Chapter Themes & Questions

Spring Semester 2022 

Calendar Review of Thematic Questions, 

Class by Class

Class #2, Tuesday March 22

Portraits: The Black Woman: Mother, Sister, Girl, Lover, Maid

Chapt. #8: “Is She Our Sister?” pgs. 163 - 200

Our text’s editor Arnold Rampersad explains that stereotypes of the Black woman are based on “Damning assumptions  . .  .Debasing ideas about her sexuality and psychology.”  What assumptions and ideas? Where do you see or hear these stereotypes? Do any of the poems in this chapter confront these debasing ideas?

Rampersad writes, “Prevailing ideas about feminine beauty have worked to demoralize [the Black woman]” What are these ideas of beauty, and how do they demoralize Black women? Do any of the poems in this chapter confront these debasing ideas?

In this chapter we meet Black mothers, grandmothers, teenaged girls, blues singers, women who work the night shift or in other people’s homes. What themes, images and/or emotions run through many of these portraits? Are there any specific portraits that are particularly powerful to you? Or particularly puzzling or surprising? Are there any portraits that extend to women of any race?

The chapter title is “Is She Our Sister?” After reading the poems in this chapter, what do you make of this title? Would you give the chapter a different title – such as? (Linda S.: “we were never meant to survive”)


Class #3 Tuesday March 29

Portraits: The Black man: Boy, Brother, Father, Lover

Chapt. #9: “Don’t It Make You Want to Cry?”  pgs. 201 – 228

Rampersad reminds us that historically, Black men have been portrayed as sexual predators, as fearsome criminals, as simpletons, or as Uncle Toms. Do the poems in this chapter confront these stereotypes?

Rampersad writes that African American poets have explored the idea of black manhood in America . . . “with searing candor but also with compassion.” What are the challenges of Black manhood that are portrayed in some of these poems?  In which poems do you hear that candor? Compassion? Or both?

The title of this chapter is, “Don’t It Make You Want to Cry?” Was that your reaction to some of these poems? Which ones?  Why? Are there poems that do not fit within that title?

In this chapter, we meet Black fathers, Black sons, older Black men, Black men who keep on working and working, baseball players, boxers, ex-soldiers, and more. What themes, images and/or emotions run through many of these portraits? Are there any specific portraits that are particularly powerful to you? Or particularly puzzling or surprising?


Class #4 Tuesday April 5

Portraits: Children, Childhood, and the Black Child

Chapt. #10: “Whose Children Are These?” pgs. 229 – 244

Rampersad reminds us that portrayals of children in literature tend toward the sentimental. Are any of the poems in this chapter on Black children sentimental? What other emotions are evoked by these poems? Do these emotions arise because the poems about children or about Black children?

Some of the poem in this chapter portray parent-child interactions or relationships. What is the nature of those relationships? Of these, are there any that you found particularly powerful? Any with which you could easily identify?

Some of the poems proclaim the specialness of a Black child. What qualities are being celebrated? What aspects of the African American experience contribute to the impact of these poems? 

Rampersad reminds us that from slavery onward, whites proclaimed that Blacks were emotionally shallow and could not experience genuine love. These poems powerfully prove the absurdity of this assumption. Which poems, for you, most powerfully express love between parent and child? Through what poetic forms, styles, and language?


Class # 5 Tuesday April 12

Soul Support: Family and love

Chapter #11: “They Are All of Me” pgs. 245 - 282

In 1965, the US government-sanctioned Moynihan Report proclaimed that 'at the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family. It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time.' This report was and still is influential in shaping national social policies while being soundly denounced by the African American community.  Do the poems in this chapter portray the Black family as weak and deteriorating? What features of the Black family emerge from these poems?

The Moynihan Report argued that the matriarchal structure of black culture weakened the ability of black men to function as authority figures. Does that portrayal ring true to the portrayals of fathers and mothers in this chapter?

