Category Archives: collaboration

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

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

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Suzan-Lori Parks, Diane Paulus, Deidre Murray : Three Women Collaborating

October 9, 2014 It won the 2012 Tony for the best musical revival, but the New York Times didn’t much like it,  missing Gershwin’s full operatic scores in this “thinned-out” and “heavily-cut” version. Having no deep connection to the original, … Continue reading

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Ralph Ellison, Gordon Parks: Photographers

Sept 18, 2014 The photos, under the title “A Man Becomes Invisible,” were in Life Magazine, 25 August 1952, close on the heels of novel’s publication earlier that year, on April 14. It was a coup.  Parks had been a … Continue reading

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Robert Pinsky, Ginza Samba

July 24, 2013 For years I hadn’t gone much beyond his translation of the Inferno.  I’d noticed a couple of things I didn’t like (might even have gone looking for them), and just stopped there, his own poetry getting all … Continue reading

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Langston Hughes’s Children Literature

May 31, 2013 My class, “Regional, National, Global,” has no special focus on children’s literature, but it does seem to come up a lot. I think it’s because of Langston Hughes — the uncertain borders of his poetry, holding a … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, African-American music, Children's literature, Cities, collaboration, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Experimental poetry, jazz, Modernist poetry, Music, print medium, Twentieth century literature, World history | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop: Boston Marathons

April 17, 2013 He writes only about the Civil War dead: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the soldiers from the all-black 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, captured in bronze by August Saint-Gaudens. The sculpture isn’t all that close to the finish … Continue reading

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Linda Hogan, Herman Melville: People of the Whale

April 10, 2013 The Native Americans have always been there, of course.   The very name of the ship brings up their ghostly presence, for “Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts … Continue reading

Posted in Animals, Asia, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, Race, WAr | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Adrienne Rich, June Jordan: bracketing war

March 27,  2013 Adrienne Rich wrote the intro to the collected poems, June Jordan’s, talking mostly about meter, sound patterns, vernacular riffs. Of “March Song,” she writes: “Here she breaks what is actually a dactylic metrical line so that the … Continue reading

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Samuel Delany, Marilyn Hacker?

March 20,  2013 He met her on the first day, Bronx High School of Science, September 1956.   They got married five years later (in Detroit — Michigan was one of the two states where interracial marriage was not illegal). … Continue reading

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Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Silko: The Chinese Connection

February 6, 2012 In 1985 Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Leslie Silko traveled together to China, going up the Li River in a boat. Kingston and Silko have now come out with new books — Kingston, I Love a … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Afro-Asian alliances, Animals, Asia, Autobiography, China, Chinese art, collaboration, Comparative literature, Ethnicity, Native American language, Native-American literature, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment