Preparing for Emily Dickinson & Langston Hughes

Today we looked at Walt Whitman and two poems about him (Sherman Alexie's "Defending Walt Whitman" and Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California").  We also watched parts of two readings of Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."  The pictures are lovely here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXJKYOvzGTw  I prefer Will Geer's reading here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBm65n7azwc

Tim Murray performs "Defending Walt Whitman": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpsF6S0ue3k
Here Sherman Alexie discusses his love for basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJdXX0BXWmI

Here is a recording of Ginsberg as a youngish man reading "A Supermarket in California": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcTI7em_w2E
The sound on this video of him as an older man is better here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhTh01CO60Y

Let's  move on to Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes.
This is Emily Dickinson's "My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52737/my-life-had-stood-a-loaded-gun-764

Here is her "Because I could not stop for Death -- ":  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47652/because-i-could-not-stop-for-death-479

We'll finish with her "A narrow Fellow in the Grass":  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49909/a-narrow-fellow-in-the-grass-1096

Langston Hughes' "I, Too" works well with Whitman's poems: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-too

As does "The Negro Speaks of Rivers": https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/negro-speaks-rivers

We'll finish with "Madam and Her Madam": https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/madam-and-her-madam

Here are some questions if you choose to write your paper on a poem by Whitman, Alexie, or Ginsberg.

-- How did the recordings of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" help you with the poem?

-- Have you ever been to New York City (especially Brooklyn or Manhattan)?  How did that experience help you with "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"?

-- With the gentrification of Manhattan and Brooklyn, I imagine that Whitman might be more at home in Queens, the Bronx, perhaps even Staten Island or New Jersey.  What do you think?

-- One of Whitman's techniques is to list items.  How does that help his poems be more inclusive?

-- How does Whitman make "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" more inclusive?

-- Whitman relies on anaphora (repetition of beginnings of lines).  How does that affect his poetry?

-- What role does the self play in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"?

-- How does Whitman speak to us in 2018?

-- In Section 5, Whitman writes:

"I too had receiv’d identity by my body, 

That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body. "

How does this poem reflect that statement?

-- How does Whitman depict nature in the city?

-- Compare and contrast Alexie's "Defending Walt Whitman" and Louise Erdrich's "The Red Convertible" as writing by Native American authors or writing set on a Native American reservation.  

-- Compare and contrast the speaker of "Defending Walt Whitman" with Lyman, the narrator of "The Red Convertible."

-- Apply the lines from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" to "Defending Walt Whitman," "A Supermarket in California," poems by Emily Dickinson, or poems by Langston Hughes.  In particular, what do they have to say to or about poetry by writers with a less mainstream identity (Dickinson or Bishop as women, Hughes as an African-American, Alexie as a Native American, or Ginsberg as a gay, Jewish man)?

-- Watch the video of Allen Ginsberg as an older man reading "A Supermarket in California":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhTh01CO60Y  As an older man reading this poem that he wrote as a younger man, what does he add to it?

-- How do you feel that the speaker of "A Supermarket in California" feels toward Walt Whitman?  Why?

-- Which living or dead author would you like to meet?  Why?  Where would you imagine meeting them?  Why?

Here are a few questions on our readings for Wednesday:

-- What does it mean for one's life to be a loaded gun?  Why?  What is the gun a metaphor of?

-- How does Emily Dickinson imagine Death?  Compare/contrast it with your thoughts on this topic.

-- Why does the speaker of "A narrow Fellow" fear the snake?  Consider that he loves other parts of Nature.

-- Compare Dickinson's descriptions of nature with Whitman's.

-- Compare Dickinson's world with Whitman's.

-- What can a male reader or poet learn from Dickinson?

-- What can a female reader or poet learn from Dickinson?

-- What is Langston Hughes' perspective on America?  

-- Compare and contrast his perspective on America with Walt Whitman's.

-- How does Langston Hughes speak to us today in 2018?

-- How does Langston Hughes depict the African-American experience in the mid-1900s?

-- What can an African-American reader or poet learn from Hughes?

-- What can a reader or poet from another race learn from Hughes?