the African American Intellectual Traditions Initiative
8 episodes
2 months ago
Yusef Komunyakaa’s war poem, “Latitudes,” begins with a curious sentence: “If I am not Ulysses, I am/ his dear, ruthless half brother.” Chi and Chad discuss what this poem has to say about the aftermath of wars ancient and modern and the power of the subjunctive.
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Yusef Komunyakaa’s war poem, “Latitudes,” begins with a curious sentence: “If I am not Ulysses, I am/ his dear, ruthless half brother.” Chi and Chad discuss what this poem has to say about the aftermath of wars ancient and modern and the power of the subjunctive.
Phillis Wheatley was both the first African American woman to publish poetry and a poet deeply engaged with the classical works of antiquity. Chi and Chad discuss how writers and readers have dealt with that complex legacy through Robert Hayden’s 1976 poem, “A Letter from Phillis Wheatley, London 1773.”
Old-School
Yusef Komunyakaa’s war poem, “Latitudes,” begins with a curious sentence: “If I am not Ulysses, I am/ his dear, ruthless half brother.” Chi and Chad discuss what this poem has to say about the aftermath of wars ancient and modern and the power of the subjunctive.
