Dr. Chandler's Post

I decided to re-post the blog Dr. Chandler sent us email about this week, because it was somewhat hard to find. So here it is:

Karen Chandler said...
I wish that we had had more time to discuss Brown, who I think complements some of the other writers we've looked at quite well. "Slim in Hell" is one of five Slim poems. Another that I didn't assign might be of interest, given our recent focus on preachers: "Slim Hears 'the Call,'" which satirizes the poor training and corruption of some black ministers (a problem Booker T. Washington, Brown's father, an influential minister, and other black leaders targeted). But "Slim in Hell" is interesting because it shows the ways Brown can bring together forms and influences and make them his own. The poem draws on the traditions of the American tall tale, as well as the English ballad. It also draws on black folk traditions--sermons and spirituals, and Greek mythology (Orpheus and Eurydice). Also informing the poem are an appropriate ironic voice that features overstatement (an inheritance from oral storytelling?). What do you think about Greer's expulsion from heaven because of his limited vision? Readers of Brown are sometimes bothered that he can be just as critical of African Americans as he is of white Americans, though for different reasons.

As for the Favor article, I wondered how helpful you found it. I wish we had had a chance to discuss how he discusses representations of women, and the ways they complicate or unseat assumptions about racial essentialism.

8:40 AM


Karen Chandler said...
I meant to mention that Johnson wrote the introduction to Brown's Southern Road, asserting at one point that Brown was among a group of emerging African-American writers who "In their approach to "race" . . . are less direct and obvious, less didactic and imploratory; and, too, they are less regardful of the approval or disapprobation of their white environment." What do you think?

8:43 AM