McNair Scholars Journal Volume 16 | Issue 1 Article 10 2012 From the African American Oral Tradition to Slam Poetry: Rhetoric and Stylistics Shawnkeisha Stoudamire Grand Valley State University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair Recommended Citation Stoudamire, Shawnkeisha (2012) "From the African American Oral Tradition to Slam Poetry: Rhetoric and Stylistics," McNair Scholars Journal: Vol. 16: Iss. 1, Article 10. Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/vol16/iss1/10 Copyright © 2012 by the authors. McNair Scholars Journal is reproduced electronically by ScholarWorks@GVSU. http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ mcnair?utm_source=scholarworks.gvsu.edu%2Fmcnair%2Fvol16%2Fiss1%2F10&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages From the African American Oral Tradition to Slam Poetry: Rhetoric and Stylistics It was all good—in the hood. 1) is defined as “a language mixture, Chillin’ wit my fam, watchin’ the adapted to the conditions of slavery game. and discrimination, a combination of language and style interwoven with and My cuzn took a quick trip—to never inextricable from Afro-American culture” return a-gain, (3). In order to communicate with other And still holdin’ that bag-a-skittles Africans from various areas in Africa and and that can-a-tea—BLAHKA! with their enslavers, the Africans created Shot left my cuzn laid lifeless their own speech community by inventing lacklustered forever. a language. The pidgin language that the Africans produced combined syntactic Guess it wasn’t all good—in the and grammatical features of various West hood. African languages with English words and grammar. Africans substituted English That piece was a short slam poem words for West African words but retained many of the phonetic and grammatical Shawnkeisha Stoudamire that I wrote. Individuals who are able to structures of West African languages. McNair Scholar understand the situation, language, and intended messages in my poem are part of Due to the fact that all languages the same speech community. In his book, gradually change over time, the Black Introduction to Discourse Analysis, Malcolm English that was first spoken by African Coulthard defined a speech community immigrants from the 1600s to the 1700s is as “any group which shares both linguistic not the same Black English that is spoken resources and rules for interaction and today. The phonetics, or the sounds, of interpretation” (32). In other words, a modern Black English are closer to the speech community is a group of people phonetics of Standard English than they that share a certain language or dialect and are to Black vernacular phonetics in its share knowledge of linguistic rules for both original form. In spite of such linguistic using and comprehending that language leveling or assimilation toward mainstream or dialect. Speech communities also share English over time, distinct features of “a common set of normative values in Black oral vernacular have survived and regard to linguistic features” (Gumperz live on through today’s generation. 513). Members of the same speech Many features of modern Black community must speak the same language; vernacular can be traced back to the it is required that basic governing rules for African American oral tradition, or the Veta Tucker, Ph.D. communicative strategies of at least one Faculty Mentor original Black English dialect invented language be shared in order for speakers by Africans brought to this continent to be able to decode “social meanings” in in chains. One rhetorical feature of the modes of communication (Gumperz 16). African American oral tradition that can A speaker and an audience must be part of be found in modern Black vernacular is the same speech community for effective the high value placed on performance communication to take place. By “effective style. Smitherman explained that a communication” I mean that both parties “spoken mode for blacks, came from an in an exchange of messages are successful African, orally-oriented background” in that both parties comprehend the (77). Traditional African culture brought intended meanings in the exchanged the idea of Nommo, or the belief in “the messages. Speech communities are the magic power of the Word” to America. center of a language. Smitherman says that it was believed that, Black America, Black English, Black along with water, heat, and seed, Word Dialect, Black Idiom, Ebonics, or as was “life force itself ” (78). A newborn child Geneva Smitherman refers to it, “the had no relevance until its father spoke its language of soul”(Talkin and Testifyin name: “No medicine, potion, or magic 58 GVSU McNair Scholars Journal of any sort is considered effective without demonstrate the presence and function accompanying words” (Smitherman 77). of signifying and tonal semantics in En den he butted, en his head got The value of the spoken word is a tradition each. Verbal artistry is