This paper describes three poets, Robert Bly, Ice Cube, and Etheridge Knight, and their poetic representations of masculinity. Their works are examined using the theoretical frame of “loudness.” Each poet's work exemplifies both a positive quality associated with loudness as well as a dangerous “silence” masked by their respective loudness.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BakerD. (1981). Making a farm: A literary biography. In JonesR. & DanielsK. (Eds.), Of solitude and silence. (pp. 33–37). Boston: Beacon Press.
2.
BakerH.Jr. (1984). Blues, ideology, and Afro-American literature: A vernacular theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3.
BakerH.Jr. (1993). Black studies: Rap and the academy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4.
BlyR. (1967). The light around the body. New York: HarperCollins.
5.
BlyR. (1973). Sleepers joining hands. New York: HarperCollins.
6.
BlyR. (1980). Talking all morning. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
7.
BlyR. (1981). The man in the black coat turns. New York: HarperCollins.
8.
BlyR. (1990). Iron John: A book about men. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
9.
BlyR., & MoyersB. (1990). A gathering of men. New York: Mystic Fire.
10.
Cress-WelsingF. (1991). The Isis papers: The keys to the colors. Chicago: Third World Press.
11.
DeckerJ. L. (1993). The state of rap: Time and place in hip-hop nationalism. Social Text, 34, 53–84.
12.
DysonM. E. (1993). Rap culture, the church and American society: Reflecting black. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
13.
EllisonR. (1972). Hidden name and complex fate. In Shadow and act (pp. 144–166). New York: Vintage Books.
14.
FaludiS. (1991). Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. New York: Crown.
15.
FernandoS. H.Jr. (1994). The new beats: Exploring the music, culture, and attitudes of hip-hop. New York: Doubleday.
16.
FranklinH. B. (1978). Prison literature in America: The victim as criminal and art. Westport: Lawrence Hill.
17.
GibsonJ. W. (1994). Warrior dreams: Paramilitary culture in post-Vietnam America. New York: Hill and Wang.
18.
GilroyP. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
19.
GinzbergA. (1956). Howl and other poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books.
20.
HimesC. (1946). If he hollers let him go. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press.
21.
HooksB. (1994). Outlaw culture: Resisting representation. New York: Routledge. (Interview with Ice Cube, pp. 124–144)
22.
HoweS. (1993). The nonconformist's memorial. New York: New Directions.
23.
CubeIce. (1990). AmeriKKKa's most wanted. Hollywood: Priority.
24.
CubeIce. (1991). Death certificate. Hollywood: Priority.
ReedA. (1995, October 31). Triumph of the Tuskegee will. The Village Voice, 35.
35.
RoseT. (1994). Black noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary America. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press.
36.
RothenbergJ., & JorisP. (Eds.). (1959). A book of origins. In Poems for the millennium (pp. 733–796). Berkeley: University of California Press.
37.
RubeoU. (1994). Voice as lifesaver: Defining the function of orality in Etheridge Knight's poetry. In SollorsW. & DiedrichM. (Eds.), The Black Columbiad (pp. 275–285). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
38.
RutherfordJ. (1992). Men's silences: Predicaments in masculinity. London: Routledge.
39.
SmithermanG. (1977). Talkin and testifyin': The language of black America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
40.
TateG. (1993, December 21). Why Cube still on Farrakhan Dick. The Village Voice, 89.
41.
WhitmanW. (1980). Song of myself. In WhitmanW., Leaves of grass (pp. 49–95). New York: Signet Classic
42.
WiegmanR. (1994). Feminism and its mal(e)contents, Masculinities, 2, 1–7.
43.
WrightR. (1993). How “Bigger” was bom. In Appendix to Native son (pp. 505–540). New York: HarperPerennial.
