First Poetic Entry (123rd Street Rap Poem)

Hola,

This is the first entry of the new blog!
I thought I'd share my research findings and other interesting stuff with all of you :)
Aren't I sweet?

To start with something very poetical, here a poem with some amazing words.
I had to make an essay about this poem when I was working as a freelance writer.
It's been long enough, so now I can share it with you without putting the student in jeopardy.

Please enjoy the poem and the essay. Both are on this page!

Oh.. and you'd better not copy this for any school assignments. This will NOT be accepted by your school as it's registered and online, and it will end up as 'fraud' and 'plagiarism'. Just so you're warned ;)

Willie Perdomo - 123 Street Rap Poem

A day on
123rd Street
goes a little
something like
this:

Automatic bullets bounce
off stoop steps

It’s about time to pay
all my debts

Church bells bong for
for drunken mourners

Baby men growing on
all the corners

Money that
ain’t mine

Sun that
don’t shine

Trees that
don’t grow

Wind that
won’t blow

Drug posses
ready to rumble

Ceilings starting
to crumble

Abuelas close
eyes and pray

While they watch
the children play

Not much I
can say

Except day turns
to night

And I can’t tell what’s
wrong from what’s right

on 123rd Street


Essay on 123rd Street Rap Poem by Angie 

123 Street Rap:

From African story-tellers to modern rap

In Africa, the griots told the stories of the land and within the rules and morals of the clan. They told stories and passed along the news, travelling from village to village (Streeck, n.d.). The performance of these stories, in singing, repetition and acting, was a form of teaching, preaching and entertainment, which most people liked and enjoyed watching. Due to the repetitive character of these messages, it was easier to remember and really hear the words (http://www.4secondarysolutions.com/PDFSamples/TEWWG/Oral_Trad_TEWWG.pdf).

When slavery brought the Africans to the United States, they re-invented this musical tradition in the churches and the fields (http://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/deftra

dition.html). The stories, hardships and frustration of this life in the new country are heard in early ‘blues’. This also inspired the creating of ‘soul’ and ‘funk’. Later it is heard with the MC’s in the hip-hop scene in New York. The rappers, who we can also see as social poets, could express themselves through the words and the rhythms. Hip-hop and rap became known to the rest of the world in the early 1980s. This opened up a whole new audience and in the last 20 years, many people came to like this form of poetry (Toop, 1984). Poet café’s and performance artists are now travelling the world, letting other people listen to the words and let the world now about life on the streets. Not only the songs, but also the poems, appeared on CD’s and videos, and the performances are widely watched.

123 Street Rap:

Growing up in Harlem

Around 1629, the first Dutch settlers who arrived in America, started a small farming village on the upper east side of Manhattan. This piece of land formerly belonged to the American Indians. The Indians called this land Muscoota ‘flat land’, the Dutch named it ‘Nieuw Haarlem’, after a city in The Netherlands. When Governor Peter Stuyvesant arrived in America, he built more and more houses and it really became a Dutch farming community. After the arrival of the English and the land-trade with The Netherlands, they renamed New Amsterdam, ‘New York’ and Nieuw Haarlem was named ‘Harlem’.

            During the early 1800s more people came to Manhattan and settled on both sides on the river banks. In Harlem settled many Europeans and black farmers. Between the 1830s and 1880s the Italians came, followed by East-Europeans. In this period the Germans, Russian Jews, Irish and Lebanese also filled the community. From the 1930’s the Puerto Ricans arrived, together with the African-Americans. In the 1940s, Harlem was also known as ‘Spanish Harlem’, due to the amount of Latino’s living in the area. By 1950, the population was mainly Puerto Rican and African-American. In the 1960s en 1970s, due to overpopulation, poverty and housing projects that made a lot of people homeless, the crime and violence rate went up. The neighborhood is still struggling with these problems, but new housing projects and social organizations are trying to re-built this whole neighborhood and the community (http://www.east-harlem.com)

Willie Perdomo is a Nuyorican[1] poet and writer of children’s books. Perdomo was born in East Harlem, from Puerto Rican parents. He started expressing his feelings and frustrations at a young age, when he had problems in his new school, after he was granted a scholarship for a Quaker school. There he met Ed Randolf, a receptionist at his school, who taught him how to express his feelings in words (Stavans, n.d.). After he started writing, he tried to capture the voices he heard around him and the everyday life he was experiencing (Lenon, 2007). Many people see him as the voice of a race or community. However, this is not what he says he is. He states clearly that he can not represent a whole race of people; he says that he is not important enough to do so (Lenon, 2007).

            Nowadays, Perdomo works as a teacher at Friends Seminary and the Bronx Academy of Letters (http://writersatcornell.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-willie-perdomo.html). He performs his work at the Nuyorican Poets Café and is still writing books and poetry (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/741).

123 Street Rap:

The Poem

The poem consists of 18 double-lined stanzas. It reads more as a freestyle rap than a regular poem. If you read it out loud, you get the rhythm and rhyme. The words are very clear although not everywhere grammatically correct and the author also uses slang words. This gives even more the feeling that you are reading a rap. The words are chosen carefully, but still leave room for interpretation.

            The first four lines are an introduction to the street and what the author is about to show the reader in the poem. “Automatic bullets” (line 5) can mean the bullets of an automatic rifle, but also the regularity of the bullets being shot. Shooting the bullets can be something that happens everyday and is considered something ‘normal’. The crime and violence is well-known and nobody thinks strange about it anymore. In lines 7 and 8, “It’s about time to pay / all my debts”, the author tells us that he is just as involved in this crime infested neighborhood as anyone else who lives there. He confirms this idea by saying: “Money that / ain’t mine” (lines 13 and 14). The paying of debts can also refer to the notion that time is short and life is short, specially living in these kinds of neighborhoods. The “drunken mourners” (line 10) can refer to drunken people. Don’t take this literally, but figuratively it can mean that the people are numb and drunken of despair and sadness. It will also make the people think about their own shortness of life. For sure the church bells (line 9) will be heard many times. “Baby men growing on” (line 11) refers to children, growing up fast and hanging around on the corners of the street. These children have no real future, but only crime to look forward to. Lines 15 till 20 tell us that even the sun is not willing to shine and the trees do not want to grow. It is an image planted in the reader’s head. It shows that this neighborhood does not know much happiness. “Drug posses / ready to rumble” (lines 21 and 22) raises the idea that criminal gangs are lurking on the street, ready to attack. Drugs must be a big problem here, either the drug deals that are being made, but also the drug use and abuse. The crumbling ceilings (line 23) can literally mean that the buildings look bad and that they start to collapse. It can also refer to the life that is not growing anymore but crumbling down. The street is in a downward spiral and there is no hope for recovery soon. Lines 25 through 28 picture for the reader still a place where children play, but with people praying for their lives and hoping that they can grow up as good people with a good future. The only thing that is sure in this street is that the day will turn to night (lines 31 and 32). This can also mean that every day, the sorrow is lurking around the corner and every day, the happiness looses from the sadness. Even the author, being raised here and absorbed in this community, is not able to see right from wrong anymore (lines 33 through 35). People are stuck in this life, on this street. There is no hope for a better future and every day brings the same problems.

References

Lenon, J. R. & Perdomo, W. (2007). Interview: Willie Perdomo podcast. Podcast retrieved

February 19, 2009 from Writers at Cornell. Website: http://writersatcornell.blog

spot.com/2007/08/interview-willie-perdomo.html.

Pedomo, Willie. (1996). 123^rd Street Rap. Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (pp. 15 – 17). New

            York: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc. (pp. 15 – 17).

Stavans, I. (n.d.). Transcript of Conversations with Ilan Stavans: Willie Perdomo. Retrieved

February 19, 2009, from La Plaza. Website: http://www.wgbh.org/pages/laplaza/

feature_article?item_id=2122999

Streeck, J. K. (n.d.). Historical Sources of Rap:The African-American “Oral Tradition”.

Austin: University of Texas, College of Communications. Website: http://www.utexas.edu/coc/cms/faculty/streeck/hiphop/Ancestor_genres.pdf

Toop, D. (1984). The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop. New York: South End

Press.

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[1] Is a blending of the terms ‘New York’ and ‘Puerto Rican’ and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Ricans in New York.

 Coming up in next blogs:
* Maya Angelou - "Still I Rise" poem

* Gwendolyn Brooks - "The Bean Eaters" poem

* Spike Lee - "Do the Right Thing" movie