In many of the poems in this chapter, adult children are coming to terms with their feelings about a mother or a father. These are powerful statements. Which speak most powerfully to you?  Do the moments and issues portrayed in these poems go across racial categories?  Are the poems on this theme more powerful when seen from the African American perspective?


Class #6 Tuesday April 19

Soul support: Music

Chapt. #12: “Oh, Singing Tree!” 283 - 296

The poems in this chapter are about music. How familiar are you with the kinds of music and the musicians portrayed in these poems?

How do the rhythms of the poems capture the rhythms of music? Of particular types of music?

Music has been important in African American life and culture. Why do you think that is so?  Do these poems provide answers to that question?

Can you imagine any of these poems set to music? Which ones? Why these poems? How would they sound?


Class #7 Tuesday April 26

Soul Support: Religion

Chapt. #13: “Oh, My Soul is in the Whirlwind”  pgs. 297 – 314

Religion has been important in African American life and culture. Why do you think that is?  Do these poems suggest answers to that question?

What echoes of the bible do you find here? How do these allusions contribute to the meaning and emotion of the poems?

What imagery of the sacred do these poems present?

To what extent do these poems explore particular black experiences and emotions? To what extent are these poems applicable to other people or groups? If others find these poems meaningful is that misappropriation?


Class #8 Tuesday  May 3

 Life’s Journey: Death

Chapt. #14: “Dear Lovely Death” pgs. 315 - 346

Were you surprised by this chapter title, “Dear Lovely Death?”  Rampersad writes in his introduction to our anthology, “Blacks historically have seen death as a phenomenon neither to fear nor to revile but to accept.”  To what extent do the poems in this chapter deal with death “as a natural part of the fabric of [Black] culture”?

What attitudes toward death do these poems express?

Do these poems suggest a uniquely black experience of death? Or are they more universally applicable?

What poetic forms do you find in this chapter? How are the forms suited to the subject matter?

What other poems from this book might Rampersad have included in this chapter?


Class #9 Tuesday May 10

Life’s JourneyBlack Lives Matter: A Poetry Reader”   An online reader: “. . . a starting place for reading poetry that celebrates, protests, calls out, and responds. We believe Black Lives Matter. Justice matters. Poetry matters.”

 Questions: TBA


Class #10 Tuesday May 17

Life’s Journey: The future

Chapt. #15: “I Dream a World” pgs. 347 - 366

Which of these poems do you find the most powerful / optimistic / hopeful? Why?

Why do so many of these poems combine painful imagery with dreams for the future?

If you were compiling an African American poetry anthology, what other poems might you include in this chapter? Thinking of some of the poems that look like prose, could Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech be called a poem and included here?

How do the forms and language of these poems contribute to their meaning?

______________________________

Winter Semester 2022 

Calendar Review of Thematic Questions, 

Class by Class

Class #2, Tuesday Jan. 18         

Chapter 1  “To Make a Poet Black” Pgs. 1-18 

Theme: What’s African American about African American Poetry?

  • Before reading the poems in Chapt. #1, how would you answer the question: “What’s African American about African American Poetry?”
  • What personas and voices do you hear in these poems?
  • What issues do these poets raise?
  • What poetic styles and devices do you see in these poems?
  • What surprises you in these poems?
  • How do these poems answer the: What’s African American about African American Poetry? 

Class #3, Tuesday Jan. 25

Chapter 2  “What is Africa to Me” Pgs. 19-29

Theme: “What is Africa to Me”

  •  As you were growing up, when and what did you learn about Africa? As an adult, has that knowledge of Africa changed? When, how, and why?  Based on your own experience, what is the general impression many Americans have of Africa’s history and culture?
  • What images of Africa do you see and hear in these poems?
  • How important is the portrayal of one’s ancestral origins to one’s sense of self?
  • What relationships do you hear expressed between the speakers of these poems and Africa?
  • Which poems were particularly impactful for you?


