These handful of slam poetry examples came to my mind this morning and prompted my comment in class about the hypothetical “next step” that would come after our current study of Brathwaite and Rankine. This disidentification and importance of inscription/voice/the body is a continuous theme throughout works from POC.

“In Casual Conversation, the Hood in Me Slips Out and Says” by Dave Harris

“An Open Letter to Raven Symoné” by T. Miller

“The Heart and the Fist” by Rudy Francisco

“cuz he’s black” by Javon Johnson

“How to Be Black in America” by Miss K

P.S. I tried embedding the videos but it was just erasing them and I cannot figure this out, apologies.

Brathwaite’s “X/Self” and “Elegguas” is undoubtedly a study in inscription and the body. As we discussed in class previously, there seems to be a binding between the physical, corporal form and the ability to write. We have seen this numerous times in both Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Dubois’s work, and to see it recreated and evolved in Brathwaite’s poetry is a testament to the permanent effects of colonization and enslavement as well as the condition of black authorship. When Brathwaite speaks of his ability to write, to forge his own narrative, it is inherently tied to and reduced down to a function of the corporal body, of finally being able to possess and inhabit a physical form. He writes, “like i is a some/is a some/ is a some body/ a x pert or some thing like moses or aaron or one a dem dyaam isra lite” (87). While the breaks are certainly not as clear here in citations as they are in the poem, the physicality of writing and the autonomy of penmanship cannot be disputed.

The ability to create, to reproduce, to write upon the face of something and leave a mark is thus seemingly the definition of being “somebody.” Brathwaite’s fascinating play with re-appropriation, re-colonization, and reproduction becomes complicated and I would argue, even stronger by his inclusion of his (the narrator’s?) mother. The mother of the first person, perhaps, is her role, and yet she is not robbed of a voice. The author begins his letter by wondering at the writing technologies available to him, however, he returns to ancient writing methods, to religiosity, and gospel, before he finishes his letter to his mother. Why this return to the ancient? Is this an attempt to bridge a gap in generation, in understanding, in knowledge?

Though the character of “mam” and “mamma”is the omnipresent spectator, the reader rather than the author himself, her role in his creation (in inscribing upon him not with language of Prospero but that of Caliban perhaps). Brathwaite also makes his mother’s capacity for inscription and writing just as clear, when he describes his computer like “dat ole remmington yu have pun top de war. drobe up there ketchin duss” (81). This particular section is incredibly fascinating as the nature of the “remmington” remains obscured. Through my research, I found that not only was there a Remington typewriter, but also that a Remington is type of firearm/gun that has been around for over two centuries. Which does Brathwaite mean his mother to carry? Is the gun implied by its constant position above the “war. drobe”? How then, does Brathwaite read and imagine the role of writing, especially in relation to his mother?

The capacity for violence, for war, in writing is not only incapsulated by the previous quote, but also in Brathwaite’s return to religiosity. Brathwaite incorporates the impermanence of writing technologies, of the illusion of immortality that stems from “chipp/in dis poem onta dis tablet chiss/ellin darkness writin in light” (87). Yet, he does so by speaking to characters and figures from a religious canon that would be easily recognized by most. How then, did their writings gain permanence when Brathwaite’s writings can be lost and deleted from a computer and Ralph Ellison’s greatest work can be burned? It is the violence in the inscription that grants it its timelessness; to write on a people, to carve into flesh (and cultures and lands and resources and economies and nations and families) and bodies is to scar. Colonization walks hand-in-hand with conversion, and the return to these figures is an echo of the hidden violence in this poem, close enough to peek at but still tucked away on shelf, lest it fall into the wrong hands.

By inscribing upon a people, upon Brathwaite, and upon “mam” there creates an odd vacuum in which neither the language of Prospero nor Caliban are truly theirs. It is thus no wonder that Brahtwaite ends the poem with questions (be it from mam or the narrator himself), wondering aloud, “why is dat? what it mean?” (87). The tragic violence of it cannot be understated, and is somehow made worse by the insidious nature of its silence and dormancy.

In Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s “X/Self’s Xth Letters from the Thirteenth Provinces” there seems to be a constant returned focus to language and linguistics. Writing technologies seem to be familiar touchstones scattered throughout his poem, tangible returns to linguistic improbability, reminders that Brathwaite has to re-colonize and bend his pen and paper to fit his accent. “guess what!,” Brathwaite writes in his poem, “pun a computer o/kay? like i jine de mercantilists!” (80). Writing and writing technology appear to be innately tied to colonialism; language seems to be just as regulated as economy and trade. Brathwaite touches upon this in his essay “Nation Language” as well, where he writes,

What our educational system did was to recognize and maintain the language of the conquistador, the language of the planter, the language of the official, the language of the anglican preacher. It insisted that not only would English be spoken in the anglo-phone Caribbeans, but that the educational system would carry the contours of an English heritage. Hence…Shakespeare, George Eliot, Jane Austen… (310).

There is undoubtedly a lot to unpack in the aforementioned passage, but what is most important and apparent is Brathwaite’s return to the idea that black authors and writers are forced to re-colonize the tools that were initially used to butcher their heritage and language. This echoes the experiences of many of the writers we have looked at so far. The clearest image of this that I have is of Dubois tracing his letters over a borrowed and used workbook. Dubois literally carves his own language over the white boy’s; he inscribes his autonomy upon a stolen space while also appropriating a narrative that was never “meant” for him.

Another example of this can be seen in Brathwaite, specifically when he writes, “& out off de mistake dem wid white liquid paper. de papyrus” (81). In a tangible sense, Brathwaite speaks to the ways in which “white liquid paper” sought to cover up and erase the “mistake” of native languages and accents, unintentionally providing black authors with a canvas, a layered “papyrus” upon which to write, built upon both colonized and native languages that have merged into a stratified space for re-colonization.

In a less abstract notion that speaks directly to this idea of re-colonization, re-appropriation, and reclamation, Brathwaite reclaims traditionally Western texts like Shakespeare and Ovid. This is an echo of the education that he speaks of, the one that carries the “contours of an English heritage” (310). By utilizing and reclaiming the texts that became so vital in such formative years (texts that undoubtedly physically replaced works from native authors), there is this strange re-colonization of the colonizers that I have mentioned previously in other blog posts.

In previous strains of thought, I have been primarily concerned with the re-colonization of the body after the trauma of enslavement and how inscription has been the mode through which re-appropriation and reclamation operates. Before Brathwaite, I had not considered that language itself could be a battle ground, a physical space wherein writing, erasing, and imprinting is part of attaining autonomy. This idea of reclaiming language and texts can be complicated by the idea of language and texts that are “stolen” as well. Writers of color are forced to take and “steal” back what was imposed upon them – does this place a degree of responsibility on the authors and subjects to create their “own” voice? Does this only serve to reinforce the notion that the Western canon/the “English heritage” is the norm?

• In this text, Lawrence discusses the relationship between words and the corporal body. It emphasizes how the naming and the writing upon black bodies of Sethe and formerly enslaved peoples have physical claimed their flesh. The article also examines “self-authorship” and the ways in which Morrison’s characters are forced to reclaim their bodies through inscription and memory. This text will undoubtedly prove especially useful to my analysis of inscription as a form of bodily colonization.

Masiki, Trent. “The Satyr, the Goddess, and the Oriental Cast: Subversive Classicism in Charles W. Chestnutt’s ”The Goophered Grapevine” and “Po’ Sandy.” African American Review, vol. 49, no. 4, 2016, pp. 361–383.

• In the same vein as Morrison’s “rememory,” in this text, Masiki speaks to Chestnutt’s appropriation of the Classical text, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for a predominantly African American narrative. Masiki describes this adoption as “subversive classicism,” wherein he hypothesizes that Chestnutt utilizes Classical texts and literary sentimental conventions to tell the narrative of enslaved peoples and overturn the false fictions of antebellum notions of slavery.

