Response to Harryette Mullen provides worthy praise of the transforming power her poems contain. Both Christine Hume and Reginald Harris describe well Mullen's reinterpretation and confrontation of the status quo while remarking poignantly on the purpose of word play.
Hume argues for Mullen's use of wordplay as a serious poetic tool, as opposed to its current place "when it isn't simply an attention getting device...something to be brushed away...before the company gets here." In this way she elevates Mullen's use of play into a valuable discussion on the human condition, stating that her comedy, "[flays] our nature to the bone."Although Hume's focus on the erotic play of Mullen's work does much to explain the nature of Sleeping with the Dictionary the fact that her article does cement her praise in this comedic framework can somewhat restrict the power of Mullen's transformation and reinterpretation. Hume writes of Mullen's own structural upheavals as calling for a greater social one, her use of rearrangement to rhetorically condemn and question convention. She quotes Mullen:
If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way. . . . It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color. It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights. Step aside, please while our officer inspects your bad attitude. You have no rights that we are bound to respect. Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible for what happens to you.
Here Mullen cleverly throws the rhetoric of the establishment right back in its face. Yet as Hume focuses so strongly on the play of Mullen this approach somehow weakens her praise of Mullen's work. While it is "serious play" indeed, when we draw such a line where does the play end and the true power of transforming social oppression begin?
In this way Reginald Harris focuses almost entirely on the playful cleverness of Mullen's poetry, the use of games to reinterpret and question the hierarchy around us. Harris' acknowledgment of Mullen's political and social ideas merely states that they have not disappeared.
Thus I don't believe these reviews give credit to the existential nature of Mullen's work. Mullen breaks down the very notion and existence of language, questioning its connections and rhetorical power to come out with verses rich in their reinterpretation of the status quo. For instance her poem "Denigration" piercingly illuminates the power of connotation and the "denigration" it promotes. Moreover does Mullen simply contain the political power and action of her older work or is she challenging and recasting language in powerful new ways?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Conor, I am responding to your post primarily because you were one of the only individuals in our class to question the capacity of poetry to operate as a vehicle for progressive social change.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: (1) “…‘serious play’ indeed, when we draw such a line where does the play end and the true power of transforming social oppression begin?” (2) …does Mullen simply contain the political power and action of her older work or is she challenging and recasting language in powerful new ways?
I am enthused by the way your questions open up discussion concerning the structural nature of her writing and how that, in itself, is potentially indicative of her desire to challenge the status quo (class, gender, race, etc.). My personal opinion: yes, Mullen is using language composition in an attempt to deconstruct (class, gender, race, etc.) hierarchies.
As I noted in my post for Thursday, Hume makes an excellent point when she explains how Mullen forces us to see the hidden weight that many words carry in our culture.
Language is not static, but dynamic. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is probably most directly related to this idea: language is relative to culture. In other words, language is subjective to the human experience. We see this so overwhelmingly in Mullen’s powerful piece, “denigration,” which for many readers (not excluding myself) reveals linguistic cultural assignment. In this manner, Mullen’s poem is extremely powerful and thought provoking, and she accomplished this feat simply by “recasting” a series of words on the page.
As we have already demonstrated, poetry is powerful – and its influence can drift far from the page. Unfortunately, not many Americans have the depth of education or patience to read Mullen and uncover these truths. On the other hand, readers who do understand these messages have the capacity to internalize them and share them with their peers. Awareness is the first step to breaking negative social constructions.