Post by louisa on Nov 12, 2008 2:24:48 GMT 2
The Rites for Cousin Vit
by GWENDOLYN BROOKS from Annie Allen (1950)
submitted by Marilyn Hacker
Gwendolyn Brooks’ Annie Allen counterpoints the life of a young woman with that of her community: a black working-class neighborhood in Chicago during and just after World War II. That neighborhood, and its transformations, from working-class aspiration to urban decay to the radicalized sixties , remained Brooks’ focus . She eschewed lyric autobiography: even in first-person poems, there are indications that we are reading a dramatic monologue. The protagonist of each book, and her work as a whole, is not an individual but a community. Annie Allen’s protagonist emerges from romantic self-absorption to observe that community – no “ghetto,”, but a source of energy, support, and of stories implicit in quotidian lives. “The Rites for Cousin Vit” is an elegy within an Italian sonnet, but an elegy so overflowing with its subject’s life-force that, with no overt religious context, it denies death. The verbs (subordinate to the imperative “surmise,” the poem’s only narratorial gesture) “rises in sunshine” and “ must emerge,” metaphorically equate sensual, down-to-earth Vit with the risen Christ – who then “does the snake-hips with a hiss” – both Eve and the serpent. After the communion of “bad wine” and the human interaction of “talks,” these transcendental identities resolve with a one-syllable affirmative sentence : “Is.” Even the title resonates. Vit’s name echoes the Latin for “life.” Her identification as “cousin” claims her as a community and family member, which informs the “outlaw” aspects of her behavior: the “love-rooms,” bad wine, shiny dresses and dirty dancing. “Outlaw” perhaps, but not outcast.
Read The Rites for Cousin Vit:
www.tcsn.net/jackie/Archive/gwendolyn_brooks.htm
More about the poet:
www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/165
To Buy Annie Allen current as of Oct. 30, 2008
www.alibris.com/booksearch
by GWENDOLYN BROOKS from Annie Allen (1950)
submitted by Marilyn Hacker
Gwendolyn Brooks’ Annie Allen counterpoints the life of a young woman with that of her community: a black working-class neighborhood in Chicago during and just after World War II. That neighborhood, and its transformations, from working-class aspiration to urban decay to the radicalized sixties , remained Brooks’ focus . She eschewed lyric autobiography: even in first-person poems, there are indications that we are reading a dramatic monologue. The protagonist of each book, and her work as a whole, is not an individual but a community. Annie Allen’s protagonist emerges from romantic self-absorption to observe that community – no “ghetto,”, but a source of energy, support, and of stories implicit in quotidian lives. “The Rites for Cousin Vit” is an elegy within an Italian sonnet, but an elegy so overflowing with its subject’s life-force that, with no overt religious context, it denies death. The verbs (subordinate to the imperative “surmise,” the poem’s only narratorial gesture) “rises in sunshine” and “ must emerge,” metaphorically equate sensual, down-to-earth Vit with the risen Christ – who then “does the snake-hips with a hiss” – both Eve and the serpent. After the communion of “bad wine” and the human interaction of “talks,” these transcendental identities resolve with a one-syllable affirmative sentence : “Is.” Even the title resonates. Vit’s name echoes the Latin for “life.” Her identification as “cousin” claims her as a community and family member, which informs the “outlaw” aspects of her behavior: the “love-rooms,” bad wine, shiny dresses and dirty dancing. “Outlaw” perhaps, but not outcast.
Read The Rites for Cousin Vit:
www.tcsn.net/jackie/Archive/gwendolyn_brooks.htm
More about the poet:
www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/165
To Buy Annie Allen current as of Oct. 30, 2008
www.alibris.com/booksearch