Your Revolution
So I watched the video and you used the songs you sampled just as I expected you to and I still found myself wonderfully surprised. So having both the page and the stage versions gave me more access points, more clarity of how the songs work as text and more reasons to read and experience the work again.
I could see/hear this piece on a stage before seeing you perform it. I cannot imagine this poem without movement. It feels like a song itself – the rhythm and the cadence of the lines are powerful AND for those of us from this generation of music, we know where to sing, hum, and bob. It’s wonderful in that way. A road map through my musical history.
Going from page to stage enhanced this piece. It is meant to be spoken/performed because there is too much music and energy from one line to the next for it to only live on the page. Ironically, it can live on the page, but without the performance to accompany it in the Universe, it would also die on the page. Both are necessary.
In this poem, you use lines from popular songs to make a point about the music industry:
Think I'm a put it in my mouth just cuz you made a few bucks?
Please brother please
Your revolution will not be me tossing my weave
And making me believe I'm some caviar-eating ghetto mafia clown
Or me giving up my behind, just so I can get signed
And maybe having somebody else write my rhymes
I'm Sarah Jones, not Foxy Brown
and I get what you are doing here, but wonder why you selected to omit this in the Def Poetry performance -- was it only about the 3 minute time limit or was there more? Was there some commentary you felt comfortable putting on the page, but not saying on the stage? That givees me great questions about audience and intent and how performance poetry interacts with both in a way that page poetry does not and vice versa.
You make some really political statements about male and female relationships too,
Your revolution will not happen between these thighs
The real revolution ain't about booty size
The Versaces you buys
Or the Lexus you drives
And though we've lost Biggie Smalls
Baby, your notorious revolution
Will never allow you to lace no lyrical douche in my bush
Your revolution will not be you killing me softly with Fugees
Your revolution ain't gonna knock me up without no ring
And produce little future emcees
Because that revolution will not happen between these thighs
and about sex:
Because that revolution will not happen between these thighs
Oh, my Jamaican brother, your revolution will not make you feel
Bombastic and really fantastic
And have you groping in the dark for that rubber wrapped in plastic
You will not be touching your lips to my triple dip of french
vanilla, butter pecan, chocolate deluxe
Or having Akinyele's dream, (mm hmm)
A 6-foot blowjob machine (mm hmm)
You want to subjugate your queen? (uh-huh)
Think I'm a put it in my mouth just cuz you made a few bucks?
Simply using the word "revolution" over and over again, you build up a call to action that unfortunately never plays out fully in the end of the poem,
Because the real revolution
That's right I said the real revolution
You know I'm talking about the revolution
When it comes, it's gonna be real
The funny thing is that this ending works in performance more than it works on the page. On the page I have more time with the ending and while it sounds great on stage, it has very little revolutionary quality. It does not play with language in a revolutionary way, nor does it revolutionize the poetic elements -- but I only get this because I sit with it on the page much longer than I do when you push it to me from the stage.Let's talk...
peacelovelight
Kiala
Feeling the letter format here. It's interesting that you talked about sampling because actually as I read the piece I could here things that sounded familiar but I don't think I ever directly connected it to particular songs. It was interesting to me that just reading the words on the page felt nice but when I read it aloud to myself I felt like I really connected with the work. It makes me wonder if the poets wrote it by speaking the work to themselves to make it sound right. There is something completely different about writing the words out without hearing how they sound.
ReplyDeleteI think the point you make about the comfort level Sarah Jones may have felt about putting something on the page, but not saying on the stage, is so interesting. You’re right that we don’t know if the time limit was the factor, but even thinking that the interaction with the audience from the stage would have an effect on what was in the performance raises so many issues and questions about the creative process and about the artist’s awareness of and possible influence of the recipients of one’s art. Great post!
ReplyDeleteKiala -
ReplyDeleteLove what you say about the generational level of the music used and it being a road map through your own musical history. It's a very referential poem in that way I feel like, you can understand and like the poem without knowing a lot of the songs and ideas that she refers to but having that contextual knowledge makes the poem even more rhythmic and draws on a deeper well of history.
It's really interesting how certain poems just seem made for the stage rather than the page. There's some quality about them, and I don't want to call it a short-coming, but rather a missing element that leaves me looking for the conclusion of the poem (or at least a thought provoking morsel). I really can't put my finger on precisely what that element is, but I think that you made an interesting connection between the lasting influence of the poem and its need to be performed. Thanks!
ReplyDeletebam, i am so excited to talk about this poem tomorrowwwwww!
ReplyDeletefor the page or the stage- she works both elegantly and vibrantly. Especially, the last line "When it comes, its gonna be real." That line came be said in many different tones and accents but reading it yourself on the page has more intimacy.
ReplyDelete~Melissa
remember too that poems go through transitions. this year it reads like that, and another year like this--i have my own work to prove that. anyway, Sarah Jones is a revolution in herself, if you ever get to see her one-woman show, be prepared to think for days.
ReplyDeletebut to my point, an expectation of the audience of this work on the page and on the stage is that we have had the same/similar or can access this musical education she gives. since i knew all the songs they came out in music when i read them, but what if i had never heard them? or wasn't into music at all?