Author Archives: wcd2

About wcd2

Professor of English and American Studies

Adrienne Rich’s ghazals

Posted on February 27, 2014 by wcd2

February 27, 2014 Her earliest ghazals are in Leaflets, at the very end of the volume, which I must have looked at. But I’m reading them seriously only now — because of Agha Shahid Ali and Call Me Ishmael Tonight, … Continue reading →

Posted in Arabic, Black-Jewish alliances, Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Indian Ocean, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Poetry, Twentieth century literature | Tagged Adrienne Rich, Agha Shahid Ali, Call Me Ishmael Tonight, Frantz Fanon, ghazals, Leaflets, Martinique | Leave a comment

Frank Stella, Agha Shahid Ali: Moby-Dick into ghazals

Posted on February 21, 2014 by wcd2

Feb 20, 2014 Stella’s “Fedallah” isn’t anything like Melville’s: not the “tiger-yellow” apparition “with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips,” but a fluid, dancing figure, with some dark streaks and shadows, it’s true, but otherwise resplendent, impressive. … Continue reading →

Posted in abstract expressionism, adaptation, Arabic, Classics, Middle East, Modern art, Near Eastern poetry, Poetry, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature | Tagged Agha Shahid Ali, Ain Ghazal Variations, Call Me Ishmael Tonight, Frank Stella, Melville, Moby-Dick, Protractor Series | Leave a comment

Stuart Hall and vernacular modernity

Posted on February 14, 2014 by wcd2

February 14, 2014 The passing of Stuart Hall makes me go back to his seminal essay, “Negotiating Caribbean Identities,” where he talks about “vernacular modernity” as the “modernity of the blues, of gospel music, of hybrid black music in its … Continue reading →

Posted in African languages, African-American music, Americas, Auditory field, Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Igbo, indigenous communities, Music, Native American language | Tagged "Negotiating Caribbean Identities, Abenakis, Black Witch of Salem, I Tituba, Ibos, Jamaican maroons, Maine Woods, Maryse Condé, Miles Davis, Paule Marshall, Praisesong for the Widow, Stuart Hall, Thoreau | Leave a comment

The Cosmopolitan Vernacular

Posted on February 6, 2014 by wcd2

February 6, 2014 Not an oxymoron, but a genetic condition, as Sheldon Pollock argues, a local tongue globalized in its emergence and globalized again in its circulation. Is that why so many African-American authors began with dialect poetry? Not only … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Creole, Dialect, Indian Ocean, Vernacular | Tagged Amitav Ghosh, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Edwidge Danticat, Ezra Pound, Jamaica Kincaid, Langston Hughes, Lascars, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Pisan Cantos, Sea of Poppies, Sheldon Pollock | 1 Comment

Banjo: Pete Seeger, Claude McKay

Posted on January 29, 2014 by wcd2

January 29, 2014 Of course he played the guitar as well, maybe even primarily the guitar, but I’ll always think of him with a banjo, that humble instrument brought over by the slaves, its simple form cradled in his, looking … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Auditory field, Creole, Music | Tagged Claude McKay, Constab Ballads, Marseilles, Occupy Wall Street, Pete Seeger, Songs of Jamaica, Woody Guthrie | Leave a comment

Passing On: Amiri Baraka, Suzan-Lori Parks, Claudia Rankine

Posted on January 22, 2014 by wcd2

January 22, 2014 James Baldwin probably felt a tinge of jealousy at the sight of Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison at his funeral. Thousands of people there, and those three in particular, so eloquent in their tribute, but … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, collaboration, contemporary poetry, jazz, Music, Theater | Tagged Amiri Baraka, Claudia Rankine, Danny Glover, Diane Paulus, Diedre Murray, Dodge Poetry Fest, James Baldwin, Jesse Jackson, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Martin Espada, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Stephen Sondheim, Suzan-Lori Parks, Toni Medina, Toni Morrison, Tony Hoagland | Leave a comment

Amiri Baraka’s luck

Posted on January 15, 2014 by wcd2

January 15, 2014 He must have been one of the most photographed – certainly in the 60s, and probably long after that. But the picture that’s most stuck in my head is actually one in USA Today, taken late in … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, African-American music, Cities, jazz, Media | Tagged Amiri Baraka, jazz, John Coltrane, New Yorker, Newark, USA Today | Leave a comment

Not New York

Posted on January 8, 2014 by wcd2

January 8, 2014 I’m about to head off to Chicago, also about to teach my freshman seminar: “Cities.” Chicago again, New York, San Francisco. The books are the usual suspects, but not all of them (for San Francisco I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Cities, contemporary poetry, Nineteenth-century literature, Twentieth century literature, Uncategorized | Tagged Allen Ginsberg, Bethel Maine, Camden, Chicago, David Jackson, Edidon, Faulkner, Guatemala, James Merrill, Junot Diaz, Maltese Falcon, Mark Neveu, Miami, Michael Chabon, New York, Oxford Mississippi, Patterson, Richard Blano, San Francisco, The Golden Gate, Vikram Seth, Washington DC, Whitman, William Carlos Williams | Leave a comment

New James Baldwin letters

Posted on January 1, 2014 by wcd2

January 1, 2014 The 100 letters recently acquired by the Beinecke Library are not to famous people, just Baldwin’s friends. The letters to Painter began in 1954, when his play “The Amen Corner” opened at Howard, and came up to 1964, … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Europe, Friendship, Libraries, Turkey, Twentieth century literature | Tagged Another Country, Beinecke Library, David Leeming, Ernest Hemingway, Eugene Lerner, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Invisible Man, Istanbul, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Martha Gellhorn, Martin Luther King, Mary Painter, Medgar Evers, No Name in the Street, Ralph Ellison, Rosa Parks, The Fire Next Time, The Panther and the Lash | Leave a comment

Octopus for Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2013 by wcd2

December 25, 2013 No, not salmon, that eminently respectable candidate for a fishetarian dinner. Octopus instead, still exotic and dubious-looking in this part of the world, but a common food staple in Japan and throughout the Mediterranean: in Spain, Portugal, … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, epic, Food in literature, Global South, oceans, Uncategorized | Tagged Frank Norris, G. Frederick Keller, Hawthorne, Japan, Mediterranean, Melville, Morocco, Portugal, Salmon, Southern Pacific Railroad, Spain, The Octopus, Tunisia, Turkey, Victor Hugo | Leave a comment