Agarwal
ARLT Keya 100 35327- Paris Noir
Tracing culture through Lyricism:
A critical analysis of Leopold Senghors New York and Jean Toomers Song of the Sun
In time, although the sun in setting on/ A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;/
Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet
Jean Toomers literary work Song of the Son, is a picturesque depiction of black
cultural expression through music. The poet explores the concept of black spirituality
through the representation of ancestral souls as the manifestation of his true identity, and
how he returns to preserve the remnants of their disappearing culture. He draws this sense
of belonging from nature, which he portrays as a medium for communication between his
ancestral slaves and himself, mostly through song, as the title itself implies. Toomer
inherently exemplifies the element of song through the usage of lyricism, which we can
interpret as the rhythmic and imaginary quality of his writing, making it more emotionally
expressive and attributing it with a musical trait.
Such characteristics in writing can also be seen in Senghors poem, New York. The
francophone poet aims to portray the dehumanizing experience of witnessing a city, which
is profoundly different from his own. He discusses aspects of his New York through a
culturally biased perspective, as he uses African imagery, especially from what appears to
be his childhood, to examine his surroundings; and although he marvels at the physical
beauty of New York he stresses on the internal void of life. Senghor wrote the poem in a
jazz style for the trumpet. All of his poems in his book Ethiopiques are written for
different instruments, and hence the uniqueness of each musical style gestures to the
diversity of modes of expression in the Black Diaspora,1 as expressed by Jen Bouchard, a
writer and examiner of French and Francophone studies. Furthermore, throughout the
poem Senghor refers to music and instruments, as they add to the essence of the black
experience and cultural practices in Harlem.
Both poets use lyricism as an additive flair to their musically linked works, to
highlight deeper meanings. The abundance of repetition and rhyme make their writing
seem very tuneful, and in addition, the overload of abstract images, metaphors and
symbols enhance the lyrical property of it as well. However, how can we analyze the
impact of lyricism on literary techniques in the Francophone poet, Senghors work, and
the Anglophone poet, Toomers work? How do lyricism and its affect of literary
techniques enhance the importance of musical expression to the poets, particularly in
respect to its cultural significance and transformation? This thesis will explore how in Jean
Toomers Song of the Son and Leopold Senghors New York, the poets employ lyricism as
the tool to shape the roles of certain literary techniques, and in doing so, denote the
importance of music in cultural practices and black poetic expression.
As E. Anthony Hurley explains in his book Loving Words, on lyricism in black
poetry, the poets are discovering verbal beauty in their search for a new life.2 He goes
1 Bouchard, Jen. "The Diversity of the Diaspora Reflected in Senghor's Ethiopiques."
(11/16/2009)
2 Hurley, E. Anthony, and University of Oklahoma. "Loving Words: New Lyricism in
French Caribbean Poetry." World Literature Today 71.1 (1997): 55-60. Print.
on to understand what makes a poets writing lyrical, and writes about how the
condensing of imagery purports the abstract nature of lyricism. In Jean Toomers
literary work, the musicality of images depicted through phrases such as saw-dust glow
of night and velvet-pine smoke, heighten the melodious characteristic the poem
possesses. A series of compressed visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile imagery is also
present in Senghors poem; Only listen to Gods trombones, let your heart beat to the
rhythm of / blood, your blood. / I have seen in Harlem, humming with sounds,
ceremonious colors and flamboyant scents. Such an intensity of disconnected, powerful
sights, sounds and smells ensnare the rhythmic flow of the words, magnify it and bombard
the reader with it all at once. This experience captures how the effect of rhythm is
escalated through imagery, and thus the importance of musicality in black poetic
expression is stressed on.
Symbols also play an important role in contributing to the complexity and
ambiguity of lyricism, as Toomer uses soil as a representation of his native land or
cultural origin in which his ancestors souls are trapped. This attributes characteristics of
soil, as it is an eternal yet fundamental composite of nature, to the slave song of his
ancestors, exemplifying the rootedness and undying qualities of an everlasting song, a
singing tree, / Caroling softly souls of slavery. We can also draw upon the musical
undertones portrayed through the ongoing repetition of the sibilant sound, which enable
the reader to hear the whispering song of the ancestors. In New York, black experience is
symbolized through the rhythm and blood of the tom-tom; Hear the distant beat of your
nocturnal heart, rhythm and blood of the tom-tom, tom-tom blood and tom-tom. Using
an African instrument as a literal marker for a heart, and metaphorically as a
representation of cultural origin and ancestry, highlights the importance of music in black
poetic and cultural practices. There is also an abundance of African imagery, especially
through the reference to the tom-tom, emphasizing the cultural aspect of music in the
poem. This also introduces the concept of returning to a distant way of life; and there
seems to be a sense of belonging attributed to this self-realization and reform. The
repetition of blood and tom-tom also enable the reader to hear and feel a thudding beat,
thus enhancing the lyrical quality of Senghors writing.
In Senghors poem, the city of New York is personified, and hence the poem itself
is a metaphor for the dehumanization of people; your metallic blue eyes, your frosty
smilesteely muscle and bronzed skinyour virile, copper voice, your vibrating oboes
voice. There is a cold steeliness portrayed through words such as frosty, bronzed,
copper and metallic, which contribute to the idea of a void of human emotion. By
attributing a voice to his creation, and more so an oboes voice, makes this metaphor
more pertinent to establishing the place of musical expression in black culture. On a
highly subjective level, since Senghor later refers to how his creations heart is a tom-tom
and he calls on it to let black blood flow in its blood, he is signifying the importance of
musical expression in cultural identity, and how musical practices are essential in the
transformative process of humanizing the dehumanized.
In Song of the Sun the dark purple ripened plums,/ Squeezed, and bursting in the
pine-wood air are a metaphor for Negro slaves, set in place by the author. The
extremely visual image of the plums being squeezed portrays extortion and is a critical
reference to slavery in my perspective. Conversely, there is the concept of a cycle coming
to an end, as we can connect to the line just before an epochs sun declines. There is
also a connection with nature, and an element of fantasy, making moments in Toomers
poem extremely lyrical; one seed becomes an everlasting song, a singing tree. This
underlines the importance of song in communication between the souls ancestral and the
author, highlight the oral nature of cultural practices.
Both Senghor and Toomer employ the literary technique of using repetition, and
this increasingly adds to the lyricism of their works, as it enhances their musicality and
song like resemblance. In New York repetition is primarily seen through anaphoras; I
have seen in Harlem/I have seen the festival of night./I have seen along the
sidewalks./I have seen snowfall at night. However repetition is also seen through the
recurrent use of certain words like blood, timid and anguish. This paces the poem,
such as slowing down the pace in the presence of anaphoras. Consequentially, important
lines are stressed to help build the deeper meaning about music as a cultural practice, and
as a way to humanize the dehumanized and hence transform society; hear the stopped up
anguish of your tears fall in great/ clots of blood. / Hear the distant beat of your nocturnal
heart, rhythm and blood of the/tom-tom. In Song of the Son repetition serves to
accentuate the rhyme scheme and the song like quality of the poem, making the poem
itself resemble the slave songs it constantly refers to; An everlasting song, a singing
tree, / Caroling softly souls of slavery,/ What they were, and what they are to me,/ carrying
softly souls of slavery. There is also the resounding and echoing effect created through
the repetition of the last lines in the first three stanzas, which sheds further clarity on how
Toomers poetic expression is influenced through and linked to music.
Although Toomer is an Anglophone poet and Senghor a Francophone poet, they
both seem to employ lyricism in their works through similar techniques. However the
meaning and role they attribute to black poetic expression varies, as Senghor focuses on a
transformative humanization process through varying forms of finding cultural identity,
especially through music, whereas Toomer choses to highlight the importance of musical
practices in preserving a past that he identifies with as his cultural identity. Hence, both
the poets, although they focus on cultural identity, vary in their means of attaining or
retaining it, as Toomers concept of a spiritual return contrasts with Senghors ideas about
diversification of expression through African Diaspora. In conclusion however, in New
York and in Song of the Son, the importance of music to culture and cultural practices is
stressed upon, and by exploring the role played by lyricism in these works, we are able to
gain a better understanding these cultural practices as well as the role of black poetic
expression according to the poets.
