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Sylvia Plath—original hip-hop poet
I know that a primary root of hip-hop is Jamaican toasters delivering rhymes and declamations over portable sound systems in the 1960s, and that a version of this was introduced to the Bronx by the Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc, an early pioneer of hip-hop. I also realize that the Last Poets are important figures in the genre’s birth. More generally, hip-hop is part of the African-diaspora derived “signifyin’” practices Henry Louis Gates, Jr., so famously wrote about. This is all very true. But I’d like to make the case that Sylvia Plath is one of the original hip-hop poets.
Plath occupies a strange position in the poetry world, or at least in the various ones with which I’ve been affiliated. She’s absolutely ubiquitous and yet almost completely absent. Is she among the most popular post-World War II poets among people who don’t write poetry? If so, that’s really saying something. Excluding Allen Ginsberg, almost any other poet I can think of who approaches Plath’s fame and number of books sold would still mostly be read by other poets (I encourage Harriet readers to correct me—and, no, Billy Collins doesn’t count). This partly may be because poetry is a young person’s sport (which helps explain Ginsberg’s popularity), and Plath appeals to the anguish of adolescence and post-adolescence (though her work is obviously much more). In this sense, it’s nearly impossible to believe that she was born after Gary Snyder, Adrienne Rich, and Derek Walcott—none of whom, I imagine, are avidly read by lots of 17 year olds.
There aren’t many poets I discovered in high school whom I still continue to read. Plath is one of them (Snyder is another). That’s because however much I may fade in and out over the years with the work’s content (Daddy issues? Sure, we all have them at times. Collapsed relationships and marriages? Check. Tip of finger sliced with paring knife? Yep.), her language is so chewy (so orally fixated, really) and full of savory rhymes, off-rhymes, alliteration, consonance, etc.—the subtlety as well as explicitness of which might cause even Jay-Z (or Jean Grae) to take notice.
from “Lady Lazarus”:
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
from “Elm” (one of the first “serious” poems I ever read and then copied into a notebook):
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?
I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches?——
Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.
And of course “Daddy”:
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
For fun, here’s a cluster of lines from Jay-Z’s “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”:
H to the izz-O, V to the izz-A
Fo’ sheezy my neezy keep my arms so freezy
Can’t leave rap alone the game needs me
Haters want me clapped and chromed it ain’t easy
Cops wanna knock me, D.A. wanna box me in
But somehow, I beat them charges like Rocky
Contemporary poetry has much to learn from hip-hop, the single most innovative development in poetry during the past two decades, outstripping anything produced by what’s left of the poetry avant-garde. But, then, hip-hop may have something to learn from Sylvia Plath—tortured poet of the post-War white middle class, i.e., one of hip-hop’s fabled major constituencies. I could wax poetic about how the materiality of language in Plath’s work reflects the obduracy of death and embeds her drive toward annihilation, but it’s also possible that Plath knew the most interesting poets need to have good flow.
Posted in Group Blog, Music on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 by Alan Gilbert.
Comments (20)
Alan, you win the gold medal for silliest post of the year. Your Jay-Z quote itself denies your claims for Hip Hop. Plath could only have committed “sheezy my neezy keep my arms so freezy” if she were blitzed on Guinness….
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Folks might be interested to know that Sexton actually fronted a band for a while; I hope the recordings will see a proper release some day. Meanwhile, some info here.
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I agree the Jay-Z quotation isn’t well chosen, but it takes a special kind of person to dismiss hip-hop as a poetic art form (my stepmother is one such person).
Clipse are, for my money, writing the best lyrics in the game right now: I’ve quoted these lines on Harriet before:
All the snow on the timepiece confusing them
All the snow on the concrete Peruvian
I flew ‘em in, it ruined men, I’m through with them
Blamed for misguiding their life
So go and sue me then
There’s much to admire here: the shifting sense of “snow” (bling, blow), the staccato third line miming in its rhyming rush the brutal speed with which drugs can upend a life.
But hip hop lyrics are going to seem somewhat naked outside the context of their beats; just as rock musicians can get away with incredibly lame lyrics (Neil Young, anyone?) while their guitar lines obliterate any sense of incongruity, hip hop’s poetry requires the computerized production of beats & breaks to really come across. I find Black Thought’s lyrics embarrassingly earnest & clunky, but ?uestlove’s drums compensate nicely.
Anyway, Travis, thanks for this — & for the record, some of us continue to read & appreciate Plath well out of adolescence — & teach her poetry as well.
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I meant Alan, of course — sorry, Alan! I was thinking of Travis’s post on Summer Jams, which is where I first quoted the Clipse lines.
