Page 488
1. Ode: the suffix -ode, means path or way. Ode the poem is a lyrical, meditative poem. Perhaps Hughes intent is to meditate on the path of Dinah Washington.
2. Dinah Washington is often referred to as being the “Queen of the Blues.” She was raised in Chicago during the Great Depression. Dinah died at the age of 39 accidentally from mixing diet pills with alcohol.
Pp. 489
3. Quarter (Line1) : a specific district where a certain type of people live, in this case African-Americans.
4. Pearl Bailey lived from 1918-1990. She sang and performed in night clubs, on Broadway, and in movies. She acted as the U.S. Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations.
5. Quarter (Line 8): Hughes may be refers to the last part of the 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation declared slaves to be free men and women.
6. “Mechanics Need Repairing” Hughes implies that African-Americans are still not free even though they are not owned as slaves.
7. Niagara Falls are a set of waterfalls located partially in the United States and partially in Canada. The Canada Chutes fall 170 feet, the American 110.
8. Georgia- A southern state in the U.S. A. The fall of Atlanta, Georgia was a key victory for the North during the Civil War.
9. Maracas are Latin American instruments made from hollow gourds containing pebbles or beans. Hughes may be referring to a Latin American Quarter. He is speaking of freedom of all minorities being inhibited during this time.
10. Mahalia Jackson was a gospel and Jazz singer who was discovered in the 1940's. She refused to sing the Blues saying that the blues are “songs of despair....gospel sings of hope.” Mahalia was an influential player in the Civil Rights movement.
11. Blind Lemon was a blind blues musician. He was considered to be the most popular male, blues recording artist of the 1920's.
Pp. 490
12. . “When Niagara Falls is Fallen”: I am not sure if Niagra falls represents America being frozen in segregation or if it is something else.
13. I am unsure what the woman with two pistols is referring to in this section of the poem.
14. The train “whose route is freedom” is may be a metaphor for the Civil Rights Movement that is traveling though slavery and segregation- the jungle.
15. Quakers are members of the Religious Society of Friends. Perhaps Quakers often helped runaway slaves hide.
16. A haymow is hay kept up in a loft. Would slaves have hide here? Hughes then refers to the manger where Christ was said to have been born. With this reference he implies a safe place to be.
17. “Niagara/ drowns the rumble of that train.” Although slaves where free, there is still racism.
Pp. 491
18. Brinks is a bank in Boston. “To be carted off by Brink’s” implies that all quarters earned goes immediately to a corrupt bank.
19. Canaries is a slang term for women singers. “To keep far-off canaries / in silver cages singing” implies that Dinah will help keep other women who are kept in cages singing.
20. “Tribal now no longer” and “gangrenous icing” implies a death of humanity.
Pp. 492
21. “Umbilical in sulphurous chocolate” all are sharing in the negative effects of racism- not just the victims.
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A Reader's Guide
These annotations to Langston Hughes' long poem "Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz" are compiled and expanded each semester by students in Naropa University’s "Investigative Poetics" class, offered through the MFA Creative Writing low-residency program.
Annotations by Section
- Ask Your Mama (1)
- Bird in Orbit (1)
- Blues in Stereo (1)
- Cultural Exchange (1)
- Gospel of Cha-Cha (1)
- Horn of Plenty (1)
- Is It True (1)
- Jazztet Muted (1)
- Ode to Dinah (1)
- Ride Red Ride (1)
- Shades of Pigment (1)
- Show Fare Please (1)
10 comments:
ami no ta konsentí ku algun di e komentario e autor hasi di intenshon den esaki poesia.
Although the first writer refers to Dinah as Dinah Washington, the rhythm and tone of the poem conjures up images of the song "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and Dinah working in the kitchen, complete with fidelity to her John Henry and perhaps a stereotypical black railroad crew making the music of work, not working for pay, but working as slaves or prisoners.