Class #4, Tuesday Feb.1

Chapter 3 “The Rocking Loom of History” Pgs 31-56

Theme: Slavery and Its Legacies

  • In this chapter we see how some African American poets are trying to come to terms the presence of slavery as an element of their personal past and of our collective our past. How might you come to terms with a monstrous and difficult past that is part of your personal history or your country’s history?
  • Slavery inflicts unspeakable trauma upon those who lived through it and for their descendants for many generations. What trauma and emotions are portrayed in these poems as part of the legacy of slavery?
  • What relationships do you hear expressed between the speakers of these poems and slavery or its legacies?
  • Which poems were particularly impactful for you? What poetic devices make these poems powerful?


Class #5, Tuesday Feb 8

Chapter “Like Walking Out of Shadow” Pgs. 57-93

Theme: “Jim Crow: Legacies, Identities”

  • How important, would you say, is a sense of place to one’s sense of self or one’s identity? In your opinion and experience, how might living in a place impose an identity?
  • What qualities of Black identity did the Jim Crow era try to impose on African Americans in the South and in the North, and through what means?  How do the poets in this chapter seem to be coming to terms with this identity?
  • Which poems were particularly impactful or surprising for you? What poetic devices make these poems powerful?


Class #6, Tuesday Feb 15             

Chapter “If We Must Die” Pgs.  95-118

Theme: Living with Racism Every Day

  • African Americans report that they regularly encounter racism, both systemically and during an ordinary day. Have you seen evidence of this? What might it be like to experience racism every day? What might be the emotional costs? Which poems express the daily toll? 
  • When a Black is attacked or killed, or was lynched—be it Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or an ordinary person, what must be the effects on an African-American’s mind, body, and soul?  Which poems express the toll?
  • Anger, sadness, irony, and bitterness spill out of these poems. As a white person, how do you relate to these poems? How can we identify with the experience or is a distance inevitable?


Class #7 Tuesday Feb 22

Chapter “This Man Shall Be Remembered” Pgs.121-138

Theme: Leaders

  • In this selection of poetic tributes to important African American leaders, who do you expect to read about?  Who is included, who is not present? What do you make of this list?
  • After reading the tributes in this chapter, is there any leader who you would like to know better?  Whose importance is clearer to you? Whose life and impact you will reconsider?
  • What do you expect in a poem that pays tribute to a cherished leader? What kind of content, language, style? Which poems meet your expectation, which poems defy your expectations? For those poems that defy your expectations, what do you find in terms of content, language, style? For those poems that meet your expectations, what qualities of the leaders are portrayed and how, poetically, are they paid tribute?
  • Some of the African-Americans given tribute in these poems are not well known, generally. In these poems, how do the poets deal with this ‘anonymity’? Does our general lack of knowledge of these individuals impede or help you appreciate the portrait of the person rendered in these poems?  Should the poet have given us more information? 
  • Which poems were particularly impactful for you?


Class #8 Tuesday March 1

Chapter “A Rock Against the Wind” Pgs.145-162

Theme: Lovers: Black, Sexy and Beautiful

  • What do you expect in a love poem?  Given the range of our discussions this semester, what might you expect in a love poem written within an African-American context? Which love poem takes you by surprise? Which delights you? Which puzzles you?
  • Are all of the poems in this chapter African-American love poems or are there poems that are love poems in any context?
  • For those poems that are clearly African-American love poems, what poetic devices and/or content place it in that context?
  • Which poems were particularly impactful for you? What poetic devices make these poems powerful? 

______________________________

Winter Semester 2022 

Calendar Review of Thematic Questions, 

Class by Class

Class #2, Tuesday Jan. 18         

Chapter 1  “To Make a Poet Black” Pgs. 1-18 

Theme: What’s African American about African American Poetry?

  • Before reading the poems in Chapt. #1, how would you answer the question: “What’s African American about African American Poetry?”
  • What personas and voices do you hear in these poems?
  • What issues do these poets raise?
  • What poetic styles and devices do you see in these poems?
  • What surprises you in these poems?
  • How do these poems answer the: What’s African American about African American Poetry? 


   


© Linda K. Shamoon 2020