Lillian Allen Flashcards
Writing out of Community
Allen born in Jamaica
Grew up in a tight knit community
No TV, just a radio
People gathered at her house to listen to the radio
What defined her community?
Community defined by
Lack of literacy
Orality
Writes out of community
Her work rooted in and reflective of her culture
Her aesthetic rooted in her background
Her work rooted in the politics of her present communities
Whatever your community is
Wherever you are from
Whatever your experience is
It can become a foundation for your writing
Your community will ground your writing
We are best when we do the work that is closest to us
Most of the time
Sometimes
Not always
Poetry as Sound
Words are artifacts on the page AND sounds
You can never entirely detach the word on the page from the sound
But you can liberate the sound from the word on the page
Allen’s poetry straddles the line between song/rap and poetry
Poetry as Performance
Allen’s poems have performance dimensions
Aspects that only emerge in performance
Rhythm
Pacing
Emphasis
Caveat
What is alive in performance
Is often flat on the page
Song lyrics don’t usually make good poetry
POETRY AS SOUND AND PERFORMANCE
Be attentive to the sound of your writing (poetry and prose)
Read your writing aloud
Listen
To how it sounds
To how it moves
Adjust what is on the page to reflect how it sounds/moves
The Breath Line
The length of the line on the page
The number of words you can say before you breath
Grounds form in the body
Turns language into a fleshy medium
Common to spoken word poets
Common to particular traditions of experimental American poetry
Finding your rhythm
Focus on the emotional subtext
Feel it
Get an emotion going
Can take a rhythm from anywhere
Play with emphasis
Emphasize the word that carries greatest weight of meaning
Change that word
The poem will tell you its rhythm
