1. The first thing I noticed when I saw several Youtube videos of this poem was that none of them included the happy calls of any singing bird. I had imagined that would be the most important part, if anyone were to add music to this poem. Instead, however, all displayed lonely, sadly beautiful images and played depressed piano music that could be considered calming in other contexts. Actually, I posted this particular version because the speaker essentially convinced me that they were an upper-class, suicidal, young girl -- and so it was the most dramatic of the dramatizations. Frankly, I was a little surprised that this seems to be the mainstream interpretation of Angelou's poem. If I were to dramatize the poem, I would read it with the voice of an unpretentious, aging woman, who is speaking from her heart not so much to hear herself lament on her own condition, but to a younger audience as a consciously wiser and more experienced educator. Possibly much of this is my subjective interpretation without much substance in the poem to back it, but two things are clear to me:
- Angelou's speaker understands not only what it is like to be a caged bird, but ALSO what it is like to be a free one. She has risen above both scenarios to write this poem.
- Neither Angelou's free bird nor her caged bird is depressed: the free bird loves, while the caged bird boils hot with anger. Both are strong, in their own way.
Finally, it turns out that whoever posted this video has a whole slew of other poems....and they are all read by the same, young, depressing, effete voice....I disapprove. There is much more depth, much more strength, much more grace to poetry (especially Angelou's!) than this or similar dramatizations can capture.
2. This is a recording of Diggy Simmons rapping his song "What's Going On?," which Surya excerpted for our class discussion. When we were reading this poem in class, I imagined that Diggy would be yelling out these words angrily, because they are so forceful and meaningfully effective. It seemed to me that there was no option but that this was a protest rap. So I found it really interesting when Diggy basically didn't really sound mad. What came through more was actually his uncertainty. His question "Can't you see it's time for change?" actually occurs over a major scale (well...major-ish...). It's not forceful at all. It's actually just asking. And his "tell me what's going on" isn't so much of a challenge as it is a blank expression: it could be confusion, frustration, or a suggestion, but it's not actually much of any emotion. Overall, he doesn't really sound like he is protesting anything specific in the end, unlike what is implied by his words themselves.
Given this, I now ask why that is? Why would he write such angry words, but sing them rather ambivalently? Is he actually afraid of having someone "take [him] out like [they] did Mike Jack/Vick/Tys"? Reading back along the lyrics, I now see that he says "I've got some things I want to say to their face like..." In other words, he doesn't expect the "they" or the "you" he is referring to to ever actually hear his song. He is writing to a group of fellow people, whom he terms "us" or "we." Is this some sort of group whom Diggy was already imagining, or does he expect the group to self-identify. I'm not sure if I can really make any conclusions with this one unless I talk to Diggy, himself. But one thing I can be sure of: Diggy's pretty talented, and I admire the gumption with which he refuses to sugar-coat his perceptions of reality, even if he is consciously questioning whether others percieve reality the same way he does. And I think in this way, he echoes some of both Native Son and Invisible Man as he expresses reality and how he fits into it.
3. This is the Mingus recording that Yusef Komunyakaa referenced in his poem, "Copacetic Mingus." Listening to this recording, I find it again interesting that it is the bassist that is Mingus....the saxes (esp) and also piano/percussion all seem to play such important parts in this recording. In fact, it is really only when everything else drops out that the listener is forced to listen to the bass as the melody, and not the countermelody: and yet listeners do notice that Mingus is, indeed, "copacetic" = "in excellent order" (according to Google...). He is really the only dependably present melodic voice in the whole arrangement, even if he plays with a thumpily-articulated "hyperbolic bass line," an image that makes more sense now that I hear the music. Actually, hearing the music allowed me to reconcile a paradox in Komunyakaa's poem: Mingus is both "tender" and a "hard love"-er. Now, from the way he plays, I note that he sounds as though he loves his instrument and he can get a round, full, warm sound out of it, but that he has to really work to get it to project and not simply to growl and twang and moan, despairingly.
Also interesting is that this piece starts on incredibly dissonant chords: it begins with a minor second in the melody, and then next the equivalent of a tritone between bass and saxes for several measures. It ends with these same chords, along with some saxophone/percussion/piano textured squealings and wailings that are even more unsettling. Somehow, however, it works its way into exremely happy, bright, dancing, carefree chords for much of the middle of the piece. However, there are trains of happiness in the sad sections, and vice versa. Looking back, the poem does a similar thing, using images that are creepily unsettling (like how "art and life bleed into each other") and contented, carefree images (like "blessed wood"). However, even more prevalent are images that could be interpreted either way. Are "fingers of fire" out of a haunted house, or do instead reflect how well Mingus plays? And the image of the bass as a "moon-eyed mistress with gold in her teeth" sounds nice -- she could be innocent, beautiful, and well-to-do -- but implies that she's unstable (she's a mistress...not a "lover" or a "wife," etc.) and that she's had some serious toothaches.
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