The Irreducible Uncertainty of Poetics in Hedge Fund Certainty: Thomas Fink

Thomas Fink. Hedge Fund Certainty. Meritage Press and I.E. Press. 2019.  ISBN: 978-1-934299-14-2

The beauty of poetics is its irreducible uncertainty.  The meanings are unmoored, allowing the reader to do what she / he would like. They can attempt to lash meanings to a limited number of options which may prove satisfying for some (especially those who consider the interpretive enterprise as a kind of exegesis). 

However, the real joy of discovery engaging in a sense of play.  The process involves observing the words, the structure, the syntax, and arrangement on the page and then embracing all the possibilities as they come to mind. 

A hedge fund is probably as far from certainty as one could imagine, so Fink’s play on the idea of certainty gives rise to ideas of gaming the system to have a positive outcome. The collection begins with “Yinglish Strophes.” All are in English, but with Yiddish syntax and arrangement, line breaks, and subjects that create an intense sense of place and of character. The words trigger a deep sense of nostalgia and loss: .. “Never later / was I back Russia the same once” (Yinglish Strophes 25). 

It is delightful to see the long poem, “Subprime Mortgage Bargain Lot” series. The title alone is amusing, because most readers will see that this has everything to do with rolling the dice and losing, seeing something you thought you possessed, whether it be the meaning of numbers on a page, or your ability to agree on a value with other readers. 

Hedge Fund Certainty evokes Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un coup de dés Jamais n’abolira le hasard (1897). Translated to “A throw of the dice will never abolish hazards (or risk)” Mallarmé created a concrete / visual poetry notable for the aleatory aspects of the word choice, and the open arrangement on the page. 

Likewise “Subprime Mortgage Bargain Lot” is seemingly aleatory, and it gives you the choice to read the words in clusters or straight across the page.  Further, the words break in unusual places and words interject themselves.  The result is a vertiginous race to the bottom of each page. It is a thoroughgoing condemnation of greed and the brutalization of humanity as wholesale wealth redistribution occurs: “Out with / your ragid / daydreaming / that costs / & costs / the hard / working” (from “Subprime Mortgage Bargain Lot 16). 

The collection ends with “Prohibitionism,” which proclaims a message of hope: a telethon for poetry, that would suggestion unity, but the arrangement on the page denotes separation into opposing clusters of words (or camps), although the last line suggests a coming together: “walls / curve  toward  one  another.”  

-- Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.

Language and Ironic Imagery in Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat"

I’ve been re-reading some of the short stories by Zora Neale Hurston. I like “Sweat” – it’s basically a “twist of fate” kind of “poetic justice” story that takes place in the 1920s in a historically all-Black town in Florida, probably modeled after Eatonville, Hurston’s hometown, which was founded by 27 individuals on August 15, 1887 (Florida History Network, n.d.). 

Delia, a hard-working black woman has worn herself out running a laundry business to support her husband, Sykes (who is often called "Syke" in conversation). He, in the meantime, grows increasingly indifferent to her as she has lost her looks due to all her hard work over the years.  He uses her appearance as an excuse to take up with Bertha, a woman who is new to town.  Bertha is heavy, and just what Sykes likes: “Ah sho’ ‘bominates uh skinny ‘oman. Lawdy, you sho’ is got one portly shape on you! You kin git anything you wants,” (Hurston, 2013, https://biblioklept.org/2013/01/21/sweat-zora-neale-hurston/). Unappreciated, and openly humiliated, Delia still tries to make amends with Sykes, but to no avail.  

Hurston was a Columbia University-trained anthropologist, who documented the language, lives, and customs of individuals and communities. She studied the people in the all-Black communities of Florida, interviewed a former slave who was on the last voyage of a slave ship to the U.S., and studied Voodoo (Voudoun) in Haiti.  Consequently, her short stories display a genius for language and characteristic cultural customs.

As for literary devices, in “Sweat,” Hurston creates visual echoes that have the potential to generate a multiplicity of interpretations.  For example, the bullwhip that Syke uses, and which startles Delia has a snake-like appearance.  Later, Sykes encounters a rattlesnake roughly the same size as the bullwhip. He decides to keep it, despite Delia’s pleas to kill it because it is dangerous and it terrifies her.  Sykes even has the temerity to tell her that he  likes the rattlesnake more than he likes her. 