Hughes continues with references to famous black singers and performers in concert with the familiar "how the other half lives" innuendo of blacks and possibly all minorities, poor, or downtrodden - those who sing the blues. The quarter jumps out, not only as a section of town, but the last quarter of century marking the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the round monetary unit: all things that never seem to change, but like two bits, are round and keep rolling, like the rhythm and meter of the poem.
Suddenly, the image and metaphor of a frozen Niagara Falls, which is both Canadian and American: a metaphor, not just in it's shared or mixed possession, but in it's frozen state - much like the quarter, unchanging and stagnant. As the poem continues, the reader never sees the thaw, but only feels inferences of the Spring melt to come, the lone voice of Hope in the blues rhythm that accompanies the poem. The ice never melts in the poem, nor does the prejudices and racism that the state of America symbolized in the frozen water.
Before the reader can hope for Spring, Hughes continues with strong images of the separation between White and Black - White Shadows, and Dark Shadows becoming Darker by a Shade - an almost pessimistic view that the future will not change, that 100 years is really insignificant, that another 100 years may come and go before equality between man is achieved, the quarter keeps rolling, the falls keep frozen, and nothing changes.
The Poet continues to cement his view of the future: the reality of the Dark Quarter, only welfare to look forward to and aging much more quickly than the average man - 10 years more than his counterpart - which blends again nicely with the blues tone, the blues feel, the blues rhythm of hopelessness, sadness, and pain, with the still small voice of Hope only heard by the narrator, the Poet.
In the end, Hughes mixes the trouble of the black man with the American Indian - Would I Marry Pocahontas - while Dinah is where she started - in the kitchen eating chicken - the shooting, perhaps a metaphor for missed opportunities, missed chances, an accident that extinguishes the light, the opportunity, the equality of being in the light, or in the white. Equality for all men and women, regardless of race, color, or creed, may be locked into the last quarter.
The niagara reference interested me too, and from what I could find the falls never really freezes completely. There was one reference to a time when ice chunks completely stopped the falls. I wondered if the reality of it being able to freeze or to just appear frozen was implied by Hughes. Also, the "chocolate" references unfortunately reminded me of our (New Orleans) mayor's Martin Luther King Day speech on how New Orleans would remain a "chocolate city" referring to the color make-up of the new New Orleans. I don't know if any of ya'll actually caught this embarrassing piece of speechifying where Nagin tried to channel King, saying he spoke to him in a dream, that the city should be "chocolate' and that the hurricane was brought about by a god angry about our involvement in Iraq. Subsequently, a few weeks late George W. vetoed the Baker bill, a bill for New Orleanians that would have provided an option to buy out severely flood damaged homes from people who could no longer afford the mortgages. Apparently, we're all being punished for the "god doesn't like a war in Iraq" statement. I wonder what Hughes would have made of that whole exchange.
Megan
Here's some thoughts on Ode to Dinah, read while listening to Dinah Washington and Pearl Bailey. The trip to Tower Records last night may not have been as fruitful as I hoped. I find Dinah and Pearl to be fabulous, vocal, storytelling, swinging jazz but maybe not directly linked to this passage as I had hoped. Yet they provided listening inspiration while reading Hughes...
The first thing that struck me about this section of Ask Your Mama was "snowing on the tv","mechanics need repairing", "Mama's fruitcake sent from Georgia/ Crumbles as it's nibbled" are all images of disintegration. I swear someone already said this in the thread, yet I just reread it and couldn't find the thought, was that the snow on the tv is white noise, background/foreground static of dominant culture that prevents a black audience from clearly seeing and hearing Pearl Bailey. This theme is continued on (p491) "to keep far-off canaries/in silver cages singing." Black talent, potential role models and heroes are appropriated and owned by dominant white culture; they've been co-opted.
