Three American Voices

Black Americans can claim three of America’s finest poets—Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni—as clarion voices of their heritage and experience. They are in many ways dissimilar writers, but their themes and vernacular often have, and naturally so, an echo that is indelible in the experience of growing up black in twentieth century America. Each poet is distinct, each with a clear identity but their voices together make a stirring and resonant impression.

LANGSTON HUGHES was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902. He spent some time at Columbia University before taking work on a tramp steamer headed to West Africa and Europe. The ship traveled up and down the coast of West Africa for several months before Hughes left the ship, settling in Paris for an extended time. Back in the US, he earned a degree at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, then moved to Harlem in New York City where he remained until his death in 1967. Other work by the poet is posted here; his collected poetry here.

MAYA ANGELOU was born in St Louis, Missouri in 1928. She started out as an actress and dancer in New York, became a journalist in Africa, and later worked extensively in drama, television and films. She speaks five languages and has published over thirty books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction since her 1969 bestselling autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ms Angelou is lifetime Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. I Shall Not Be Moved.

NIKKI GIOVANNI was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1943. She has published sixteen collections of her poetry and teaches writing and literature at Virginia Tech. Collected poetry.

MOTHER TO SON (Langston Hughes)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

ME AND MY WORK (Maya Angelou)

I got a piece of a job on the waterfront.

Three days ain’t hardly a grind.

It buys some beans and collard greens

and pays the rent on time.

Course the wife works, too.

Got three big children to keep in school,

need clothes and shoes on their feet,

give them enough of the things they want

and keep them out of the street.

They’ve always been good.

My story ain’t news and it ain’t all sad.

There’s plenty worse off than me.

Yet the only thing I really don’t need

is strangers’ sympathy.

That’s somebody else’s word for

caring.

QUILTS (Nikki Giovanni)

Like a fading piece of cloth

I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter

My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able

To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days

When just woven I could keep water

From seeping through

Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave

Dazzled the sunlight with my

Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories

The tasks I can no longer complete

Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only

this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end

Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt

That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to

Will hear my whispers

And cuddle

near

Bottled Clover

My first bottle of Montblanc black ink dates from around 1982 or 83. Still have that bottle. Nobuhiko Moriyama of Fullhalter pen shop in Tokyo told me that the ink is probably better now than when it was purchased. Have to trust him since he worked for Montblanc thirty years before opening his own store specializing in Pelikan and Pilot fountain pens. Whatever the vintage, Montblanc inks have for a long time been a great favorite of mine and at present there are fourteen bottles on my ink shelves. Two of my favorite colors—Turquoise and Racing green—have been discontinued and as a result are now rationed inks.

January’s issue of the Japanese magazine Shumi no bungu bako (Stationery Hobby Box) included a notice (and page sample) of the latest ink from Montblanc—Irish Green. Obviously they needed something to replace the very popular Racing Green, and why not a color at the other end of the green spectrum, something evocative of the Emerald Isle? The new Irish Green is a fresh green, a color that reminds us of clover, and while it is a big step away from the darker, browner Racing Green, it is a welcome shift if a tiny bit familiar in shade. Good chance that many will find Irish Green too much like other greens and lacking in individuality. I won’t argue that except to say that Montblanc’s quality is a large part of its singularity. Montblanc’s stronger focus is on writing instruments, but their history is long in a country that to many is undisputedly the premier maker of ink and fountain pens. All that history and quality is unmistakably a part of Montblanc inks.

The Irish Green flows beautifully—I tried it first in a Sailor Naginata with an M nib—laying down a smooth line with minimal shading. I personally would like to see more shading, but the freshness of the green may be an influence. Would impress me to see a page of Irish Green resemble more a patch of clover with dark and light highlights. That isn’t what I see, though disappointment is not a word that applies. I tried the ink on three different kinds of paper and all three liked the ink, leaving minimal show through and zero feathering. The best results were with white Clairefontaine Triomphe stationery, where the shading was more noticeable. It has a short drying time, much faster than several American inks I could name, but is also less waterproof that the bulletproof inks. I held a page of the Irish Green under running water for thirty seconds, leaving the words faint but at least legible if you get your squint just right.

