Harryette Mullen’s poetry emblematizes the representation of a woman: her clothes, her accessories, and all the different facets that may compose what comes to mind when we think of femininity, or what constitutes a woman. Mullen’s prose poems thrive off linguistic versatility and the way words are able to convey double meanings. These poems read heavy with alliteration and are entwined with social commentary about femininity. For this week’s post, I have decided to take a stab at close reading one of Mullen’s poems from Trimmings on pg. 7 of Recyclopedia.
The poem reads:
Her red and white, white and blue banner manner. Her red and white all over black and blue. Hannah’s bandanna flagging her down in the kitchen with Dinah, with Jemima. Someone’s in the kitchen I know.
I love the way that this poem runs right off the tip of the tongue. It moves quickly with the rhyming end words and phrases as well as the repetition of multiple words. To help understand this poem further, I found an excellent critical essay by Elisabeth A. Frost that dissects certain elements of the above prose poems. Frost examines how images presented in the poem are ones that have “shaped views of blackness in America,” such as the reference to Jemima figure and the “bandanna” which are suggestive of female African American stereotypes. The word play in the first sentence also sets up these images with a national identity (“red, white, and blue”) followed by what Frost claims to be a commentary on the politics of violence and color (“all over black and blue”). Another aspect I found to be extremely interesting that Frost points out, that I hadn’t realized, was that the word “kitchen” is used twice in the prose that consists of only 4 sentences. This no doubt refers to the cultural expectations of where a woman’s place should be.
On a first read, I immediately picked up on the inter-textual reference to the folklore song, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” and though this was an interesting choice on Mullen’s part to incorporate into this piece. I did a little digging on the origins of the song and learned that it was in fact a part of the minstrel culture and “Dinah” was though to typically refer to an African American woman. The song was been know to be preformed in blackface traditions, which included much more racists verses than the folk song that we are familiar with.
So much to say about one poem, and no wonder! There is a lot of compelling ripples to her poems. They definitely explore identity and the way identity is portrayed. They try to do this, concertedly–she states it in her intro. To the extent they actually do is different. Poetry is an exploration, after all, and efforts to pull out feminism or racial commentary are tenuous at best. I think Mullen is entering spaces of memory–and she happens to be a black woman. She is cultivating a feminist poetics be nature of her project–to imitate Stein–and her poetry will inevitably be read as racial commentary by nature of her identity. By all means, intentionally racial and feminist kinds writing, academic work, and social justice can, should, and will happen, however intersecting my thoughts about Mullen was this idea–do we read male poets for how they portray men, and masculine identity, and the male social role? Male poets are read for their poems and what their poems point to, which is largely outside of the writer’s identity. But the women poets and the black poets we read in these English classes all champion the woman identity and the black identity in a rather intentional way. It seems, the more marginal a group is, the more liberal arts academics love to see them as identity artists, or select poems that seem to perform gender or race.
Why is femininity associated with clothing? Is it reclaiming to write of it? And is the writing resisting that notion that what we wear is who we are? I don’t know. I just think it’s interesting that the first book in this Recyclopedia is about clothing. It’s the same feeling I get from watching Girls, and realizing that if girls are the way they’re portrayed in Girls, they’re worse on themselves than men are on them! They are often talking about clothes, but more importantly, the body is an obsession, especially for Lena Dunham’s character. It’s distinctly below the ideals of feminism–that of rising above the constraints of gender-assigned beauty–and yet we all love how gritty she gets. She’s grappling with it in this non-academic, non-idealistic way. Maybe that’s what Stein was doing, and maybe that’s what Mullen is doing, adding her own nuanced identity politics to the stew.
I want to return to the poem. I agree, the poem slips off the tongue. You know, the way Frost interprets black and blue is valid, but I got “what did I do to be so black and blue,” which is a line famously sung by Louis Armstrong, and so the Blues definitely are a reading of this color anywhere in her poems. Also, black and blue could more simply be a reference to skin color, the way the colors of the scarf juxtapose the blue black skin, the darkest complexion. I love the way color works in this poem, first National (the colors of the flag) and then racial (black and blue). I think its all in there.
I don’t read that far into a woman being in the kitchen. Am I turning a blind eye? I’m not sure. It’s interesting, I couldn’t find the earliest recording of “I’ve been working on the railroad.” I wanted to see how they articulate, “Someone’s in the kitchen I know.” Because there’s something really cryptic in that line! Is it someone’s in: the kitchen I’m familiar with? Is it someone I know is in the kitchen? Is it Someone’s in the kitchen, I know, as in, I know someone must be in the kitchen because I can hear the banjo?” Anyways, yes, the women were most likely to be found in the kitchen.
To what extent Mullen actually addresses or subverts gender roles or merely includes and embraces these at face-value remains to be explored. To some extent, Trimmings, in her own words, is just a list. In other words it is an artistic project–probably moreso than a racially charged or highly gendered commentary or celebration.
You bring up an interesting point, Marco. To what extend is the relative freedom from reflecting upon core identity issues a matter of white male privilege, and to what extent is it a product of an academic culture that has certain expectations and motives for reading certain texts by certain people. As you note, it is an enormously complex issue.