The poems for this week seemed to me to be mostly about ejaculations and explosions. In Hayan Charara's "Usage," I am thinking of the line, "Maybe then, metaphors-- not bodies, not hillsides, not hospitals, not schools-- will explode." Though I'm sure he meant the explosions literally, I couldn't help but think back to Langston Hughes' "Dream Deferred." In "Dream Deferred," the last line is a metaphor ("or does it explode?"), linking the dream to the bomb, and therefore the metaphor to the bomb. Charara follows the same linkage in calling attention to the explosion of the metaphors. The slashes present in the poem seem to represent the outward movement of shrapnel and debris following an explosion, and the interruption of the dashes between words signal an interruption, possibly even a seismic event. At the end of the poem, the explosion of words absent syntax serve the purpose of speeding up the dialogue and ending on an almost frantic note. The words that Charara has chosen to italicize throughout his poem call attention to their two-faced uses. Particularly brilliant and ironic is the choice of “altogether” compared to “all together.” 

 

I am not altogether sure we can all together come (Inclined, 76). 

When using the word altogether in the first part of the line, Charara is seeding doubt through the idea of coming together, thus creating a rift, a kind of lingual explosion. However, the word altogether is presented in the English language as one cohesive word. The words “all” and “together” in this phrase are so close to each other that it is like one word has begun to eat the other; or like the two are conjoined twins that cannot survive if separated. Ironically, the phrase “all together” becomes the inclusive term, yet it is separated by a space that reinforces the true differences between all of us that prevent us from actually coming together. Charara did not invent these words, obviously, nor is he using them out of context. However, he is pointing out within the confines of one small, brilliantly-crafted sentence, the derisive power of the terms and the huge problem of unity/disunity that they attempt to conceal. The words sound alike when spoken, but they have entirely different meanings, while the second term takes longer in the breath because one must allow the space between the words to exist in order to properly convey their intent. 

Charara’s and Hughes’ poems deal with explosions metaphorically; however, the entire section, "When the definition of madness is love" in Bum Rush the Page, is about explosions, mostly sexual. In “8 ways of looking at pussy,” Letta Neely uses explosions to represent the orgasmic experience. Explosions become orgasms, become ejaculations. In this poem, we have passed the point of metaphor and wandered into the land of the real. Now, the pussy is the pussy; the cum is the cum. It is obscene and delightful to read the words outright, as if I am a teenager again, my dad discovering me beating off a boy. It's dirty, yeah. But exciting, too. It’s not the same type of liberation that Hughes was talking about when addressing the nature of his dream for people of color. It is, however, the liberation of humanity from the straightjacket of moral subject matter of what has been traditionally considered “allowed.” Is sexual liberation a stepping stone to other kinds of liberation?

There are some things that don't belong to me as a writer. I am obviously not a poet of color. I come from semi-privilege (comparatively speaking). But some subjects belong to everyone and become a place where we can come together. Sex, music, lust, passion, love. Here, the explosion becomes a unifying force, standing out in stark contrast to the explosions of Hughes and Charara. As the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's proved, though the explosion is a destructive force, it is also a deliverance. It releases an environment from the shape of its past, it allows a new terrain to be shaped. I do believe that at some point, Langston Hughes’ dream did explode, and with that explosion came a new landscape, a new aesthetic, and the ability to fashion a new dream, one in which we can all participate.

H.K.