Surprising that the $18.00 price tag (at a Montblanc store) is higher than the cost of the same ink in Tokyo. I could buy the ink there for $15.00 at one of several Montblanc stores. Understandable that Pilot Iroshizuku inks cost more here, but the Montblanc price caught me off guard.

For some green ink junkies maybe the high price tag is worth a spot-on Saint Patrick’s Day ink.

Community Spirit

Following Tuesday’s review of The Last Samurai I had second thoughts about a portion of that post. I began to wonder if some of my comments about younger generation Japanese might have been untimely in light of Friday’s earthquake, its terrible aftermath and the reaction of the Japanese people to the horror, the fear and the loss. In thinking about the Tom Cruise movie and the themes its story turns on, it was a natural step that I view at least one of those themes against the differences apparent in historical versus contemporary social conditions. In that light I suggested that many of the younger Japanese today lead selfish lives uncaring of others outside their immediate circle. Yes, that is perhaps oftentimes the case, but in the same breath I look at photos and video of the Japanese people struggling through the devastation that has become their world. What do so many of those images of the people show?

They show a people badly beaten but resilient, patient, humble and mindful of helping others. They reveal people with everything taken away, lost, and uncertain but still with what you can only call quiet courage. Who of us here in the US has looked at these images without at some point remembering similar devastation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Did the people of New Orleans face their hardship in ways that we can favorably compare to Sendai and Tokyo? For the most part I think not. I lived for many years among Japanese people and to my understanding one thing is certain—In times like these the rarest sight is selfish or unlawful behavior. The thought of stealing food or water, of taking from others or doing anything that obstructs is unimaginable for the average Japanese.

Consider one man’s experience… ‘Spurred on by my wife, I run to a convenience store nearby and find nearly empty rows of shelves and just ten bottles of water left. I am amazed that the owner is still selling the bottles at the regular price—$1 each—because I know I would pay twice as much. I briefly think about grabbing all 10 bottles, but decide to buy just five, because I know others will need them…I grew up in this country, but I am still amazed at the people’s patience and civility. But I also know how they can remain so civil. They trust that food will come somehow. They trust the government and know their share will come. They have faith.’

Gregory Pflugfelder, Director of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University happened to be in Tokyo on the day of the earthquake. In a piece for CNN he wrote: ‘The layer of human turmoil—looting and scuffles for food or services—that often comes in the wake of disaster seems noticeably absent in Japan. “Looting simply does not take place in Japan. I’m not even sure if there’s a word for it that is as clear in its implications as when we hear ‘looting.’ Japanese have “a sense of being first and foremost responsible to the community.”

There are times when we all should wish for similar community spirit.

Discovering a Way of Life

Perhaps because Japan is so much in the news these days, or maybe because I have a Japanese visitor, last night I pulled out a movie we had both seen previously, both liked very much and wanted to watch again. The movie is The Last Samurai made in 2003 and starring Tom Cruise. As is usual with the movies of superstar Cruise, this one too got lots of publicity. It was nominated for and won a dozen or more awards and a look at box office reports on IMBd indicate that it must have made money after recouping its 140 million price tag. It was extremely popular in Japan, where I first saw it. There is a great deal of good work in The Last Samurai, and though I did not read any of the reviews that followed its opening, my opinion of the movie is high.

For the most part, aspects of the Japanese story and its production are well done and give a good sense of the authentic. Certainly things were dirtier and not always so ‘pretty’ in nineteenth century Japan, but when has Hollywood with a hundred and forty million to spend ever made anything visually unappealing? More to the point, the story is not bad at all despite a few holes, and the producers did well with the language and especially Tom Cruise’s use of Japanese. But for me it is the values that make up the story I found so appealing. Apart from it’s purpose of entertaining, of being a movie that offers grand escape with handsome actors and beautiful exotic Japanese beauties, apart from all the drifting cherry blossoms and mist shrouded mountains, there is a solid story at the movie’s heart.

