voice of a fish. This strategy is unique and unlike any of the others.
Pilgrimage to the Loango Strand was very dark. I initially got the feeling that it was going to be discussing slavery--so not only did Tati-Loutard write of miscellaneous feeling/emotion, but also somewhat of the current world affairs. In this story we have the first mention of God, which as I recall was quite a prevalent figure among the slaves. The speaker mentions how he follows the strands of the scent of blood and how he no longer can continue his pilgrimage because "life sickens [him]". There is mention later in the poem of "Jamestown" and "camps of death flowered with cotton". When reading this piece, only slavery and oppression came to mind.
The next five pieces were not as linear as the previous pieces. I found them nice to read because the language flows well and sounds cool, but I did not really gain much from reading them. There was some self-questioning and complex dilemma thrown in, but nothing that made me question anything in my own life. There is a lot of mention of birth and death and sporadic mention of birds and animals.
I preferred the preceding four pieces to the latter five. I feel like Tati-Loutard has lots of bottled up feelings and unleashes his anger or resent or whatever it may be on paper. There is often mention of death and dark imagery. I also get a sense of some sort of clandestine type of feelings.
The punctuation is more formal in certain pieces than others--mostly informal. The line-lengths are quite concise and the word choice is not so sophisticated that we high school students cannot understand.

Nii Parkes

Our class was fortunate enough to meet with Nii Parkes, author of Tail of the Blue Bird, a mystery novel which we finished about two weeks ago. His visit to our class was not so much a lecture as it was a Q&A session. I really liked how open he was to our questions and how friendly he was. He seemed to be a very genuine and knowledgeable man. Whether our questions were relating directly to the text or leaning more towards writing strategies, Parkes provided us with a long, anecdotal type of response. He had a special way of drawing us in while he was speaking--perhaps the reason that he is a great mystery writer.

I was actually a bit surprised when he told us his background is in science. He is an excellent writer and also creative writer, but he told us that his background actually lies more in maths and sciences. With that in mind, students began to question whether he was writing about himself (through Kayo) in the novel. He responded saying that in some ways, yes, but no, not entirely.

Parkes told us that he likes to hand-write his work before using a computer so that he can draw arrows and so nothing is finite. He had good advice for us as writers. He gave us an activity to do towards the end of the class in which we had to write through someone else's voice. This was a useful exercise because after finishing, we realized that it was actually quite hard to stay in character of someone else while preventing using your own voice.

I am grateful that our class got the opportunity to meet with ask Parkes so many questions.

African Short Stories

What stylistic elements have you enjoyed lately in the stories? (Show us some bits of the writing that you like/admire)

It is interesting to see how styles of writing change regionally, in general. In this book of conglomerated short stories, we are provided stories from the western, eastern, northern and southern regions of Africa. It is not an easy task to generalize styles in the case of this book because each story's author has its own voice, provoking different reactions.
In some cases, we are given lots of dialogue. Dialogue is, in my opinion, one of the better styles of writing short stories. Throughout the course of class, we have discussed voice in a piece and whether it is introverted (implying feeling) or extroverted (explicitly saying 'this is how one should react/feel'). Dialogue undoubtedly helps the reader feel closer with the characters in a story. For example, in the stories, Papa, Snake & I and A Conversation from the Third Floor, the narration is aided by dialogue in influencing a reader, as opposed to that of the omniscient narrator in a story like Minutes of Glory, which may give readers preconceived outlook on a story before giving them a chance to form their own views.
Contextually, we see talk of animals and nature (The Gentlemen of the Jungle, The Green Leaves) and religion and politics (stories early on, The Betrayal)--all recurring themes throughout the course of class.
 

Nii Parkes Exercise: Writing through another's voice

(My mother's voice)

Okay, so.. Arkin look here! Stop with that blackberry! Pay attention! First you will throw these slices of spiced chicken in a pot and begin to marinate them. In the meantime, can you reach up and grab me the bowl of rice? (It's hard for her as she is just over 5'1") Now, I take this bowl of rice and pour it into this pot of boiling water on the stove. Let the rice sit here and become soft. Do NOT let it boil for too long. Arkin, look here! After the chicken is tender, place the pieces onto a flat pan on the stove and add a bit of salt to them. Make sure to spray the pan with this oil and rub it down clean before so that nothing sticks. Try this piece. Can you taste it for me? Is it fully cooked? (She is a vegetarian--quite ironic how well she cooks meat, yet has never enjoyed it herself)

Oh shoot!.. Look how many leaves there are outside! I hate raking leaves--they're such a huge pain. Do you remember the old neighbors that had a leaf blower? Remember that guy?.. What was his name? Mr. Conte? Yeah. He was the nicest man.. always would come over and do our lawn after his. And in the winter, he would use his snow-blower and plow our sidewalk for the people walking by. Now, its such a hassle to have to find a rake and clean the yard.

Anowa - Phase II

After reading Phase II of the Anowa, I am interested in finding out what the real problem at hand is and what these several conflicts in the plot will eventually lead to.

Anowa and her husband, Kofi Ako, are now moderately prosperous. Through their combined work in a trade industry, they have managed to survive. There is lots of labor involved, entailing the need for more hands. One of the  conflicts that has arisen in the story is how Anowa and Kofi Ako handle their this new wealth in relation to the purchase of slaves.

Their opinions are very contrasting pertaining to slaves, and as we read on, we see that their opinions are contrasting pertaining to almost everything.

While Anowa is strongly against having slaves, while Kofi sees opportunity. In society at this time, slavery is accepted.

Another conflict that rises is Anowa's constant nagging at Kofi Ako. She claims that he should marrie more women and have children. This twists the storyline because Kofi is now unusual, rather than Anowa. Both characters provide a balance in perception and character in society.

It is very evident that Kofi cares a lot for Anowa. We get a lot of dialogue from him telling her that he does not want another wife and that he just wants for (him and) her to be happy. It seems that Anowa is beginning to distance herself from Kofi, at times acting rationally,  yet sometimes irrationally.

It is interesting to see that regionally, in Africa different societies acted so differently around the same time period (Things Fall Apart). I am excited to read on.

Anowa - Phase I

I find it hard to read a play and not visualize the characters and settings in a mental picture. I see the stage described in the beginning, 2 lofts and characters entering and exiting from lower/upper right/left. I think that visualizing the play actually helps to understand it a lot.

Anowa, a beautiful, unique and confused woman who has lived out her young years is now a bit old to marry. The fact that she is unmarried is blamed on her parents by the Old Woman--one of the two components who make up 'The Mouth that eats Salt and Pepper" (bystanders of the story, speaking conversationally to the audience).

The first part of the play reads almost satirically to me. There are several instances in the first phase in which I can visualize a humorous scene:

• When the woman drops all of her stuff
• Anowa's entrance
• Old Man and Old Woman bickering at each other

--Visually these all could be funny.

The underlying theme of this phase is who is at fault for Anowa denying marriage so many times and a character analysis of Anowa.