Smith, Valerie. “The Flesh and the Word: Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved.’” Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, edited by Alfred Bendixen, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 570–581.

• In this text, Smith discusses the relationship between words, stories, and the black body. Smith analyzes how words and names in Toni Morrison’s Beloved can physically claim flesh and the body. She also speaks to the ways in which formerly enslaved peoples in Beloved work through their trauma with the physical healing of the flesh, thus placing an emphasis on the words that give them renewed access to their bodies.

White, Jeannette S. “Baring Slavery’s Darkest Secrets: Charles Chesnutt’s ‘Conjure Tales’ as Masks of Truth.” The Southern Literary Journal, vol. 27, no. 1, 1994, pp. 85–103. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20078114.

• In “Baring Slavery’s Darkest Secrets,” White explores Chestnutt’s use of “masks” and numerous roles and characters in presenting the truth of slavery. She describes Chestnutt as the “emancipator freeing the future scribes of African ancestry,” inhabiting different perspectives in order to dispel the untruths of the antebellum South. White provides insight into Chestnutt’s social motivations in his writing of Conjure Tales.

In researching this project, I was surprised to find as many sources as I did discussing the condition of the physical body in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I focused primarily on the act of inscription and the ways in which words and narrative have the capacity to physically influence and claim the flesh. This research led me to a book (that I am currently waiting to loan) entitled The Body In Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry that discusses how black bodies often become the physical canvasses for hegemonic inscription. I am interested in seeing if there are more resources available about Chestnutt’s Conjure Tales, but this process has also allowed me to further develop my questions and ideas. I hope to focus primarily on Morrison’s Beloved, and discuss the nature between inscription and the flesh, while also analyzing how in the re-colonization of the body results in former enslaved peoples speaking in the dialogue of objectification.

I have only read excerpts of Richard Wright’s Native Son prior to this semester, and so I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to read it in its entirety. During our readings of part one and part two, I could not help but notice the consistent allusions to rape (be it literal or metaphorical) and the overall lack of consent that crops up in several instances in the text. Could this possibly be a reference to the lack of agency and choice that African Americans face, to give the reader a greater understanding of the Bigger character and the inherent anger that springs from the injustice of the hegemony? Wright even mentions the history of “rape” and lack of consent in relation to racial persecution in “How ‘Bigger’ Was Born, where he writes,

“So volatile and tense are these relations that if a Negro rebels against rule and taboo, he is lynched and the reason for the lynching is usually called ‘rape,’ that catchword which has garnered such vile connotations that it can raise a mob anywhere in the South pretty quickly, even today.”

Wright utilizes rape in quotations because the “rape” of a white woman was frequently used to implicate and excuse the murder (and lynching) of a black man. It is interesting, but not surprising then, that there is the same question of consent in Native Son.

The example that stands out clearest to me is the image of the white woman’s legs at the movies, and the narrator’s voice that seems to almost encourage assault, to encourage the taking of the woman as an object or prize. It says, “Ha! He’s after her! There! He’s got her! Oh, boy, don’t you wish you down here in Florida?” (38). There are several instances here in this short passage that implies not only the rape of the projected image upon the screen, but perhaps also the mind of the unsuspecting African American viewer. Bigger is not only segregated in a physical space, in a theater that enacts Jim Crow laws, but he is also pushed from the audience (he is clearly not the projected “you”) and yet his attention and mind is no less drawn in and re-colonized by the hegemonic narrative.

There is also an interesting choice of words in this passage. There is an implication that the woman is being hunted, prey for the predator so to speak, as the narrator describes the event almost as though it is a sporting event, “Ha! He’s after her! There! He’s got her!” (38). Further, the use of the word “boy” here is especially intriguing. Often used as a diminutive and an insult to black men pre- and post-emancipation. The use of the word instantly reminds the reader, and perhaps Bigger himself, that he is excluded from the narrative, but no less bound to it.

