Multicultural poets.

[Empty Chairs]

We're studying these at school, and this struck me:

Hungry Ghost

Today I went shopping with my father
after many years. I felt I was back
in time to when I'd follow grandfather
to the market, smelling the spicy scents,
drinking the sights and mingling with the shouts.
Neither buyer nor seller, I would float
like a restless spirit, hungry for life.

The market is bigger. I have grown too.
There are more goods as distances have shrunk.
The prices are higher. I understand
about money and, alas, its bondage
of buyers and sellers. Almost I wish
I was again that hungry ghost, watchful
and floating through the world's noisy bazaar.

by Debjani Chatterjee

[romac]

On an Afternoon Train from Purley to Victoria, 1955

Hello, she said, and startled me.
Nice day. Nice day I agreed.
I am a Quaker she said and Sunday
I was moved in silence
to speak a poem loudly
for racial brotherhood.

I was thoughtful, then said
what poem came on like that?
One the moment inspired she said.
I was again thoughtful.

Inexplicably I saw
empty city streets lit dimly
in a day’s first hours.
Alongside in darkness
was my father’s big banana field.

Where are you from? she said.
Jamaica I said.
What part of Africa is Jamaica? she said.
Where Ireland is near Lapland I said.
Hard to see why you leave
such sunny country she said.
Snow falls elsewhere I said.
So sincere she was beautiful
as people sat down around us.

James Berry (who arrived in Britain in 1948)

[Jee Leong]

Is white not a culture? Is Shakespeare not a multicultural writer too, whatever the phrase means?

[romac]

Originally posted by Jee Leong
Is white not a culture? Is Shakespeare not a multicultural writer too, whatever the phrase means?

Jee
I could be interpreting this wrongly, but I assume that "multicultural" refers to poets who are writing within a cultural milieu that is different from the one in which they were brought up, and whose poetry engages in some way with life in the new culture.
However, you make a good point, as I bet university courses wouldn't include white European writers who have settled in Asia or Africa, say. Or even people like me who come from Northern Europe and sometimes write about life in Southern Europe where the culture is very different.
I think the theme is an interesting one though.

[gwen]

Originally posted by Jee Leong
Is white not a culture? Is Shakespeare not a multicultural writer too, whatever the phrase means?

Well, it's a dodgy word, but I think the idea here is poetry specifically about or grounded in the interaction of cultures, rather than poetry from any one particular culture. So I'd say that Shakespeare isn't multicultural in the same way that the Mahabharata isn't multicultural -- both are grounded in one very specific self-contained cultural tradition. Contrast someone like Salman Rushdie (though he's not a poet) whose books very deliberately try to engage with two different cultures and their modern interaction.

gwen

[MEHope]

Is white not a culture? No. Black is not a culture either. There are many cultures within the White race, the Asian race, the Black race etc...funny that my husband and I grew up in two different areas of the country & of different races, but our "cultures" are very similar.


cul·ture n.

The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty.
These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture.

The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization.
Intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it.

Development of the intellect through training or education.
Enlightenment resulting from such training or education.
A high degree of taste and refinement formed by aesthetic and intellectual training.
Special training and development: voice culture for singers and actors.
The cultivation of soil; tillage.
The breeding of animals or growing of plants, especially to produce improved stock.
Biology.
The growing of microorganisms, tissue cells, or other living matter in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
Such a growth or colony, as of bacteria.

tr.v. cul·tured, cul·tur·ing, cul·tures
To cultivate.

To grow (microorganisms or other living matter) in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
To use (a substance) as a medium for culture: culture milk.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Middle English, cultivation, from Old French, from Latin cultra, from cultus, past participle of colere. See cultivate.]
Usage Note: The application of the term culture to the collective attitudes and behavior of corporations arose in business jargon during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unlike many locutions that emerge in business jargon, it spread to popular use in newspapers and magazines. Few Usage Panelists object to it. Over 80 percent of Panelists accept the sentence The new management style is a reversal of GE's traditional corporate culture, in which virtually everything the company does is measured in some form and filed away somewhere. · Ever since C.P. Snow wrote of the gap between “the two cultures” (the humanities and science) in the 1950s, the notion that culture can refer to smaller segments of society has seemed implicit. Its usage in the corporate world may also have been facilitated by increased awareness of the importance of genuine cultural differences in a global economy, as between Americans and the Japanese, that have a broad effect on business practices.



mul·ti·cul·tur·al adj.

Of, relating to, or including several cultures.
Of or relating to a social or educational theory that encourages interest in many cultures within a society rather than in only a mainstream culture.

[emitchel]

In the American school system, "multicultural" has come to mean the opposite of "dead white men." In multicultural curricula, the goal is to be more diverse than traditional curricula, making sure to include literature, history, etc., from the cultures of Americans who are not of European descent. Robert Frost, for example, is a dead white man. Alice Walker is not.

I'm going to guess that this is what E.C. meant, but only she can confirm that.

[Empty Chairs]

Whoo, debate. Didn't see that coming! The syllabus is actually called "Poetry from other cultures:" I interpreted that as being multicultural because the writers' backgrounds mainly suggested a familiarity with "our" (English/British/Whatever) culture as well as some faraway place. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I misused the word. I apologise if I did.

Laura Mary