{"id":3388,"date":"2010-12-01T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T05:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=3388"},"modified":"2015-02-18T09:26:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T15:26:16","slug":"harry-t-burleigh-meets-antonin-dvorak-1893","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/3388","title":{"rendered":"Harry T. Burleigh meets Antonin Dvorak, 1893"},"content":{"rendered":"

Burleigh met Dvorak at the American Conservatory of Music, where they exchanged ideas on music.<\/em><\/p>\n

_______________<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to hold the true sound of American love.
\nI want the hoarse silk of my grandfather\u2019s song,_______________<\/span>I want to score the moan of a splinted republic,
\nAnd I want to harness the holiness of its baptism in body \u2013
\nits steely grace. I\u2019ve got hands clasped for abolition\u2019s absolution__________<\/span>to transcribe a people singing themselves whole,
\nwith brute, open mouthed wonder. It roils
\nspilling out salvation. I want to sing his hymnal\u2019s aching__________<\/span>soul open with head tilted back. I want to shoulder this hymn
\nSwing low, sweet chariot,<\/em>
\nComin\u2019 for to carry me home\u2026<\/em>
\nto my people. I want our voices to be____________________<\/span>lifted up towards self. I want ancestral canticles,
\nburdened in nothing but glory \u2013
\nconsecrated. I carry the sound of one man singing in blindness__________<\/span>A peasant\u2019s song strapped to an orchestra\u2019s back,
\nheaved up from whole and half note mysteries. I want to be
\nbending each note into a personal benediction,__________<\/span>spirit blessed. To fill concert halls with American oaths \u2013
\nwrung out between treble and bass cleff,
\nin praise of an ex-slaves\u2019 struggle toward light.____________________<\/span>in the throes of Brahms and Blackness \u2013
\nI want to sing into the ears of nations
\nSwing low, sweet chariot,<\/em>
\nComin\u2019 for to carry me home\u2026<\/em>
\nI know the way to rapture through notes and keys______________<\/span>to discover the way across dark seas
\nriddled with worry. I\u2019ve searched out this country\u2019s shout
\nI know it from the bloody inside out______________<\/span>of shaken faith. I\u2019ve studied this country\u2019s face
\nI know how to write it down, sing it out
\nI\u2019ve pitched in its darkness like a sacred psalm______________<\/span>I\u2019ve seen it bruise the gospel storm
\nand bear witness to this American sound:
\ncomin\u2019 for to carry me home… <\/em>
\nSwing low, sweet chariot\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

_______________<\/span><\/p>\n

Author’s note:\u00a0A recent invention, the Bop was created by Afaa Michael Weaver during a summer retreat of the African American poetry organization Cave Canem. Not unlike the Shakespearean sonnet in trajectory, the Bop is a form of poetic argument consisting of three stanzas, each stanza followed by a repeated line, or refrain, and each undertaking a different purpose in the overall argument of the poem. <\/em><\/p>\n

The first stanza (six lines long) states the problem, and the second stanza (eight lines long) explores or expands upon the problem. If there is a resolution to the problem, the third stanza (six lines long) finds it. If a substantive resolution cannot be made, then this final stanza documents the attempt and failure to succeed. <\/em><\/p>\n

“Harry T. Burleigh meets Antonin Dvorak, 1893” is a\u00a0Syncopated Bop, which combines two voices into one poem in order to create a call and response dialectic between two characters.\u00a0 Each may be read all the way across to combine the voices, interstitially in order to single out part of each voice on each side, and backwards from left to right.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tyehimba Jess<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Burleigh met Dvorak at the American Conservatory of Music, where they exchanged ideas on music. _______________ I want to hold the true sound of American love. I want the hoarse silk of my grandfather\u2019s song,_______________I want to score the moan of a splinted republic, And I want to harness the holiness of its baptism in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-SE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10340,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3388\/revisions\/10340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}