Projective Poetics, Black Arts Movement and Epic Poetry

Carolyn Rodger’s How I Got Ovah fuses projective poetics with the Black Arts Movement aesthetics. Charles Olson, in his manifesto Projective Verse,  argues that, in poetry, there is no need for an appeal to the senses because the reader should be propelled by the energy of the breath, which is governed by syllables and lines. In effect, syntax is shaped by sound.  Olson’s theory is immediately recognizable in the title of Rodger’s How I Got Ovah. First, the title begs the question, “Over what?” Second, the act of ‘getting over’ something is propulsionary in nature, mimicking Olson’s theory of poetics.  Third, and most importantly, it is onomatopeic. The assonance of the ‘O” ties the line together, producing the effect of a single breath that does not terminate at the line’s end. Rather, it “propels” the reader into the first line of the poem. 

The first line follows a similar pattern: i can tell you, which begs the question, “Tell me what?”  However, this time the line ends in a long “O” sound with the word “you”.  This does not create an effect that “propels” the reader forward to the next verse. Rather, it dangles and holds the reader in suspense. In this case, it could be argued that the suspense is also emblematic of Olson’s poetics in so much as Olson believed that projective verse could sustain modern epics, which, like the first line of Rodger’s poem, begin with suspense: They suggest a story is about to unfold. However, even more significant, Rodger’s first line i can tell you alludes to the epic poetry of Virgil’s The Aeneid, “Of man and war I sing” (Arma virumque cano). Thus, beyond the evident themes of the power of storytelling as an instrument for the transmission of cultural identity; the establishment of national identity; and therefore, a cultural one—none of which can be accomplished without trial, tribulation, and war, there is also the idea of the founding of a new city. As Aeneas of the Aeneid founded the new city of Rome (caput mundi), the Black Arts Movement’s (BAM) paradigmatic shift breaks away from the writers of the diasporic themes and cultural tropes of the Harlem Renaissance and leans toward a new black aestheticism antithetical to Western culture. For example, James Stewart in The Development of the Black Revolutionary Artist  explains,

For this reason, we are misfits, estranged from the white cultural present. This is our position as black artists in these times. Historically and sociologically, we are the rejected. Therefore, we must know that we are the building stones for the New Era. In our movement toward the future, “ineptitude” and “unfitness” will be an aspect of what we do. These are the words of the established order-the middle-class value judgments.  We must turn these values in on themselves. Turn them inside out and make ineptitude and unfitness desirable, even mandatory. We must even, ultimately, be estranged from the dominant culture. This estrangement must be nurtured in order to generate and energize our black artists.  This means that he can not be “successful” in any sense that has meaning in white critical evaluations. Nor can his work ever be called “good” in any context or meaning that could make sense to that traditional critique. 

Thus, Olson’s influence was evident from the first line with syllables that propel but do not terminate, leaving you to dangle, in suspense reflective of an epic while simultaneously alluding to the epic poetry of Virgil. However, BAM’s influence, as outlined by Stwart above, is also evident—albeit more subtle. Lines 2, 3, and 4 of Rodger’s poem present the themes of the Afro-American socio-political struggle and the importance of their cultural heritage, which the poet can tell you. While line 2 is still playfully enigmatic with the simple phrase about them, it is designed for the reader to ask, “About whom?” building the suspense. We learn in lines three and four that the “who,” symbolized in the streams of tears, is both the poet’s history and the collective history of African Americans. 

The poem, on the whole, follows this same projective structure of “open” lines, which is quite conversant in nature. Thematically, as previously mentioned, it weaves themes of storytelling, salvation, redemption, community, and ancestry. However, the metaphor of crossing the river, complemented with phrases that evoke the sounds of spirituals and black gospel music, is strewn throughout the poem, underscoring the poet’s (and the collective’s) indebtedness to her cultural heritage. For example lines 15 through 24: 

i have shaken the water free of my hair

have kneeled on the banks

and kissed my ancestors of the dirt

whose rich dark root fingers rose up reached out

grabbed and pulled me rocked me cupped me

gentle strong and firm

carried me

made me swim for strength

crossed rivers

though I shivered

Here, her ancestors, whose dark root fingers, grabbed her, rocked her, and gave her strength to cross the river from their bank to the bank of her contemporaries (the electric beats of line 11), are layered with Afro-American social-political and cultural allusions: the slaves who fought for the freedom of future generations; the artists of the Harlem Renaissance; and the Martin Luther Kings and Malcolm X’s of her generation. From this perspective, one can appreciate how this poem is steeped in layers of African American history: Their epic journey, encapsulated in particular in the verse, whose rich dark root fingers rose up reached out.  This verse is so rhythmic. The alliterative “R” evokes the beats of the blues while the poet sings of servitude and rebellion. One could even stretch an interpretation of the phrase root fingers rose up reached out to another classical allusion, the “Rosy-Fingered Dawn” of the other great epic, The Odyssey. 

In any case, Carolyn Rodger’s How I Got Ovah, is riveting. Fused with projectivist poetics, BAM aesthetics, and classical allusions. It’s a poem. It’s an epic poem. It’s an epic poem by a New Era black artist. It draws upon the musical traditions of the spirituals from which the blues were born to recollect its story. The power of storytelling is inextricably tied to the beauty of epics. They celebrate our humanity.  Rodger sings so beautifully of her people’s collective struggle, weaving and layering elements within, and upon that, “i” was right there shivering with her as she crossed the waters of time and space.