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03-16-2021, 07:17 PM
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Location: Connecticut, USA
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Quote:
Perhaps others can add to this list of successful lane-changers ...
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Outside of literature:
Aaron Copland, who wrote Billy the Kid, Rodeo,, the music for the film The Red Pony, and other well-known works (including Appalachian Spring and El Salón México). Much of his music had the flavor of cowboy music, even though he was not a cowboy but a Jewish boy from Brooklyn. “The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit.” (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland
George Gershwin, who wrote Porgy and Bess, and was another jewish kid from Brooklyn. “ Porgy and Bess was first performed in Boston on September 30, 1935, before it moved to Broadway in New York City. It featured a cast of classically trained African-American singers—a daring artistic choice at the time. After an initially unpopular public reception, a 1976 Houston Grand Opera production gained it new popularity, and it is now one of the best-known and most frequently performed operas.” (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gershwin
And these 9 Black composers who changed the course of classical music history:
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-m...music-history/
Last edited by Martin Elster; 03-16-2021 at 07:50 PM.
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03-16-2021, 09:02 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 2,256
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Julie Steiner
Perhaps others can add to this list of successful lane-changers
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William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner.
Successful? It was controversial even at the time. But many felt it was successful. I should probably reread it before weighing in, but I remember being moved and impressed, as I have been with most of Styron's work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co..._of_Nat_Turner
We might also include Sophie's Choice, as Styron wasn't personally touched by the Holocaust.
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03-17-2021, 09:32 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: UK
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Jack London, writing as a wolf. lol.
not just different lanes, but different zip codes.
Julie, do you see white, male poets as a collective? or any
type of poets as a collective? i find it slightly depressing to
be lumped in with the guy you describe a couple of posts
back.
i've certainly heard recently (again) the whole dead-white-guy
meme cropping up. i assume a lot of poetry teaching these
days is racially sensitive, not to say selective.
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03-17-2021, 09:55 AM
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Join Date: May 2013
Location: England, UK
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I'm going to find it more depressing when I'm lumped in with the dead white male poets.
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03-17-2021, 11:53 AM
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When you become a dead white poet, you won't know it.
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03-17-2021, 12:05 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
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LOL, Matt!
Dave, I don't think that there's a monolithic White male perspective (despite my earlier post's phrasing implying otherwise), and I don't think we've already heard so many white White male voices that we don't need to hear any more.
But those voices certainly do get heard more than others, in most poetry venues. (I'll post the most recent VIDA Count at the end of this post, to illustrate the gender identity disparity in major American literary publications.)
And I am rather tired of hearing certain patterns and tropes presented by White male poets. Just as, presumably, you (and I) are also tired of certain patterns and tropes presented by trying-to-be-woke-and-not-always-succeeding White feminists like me.
It's like any other well-worn theme: The love poem. The cancer poem. The implicitly self-congratulatory poem about the magic of poetry-writing. The immigrant grandmother hagiography poem. The "my mostly-comfortable pandemic experience" poem. The angry feminist poem (which is, alas, the bulk of my poetic output, most of which I will never show to anyone because it so rarely rises above self-therapy and cliché).
So, too, the "I'm a White man, and I have something to say about racism" poem.
None of these genres are necessarily doomed to be mediocre. But the bar is definitely set a lot higher before they are considered great, or even good. "Make it new" and all that.
The latest VIDA Count:
https://infogram.com/2019-main-vida-...h7g6kwr139j6oy
FAQ about their methodology:
https://www.vidaweb.org/faq/
Last edited by Julie Steiner; 03-17-2021 at 12:11 PM.
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03-17-2021, 12:28 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: UK
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yep, that's all fair comment.
i'm also weary of all that stuff. but labels also. no one seems
to be able to make an announcement about anything cultural
anymore without telling me the colour of the artist/novelist/
poet/actor. its very draining. for many of the reasons already
mentioned on this thread.
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03-18-2021, 10:28 PM
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03-19-2021, 07:18 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 4,238
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.
"Julie, you may find this interesting"
https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p...as-antiracists
https://www.persuasion.community/p/j...the-neoracists
Martin, I'd lost track of this discussion but came back to see these articles by John McWhorter you've linked. I think he has his finger on the root problems we face in this hyper-charged hate-filled society where it feels danger is lurking everywhere waiting to pounce on anyone who doesn't submit to their suppression (I'm talking about the neo-antiracist movement that McWhorter speaks about in the article). I've heard him speak on NPR a number of times and he's always enlightening.
I'm hoping McWhorter and those like him have the president's ear. —More than that, I hope he finds a way to galvanize his ideas/views to confront the cancel culture vultures and the neo-antiracist movement that have hacked American discourse and jeopardizes American civil rights progress (and erodes the American Constitution) for decades to come if they are not stopped. Leave them out on an island with the far-right and let the center rejuvenate and flourish.
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