The time is 1876. Captain Nathan Algren (Cruise) of the US Army is haunted by nightmares of massacring Indian women and children under orders from General Custer and another of his superior officers. No longer an officer in the field, Algren has become a drunk willing to do almost any kind of work to buy the next bottle of whiskey. He reluctantly accepts an offer to train new conscripts to Japan’s Imperial Army and prepare them for battle against a rebelling samurai (Ken Watanabe). Things don’t happen as expected, and in a strange and alien country Algren discovers the balm to soothe his nightmares and soften the self disgust over past actions. Forced into battle before his raw troops are prepared, the Imperial forces are badly defeated by Katsumoto, the rebelling samurai leader. Algren is captured by Katsumoto and taken to live in the enemy’s mountain village. Here he discovers a way of life that he had never imagined and over the course of months with his Japanese captors Algren finds an ethic and a man he is willing to give his life for.

When Japan entered what they call the Meiji Period of their history (1868-1912) leaders of that time were eager to push Japan into the modern world and to import ideas as well as goods from western countries. The Last Samurai is a very exciting story about the new ideas of Meiji pushing against the older ideas and values of Japan. At the heart of the story is the concept of bushido. Dictionaries as well as many Japanese will tell you that bushido means “the way of the warrior,” but what does that say to the modern westerner? What exactly is this “way” of the warrior? In it shortest definition it means that people who live by the code of bushido believe that a simple unadorned life of honor is best. The old texts teach that fear of death does not deter one from the pathway of loyalty and unselfish honor. Defeat without death in battle, or daily life without honor are both shameful.

The question comes to mind, does this time honored bushido still exist in Japanese society of the twenty-first century? Can we see the same qualities of honor, unselfishness and simplicity in the daily life of Japanese today? Unfortunately there is another word sometimes heard in connection with the younger generation of Japan. The word is “me-ism,” meaning living and doing only for ‘me’ with little or no consideration of others. It is a self-centered way of living and thinking seen in many societies today. Modern problems in Japanese society include a lack of interest in moral values. The old bushido values we see in The Last Samurai taught children to use manners always, to always think of other community members. Many might say that those older qualities are hard to find in societies everywhere now, that the same ‘living for myself’ idea knows few borders.

The Last Samurai was directed by Edward Zwick, has a lush score by Hans Zimmer, beautiful costumes, dazzling battle scenes and wonderful performances by Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki Sanada, the gorgeous Koyuki, and yes, Tom Cruise.

The last words of Captain Algren in the movie are spoken to the Meiji Emperor. Asking about his teacher and lifelong retainer Katsumoto, the young Emperor says, “Tell me how he died.” Algren replies, “I will tell you how he lived.” A beautiful answer that sums it all up.

Among Egrets and Alligators

Bird life along the coast outside my windows is naturally plentiful. A part of any walk on the beach is bound to be through flocks of gulls, skittering ruddy turnstones and under the elegant wingspan of soaring pelicans. Season and weather conditions influence both the number and type of birds encountered, and while there is some constancy, one of the examples not seen along the east coast of central Florida during winter and early spring is the egret. Probable that many of them move farther south to warmer coastal waters, but many of them are satisfied to move inland to lakes and waterways less troubled by cold wind. I was surprised to see last month two egrets calmly foraging in the grass verge of a freeway exit ramp in downtown Orlando, unmoved by the approach of cars up the ramp or the high speed swoosh of cars on the freeway side. The absence of any water seemed unimportant against the presence of grasshoppers in the six inch grass.

Though most of my life is identified with large cities, and while certainly not any kind of biologist, growing up in Louisiana left me with at least a kinship with bayous and swamp and the life that thrives in those ecosystems. Most days of my youth were spent riding a bicycle on paved streets that marked the habitat of more cats and dogs than anything else, but weekends and holidays spent at bayou camps fishing and hunting were many and from those weekends I developed an abiding appreciation of the wet green and cypress knee beauty of South Louisiana bayous.

The southern fringes of Louisiana’s extensive marshland are home to the largest species of egrets native to America. Unlike the smaller egrets that populate the summer coast of Florida, Louisiana egrets stand three feet tall, with a wingspan of five feet. By mid-April these giant egrets have mated and built nests in bushes or on tree branches, laid and hatched their eggs. Egret pairs usually produce four chicks which require six weeks of near constant feeding, but by the end of May the chicks will begin to fend for themselves.