"Mechanics need repairing" is such an interesting line because it reads not only as repairing frozen Niagara falls, but also as mechanics that are broken and in need of repair. Purely my own personal connection here, but I think Of Jack Spicer's assertion that the poet must be a time mechanic and not an embalmer. Hughes is definitely addressing the nature of time here. How time is stilled and frozen, how time runs out in disrepair. The "crumbles" and "nibbled" reminded me of mice, and of Samuel Beckett's Endgame. I think there's something apocalyptic in this poem, examining a people with a hijacked culture and not enough money to sustain. "The one coin in the meter/Keeps the gas on while the TV/fails to get Pearl Bailey."
The "gangrenous icing" is such an important and striking image in Ode to Dinah. Gangrene, frost bite, from being left in exposure to the elements. Snow as static and disruption, disruption to harmony and music. The elements of winter appear again and again in this poem with mentions of fruitcake and a Santa Claus (product of consumer white culture) who is asked to bring a welfare check instead of present down the chimney. I wish I had more insight into the frozen Niagara. It's key in this poem. It's connected to winter, to sound, to roar, history and nature. Perhaps white culture has frozen the natural, tribal sounds to be found in nature. "So the whiteness and the water/Melt to water once again/And the roar of Niagara/drowns the rumble of that train."
The images of food in this piece, as I've already begun to mention are, are quite striking and chilling: from "fruitcake" to "gangrenous icing" to "chocolate babies" to "umbilical in sulphorous chocolate" to "Dinah eating chicken". The types of foods that people eat are symbols, products of and culture imbibed. The toxicity of sweets appears to be linked to white culture, perhaps linked to the packagable and alluring marketing of dominant culture, insidious, sweet and deadly. And chicken is food often associated with African American culture, with a filling meal. Yet while Dinah never misses a bite, imbibes and lives her own culture, a man tries to shoot at her and misses instead shooting out a light. Wonderful irony here. And the poem darkens before the next section is plunged into the shadows as "dark shadows become darker by a shade"
I'm chilled, intrigued and questioning. Hughes has opened a door wide to symbols that call out then resist wrestling to be pinned down. Wow...
Robin
Pg. 489, line 7 “SINCE IT’S SNOWING ON THE TV” – A reference to the overwhelming predominance of white images on television.
Pg. 490, lines 3-27
All references to the Underground Railroad. “WITH A WOMAN WITH TWO PISTOLS” --Harriet Tubman (Grandma Mosses) one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad was known to carry pistols and her faith in God. (Although I don’t’ recall her carrying two). A runaway slave herself she helped others escape from slavery into Canada. Niagara Falls along with Buffalo NY were both stops on the Railroad. “THROUGH THE JUNGLE OF WHITE DANGER/TO THE HAVEN OF WHITE QUAKERS” – Fugitive slave laws made any white person who failed to turn in a runaway slave a violator of United States law. Unless a former slave escaped to Canada he or she was always subjected to the possibility of being returned to slavery if the were living in free state. Slave patrols constantly trolled northern streets (usually African-American neighborhoods) looking for African-Americans who might be runaways. Sometimes freemen and women were kidnapped and sold into slavery to collect the bounty for slaves who were not captured. The Quakers were one of the very few groups of whites who assisted on the Underground Railroad as well as contributing to the abolitionist movement. “AND THE ROAR OF NIAGARA DROWNS THE RUMBLE OF THAT TRAIN DISTANT ALMOST NOW AS DISTANT AS FORGOTTEN PAIN IN THE QUARTER.” Escape to Canada was true freedom where the terrifying journey of the Underground Railroad ended.
Kimberlie
(490 - right margin) Battle Hymn of the Republic
I felt this was a powerful juxtaposition with the text on this page and was curious about the history of the song.
