We talked a lot about the poems in this class being wither wet or dry, this poem seems to achieve both wetness and dryness. There are points where what he is talking about is very dry —when he speaks of the robots, and the superhuman tomb— then he uses a lot of wet references — rivers, dripping sea-journey— presumably to lubricate some of the dryness that appears. What I find to be particularly noteworthy is how the end seems to drop off here, it feels unfinished somehow?

Here is where it becomes more clearly similar —in motif— to T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland. There is a feeling of lamentation for way in which society is evolving; machines taking jobs, people worshiping money over God and family and love. Howl, especially here, feels like more of a reaction to Eliot’s Wasteland. When reading this piece, I kept imagining it like one of those people preaching in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, with people walking by him trying to ignore him while avoiding eye contact.

He notes this group of intellectuals, all of whom are well known. What they have in common, I would say is that they each have a view on life that altered the popular prospective of their time, respectively. Ginsberg groups them together in a way that makes their name almost seem like one person, or like a religious organization.

What is interesting here is, like my peers pointed out, Moloch was worshiped as a god who required child sacrifices, but in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Moloch is a devil in hell with Satan. What I find more interesting is Ginsberg’s use of Moloch’s name as a damnation to what follows. It’s feels like Ginsberg is invoking Moloch for a favor, but is it as a god or as a devil?

When I read this part my initial thought was, “who does?” To see our true picture as projected by someone else is to see what they see, and they might perceive flaws of ours that we may not have considered, though we see many flaws within ourselves. Or perhaps she will see in the outsiders projection that she hasn’t the flaws she thought she did, maybe she is not the one who is flawed but that society is flawed for making her see flaws where there it’s really only difference.

The line to see Ma reaches all the way to New Orleans! It’s the line to end all lines, Disneyland has nothing on the lines to see her.

I have always found this type of writing hard to read at first, I always have to adjust my inner reading voice. Brown is using colloquialisms in his spelling to give a sense of location; in other words an accent, or accented writing. I love it because it gives me a different reading experience, it’s just difficult to adjust initially. Which brings me to my question; is this intentionally done to slow down the reader? Or is that just my experience?

After all that America has put the poet through there isn’t one ounce of malice? I could understand being past the point of fear, but you’re not even a little mad? You don’t have one word of ridicule towards the nation that fed you bitterness, that constructed your windpipe so you can’t speak or make your complaints? I find this line just a little bit ironic considering the lines it follows, and the lines following it.

I find there to be a particular theme involving the feet of these “Harlem Shadows,” and how these feet traverse Harlem streets; they prowl, they’re trudging. This motif seems to give the ground more life, it is a force sticky like thick mud —the kind that might swallow your shoes if you’re not careful— or full of creatures that need to be watched.

This poem poses the interesting question of who is the “I” pronoun in this poem. The I could stand for the average African American at this point in the 1920s, the average of whom have been told of their historical background. This poem is speaking of the long memory of the Negro soul, these rivers —Euphrates, Congo, Nile, Mississippi— are the not just rivers that their ancestors have passes as part of the scenery of a migrating people, they mark the arduous journeys that have been made as livestock. I feel like the poet is saying that rivers of his extended past are a different knowledge of the rivers that are so well known.

What is the asterisk for?

Evolved minds

Again with an emergence, what will emerge from our chrysalis? Why, an omen, of course, to any who would have the the New Negro believe that their strife has made them anything less. Struggle makes us all stronger, survival is a force that urges you to evolve, if you regress then you will be left behind, marked by time.

This three line verse sounds a bit like a summation of “Poem for May First” by Edwin Rolfe.

The imagery here is perfect, it gives the reader a sense of emergence from a confining armored-like casing into something beautiful, something transformative to learn from. I get the feel that evolution is superior with this statement, and it is powerful.

There is an in line rhyme, while there is the typical poetic end of line rhyme scheme. The sound that drowns made me pause and read it over, giving this line a feel of importance.

Doesn’t this mean inner peace in Hindi?

Onomatopoeic of a roster, but not the English version... at least not colloquially.

Allusion to section IV, water... death by water.

I don’t know what to make of these sounds, but it must be of importance because: first off, poets use every word sound and syllable to the point of their poems; and second it is repeated more than once, or at least there is a reminder of it a few stanzas down.

Alluding the the rats alley from the previous section

Nymphs repetition.

There are no more nature beings frolicking about, why? Because the war made people afraid?

Belladonna is a poisonous plant that has been famously used as a remedy for many different ailments in many different time frames. A recurring theme in part I of this poem is death and roots or plants; plants growing from death. When the tubers were mentioned I looked it up —because it’s not a word I’ve heard often— it’s essentially the potato part of the potato plant. The whole death and growing from death theme gives me the image of a Phoenix. What that means about the whole of this piece I still have yet to figure out, nevertheless it seems poignant.

At first I asked myself, why a ghost? But the more you put yourself in this atmosphere —an easy thing to do living in SF— the more it makes sense. When we are in a crowded station, most people don’t pay attention to the passing faces between our individual point-A to point-B. The people’s lives/stories we pass everyday become apparitions of our daily lives. We may hear apart of their phone conversation, but they do not exist in our lives.

This makes me think of a book I read, Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. It explained that children in the early 1900s who were caught living on the street were taken to orphanages where they were distributed to families in the Midwest who either actually want a child, or they want to employ these children for various different jobs.

This line, at first, confused me. Then I read the poem a few more times. The more I read and re-read lines, the more this last line seems to make sense. The speaker is alluding to the metaphysical-ness of love, love is not a tangible thing; it can’t be breathed, it cannot be pumped through out blood stream, it cannot provide any kind of shelter or sustenance. Then the speaker compares how a love-skeptic —like the narrator— would feel when they are on their death-bed.

This part confuses me a bit, the city of Winchester is in Virginia, but it’s also a well known gun brand; if that’s the case the party game they’re playing has a dark tone to it. Which would maybe explain the next line where, presuming the speaker is Lucinda Matlock, she “changes her partner;” or perhaps she lost her partner in this deadly game?

This is a big theme W. E. B. Du Bois explores in his introductory chapter. He gives the reader the feeling of the ubiquitousness of being born into a political issue, and the arduousness of being asked the same question over and over again in different ways, ways which are constructed to sound less offensive, yet are no less so.

This sentence is so powerful, it notes that whatever triumphs were made by African-Americans to advance their knowledge, their faults in their academic journey felt more highlighted, we all have faults and failings, when one is paving a path for the rest any failures can feel catastrophic.

Who is the “swarthy specter,” is it the African American, those who still believe in the importance of racial divide, or is it the “problem” he speaks of that has taken on a persona to sit “at the Nation’s” table to fead fear and bigotry to the nation?

This is by far my favorite line, every time I read this story, no matter how creepy it gets, I always laugh at this line. She is so deep into her fantasy that she is perturbed that John “fainted... right across [her] path.” I imagine her creeping over him again and again, shaking her head every time she comes full circle again only to have to creep over him again.

The way she describes the jagged edges of the wallpaper it sounds like the narrator is —in a way— describing her psychosis; some days she feels saner than others, on particularly bad days maybe she feels broken.

I find it interesting how she finds it relevant to write that the paper she is writing on is “dead.” Technically that should go without saying, but she also comments on how the yellowed wallpaper is like a fungus. Fungus typically occurs as a stage of decomposition, so the paper she is confiding in is dead, but not visibly as dead as the wallpaper.

Is the “Lion” the city? Like all of these people from these different socioeconomic backgrounds have come to the city, or a city, to sharpen their wits or etc. Did anyone else get that same feeling?