Wednesday, Sept 12 The Day Lady Died

Reminders: Vocabulary 1 is due Friday..
New Homework due Friday,  14 September: Both Meerpol's and O'Hara's poems were inspired by an ephiphany, that is a moment of deep insight impacts one's perspective on life. In approximately 250-300 words, describe such an occassion that you have experienced. Use vivid descriptive language to create a sense of place. These should be typed with an MLA heading.
In class: we are reading and analyzing the following two poems as a connection to the historical black images we looked at last Friday.
 

The Day Lady Died                                    FRANK O'HARA

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday                            

 three days after Bastille day, yes            July 14 French                                                                  

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton                      town on Eastern Long Island
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy                      milkshake
an ugly new world writing to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days                                                     west African country
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)                      name of narrator’s  bank teller
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the golden griffin I get a little Verlaine                                  New York bar         French poet
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do                         French artist
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or                                  ancient  Greek poet             
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres                     Irish poet      two plays by Genet
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine                  controversial French poet / playwright      
after practically going to sleep with quandariness                       a state of perplexity or uncertainty
and for Mike I just stroll into the park lane
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and                      an Italian herbal liquor
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and                    theatre in NYC
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton                 French cigarettes
of Picayunes, and a new york post with her face on it               French cigarettes       New York
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 spot                                            restaurant
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing                  American jazz composer
1959

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs)  Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit    by Abe Meerpol’s

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
 Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
 For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
 For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.