The Craft of Creative Writing: Wk4
Wk4 Assignment: Be Holding
This week, we read a book length poem called Be Holding by Ross Gay. We were asked to consider his book a poem of study and connection, and an extended piece of “liberatory discursive writing,” — despite finishing the book and the associated assignment, I still don’t no what this means. Nonetheless, our assignment was to identify 3-5 reference points to study in a similar way. We were asked to (1) write a statement of materials and approach, (2) create a diagram to map out an ambitious literary project, and (3) do an initial investigation of a media object or popular work of art.
This assignment definitely felt ambitious, but it was fun. If I choose to continue my work on this project, next steps will be to think about materials, structure, and forms - per my professor.
We Talking About Destroying the World to Save Humanity (from itself)
With all Gay’s talk of elders and oldheads and stealing away and stealing a way, I thought of how being Black is so familiar to me. Every image he brought into the frame of his poem – within the larger (or smaller?) frame of his analysis on an NBA legend’s, Dr. J’s, impossible leap – was distinctly Black and familiar.
For example, he didn’t write the words side by side anywhere in his poem, but the words “behold” and “star” were so frequently close together throughout this book, that I couldn’t help but put them together myself and be reminded of Behold The Star. A very old, very Black, song I learned at a very old Black institution, from an old Black man, named Doc. Actually, his name is Dr. Kevin Johnson – a potential Dr. J, but we never gave him that nickname. What literary synchrony that could have been!
Anyway, I learned the song as a first year student at Spelman College (an HBCU). I was in the choir, (the glee club, but I don’t like using that term because people tend to think Glee, the show) and we were getting ready for the annual Christmas Carol. Behold the Star was the first song I learned with the Morehouse men’s choir (another HBCU), and during one of our first group rehearsals, Doc held auditions for the song’s male solo. The student who got the solo that year was one of those glottal tenors. The kind of voice that sounded like a horn. Like an actual instrument, all on its own. We performed the song sitting down, so that he could stand and be seen for his solo. I don’t remember there being a spotlight, but his voice (without being too obvious in my writing here) served as spotlight enough. He was like a star. Or his voice was the star. Or he and his voice were reaching for a star, together. “Behold,” he would sing, “the star of Bethlehem.” The choir would hum a steady chord, holding and beholding his voice with our own voices as he sang “Behold the Star,” and again “Behold the Star up yonder! It is the Star of Bethlehem.”
I should say, Behold The Star is a song written and composed by Thomas Washington Talley, in the first half of the 20th century, for the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Talley was a chemistry professor at Fisk University (another HBCU) and a collector of African American folk songs.
After reading Gay’s poem, I’m sure that this song was composed to behold, and be holding, the star that was that soloist. On the campus of a historically Black college, a Black choir and its audience held and beheld a Black student as he asked them to do so.
Back to Gay’s book.
Every image he brought into the frame of his poem was distinctly Black and familiar.
“We talking about destroying the world
for the earth”
This is where I tie-in the other major reference items / media objects I chose for the assignment.
3 Black artists who suggest ending the world to save humanity from itself:
N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy (book series) → end the world to save the world
Octavia E. Butler’s Lilith’s Brood → Alien take-over to save humanity from itself
Beyonce’s Renaissance act i → Alien superstars to save humanity from itself
As Jemisin shares in her series, the end of the world rarely means anything for Earth - the planet will be fine. The end of the world, for us, means a deconstruction of existing systems for the construction of new systems. Per the artists who authored these bodies of work, the construction required to save humanity from itself may only be possible after the end of the world.
But then there’s the struggles for power amongst what’s left of humanity at the end of the world. This is where the alien take over comes in. As Butler states in her series, Lilith’s Brood, human nature is, in itself, contradictory. Social, intelligent, but hierarchical. Our nature prevents us from collectively changing how we organize ourselves. A completely alien species will need to introduce a new way for us to be.
A new way to be holding each other, together. A new way to behold ourselves.
What if our extraterrestrial educators never show up? Then we’ll have to become aliens. Sounds odd, but stick with me.
Beyoncé said it most harmoniously: You won’t break my soul, as I am an Alien Superstar.
Those of us who are able to preserve the version of ourselves that we’ve defined for ourselves – despite and maybe in spite of our nature, and the oppressive systems it has produced – are alien superstars. After the end of the world, this is who must construct those new systems we need.
Behold, after the end of the world, Alien Superstars will save humanity from itself.
This is an image of my project diagram. You may need to zoom in to see some of the text.
