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Biography
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Michael S. Harper received
degrees from what is now known as California State University
and completed an M.F.A. at the University of Iowa. Harper
grew up in a family of storytellers where the blues and jazz
were played, and much of his poetry, with its variations
on a theme and its improvisational feel, reflects these influences.
Concerned with the often painful historical legacies of family
and race, Harper composes poems that engage and recover both
personal and black history. His collections include Dear
John, Dear Coltrane (1970), Nightmare Begins Responsibility (1975), Healing
Song for the Inner Ear (1985), and Honorable Amendments (1995).
Explorations
The Harper selections in NAAL show considerable
range and a kind of experimentation also seen in some contemporary
minority prose writers: an attempt to energize and expand
the literary voice by drawing upon musical traditions and
forms. However, Harper is acutely aware that all poetry,
including his own, converses with other poetry, including
verse from American traditions which are both "other" and
close kin. His own collections go to literary journals and
bookstores, where they are commonly shelved in alphabetical
order somewhere between Dickinson and
Pound as well as in the shelves devoted to African American
writers. Harper knows, in other words, that to be an American
minority poet is to be both a "minority" and an American,
and in his work Harper claims the dignity of both literary
identities.
1. The title Nightmare Begins Responsibility (1975)
invokes Yeats and Schwartz, both of whom were artistic
rebels in their respective historical moments, but both
of whom were also members of a white poetic tradition.
Describe ways in which this poem echoes and resists that
tradition. Why does Harper frequently use italicized phrases
and lines in this poem? What do those moments suggest to
you?
2. Tongue-Tied in Black and White (1975) is addressed
to Berryman, who had committed
suicide three years before this poem was published. Is
the poem an elegy? A tribute? A quarrel with a dead artist?
Describe the tone and viewpoint of this poem and its overall
intention.
3. Deathwatch (1970) is about a private experience,
the loss of a child. Martin's Blues (1971) and Bird
Lives: Charlie Parker in St. Louis (1972) are both
addressed to well-known public figures. Each of the poems
ends with repeated phrases. Why? What is the effect in
each case? Is it musical? Thematically important? Do these
final words actually end their respective poems -- or leave
them open-ended?
Other sites to consult: Four
poems by Harper, "A Mother Speaks: The Algiers
Motel Incident, Detroit"; "Nightmare Begins Responsibility"; "Reuben,
Reuben"; and "Dear John, Dear Coltrane."
Celebrating
Harper, an online exhibition on the life
and work of Harper, hosted by Brown University. Includes
photographs, exhibition text, and a bibliography.
Epistrophy Harper
page, part of a larger site on jazz in twentieth-century
literature, the Harper page includes selected poems
and a bibliography on Harper and music.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/harper/harper.htm:
Modern American Poets’ page about Michael S. Harper.
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=283: The Academy
of American Poets’ Michael S. Harper page.
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