also described by stuck. Den Brer Fox, he sa’ntered in the African American-derived culture, a contemporary slam poetry artist. The fort’, lookin’ which is displayed in verbal performance. slam artist gives her views on slam poetry. Lastly, an original poem that I wrote in the dez ez innercent ez wunner yo’ Verbal performance is exhibited in mammy’s mockin’-birds. all forms of African American verbal opening of this paper will be analyzed. arts, including the telling of mythical and Using descriptive linguistics and “’Howdy, Brer Rabbit’, sez Brer Fox, folk stories, sermons, and jokes. When discourse analysis scholars have identified sezee. ‘You look sorter stuck up dis speaking about slam’s new existence, Marc common strategies and verbal devices that mawnin’, Kelly Smith states that “it is an extension have evolved from early Black English sezee, en den he rolled on de groun’, of the spoken-word tradition, which is vernacular. I will begin this paper by also en laft en laft twel he couldn’t laff no thousands of years old” (26). Spoken using descriptive linguistics and discourse mo’. (lines 29-32) performance has had an important place analysis to show continuities between in Black English and it is folded into a slam poetry and early Black vernacular. I While the fox simply stated that continuum from centuries ago to the 1960s will describe in detail two communicative the rabbit looked stuck up in line 31, his and 1970s and into the slam poetry of strategies, signifying and tonal semantics, laughter afterwards in line 32 is a clear today. Stephen Henderson, a theorist from and their rhetorical functions in the indication that the fox was signifying on Howard University and spokesman for the Black English folktale, “The Wonderful Brer Rabbit’s predicament. The laughter 1960s and 1970s Black Arts Movement, Tar Baby,” Nikki Giovanni’s 1968 poem, is an important part of the context said, “there is this tradition of beautiful “Beautiful Black Man,” and Christina that tells the audience to interpret the talk with us—this tradition of saying Jackson’s poem, “Baby Brother.” phrase “stuck up” as a joke in addition things beautifully even if they are ugly The first of the two communicative to interpreting it literally. The fox found things. We say them in a way which takes strategies I will describe is signifying. a clever and indirect way to state that the language down to the deepest common There are many forms of signifying, rabbit had been tricked. level of our experience while hinting still but in its simplest definition, Henry Signifying also appears in Nikki at things to come” (Rickford 15). In other Louis Gates, Jr. defines signifying as words, oral performance in the Black Arts Giovanni’s “Beautiful Black Men,” a “repetition and revision, or repetition poem published in the 1960s during Movement was praised for its ability to with a signal difference” (xxiv). This is help an audience understand a performer’s the Black Arts/Nationalist Movement. to say that in order to signify, there must Nikki Giovanni, whose works emerged reality. During an interview with a modern be a prior speech, act or text, which a Michigan slam poet who goes by the artistic in the 1960s, is the author of a number subsequent speaker or writer can re-use of books of poetry for both adults and name Shewrights, Christina Jackson stated, in a different way than the original. In “it would be really nice when spoken word children. She is one of the most celebrated addition, signifying also refers to indirect and controversial poets in the Black Arts is not considered, like, the graffiti of poetry encoded messages. Mitchell-Kernan’s and. .I know how important story telling Movement and her piece, “Beautiful definition of signifying stresses not only a Black Men,” contributed to The New York is.” This is to say that Jackson, a young prior text, but also “the establishment of artist in the twenty-first century, values the Times crowning Giovanni as the “Princess context, which may include antecedent of Black Poetry.” The images of black skill of oral performance and understands conditions and background knowledge as how essential it is to what she likes to call men have been seen everywhere in films, well as the context in which the [speech] photos, and everyday life, but Giovanni her “artivism,” a unique blend of art event occurred” (165). and activism. Verbal performance, in its describes the beauty of these images in the continuation from early Black vernacular Signifying appears in “The Wonderful same way she perceived them to be in the to the Black Arts Movement, has endured Tar Baby,” a black vernacular story sixties. This poem signified on a message and with the aid of the hip-hop music narrated by an enslaved African American about the struggles of being a black man in culture in the 1980s, gave birth to its latest first written down by Joel Chandler Harris the 1960s in the following passage: verbal innovation: slam poetry.