Flowers For Socrates

First posted for Black History Month – February 26, 2016.  Updated and expanded – February 8, 2019

by Nona Blyth Cloud

Call-and-response is one of the most ancient forms of human expression  — in music, it is a phrase played by a musician or a group of musicians which is answered by another musician or group of musicians.

It is also part of prayer in many religious traditions, and often used at political rallies, before going into battle, or at sporting events to build the enthusiasm and commitment of the participants or onlookers.

The  response can be an echo of the original phrase, a variation on it or a chanted answer.

Call-and-response is a part of many African cultures, and the African variants came to the Americas with the captives brought across the Atlantic and sold into slavery. It is a frequent component of African American music, from spirituals to blues, from jazz through rock-n-roll to hip-hop.

Poetry and music are close kin, and often entwined – lyrics partnered with music. So it is not surprising that poets engage in call-and-response. A painting opens a dialogue in the poet’s imagination, a passage written by one writer becomes the inspiration for the work of another, sometimes spinning in a new direction, sometimes continuing on the same line as the initial work.

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In the case of The Mothers by Robin Coste Lewis, it is a “conversation” she is having with Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000), responding to this Brooks poem:

kitchenette building

by Gwendolyn Brooks

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong
Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”

But could a dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms

Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

The Mothers

by Robin Coste Lewis

for and after Gwendolyn Brooks
for and after the Kitchenette Building

We meet – sometimes – between the dry hours,
Between clefts in the involuntary plan,
Refusing to think of rent or food – how
Civic the slick to satisfied from man.

And democratic. A Lucky Strike each, we
Sponge each other off, while what’s grayed
In and gray slinks ashamed down the drain.
No need to articulate great restraint,

No need to see each other’s mouth lip
The obvious. Giddy. Fingers garnished
With fumes of onions and garlic, I slip
Back into my shift then watch her hands – wordless –

Reattach her stockings to the martyred
Rubber moons wavering at her garter.

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