The weeks from birth to self-sufficiency are like that of almost all creatures in nature, fraught with a host of dangers from spring storms and floods and from natural enemies like hawks, raccoons, alligators and snapping turtles. Not unheard of for alligators to batter bushes and tree trunks with their tail to shake the young down from the nest. A nasty thought, but tame compared to the bird’s onetime worst enemy, man. Now the birds are protected, but in earlier times plume hunters almost wiped out the egrets in southern Louisiana, providing decoration for women’s hats in the form of a luxuriant plume called aigrettes which the egrets exhibit only during courtship and later lose. But that is the past, and if we are able to avoid tragedies like last year’s BHP oil spill which has destroyed hundreds of square miles of Louisiana wetland, perhaps these beautiful birds will continue to flourish.

The two black and white photos of Louisiana egrets come from a 1973 Time-Life book, The Bayous.

In the top photograph an egret stands poised on a dead cypress tree. It is a carefully balanced stance from which the bird can launch instantly into flight.

The second photograph shows an adult egret repairing the platform of twigs that serve as a nest. The male procures the materials and the female does the building.

Tasting the Sweetness

On the patio under a clear, bright sky. With the usual randomness of undisciplined daydreaming, a goulash of jumbled thoughts sloshes around in my head, among them images of writer Alfred Kazin’s Brooklyn childhood. Maybe it’s a hint. I go inside and hunt up my copy of Kazin’s A Walker in the City, pull it down and settle with the last section looking for the gateway to slip once more into that earlier recollection of the writer’s childhood.

Alfred Kazin was born the son of Jewish immigrants in the Brownsville section of East Brooklyn in 1915. Until his death on his 83rd birthday he was prolific as an author, literary critic, teacher and cultural historian. His first book, On Native Grounds was published in 1942 attracting great acclaim for the twenty-seven year old. He followed the first with ten other books, writing up to the day of his death.

Kazin perhaps had much in common with contemporary New York Times journalist and walker, Nicole Krauss who wrote in harmony with Kazin, ‘I like to walk to be alone with the world, not to be alone. In this way, walking is a lot like writing. Both writing and walking (as I know it) are fueled by a desire to put oneself in relation to others. Not in direct contact—some aloneness wishes to be preserved—but contact through the mediation of language or shared atmosphere of a city street.’

A Walker in the City came out in 1951. This second book is a memoir of the writer’s youth in Brownsville, a marvelous odyssey of walks with Kazin through the streets and rooms of a child growing into youth and manhood—a minute portrait of a Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1920s and 30s. In the simplest labeling, it is the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America seen through the eyes of a boy walking the streets of his Jewish neighborhood. The book is filled with pages of deliciously simple prose that rolls around on the tongue like a favorite taste in perfect clarity. Here is a sampling of that prose from the book’s last chapter titled, “Summer: The Way to Highland Park.”

‘Summer was the passage through. I remember first the long stone path next to a meadow in Prospect Park where as a child I ran off one summer twilight just in time to see the lamplighter go from lamp to lamp touching each gas mantle with the upraised end of a pole so that it suddenly flamed. On the other side of those lamps, the long meadow was stormy-green and dark; but along the path, the flames at each lamp flared in yellow and green petals. Then, that summer I first strayed off the block for myself, the stone steps leading up from the lake in Prospect Park had stalks of grass wound between their cracks, were white with dust and drops of salt I thought came from the peanuts whose smell was everywhere in the park. But there was also some sugary taste in the air that day like the glazed wrapper around the cracker-jack box—and at the bottom of the box, caught by my sticky fingers, some fife or whistle which I blew that glorious warm Sunday full of cars from all over and the Stars and Stripes over the bandstand and the band in their colored coats and the dust flying up from everybody’s shoes as we came over to hear.

Summer was great time. I think now with a special joy of those long afternoons of mildew and quietness in the school courtyard, now a lazy playground, and of the main hall, where the dust rose up brown as we played quoits against the principal’s door.’

As the memoirist recalled… ‘I taste the sweetness of summer on every opening on my face.’ — A perfect description of the reader’s experience in A Walk Through the City.