“Naw, now Syke, don’t keep dat thing ‘roun’ heah tuh skeer me tuh death. You knows Ah’m even feared uh earth worms. Thass de biggest snake Ah evah did see. Kill ‘im Syke, please.”

“Doan ast me tuh do nothin’ fuh yuh. Goin’ roun’ trying’ tuh be so damn asterperious. Naw, Ah aint gonna kill it. Ah think uh damn sight mo’ uh him dan you! Dat’s a nice snake an’ anybody doan lak ‘im kin jes’ hit de grit. (Hurston, 2013, https://biblioklept.org/2013/01/21/sweat-zora-neale-hurston/)"

 

From a Freudian literary critical perspective, Hurston's use of the bullwhip and the snake are fairly obvious symbols of a male phallus and are used to represent male oppression of women. Specifically, they represent Sykes's domination of Delia, and a situation in which Delia willingly subjugates herself, since she will not leave Syke, even when she has to defend herself with a skillet.

In her analysis of "Sweat," literary critic Catherine Carter points out the way that snake is used as a symbol connecting the drama of Delia and Sykes to Biblical narratives, particularly those in the book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden (Carter, 2014).

Shortly after making the statement, the rattlesnake escapes the laundry basket and bites Sykes in the neck, killing him. In the end, the instrument of his own cruelty kills him.  Hurston makes that ironic parallel very clear.

What may not be quite as apparent is the connection that Hurston is making to slavery and the internalization of the relatively recent experiences of slavery and the consequent enslaved mindset.  The bullwhip is an image that evokes the idea of a slave owner’s or an overseer’s bullwhip. The slave owner, who was legally allowed to whip the men and women trapped in slavery, was also legally allowed to consort with any female who caught his fancy, and to openly mock and deprecate other women, including the mother of his children.

It is useful to keep in mind that Delia first mistook the bullwhip for a snake. Later, the rattlesnake, roughly the size of the snake, kills Sykes. However, given the visual analogue, one could also suggest that a poetic justice would also be served if the slave owners and overseers where killed by the instruments of their own torture.

Most writers who analyze "Sweat" focus on gender roles, the oppression of women, and women finally talking back. Those themes are certainly in "Sweat." However, Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat" is also an anthropological look at echoes of slavery's implements of torture, and the internalization of slavery's various mindsets, which range from submission, sadism, and liberation. 

Works Cited

Carter, Catherine. “The God in the Snake, the Devil in the Phallus: Biblical Revision and Radical Conservatism in Hurston’s ‘Sweat.’” Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures, vol. 67, no. 4, 2014, pp. 605–620. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2017381029&site=ehost-live

Hurston, Zora Neale.  “Sweat” Biblioklept. 2013. https://biblioklept.org/2013/01/21/sweat-zora-neale-hurston/

The Florida History Network. "August 15, 1887: Eatonville, Florida becomes one of the first all-black towns in U.S."  The Florida History Network.  n.d. http://www.floridahistorynetwork.com/aug-15-1887---eatonville-becomes-one-of-first-all-black-towns-in-us.html

 

Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.

 

"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid: A Worksheet and an Analytical Response

Jamaica Kincaid's short story, "Girl" (1978) is remarkable in the way that it captures a personal voice expressed through what appears at first glance to be either the voice of an admonishing mother, or a stream of consciousness or an internal dialogue. The voice is powerful and it conveys the identity of the narrator by means of a series of guidelines, reminders, and "notes to self" that show the social construction of identity, as well as the way that one defines oneself by means of daily tasks.

The original publication:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/06/26/girl

Because the story does not tell the reader who the narrator is, the reader may make assumptions.

In order to analyze the story, it is often a good idea to create a list of guiding questions and then systematically answer them as you refer to the text.

• How does the story begin? What are the activities? What do they entail?