By the way: what have you liked hip-hop-wise so far this year, Alan (or anyone else)? Not the best year for hip-hop so far but I think Nas’s Untitled (a story of politico-corporate gutlessness behind that un-title — thanks, Jesse Jackson) is pretty great, as is his Nigger mixtape with DJ Green Lantern. Other fine hip-hop-inflected records include Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals & Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah, as well as mixes by DJ Yoda & Megasoid. The Lil Wayne record is a disappointment.
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“The old South Boston Aquarium stands in a Sahara of snow now.”
“A savage servility slides by on grease.”
Oh, wait, that’s Lowell!
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P.S. obviously the M.C.’s delivery counts for as much as the beats — this is one reason Jay-Z is so great; no one else out there has his flow, though he hasn’t made a good record in a minute.
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Thanks, everybody, for writing in. I’m glad Joseph pointed out the silly element to my post; it was obviously meant to be slightly tongue in cheek. I chose the Jay-Z lyrics to mimic the heavy rhyme scheme in Plath’s “Daddy”; they aren’t meant to represent the best hip-hop has to offer. At the same time, I’m not so sure “Daddy” is the best poetry has to offer either. I slightly disagree with Michael’s point that hip-hop lyrics don’t work so well on the page (although I absolutely second his other message about the importance of “flow” in hip-hop). I’d put some lyrics by Aesop Rock or Cannibal Ox or MF Doom next to anything in contemporary poetry. I do agree that “rock” lyrics can be borderline insipid when removed from their musical context, yet who really understands most poetry apart from a larger context of reception? My favorite hip-hop album of 2008 is Why?’s Alopecia, although I’m not as much of a connoisseur these days.
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I had to chime in on this one. First, Michael, I slept on you. It’s cool to find some poets talking about hip-hop on the PoetryFoundation website. Lyrics don’t usually work well on the page. I had it in my mind to disagree with Michael’s comment on Lil Wayne and bring out some lyrics that showed how a lot of rappers are more adept at rhyme than contemporary poets, but the lyrics on line don’t demonstrate my point in the way hearing those songs do. It’s not the beat either, I think it’s because the rappers compose the verses to be said out loud, and half the time when you read them on paper it’s just an approximation of what some listener thinks are the line breaks. But if you listen to lil Wayne, Phonte from lil Brother or Ghostface you can hear how they weave rhymes in a way that’s at least as innovative as today’s rhymed verse.
This was a good post. Michael, the new Nas cd is aiight. It’s not Illmatic, but he skillfully navigated that line of art and propoganda. Still, thinking about the album makes me realize how hip hop albums succeed and fail when they try to get political in much the same way that poetry does. That’s probably why less and less poets seem to do it (I’m sure someone is going to correct me) and less and less rappers seem to do it (again I’m sure someone will correct me). Whatever the case, I guarantee a discussion on a track or two off the Nas CD would generate at least as much venenom as the talk about the poem by, was it Wright?, from a few weeks back.
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Thanks, Dwayne — & don’t get me wrong, Lil Wayne is probably my favorite artist in the world in any medium right now. That’s why I was so disappointed in the new album — Da Drought 3 & The Carter 3 mixtape were probably the best records of last year, & definitely my favorites. When he goes into that staccato search-engine thing on “We Takin’ Over” — “beef, yes, chess, feet, tagged, bagged, blood, sheets, yikes, yeeks, great, Scott, Storch, can I borrow your yacht?” — I’m thinking “This is as good as ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ — hell, it’s as good as ‘Briggflatts.’”
And I’ve loved Ghostface for years — “I bet y’all didn’t know I had a fake arm / I lost it,” what? — am even working on a series of poems in which he appears (sort of like the guy who calls Henry “Mr. Bones”).
As for some Nas venom, you’re probably right, though for my money, his most egregious crime is equating Dylan & Springsteen with Billy Joel. Mr. Nasir Jones knows something is happening — in rock & roll — but he don’t know what it is. But I love the new record, even if there are (as usual with hip-hop CD’s these days) three or four tracks I can do without.
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A savage civility slides by on Grease.
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“Still, thinking about the album makes me realize how hip hop albums succeed and fail when they try to get political in much the same way that poetry does. That’s probably why less and less poets seem to do it (I’m sure someone is going to correct me) and less and less rappers seem to do it (again I’m sure someone will correct me).” This is very interesting to me. But also confusing. It seems to say that something is always true, that hip hop and poetry fail when they try to get political. But then it also says that there is change over time, less political stuff. So there’s this big always truth and rappers and poets are gradually responding to it?
I wonder if there’s a different way to see things. Not a correction, just a question. In hip hop there was this high tide for political rap, in the second half of the eighties, when Afrocentric ruled. And at that time political rap was often better than non-political rap and also really caught an audience, like PE and KRS. But by a decade later and even now that isn’t true any more, and the best rap isn’t especially political and gets no dap. So maybe it’s not always true about political hip hop, but only true sometimes, and instead of having a big rule about it someone could wonder why some times are better for political rap than other times? And the same question for poetry?
And what does “flow” mean anyway? Technically speaking, beyond “siad it in a cool way”?
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Flow is a vocal call and response to the breaks. Flow doesn’t necessarily mean seamless. A person can be dirty and still have great flow.
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To toss out two examples of exceptional lyricism in rap, I offer up “Who We Be” by DMX and “Babies With Guns” by Aesop Rock.
DMX’s rough iambs are deceptively simple – “The projects, the drugs, the children, the thugs, / the tears, the love, the hugs, the slugs.” Rather than the sloppy bouncing among subjects of an amateur, these quick shifts serve to level everything about which he talks. He’s consciously making children and the projects, love and bullets, sonically equivalent. It’s a despair created through the rhythm/sound as well as the content. The first verse in particular sets up a distinct heartbeat rhythm that doesn’t let up, even without the beat behind it. Everything is contained in these short bursts (also appropriate to the violent subject matter).
By the second verse, the lines are straining to get out of that design:
“The streets, the cops, the system, harassment,
The options, get shot, go to jail, or getcha ass kicked
The lawyers, the part they are of the puzzle
The release, the warning: ‘Try not, to get in trouble’…”
And finishing off that second verse:
“The riot squad with the captain, nobody knows what happened
The two years in a box, revenge, the plots
The twenty-three hours that’s locked, the one hour that’s not [note especially how here, in reference to physical confinement, the rhythm breaks]
The silence, the dark, the mind, so fragile
The wish that the streets would have took you when they had you
The days, the months, the years, despair
One night on my knees, here it comes, the prayer”
The punctuation may be a bit different in the published lyrics, but you can easily read the proper cadence, and its desire to break itself, in a line like “The wish that the streets would have took you when they had you.” This is actual poetry in rap – form and content supporting and augmenting each other.
For Aesop Rock’s “Babies With Guns,” the lyrics alternate between easily accessible:
“If the Jesus piece around your neck is bigger than your pistol
It makes homicide okey-dokey, and your god will forgive you.
Just show the saints at heaven’s gate you should be on the list.
I hear he overlooks manslaughter for a tatooed crucifix.”
or
“When global terrorism’s all the rage your folk get smoked local.”
I could argue that the internal rhyme of that second selection is superb, bursting forth and increasing in density as it approaches the punchline/endpoint (i.e. the way the long O’s stack up 3:1 in the latter half of the line). Just say it aloud.
However, a more interesting point with this same poem is to point out its desire to be listened to more than once, to create odd and interesting metaphors that require active listening on the part of the audience. Consider, for example:
“…after you thumb sucking diaper chains
Give birth and shoot the school up
I duel, too, but only to exploit no brainers
Teenager beef past alligator teeth
And extra-curricular flagpole scrappin’
Amongst tadpoles that have yellow backbones
Team mechanism brought airborn shrapnel scraps to hassle captain
By the itchy index of an umbilically garped fraggle baby”
I’ve already taken up so much space, I won’t try to offer a reading of what’s going on here (as well as admitting that I don’t have a definitive interpretation for all the lines). But I want to point out that active interpretation is indeed necessary here. This isn’t slang, coded language that will immediately be understood by the proper sub-group. “Thumb sucking diaper chains” is not a key to which every hip-hop listener will say, “Oh yeah.” It’s a metaphorical poke at adults who never stopped being children. And, while it’s highly political, it’s complex. Perhaps too obscure as well, but certainly beyond the simplicity of the Jay-Z lines quoted in the article.
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I don’t mind Aesop Rock but I don’t think he has a tenth the talent of Jay-Z, as a lyricist or as a rapper — & I tire easily of El-P’s increasingly one-note cacophonies (contradiction intended).
Aesop’s word salad ADD reminds me of a lot of contemporary “elliptical” or, as one wag has it, “umbilically garped fraggle” poetry. Clever the first time around, the second time around ask someone who made it that far.
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hi alan,
busdriver’s roadkillovercoat is still the most memorable rap record to come out last couple years…07 right?