Words: Julia W. Howe, 1861, alt. This hymn was born during the American civil war, when Howe visited a Un ion Army camp on the Potomac River near Washington, D. C. She heard the soldiers singing the song “John Brown’s Body,” and was taken with the strong marching beat. She wrote the words the next day:
I awoke in the grey of the morning, and as I lay waiting for dawn, the long lines of the de sired poem began to en twine them selves in my mind, and I said to my self, “I must get up and write these verses, lest I fall asleep and for get them!” So I sprang out of bed and in the dimness found an old stump of a pen, which I remembered using the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.
The hymn appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862. It was sung at the funerals of British states man Winston Church ill, American senator Robert Kennedy, and American presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nix on.
Music: John Brown’s Body, possibly by John WilliamSteffe (MI DI, score)
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free;
[originally …let us die to make men free]
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.
(Source: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/b/h/bhymnotr.htm)
A little more background on the song:
History
The tune was written, around 1855, by South Carolinian William Steffe. The lyrics at that time were alternately called "Canaan's Happy Shore" or "Brothers, Will You Meet Me?" and the song was sung as a campfire spiritual. The tune spread across the United States, taking on many sets of new lyrics.
Thomas Bishop, from Vermont, joined the Massachusetts Infantry before the outbreak of war and wrote a popular set of lyrics, circa 1860, titled "John Brown's Body" which became one of his unit's walking songs. According to writer Irwin Silber (who has written a book about Civil War folksongs), the original lyrics were not about John Brown, the famed abolitionist, but a Scotsman of the same name who was a member of the 12th Massachusetts Regiment. An article by writer Mark Steyn maintains that the men of John Brown's unit had made up a song poking fun at him, and sang it widely.[citation needed] Though "Canaan's Happy Shore" has a verse and chorus of equal metrical length, "John Brown's Body" has a longer verse to accommodate the words packed into its line.
Bishop's battalion was dispatched to Washington, D.C. early in the Civil War, and Julia Ward Howe heard this song during a public review of the troops in Washington. Whatever the accuracy of Silber's and Steyn's accounts, the lyrics heard by Howe were about John Brown the abolitionist. Her companion at the review, the Reverend James Clarke, suggested to Howe that she write new words for the fighting men's song, and the current version of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was born [1].
Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly of February 1862. The sixth verse written by Howe, which is less commonly sung, was not published at that time. The song was also published as a broadside in 1863 by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia. In Howe's lyrics, the words of the verse are packed into a longer line, contrasted with the chorus's short refrain.
Julia Ward Howe was the wife of Samuel Gridley Howe, the famed scholar in education of the blind. Samuel and Julia were also active leaders in anti-slavery politics and strong supporters of the Union.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic)
Ode to Dinah.
The title of this section might refer not to Dinah Washington, but rather to Dinah Shore. A white TV personality and singer famous for her singing and for hosting one of the first shows "In Living Color." Most people did not have color televisions, and would have seen it in Black and White. (White being the predominant color of those who appeared on it).
references:
Dinah Shore, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah_Shore
Color Television, The FCC. http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/tv/1960-1989.html
Pp. 489, Line 6.
Given the above thought, I found that Dinah shore performed with Pearl Bailey on her program in 1960. Since the poem was published in 1961, it makes sense that this was the reference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4wUWb8VYrM
references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah_Shore
Pp. 489, Lines 4 & 5
The lines referring to putting "one coin in the meter/keeps the gas on..." most likely is describing the heating mechanism used in many rentals before the modern meters where created. One would put coins in the meter in order to get the heat to come on.
reference: The Powerhouse museum. http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=142796&search=bathroom&images=&c=&s=
Pp. 489, Lines 11 & 12
Niagara Falls has frozen several times over the years, in 1895, 1904, 1909, 1931, and 1935. However, since it regularly gets below zero at Niagara Falls (average minimum temperature in Jan. is -7.8) it is unlikely that he was making a literal reference to the natural site.
references:
C. Claiborne Ray, NYT, February 11, 1992.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE3D9163DF932A25751C0A964958260
temperature: World Climate (from US Census Bureau).
http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/data.pl?ref=N43W078+1204+0050872G2
The Niagara Movement (http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0history/hwny-niagara-movement.html) was a forerunner to the NAACP. The name came from the location of the first meeting on the Canadian side of the falls. 29 men (including W.E.B. Dubois) met from July 11-14 in 1905. The manifesto: "We want full manhood suffrage and we want it now.... We are men! We want to be treated as men. And we shall win."