All Shook Up

Seeing the headlines on Friday morning, making my way in a dazed state through the CNN reports and filmed disaster of a devastating earthquake in Japan, concern for friends and all affected people was an immediate concern. Pictures and reports were horrible, but the worst of those were from northeastern Japan, a good distance from Tokyo. The city looked badly rattled but without the catastrophic collapse and inundation of Sendai 300 miles north and near the quake’s epicenter. Continuing to read the incoming reports it was hard to stop the thought of what if…? One year ago today I was preparing to leave Japan. With departure imminent, the house was more than usual in a muddle of sifting, sorting and unsecured piles of everything from furniture to knickknackery. What if an earthquake of 8.9 magnitude had hit Japan at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2010—what would I have seen?

With classes still in session ongoing tremors trigger an alarm recognizable by all as a signal to evacuate the buildings and move away to a pre-determined distance and location. Because of the severity and continuance of the tremors—only 5.0 in Tokyo, three hours south of the epicenter—students and staff are instructed to return home either by bicycle or on foot without returning to the school buildings. All trains have been automatically stopped so those without bicycles—about fifty percent—have no choice but to walk home, be it near or far. Most students have cell phones but service is down and they are like everyone else, unable to contact family and friends for the present. For me the walk home is eighty minutes, much of it through areas free of traffic and buildings. Everywhere people are out on streets and sidewalks, even strangers are talking, commiserating, offering help or whatever is needed. It is a time when all come together without the smallest thought of discrimination or reserve.

In Kugayama, approaching my apartment building I find five or six of the residents out front and I stop to talk with them, to ask for news or about conditions inside the building. Much of the dramatic description and rolling eyes I put off as exaggeration and head up the stairs to my third floor apartment. The greatest worry is an eighteen gallon aquarium, the horrible thought of it knocked down and smashed with a flood of water and tropical fish. Opening the door and looking in is an anxious moment, but the indoor scene shows less collapse than expected. The fish are fine, but there in the middle of the kitchen floor lay the shards of several irreplaceable old Japanese dishes and bowls. The top of the paulownia chest of drawers is a jumble of collapsed figures and trifles, two CD cases have tipped over spilling their cargo into a hash of plastic and glossy covers. A mirror has fallen to leave shards of bad luck on the living room carpet and a reading lamp leans awkwardly over a reading chair, saved from a crash by the cushioned arm. I take a few deep breaths, relieved that it’s not as bad as my imagination had painted. But I have no electricity and no water, no telephone and no Internet. For the time being talk with neighbors will have to serve to keep me posted on conditions in a shaken but intact city. Easily the worst earthquake in my experience but in Tokyo at least we’ve been spared.

News reports have mentioned more than once that Friday’s earthquake in Japan was the worst in a hundred years. Some truth to that but many are forgetting that at noon on September 1, 1923 the Tokyo area was rocked by a cataclysmic earthquake that killed over 100,000 people in the city alone, with 570,000 homes destroyed and 1.9 million left homeless. The Great Kantô Earthquake of 1923 hit with a force of 7.9 but conditions made it a disaster of biblical proportions. At that time all homes as well as many of the city’s buildings were constructed of wood, an extremely fragile structural base. The quake hit at an hour when many were preparing lunch over open fires. The spread of fire was an immediate threat and to add a big measure of ill fortune, a typhoon was blowing from the north fanning the flames into a firestorm which trapped many in melting tarmac, burning them where they stood. 38,000 died in a huge clothing depot when the fire induced something called a fire tornado. But in looking back at that disaster we can see that preventive measures were nonexistent, buildings and planning much different from the architecture and infrastructure of Tokyo in March of 2011.

Modern Tokyo is a city designed with earthquakes uppermost in the mind of civic engineers and architects. An earthquake with the power of Friday’s temblor is certainly not anything that Tokyo or any other large city can ignore, but the chances of loss in both life and property on the scale of 1923 are unlikely today. While it may be true that twenty-four hours after an 8.9 earthquake 300 miles distant, four million homes in Tokyo remain without power and while trains sit unmoving and people are still finding their way home, there is great relief in the small number of human casualties today in Japan’s capital.