BARR is making amazing “rap” music…
there’s nothing that bores me more than retro-rap a la spankrock (a la booty/ miami bass)…actually The Cool Kids don’t bore me (i liked 1988 as a year), but i don’t think they need to release more than one album…i mean, why would they?
nerd-hop is dead, folk-hop is dead, RIP goth-hop (Alias), project blowed is done (or should be), def jux is still putting out good things when they do, slut-rap is just totally boring (goodbye Peaches thank god…), backpacker rap has been gone for at least 8 years now. and nobody in the Bay Area misses it…
i made a mistake, every boy goes through his Anticon phase right? mine lasted 4 years…i can’t really listen to that stuff anymore…sadly including Why?’s masterpiece Alopecia (which i own, which is currently collecting dust…)
M.I.A.’s paper airplanes might be this year’s best single…you kind of can’t mess with that The Clash beat…
otherwise, yeah, man, hip hop…i just don’t care anymore…this makes me sad…i’m waiting to care again…
alan, i miss trading music…hip me to something that will make me believe…like, give me another DJ Rupture…
i have sets to play, but i mostly just play psychedelic rock now…people like it…i think if i played hip hop at the places i play in SF i might be boo’d…and i wouldn’t blame them…if i was on myspace my mood would be “cynical”…
xo-johnny
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Aesop, etc. are stunt sheep. Real is:
Kool Keith
AKA Dr. Octagon
AKA Dr. Dooom
AKA Mr. Nogatco
AKA Black Elvis
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I’m actually more excited about hip-hop’s populist analogue this year, with great records already by Ashton Shepherd & Sugarland & a new Taylor Swift due in the fall.
This might be the most memorable hip-hop moment in a minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sg2DAHGHlw&feature=related. Notice all the fans singing along — what chance of headz breaking out in “Tim McGraw”?
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I’m glad people are contributing to this thread. I’d like to see hip-hop taken seriously as poetry, and Jeff Stumpo’s close reading of DMX and Aesop Rock lyrics is exactly what the dialogue needs. Really fabulous. Thanks.
Again, the Jay-Z lyrics are not meant to represent his best. He’s actually a tremendous lyricist (as Michael Robbins points out), even if the “money, cash, hoes” motifs can start to wear a little thin. (At the same time, he’s responsible for one of the worst songs—and not just hip-hop—ever: “Change Clothes.” It’s right up there with Jefferson Starship’s “We Built This City.”)
John Sakkis, you turned me on to some of the Anticon stuff, so I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a falling out with it. Actually, some of their recent releases have disappointed me as well. But I do like that Why? CD a lot. My new DJ /rupture (not that I’ve stopped listening to him)? Burial. Although I’m sure that’s old news to you.
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Yes, Burial’s two records keep getting deeper. You might check out The Bug’s London Zoo, Alan, if you haven’t already.
“Change Clothes” is indeed vile — & it’s the Neptunes, too, as I recall! But to judge from The Blueprint Vol. 2, Kingdom Come, & American Gangster, Jay-Z has, alas, fallen off — & not just from a small height, bruising his shins. Splattered, rather, across the sidewalk.
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@Michael Robbins – Regarding the music, I agree with you completely regarding El-P. I will admit to listening to Aesop Rock only as remixed by J.Kingz (look up the Rockhead EP) – Bazooka Tooth vocals over Portishead music. It works. It really works.
As far as the elliptical vocals, they’re hit or miss for me. In this case, I thought that the garbled word salad in “Babies with Guns” was impressive, if one enjoys elliptical lines (and I do – though I’d rather listen to Aesop Rock repeat these lines than, say, almost anything by Bernstein…check that, Bernstein can amuse me for up to 5-10 minutes…after that, it gets old). Many of Aesop’s other songs don’t do it for me, on first, second, or third listening. Thus I don’t bother bringing them up here. Similarly, I dig Christine Hume’s poetry. It’s complex and odd and says very different things to very different people. I don’t dig Gertrude Stein’s…creations, which I find do the same thing in a million small variations.
@Aaron Fagan – I’m not going to get into arguments over who is the best rapper (nor who is the best poet), just over what lyrics are good/useful (I’ll make a distinction there). Yes, it’s nice to make these kinds of lists, and we all feel good for being in the know about who can out-spit whom (also, different from who can out-write whom). But really, for these kinds of dialogue to be taken seriously in this context, that of THE POETRY FOUNDATION (in all its monolithic glory, may we bask therein) etc, etc, etc, it’s got to be somewhere beyond “stunt sheep” and all the nicknames for Kool Keith. Paste some Kool Keith lyrics and let us know why we should respect them. That’s what I do with my creative writing students if we get onto the subject (please note, I’m not condescending to you as one of my students, just using an anecdote). I may have been a bit snarky in tone there – my apologies if so.
@Alan Gilbert – Thanks. As a poet who works both page and stage (yeah, you can see me doing stuff on YouTube and in the pages of Fence), part of my “job” is to examine how/why certain things work. I hear some amazing work in hip-hop, even, from time to time, in mainstream/radio hip-hop, and I have to be able to explain why to colleagues and students alike. This is a great dialogue – thanks for starting it!
@Everybody – Thanks for new artists to check out!
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