"And the roar of Niagara/Drowns the rumble of that train" could be read both as the literal falls drowning out the passage of people on the underground railroad and as reference to the objectives of the conference speaking louder than a distant time and movement. The poem speak to both "Niagara of the Indians" and "Niagara of the Congo." Niagara frozen is a monument to winter (the time prior to emancipation) and, thawed, unleashes torrents to wash away injustice.
Ode to Dinah refers to Dinah Washington, whom Hughes would have seen at the Newport jazz festival of 1958. Dinah Washington was otherwise known as “the Queen of the Blues.” Her lyrics are referenced throughout this section of the poem.
The lines 12-14 are (I believe) both a pun (“nibbled to a disc by Dinah”) and a rearranging of biographical information (Washington’s?). “Mama’s fruitcake” wouldn’t have been sent from Georgia, in Washington’s case, but from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she and her family moved to Chicago from. Line 19 (“Mahalia [Jackson]’s daughter”) refers to Washington’s vocal quality, despite the fact that she chose not to sing gospel, and to Jackson’s title of “Queen of Gospel.” And line 20 refers to Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Father of the Blues” (another pun: “Stepfathered by Blind Lemon”). Line 28 also refers to Washington’s reputation (still unchallenged) that she carried two .45 pistols at all times.
Line 23 shifts into the year 1911, when Niagara Falls actually froze over, and until line 43 refers (I believe) to the Underground Railroad. The “haven of white Quakers” (line 32) would have described the religious group that was friendly to the cause; likewise, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and Chicago were stops of note on the Railroad.
Lines 44-47 must refer to the song “Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)” recorded by the Andrews Sisters with Danny Kaye, written by Bob Hilliard and Carl Sigman. Some sample lyrics:
“So bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go
Don't want no bright lights, false teeth, doorbells, landlords, I make it clear
That no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here”
This is especially ironic, since, at the time these poems were written, the Congo Crisis would have been in full swing.
1.Blind Lemon Jefferson “father of the texas blues”
Jefferson's singing and self-accompaniment were distinctive as a result of his high-pitched voice and originality on the guitar.[3] He was not influential on some younger blues singers of his generation, as they did not seek to imitate him as they did other commercially successful artists.[4] However, later blues and rock and roll musicians attempted to imitate both his songs and his musical style.[3] His recordings would later influence such legends as B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Canned Heat, Son House and Robert Johnson.
Jefferson's music is uninhibited and represented the classic sounds of everyday life from a honky-tonk to a country picnic to street corner blues to work in the burgeoning oil fields, a reflection too of his interest in mechanical things.[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Lemon_Jefferson
2.White folks recession is colored folks depression…still http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsrace2010.pdf
3.On the big screen of the welfare check/ a lynched tomorrow sways http://www.eou.edu/socwelf/lecture/1960s.htm
4.Once your brother’s keeper definition: to keep, to watch over and defend from danger, harm or loss….or to keep, to restrain from departure, to retain or continue to have in one’s possession or power
Signals of winter time – coin operated gas meter, frozen Niagara Falls, fruitcake and Santa.
Dinah – "Dinah" was a generic name for an enslaved African woman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Been_Working_on_the_Railroad
Represents renaming of slaves by white slave holders. Seperation from African heritage and assimiliation and compliance of white world.
http://onepeoples.com/archives/tragedytold.html
Correlation between Dinah of Hebrew Bible (daughter of Leah & Jacob) - Shechem the son of Hamor, the prince of the land, "seized her and lay with her and humbled her.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah
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