Nikky Finney was born in South Carolina, USA. A child of activists, she came of age during the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. Finney's fourth book of poetry, Head Off & Split, in which “Left” appears, was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for poetry.For more poetry and info: http://www.nikkyfinney.net/

Nikky Finney “Left”

Nikki Finney reads “Left”http://youtu.be/Ty6z9QMFKNw

QuestionsThe poet as community historian

• What is the effect of the inclusion of the Rudyard Kipling’s “A Counting-Out Song” in the epigraph and then quoting from it in the poem itself? What word is the poet asking the reader to silently add to the poem? With what effect?

EeneeMeneeMainee Mo! Catch a—• Why are several places from South East Asia mentioned

in reference to where the helicopter pilot has also flown?“Bong Son, Dong Ha, Pleiku, Chu Lai” – what historical context does this add to the poem?

• Who is “Mr. Every-Child-Left-Behind”? • Who is Bull Connor and how does his inclusion in the poem

add further historical context to the situation? Watch NikkiFinney’s National Book Award acceptance speech.http://youtu.be/BFSiKx-hzks

• Find out for yourself what happened to the people of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

• Why is New Orleans an important American and global city – what has New Orleans given to the world?

• Why were the grandmothers and Kanye West finally right?• What is the design of the poem?

– where does it start? Where do we end off? What effect does this have on your experience as a reader?

What is this thing called poetry?Lecture Six: The reply poem

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” — T.S. Eliot

• Poets don’t write in a vacuum – they write for a reader, for a community of readers, and often in response to the idea and styles other writers, engaging with literary histories and influences, taking them on or defiantly shaking them off.

• This lecture focuses on poems written in direct response to other poems and on poetic conversations across time, Poets who write back to other poets,

• Focus on the process of reflection: poets often use a a mirroring or echoing of form & content – but with a difference – to signal this writing back to/writing In response to another poet.

Form What Genre of poem is it? What metre,

rhyme scheme & stanza structure is used? (various forms in English poetry.)

In the absence of rhyme, is it blank verse or free verse?

Diction Pay close attention to the poet’s word choice,

imagery and metaphor

Design the movement of thought in the poem, where does

the poem begin and where does it end?Use of repetition, questions, turns of thought

Tone How is emotion conveyed or implied?

How does a poem do what it does? A poem is not a code to be cracked –

it is an act of communication with you.Look up words and references that are unclear to you.

Attend to the poet’s CHOICES in writing the poem.

Poetic conversations across time & spaceThe classic poetic conversation between Christopher Marlowe and Walter Raleigh in their poems, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (1599) and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (1600).

William Carlos William’s poem “Raleigh was Right” (1940) in which he sides with Raleigh in the argument.

Poetic conversations across space and timeSouth African poet Lesego Rampolokeng who replies to Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution will not be Televised” (1970) with his poem “To Gil Scott-Heron” (1999)

“The revolution will not Be televised/ The revolution will be live”

“when WINTER IN AMERICA froze bloodstreams in south africagil scott heron the revolution got on television”

Marlow and Raleigh

• Argument about the correct attitudes to love, sexuality, nature, the pastoral longing of city dwellers for the purity of the natural world.

• See definition of the pastoral in Productions of Time

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe 1599

Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields Woods or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flower, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs; And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.

http://youtu.be/zWatdJKS068

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh 1600

If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold, When rivers rage and rocks grow cold; And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complain of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee and be thy love.

http://youtu.be/mn0cq3T5koI

“Raleigh Was Right” (1944)William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

We cannot go to the countryfor the country will bring usno peaceWhat can the small violets tell usthat grow on the furry stems inthe long grass among the lance shapedleaves?

Though you praise usand call to mind the poetswho sung of our lovelinessit was long ago!long ago! when country peoplewould plow and sow withflowering minds and pocketsat ease –if ever this were true.

Not now. Love itself a flowerwith roots in a parched ground.Empty pockets make empty heads.Cure it if you can butdo not believe that we can livetoday in the countryfor the country will bring usno peace.

Form – no formal rhyme structureDiction – colloquial, conversationalDesign – use of repetitionTone –sceptical about what nature can teach or tell us.

“To Gil Scott-Heron” Lesego Rampolokeng

"RUN NIGGER RUN was inspiration injectionof the LAST POET'S intonation insurrectiongil scott-heron was suckled ona mouth to brain respiration rot's subversionliberation doctrine brought art to the fightfor immunisation against the degenerationof garvey's children & the spawn of fanonon the run from the super-duper-shit-mannow life's an acquisitionthe unborn have to make requisitionthe terror campaign's gone electronicin the bionic generation a computerised nationthat won't falter at the altar of self-immolationsatan collaboration spiritual contaminationlife experimentation with exterminationgil scott-heron the revolution is on television

tricks of the triple six cripple mysticsat the feet of the crucifix no place for romanticsrelics of the FUNKADELIC ground on the FAMILY STONEdHENDRIX EXPERIENCE had GEORGE CLINTON for presidentin the street's PARLIAMENTno relation to the white louse saxophoney manbut the one on the JAMES BROWN SEX MACHINEsalaam alaikum MALCOLM-Xed the CLANinto a BOO-YA TRIBE of SHABAZZmade the ENEMY go PUBLIC on BASSbrought the PRODUCTION out of the BOOGIE DOWNgot the PARIS panther on the howl on the prowl on the tracksof its JUNGLE BROTHERS become POOR RIGHTEOUS TEACHERSnot preachers of fractured futures

we choke in angeldust the stars go buststreet art vision goes to rustcreeping up the aliment of the pop-charts when WINTER IN AMERICA froze bloodstreams in south africagil scott heron the revolution got on televisionacting out industry designated partsof self-emascluation masturbation on the bbc sabc mtv screen& flip flop goes the hip hop nationin sudden homicide running down the blood-lineof the griot running riot from dusk to the AFRICAN DAWN& they called it negroid hell descended devil childbut black was MALOPOETIC mental attitudein FULANI frontal attackin psychological genocide timebut now scott-heron, the industry's mutant children performa systematic life devaluation coward-stylethey defile then revile the warrior profile& the revolution's pantomime is broadcastin an audio-visual bomb-blastgil scott heron the revolution is on television

switch off that shit.

Useful Links• Response Poems by W. Todd Kanekohttp://faculty.gvsu.edu/kanekot/coursedocs/responsepoem.htm• Glossary Terms “Pastoral”http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term/pastoralhttp://www2.latech.edu/~bmagee/210/marlowe/shepherd_&_notes.htm“Post-Freedom Poetry: An Interview with Lesego Rampolokeng”• by DOUG VALENTINEhttp://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/13/post-freedom-poetry/• “Bantu Ghost: a Stream of (Black) Unconsciousness by Lesego Rampolokeng”

reviewed by mphutlane wa bofelohttp://kaganof.com/kagablog/2009/12/01/bantu-ghost-a-stream-of-black-unconsciousness-by-lesego-rampolokeng-reviewed-by-mphutlane-wa-bofelo/http://www.programabolsa.org.br/pbolsa/galeria/arqDownTese/Dissertation_VersesSubversesSubversionsContemporaryPostcolonialPoetry.pdf