Bibliography:
1. Bouchard, Jen. "The Diversity of the Diaspora Reflected in Senghor's Ethiopiques."
(11/16/2009)
2. Hurley, E. Anthony, and University of Oklahoma. "Loving Words: New Lyricism in
French Caribbean Poetry." World Literature Today 71.1 (1997): 55-60. Print.
3. Toomer, Jean. "Song of the Son." The New Negro. By Alain LeRoy Locke. New York:
Atheneum, 1970. 137. Print.
4. Senghor, Leopold Sedar. "New York." The Negritude Poets: an Anthology of
Translations from the French. By Ellen Conroy. Kennedy. New York: Viking, 1975. 13941. Print.
Song of the Son
Jean Toomer
Pour O pour that parting soul in song
O pour it in the sawdust glow of night
Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,
And let the valley carry it along.
And let the valley carry it along.
O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,
So scant of grass, so proligate of pines,
Now hust before an epoch's sun declines
Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee,
Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.
In time, for though the sun is setting on
A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;
Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet
To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone,
Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.
O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums,
Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air,
Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare
One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes
an everlasting song, a singing tree,
Caroling softly souls of slavery,
What they were, and what they are to me,
Caroling softly souls of slavery.
New York
BY LOPOLD SDAR SENGHOR
TRANSLATED BY MELVIN DIXON
(for jazz orchestra and trumpet solo)
New York! At first I was bewildered by your beauty,
Those huge, long-legged, golden girls.
So shy, at first, before your blue metallic eyes and icy smile,
So shy. And full of despair at the end of skyscraper streets
Raising my owl eyes at the eclipse of the sun.
Your light is sulphurous against the pale towers
Whose heads strike lightning into the sky,
Skyscrapers defying storms with their steel shoulders
And weathered skin of stone.
But two weeks on the naked sidewalks of Manhattan
At the end of the third week the fever
Overtakes you with a jaguars leap
Two weeks without well water or pasture all birds of the air
Fall suddenly dead under the high, sooty terraces.
No laugh from a growing child, his hand in my cool hand.
No mothers breast, but nylon legs. Legs and breasts
Without smell or sweat. No tender word, and no lips,
Only artificial hearts paid for in cold cash
And not one book offering wisdom.
The painters palette yields only coral crystals.
Sleepless nights, O nights of Manhattan!
Stirring with delusions while car horns blare the empty hours
And murky streams carry away hygenic loving
Like rivers overflowing with the corpses of babies.
II
Now is the time of signs and reckoning, New York!
Now is the time of manna and hyssop.
You have only to listen to Gods trombones, to your heart
Beating to the rhythm of blood, your blood.
I saw Harlem teeming with sounds and ritual colors
And outrageous smells
At teatime in the home of the drugstore-deliveryman
I saw the festival of Night begin at the retreat of day.
And I proclaim Night more truthful than the day.
It is the pure hour when God brings forth
Life immemorial in the streets,
All the amphibious elements shinning like suns.
Harlem, Harlem! Now Ive seen Harlem, Harlem!
A green breeze of corn rising from the pavements
Plowed by the Dan dancers bare feet,
Hips rippling like silk and spearhead breasts,
Ballets of water lilies and fabulous masks
And mangoes of love rolling from the low houses
To the feet of police horses.
And along sidewalks I saw streams of white rum
And streams of black milk in the blue haze of cigars.
And at night I saw cotton flowers snow down
From the sky and the angels wings and sorcerers plumes.
Listen, New York! O listen to your bass male voice,
Your vibrant oboe voice, the muted anguish of your tears
Falling in great clots of blood,
Listen to the distant beating of your nocturnal heart,
The tom-toms rhythm and blood, tom-tom blood and tom-tom.
III
New York! I say New York, let black blood flow into your blood.
Let it wash the rust from your steel joints, like an oil of life
Let it give your bridges the curve of hips and supple vines.
Now the ancient age returns, unity is restored,
The recociliation of the Lion and Bull and Tree
Idea links to action, the ear to the heart, sign to meaning.
See your rivers stirring with musk alligators
And sea cows with mirage eyes. No need to invent the Sirens.
Just open your eyes to the April rainbow
And your eyes, especially your ears, to God
Who in one burst of saxophone laughter
Created heaven and earth in six days,
And on the seventh slept a deep Negro sleep.