When I delve into the story, I find myself a bit off-balance. It’s hard to tell who the narrator is, and what exactly is going on. My first impulse is to assume it’s an internal monologue – one of the voices that tends to inhabit the recesses of one’s mind, and which, when analyzed, tend to be a composite of the voices that we listened to and abided, which is to say we respected them to the point that we internalized them, for good or for worse.

This voice is not a very nurturing voice, and after I read further, I see that there is a bit of “talking back” so that instead of an internal monologue, it is, at the very least, a dialogue.

The question is, “Is it internal? Or, is the voice an external one?” The next question is, “How and why might it matter?”

• Who is the narrator? 

The narrative is speaking in second person and she is addressing the “girl” of the title.

There are at least two possibilities for the narrator: First, she could be the girl herself.

Or, second, she could be the mother of the girl.

• How does the narrator express her thoughts?  How does her manner of expressing the thoughts in second person impact the reader? 

The narrator expresses her thoughts in the form of a series of commands, practical guidance, admonitions, veiled insults, and commentary on the kind of life / context she lives in. The reader can detect a rage at the limitations of her life and also the need to conform to social norms and adhere to strictures.

• How does the author use concrete descriptions and vivid details? 

The passage is filled with specific names and unique terms which give the text a very unique flavor; they locate it squarely within the culture of the Caribbean, without actually saying which island.

The use of idiolect for the names of music and also the names of herbs, foods, and activities clearly locate the narrative within a specific place / time / socio-economic context.

Examples:
“Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap” (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/06/26/girl, 1978)
 (hand-washing clothes, indicates the narrator is poor or at least that there are very basic clothes-washing techniques)

“is it true you sing benna in Sunday school?”
(benna refers a calypso-type genre, characterized by scandalous gossip – indicates the story takes place in Antigua)

“when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water”
(dasheen is a variant spelling of “dachine” which is the French for taro root, a starchy plant used for different dishes)

• Where do you find repetitions?  Of activities? Of descriptions? Please list the specific examples or phrases.

There are a number of repetitions of the proper way to do household chores, but mainly the chores and tasks that a girl is expected to know

There are many repetitions of admonitions to not appear slatternly or “like the whore I know you are so bent on becoming”

• From the details provided, what can you surmise about the narrator? What does she do? What is the level of technology that surrounds her? Please list the specific examples or phrases. What might the context be, in terms of socio-economic or cultural issues? 

The narrator lives somewhere in the Caribbean and is very concerned about the proper way to conduct oneself in order to be respected within her society.  It is not clear whether or not she is poor, working class, or middle class, but one senses that she is in a lower socio-economic level because of the number of tasks that have to be done, and there does not seem to be automation or assistance.
The narrator is female. She may be the mother of the girl. If so, she is very strict and exacting, and her admonitions are very clear. They may be done with the goal of protecting the daughter and giving her a future. However, there are so many insulting and demeaning sentences interspersed that one cannot read the passage without feeling a sense of tension and creeping despair.

If the narrator is the girl herself who has internalized the voice of the mother (or the collective consciousness of her context), it is very sad because one can see the internal landscape of repression, self-censoring, self-limitation, and above all, a profound inability to accept herself as she is.

Granted, a socialization process requires some changes to be made to oneself, but socialization processes should not require absolute extermination or extinction.

• What are some of the values that are expressed in the passage?  How do you know? Please list the specific examples or phrases. 

This text is, in essence, a normative text.

It deals with social norms as well as family norms, particularly as they relate to the behavior and values of a young girl or an adolescent.

They are clearly sowing the seeds of rebellion, which may be healthy in its way, if it means being able to have the strength and courage to think for oneself.

However,  the micromanaging prescriptiveness of the admonitions (After all, why wash whites on Mondays?  Why not Tuesday? What are the reasons for the edicts?) is constant (and sets up a rhythmic structure in the text, kind of an anti-benna).

Further, the constant insinuation that there is socially reprehensible behavior just bursting to break free (“singing benna at Sunday school,” walking around in a dress “with the hem coming down and .. looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming” ) or having to conceal that nature (“they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming”), generates a remarkable tension in the text. It seems to be just the narrative to function as a self-fulfilling prophecy (!)