This lack of consent is mirrored by Mary and Jan’s treatment of Bigger when they try and force him to eat with them. “Bigger felt trapped,” Wright writes, “…but he did not understand them; he distrusted them, really hated them…after all, this was his job and it was just as painful to sit here and let them stare at him as it was to go in” (68). In much the same way as the advertisement did, Mary and Jan paradoxically pull him into the narrative – physically, as “Jan caught his arm and tried to pull him forward” – while also othering him, through their continuous objectification and fetishization of his blackness. This can especially be seen through Mary’s constant use of the pronoun “they,” as we discussed previously in class, and most clearly in the question, “you live with your people?” (71). The simultaneous othering and forced penetration/invasion into a space that is not theirs is painfully and grossly reminiscent of the sexual assault and rape that seems to serve as not only a literal but metaphorical theme throughout the work.

For the final project, I intend to explore the link between inscription, mysticism, and metamorphosis. I want to establish that writing, in all aspects of the term (i.e. physical inscription, appropriation of words and texts, the emblazoning of one’s own narrative over another’s, etc) is seen as a mystical and holy act that allows the author to transfigure into something different, someone free. I wish to complicate this idea by asserting that this notion is often a cruel illusion that pushes the blame and responsibility of “attaining freedom” on the backs of enslaved peoples, and forces them to speak the same objectifying and racially charged language that the hegemony utilizes.

Du Bois’s The Soul of Black Folk was my initial point of intrigue. I found myself repeatedly drawn to his curious description of blackness as a curse and writing as a ritual or rite that had the power to transform not only his body but also his status as a free/enslaved man. My curiosity about this inscriptive mode of magical realism was sparked by Du Bois’s description of blackness where he states, “the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world” (I). Inscription and mysticism are thus intimately intertwined.

Is the process of writing and marking viewed as a magical one, where the physical body is transfigured into something other, something new, something free? If so, is this reclamation of words, this ri(te)ght to write a permanent cure to the “curse” of colonized bodies? Or is it merely an illusion of freedom – smoke and mirrors, pens and ink, fingers and sand – playacting at autonomy?

I hope to explore this through Charles Chestnutt’s The Conjure Woman and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The writing of both of these works play a large part in my decision to utilize them. Both authors recapture and appropriate tokens of history for their own use. Chestnutt, for example, appropriates colloquialisms in order to speak directly (and possibly pander to) the hegemonic White reader, all the while coming from the mouth of a former slave that holds absolute control over the narrative. Concurrently, Morrison uses a tragic historical figure to tell the story of enslaved and tortured women. A infamous woman known for her incredible cruelty is instead used to tell the story of a woman who was bought and sold into violence. This ensnaring and transfiguration of history reminds one of Morrison’s “rememory” and also of Flusser’s discussion of inscription.

Flusser’s “Does Writing Have a Future?” discusses writing and inscription as a mode of cataloging and forging history; he believes that history is inherently a malleable and alterable narrative. History is thus a product of the writing process, an aftermath of inscription. History may also be viewed as a narrative, a collective story that can be added to and subtracted from. When Chestnutt and Morrison adapt these historical events and inscribe upon them with their own narratives, they choose to do so with tales that heavily feature aspects of magical realism and transformation. With the physical transformation of people into animals and objects, the reclamation of words, and the possible re-colonization of the body, these texts would be more than sufficient for me to make some form of this argument.

(On another note, this trend of adapting history to place narrative control in the hands of those initially disadvantaged by it is especially fascinating when one considers Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “rewriting” of American history, literally filling white-washed history with people and women of color).

Possible sources:

Bendixen, Alfred. “The Flesh and the Word: Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, John Wiley; Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2012, pp. 570–581.

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co.; [Cambridge]: University Press John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A., 1903; Bartleby.com, 1999.

