Note for Richard Wright's 105th Birthday

Note for Richard Wright’s 105^th Birthday

 

                In 1942, the psychologist Fredrick Wertham sent Richard Wright two verses, one on January 15 and the other on May 27.  The haunting lines of the first

 

Where men have always looked around

And searched for secrets never found,

You saw a vision, dark, profound;

You heard beneath a distant sound;

You took the lid off the Underground.

 

are illuminated by the second verse entitled Underground

 

The Freudians talk about the Id

And bring it below

But Richard Wright took off the lid

And let us see the woe.

 

It is likely that the only works by Wright that Wertham might have read before 1942 were Uncle Tom’s Children, Native Son, and 12 Million Black Voices. His insights about Wright’s intellectual acumen are germane in discussions of Wright’s fiction and non-fiction.  Like William Blake, Wright was a visionary, one who exposed deep recesses of human consciousness.  One is not surprised that he discovered quite early that Freudian theory might conceal as much as it reveals.  Pulling off the lid and urging people to ponder material and mental damages was Wright’s forte.

 

                On September 4, 2013, I celebrate the presence and power of Richard Wright’s mind.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

 

Note for the note:  Wertham’s correspondence with Wright is contained in the Wright Papers, JWJ Mss 3, Box 108, Folder 1677 at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Robert Hayden

25 Aug 13 ROBERT HAYDEN. A CENTENNIAL TRIBUTE.

Robert Hayden (Jay Semple)

November 1, 2013 – ROBERT HAYDEN: A CENTENNIAL CONFERENCE AND POETRY TRIBUTE
The Department of English at the University of Michigan has announced plans for a one-day conference on November 1, 2013 in honor of Robert Hayden, the distinguished poet and educator who received an M.A. degree from the University of Michigan in 1944 and returned to teach at the university in 1970 as Professor of English until his death in 1980.
Hayden has emerged as a major figure in American literary history. He is the leader, along with Gwendolyn Brooks, of the generation of African American poets that emerged in the 1940s to achieve widespread critical attention and a massive presence in anthologies and textbooks. He served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress (the position now known as Poet Laureate of the United States) from 1976-1978. The U.S. Post Office issued a postage stamp in 2012 to honor his achievement.
The keynote address of the conference, to be held in the Rackham Amphitheater, will be delivered by Harryette Mullen, Professor of English and Creative Writing at UCLA, a Guggenheim Fellow (among other honors), and a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her volume of essays and interviews, The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be, appeared in 2012.
Professor Mullen will be introduced by A. Van Jordan of the U-M faculty. A panel discussion in early afternoon will include Mullen, Linda Gregerson (of the U-M faculty), Lawrence Joseph, a Detroit native and the preeminent Arab-American poet of our time, and Frederick Glaysher, editor of Hayden’s Collected Poems and Collected Prose. Robert Hayden is a character in Glaysher’s recently published epic poem, The Parliament of Poets. Laurence Goldstein, Professor of English and co-editor (with Robert Chrisman) of Robert Hayden: Essays on the Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2001), will serve as panel moderator.
In late afternoon, MFA students will read from and speak about Hayden’s poems, along with other participants in the conference.
Timetable:
10 a.m. Keynote address by Harryette Mullen
12-1:30 p.m. Lunch at various restaurants around campus
1:30-3:00 p.m. Panel discussion
3:00-5:00 p.m. Readings and remarks by audience members
–
After presenting some reflections on Hayden and his poetry on the panel, during the late afternoon, I’ll be reading a passage from my epic poem, The Parliament of Poems, from the Persona’s flight to the moon, with his guide, the poet Robert Hayden. Hope you can make it. The day promises to be a worthy tribute to a life well lived for the art of poetry. Please help spread the word far and wide.
Frederick Glaysher

syllables for Richard Wright

September syllables for Richard Wright

 

 

You heard firebird sing:

Warning. The red sun still stands.

Soon, a green sun blooms.

 

 

 

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

3 September 2013

Reading for September

Recommended Reading for September 2013

 

Achebe, Chinua.  Chike and the River.  New York: Anchor Books, 2011.

 

Alexie, Sherman.  War Dances.  New York: Grove Press, 2009.

 

Beckham, Barry.  My Main Mother.  New York: Signet, 1969.

____________. Runner Mack.  New York: Popular Library, 1972.

____________. Double Dunk. Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1980.

 

Braxton, Charlie R.  Cinders Rekindled.  Jackson, MS: Jawara Press, 2012.

 

Brinks, Dave. The Secret Brain: Selected Poems 1995-2012.  Boston: Black Widow Press, 2012.

 

Cherry, James E.  Loose Change.  Nacogdoches, TX:  Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2013.

 

Johnson, T. Geronimo. Hold It ‘Til It Hurts.  Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2012.

 

Kennedy, Adrienne. Deadly Triplets: A Theatre Mystery and Journal.  Minneapolis: University of

               Minnesota Press, 1990.

 

Lewis, Thabiti.  Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America. Chicago: Third World Press, 2010.

 

Mullen, Harryette. The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be.

             Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012.

 

Nielsen, A. L. A Brand New Beggar.  Boulder: Steerage Press, 2013.

 

Osbey, Brenda Marie.  History and Other Poems.  St. Louis: Time Being Books, 2012.

 

Pavlić, Ed. Visiting Hours at the Color Line.  Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2013.

 

Plumpp, Sterling D. Home/Bass.  Chicago: Third World Press, 2013.

 

Redmond, Eugene B.  Arkansippi Memwars: Poetry, Prose & Chants 1962-2012. Chicago: Third World      

Press, 2013.

 

Salam, Kiini ibura.  Ancient, Ancient. Seattle: Aqueduct Press, 2012.

 

Walker, Frank X. Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers.  Athens: U of Georgia P, 2013.

 

 

      Jerry W. Ward, Jr.       September 2, 2013

A Gift from Howard Rambsy II

http://www.culturalfront.org/2013/09/richard-wright-autobiography-covers.html

Document 1980

January 10, 1980

Dr. Charles H. Rowell
Department of English
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 40506

Dear Charles:

     I have enclosed a corrected copy of John O'Neal's "As A Weapon Is To Warfare...," a paper delivered at our Freedom Summer symposium.  John has given us permission to use it in an issue of Callaloo, and I urge you to accept it. It constitutes a quite interesting statement about art and politics, about the recognitions that Southern black experiences must provide for the rest of the nation.  If you decide to use it, send John a note at

                              601 S. Scott Street
                              New Orleans, Louisiana 70119

and ask him to submit a contributor's note.

                                                              Sincerely,


                                                              Jerry W. Ward

American Icon: Native Son

This radio documentary is first-rate.

http://www.studio360.org/2013/sep/06

It forces us to confront Richard Wright's honesty and the gross dishonesty that prevails in the United States of America in 2013.