28.2.09

21.2.09

The Prairie

Trying to advance the romanticism of Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper brings forth much deeper meaning to the traditional capture and pursuit novel. He shows the
end of America's youth, the inevitable march of progress and ecological disaster. Some of his characters and settings (like the rock in the middle of the prairie) evoke donzel in distress umbilical structures, but he is aiming for a little more.
But his reference is either theater of painting, and explores this when describing a painted shirt worn by the indian. The long, implausibe dialogs are part of the game.

20.2.09

African-american modern poetry

(do site de James A. Emanuel)

Reared in the “Wild West” of the USA; earned Columbia University doctorate; had professorships in New York, France, and Poland; published 345-plus poems (in 13 individual books, 145 or more anthologies, and many journals); 32 literary essays; a now-classic anthology; an autobiography; a pio­neer book on Langston Hughes; book reviews (some in The New York Times) and a CD (poetry with saxophone accompaniment).

In 1992, created a new literary genre, jazz-and-blues haiku, later read often, with musical background, in Europe and Africa (efforts basing the Sidney Bechet Creative Award given him in 1996). During 1995-2000, placed at least 6,000 documents in his The James A. Emanuel Papers in The Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C




Experience

"To all things great and glorious":
his wine moved to his lips.
"There are so few," she answered;
her brim touched his fingertips.

They stared the fire into an ash;
their glasses bent their hands
while they, enchanted wistfully,
re-travelled many lands.

Sonnet for a Writer

Far rather would I search my chaff for grain
And cease at last with hunger in my soul,
Than suck the polished wheat another brain
Refurbished till it shone, by art's control.
To stray across my own mind's half-hewn stone
And chisel in the dark, in hopes to cast
A fragment of our common self, my own,
Excels the mimicry of sages past.
Go forth, my soul, in painful, lonely flight,
Even if no higher than the earthbound tree,
And feel suffusion with more glorious light,
Nor envy eagles their proud brilliancy.
Far better to create one living line
Than learn a hundred sunk in fame's recline.

16.2.09

Brock family

Um homem que dirigia uma picape rumo ao Capitólio, onde fica o Congresso dos Estados Unidos, foi preso ontem na entrada do complexo. O homem, que dizia ter uma encomenda para o presidente Barack Obama, foi detido com um rifle em seu veículo, segundo a polícia. Ele foi identificado pelos policiais como Alfred Brock, de 64 anos, de Winnfield, Louisiana.

Brock foi acusado por possuir uma arma de fogo não registrada e por posse de munição não registrada, segundo a sargento Kimberly Schneider, porta-voz da polícia do Capitólio. O suspeito não fez nenhuma ameaça explícita ao presidente, acrescentou Schneider. A polícia fechou por um breve período a entrada norte do Capitólio, enquanto a picape era inspecionada. Não foi encontrado nenhum outro material perigoso e o veículo foi guinchado.

(Agencia Estado, 11/02/2009)

10.2.09

"Black Boy", by Richard Wright (New York, Harper Perennial)

Wright ends "Southern Night", the first part of "Black Boy" with his dreamed escape from the brutal south. "This was the culture from which I sprang", he states. He ends his profound narrative of growing up in a society of ignorance and hate with a hopeful note, albeit a naïve one. On reaching the north, Wright feels the onset of a "second childhood". Adulthood increased his responsibilities to his family, but also granted him a degree of freedom. Nonetheless, he finds again the same mechanisms of oppression when working on the hospital, after the Great Depression had set in. When he discovers the brotherhood of the John Reed club and its communist agitators, Wright is once again embraced by a family, but this time it's also a political structure and ideological machine. Always a spirited and free-thinking man, Wright clashes with the paranoid leaders and is again cast away from his family. Not surprisingly, he is antagonized by the white secretary of the party's leader on the last scene of "The Horror and the Glory": he has encountered the same system of hate and exclusion from which he fled. But this time, the older Wright is imbued with a strong sense of purpose. He has understood the true "hunger" of America, has seen the first seeds of rebellion against materialism. His denouncement of the persecutory ways of communists is ahead of its time and certainly a factor that influenced publication of only the first part, a neatly fitting modern story of slavery, suffering and self-determination. The second part gives the whole book a different, more profound meaning, increasing the layers of his struggle and bringing forth the true universality of life's tragedy that permeates the mood of "Black Boy",
an "inexpressibly" sense of true humanity, of hunger for life. Wright receives tempting offers from the party leaders in exchange for his loyalty, but he already has discovered his true hunger, that is to "hurl words into the darkness". The formation is complete – "Black Boy" can be read not only as poignant tale of freedom from slavery and mental servitude, but also as a writer's beautiful bildugsroman, as proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin: "the dynamical unity of a character's image".