Griffin, Farah Jasmine. “Spiritual Interrogations: Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women’s Writing.” American Literature, vol. 72, no. 1, 2000, pp. 183–185.

Masiki, Trent. “The Satyr, the Goddess, and the Oriental Cast: Subversive Classicism in Charles W. Chestnutt’sv”The Goophered Grapevine” and “Po’ Sandy.” African American Review, vol. 49, no. 4, 2016, pp. 361–383.

Kolin, Philip. “The Phonology of the Conjure Tales of Charles W. Chestnutt.” American Speech, vol. 50, no. 1-2, 1975, pp. 115–120.

Roberts, John W. “Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture.” American Literature, vol. 72, no. 1, 2000, pp. 223–224.

Shinn, Christopher A. “Masquerade, Magic, and Carnival in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” African American Review, vol. 36, no. 2, 2002, pp. 243–261.

The return to Ivanhoe and the playing of Charles Chesnutt’s “Conjure Tales” was not only an incredibly interesting take on the theme of “blackness and inscription” but also a fascinating lens through which to view Chesnutt’s short stories. Much like our previous game of Ivanhoe in Digital Humanities with Melville’s Billy Budd, the window, or lens, through which we view a text can very well rewrite the entire work in our minds. The perspective and trope of the conjurer in Chesnutt’s “Conjure Tales” are paradoxically apparent yet hidden from plain sight.

Named after the conjurer and the conjure woman, one would expect that Chesnutt’s “Conjure Tales” surrounded the mystical character, and dived into his/her perspective with greater frequency. That misconception, however, could not be further from the truth. The title character of the conjurer, is not in fact, a single character at all, but more of a cultural presence, a singular identity that binds those who practice “roots.” In Chesnutt’s tales, the conjurer often acts as the hand of justice, but can just as easily become a trickster, a simple human who uses all in their power to exact their own brand of vengeance. Where, then, does the line between the fallible human conjurer and the mystical conjurer of justice and paid debts fall?

These questions arose in my mind as I began to “play” the role of the conjurer in our game. The conjurer occupies a strange space in Chesnutt’s work, and I must admit that while her character intrigued me prior to the game, she very often took the backseat in each of Julius’s stories, hidden behind the magic or the tragedy. It was only when I began to play her, to formulate my own ideas and concepts of the conjurer based on research and close reading that I began to see her as one of the principle characters of “Conjure Tales.”

Rather than simply reading the text, the game allowed me to dive into it through a more focused entry point, to tear apart words, quotations, and metaphors, and utilize different sources in order to aid in my formulation of the conjurer. It felt like I was taking over the reigns from Chesnutt, picking up from where he left off and informing his work with sources and insights that he might not have had. The best part of playing a novel rather than reading it, is undoubtedly the shift from “absorption” to “interaction.” As a reader, we are focused on tearing apart and deriving everything that we can from a given text. As a player, on the other hand, we are allowed to make jumps that a simple reader cannot, jumps that may be informed by historical documents, scholarship, or sheer creative choice. The reader often does not have this power.

The frustrations in playing a novel follows in the same vein. As a player of a text, one is thus responsible not only for the official narrative but also the arc one wishes to craft throughout the moves. Where will the character end up by the end of the set of moves? Will it mirror where they are in the text? Have I strayed too far or stayed too close to the source material? All these uncertainties arrive when playing a text, and continue to be endlessly frustrating. It is difficult not to second guess one’s design choices, or creative spins on a character, but by virtue of the interface, once a move is sent out into the void, it is completely and terrifyingly permanent.

This is oddly liberating (but no less anxiety inducing, mind). Free writing was the best way that I found to deal with this issue. I would scour for scholarship and sources, and once I found a kernel of something interesting, I allowed myself the space to dive further. Be it comparing a term in a historical document to one in the original text, or using an essay as a departure point and lens through which to view a character’s motivations and actions, I tried to give myself both the freedom and necessary boundaries within which to work.

