Summary Of The Black Scholar By Etheridge Knight

Etheridge Knight wrote an article for The Black Scholar, called “On the Oral Nature of Poetry”, in which he correlates poetry to the physical and tangible world and argues that poetry is an oral art, not a written one. He relates poetry and music in their ability to physically affect someone with their powerful rhythm and claims that ignoring structure and rhyme is “...like a carpenter throwing away a hammer out of his kit,” (Knight, 92). Despite the criticism of ignoring basic structure, Knight believes that it is unnecessary to be unnecessarily restricted to form. He jokes that “The English might breathe in iambic pentameters, but we don't take in air like that,” (Knight 93). Poetry is akin to breathing, the construction of poems is affected

The poem lacks any punctuation, except for a lone hyphen concluding the first stanza. This lack of punctuation causes the poem’s rhythm to be highly dependent on the orator reading the poem and demonstrated Knight’s high regard for poetry as an oral art rather than a written one. The poem starts off sounding like a prayer, “Lord she’s gone done left me,” (Feeling Fucked Up 1). Because of the religious tone Knight starts the poem with, the poem takes on the likeness of a verbal confession, an explanation for his rage. In addition, the repetition of the “-one”sounds adds a resounding anguished tone. Etheridge Knight touched on a similar association of the in his “On the Oral Nature of Poetry,” he relates the “oh” sound to sadness, using "Lenore" and "Nevermore” from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” as examples (On the Oral Nature of Poetry 93). Knight continues to resonate our souls with his vocal poetry, “bare / bright bone white crystal sand glistens / dope death dying and jiveing drove,” (Feeling Fucked Up 3-5). These three lines effectively make up two similarly constructed verses: in both there is a string of alliteration and have two rhyming words separated by a different word. The goal of this repetition to draw attention to the addiction that Knight suffered, and presumably the reason his girlfriend left

This sole punctuation mark signifies Knight’s derailed train of the explanation and becoming lost in the memory of his departed girlfriend. Additionally the pause the hyphen implies also marks a transition to the anger laced second stanza, in which Knight curses out everything from music to political figures to Christianity. Like in “The Idea of Ancestry,” Knight uses a repetitious list to reinforce sonic resonance and pull the audience into the poem. The word “fuck” acts a stabilizing point and driving force of the oral nature of the second stanza. The use of “fuck” may seem excessive, but without it the stanza becomes a disjointed string of words loses its rhythm and its powerful despair. While “fuck” forms the structure of the second stanza, the meat of the section is what Knight is cursing out. That is to say everything he enjoys: Coltrane, smack, red ripe tomatoes, etc. Cursing out this list in particular shows that Knight is willing to give up anything and everything and shows the exact extent of his sorrow. This depression is exemplified with the poem ending with the rhyming lines, “the whole motherfucking thing/ all I want is my woman back / so that my soul can sing,” (Feeling Fucked Up 16-18). When Etheridge Knight speaks these lines, there is an air of finality and longing to the words that the rhyme only helping to emphasize the resounding