If I were to play again, I do not believe I would choose a different character. As fascinating as the character of Uncle Julius or Chesnutt would be, I personally believe that the conjurer – by virtue of being paradoxically as amorphous and oddly specific as it is – allows for the greater intersection of historical research and creative close reading. I would however, aim to interact more with other characters, and perhaps even seek to antagonize John and Chesnutt (only a little bit), to goad them in such a way that echoes how the conjurer is both an outside critical force of the peculiar institution and yet still subjected to the wills of the hegemony.

Overall, playing Chesnutt’s “Conjure Tales” provided me with a deeper insight to not only the conjurer herself, but also to the time period, and the oft forgotten “folk” aspect of popular slave narratives. While I wished there was an OOC (out-of-character) function for the game, and an easier way to see linked posts and responses, I do think the stringent and bare-bones aspect of the interface allowed for a more focused headspace.

Flusser’s “Does Writing Have a Future?” discusses writing and inscription as a mode of cataloging and forging history. The act of writing in itself constructs antiquity; by definition, history thus becomes a malleable and alterable narrative. Flusser writes, “…before writing was invented, nothing happened; rather things merely occurred. For something to happen, it has to be noticed and conceived as an event (process) by some consciousness” (8). History, as Flusser describes it, is thus a product of the writing process, an aftermath of inscription. History may also be viewed as a narrative, a collective story that can be added to and subtracted from.

History, and the truth, is seemingly based upon the presence of a voice. As such, by removing and muting the voices of enslaved peoples, the White slave master is not only given control of narratives, but also history as a whole. Examples of this can be seen in Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, wherein truth and history themselves are altered by the removal of enslaved peoples’ voices. In a description of a slave owner’s abuse and mistreatment of his slaves, Douglass writes,

“It was committed in the presence of slaves, and they of course could neither institute a suit, nor testify against him; and thus the guilty perpetrator of one of the bloodiest and most foul murders goes unwhipped of justice, and uncensured by the community in which he lives” (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass).

Douglass’s experience with the unpunished slave owner reflects on the ways in which the hegemony silences enslaved peoples, and in doing so, writes history and alters truth. While the slaves could not speak out against Mr. Gore, the latter is both “unwhipped” and “uncensured,” the very opposite of the enslaved peoples’ condition. Due to the silencing of the slaves, Mr. Gore is able to suppress the truth and by doing so, alter history, penning his own innocence and erasing the death of an innocent.

The redirection and adaption of religion in support of slavery is yet another commandeering of truth and history. Douglass makes the inherent hypocrisy and deception innate to slave ownership extremely clear, especially through his description of religion. Douglass uses faith as a point for anti-slavery arguments, against slave owners and those who support the peculiar institution. Douglass believed that this “slaveholding religion” was

“a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,—a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,—and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection” (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass).

The manipulation of the historical narrative is vital to maintaining the established hierarchy. He writes, “For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst.” While religion is presumably something that inspires faith, charity, and kindness, it is often used as “a justifier of the most appalling barbarity.” This manipulation of the truth, or perhaps willful blindness to hypocrisy can still be seen today in right wing and conservative hate speech against minorities, immigrants, and the queer community.

Those who have a voice direct the historical narrative. Flusser embodies this idea when he writes, “[o]nly one who writes lines can think logically, calculate, criticize, pursue knowledge, philosophize–and conduct himself appropriately” (7). This example dances around the notion of reason at the time in much the same way that Gates in “Writing ‘Race’ and the Difference It Makes,” does. Gates writes, “Blacks were “reasonable, “and hence” men, “if – and only if – they demonstrated mastery of ‘the arts and sciences’” (8). Both Gates and Flusser echo the truths that Douglass himself embodies in his narrative; he emphasizes the importance of reason, of voice, and Narrative to not only the attainment of freedom, but also emancipation.