We have a poem by Langston Hughes called dinner guest me dinner guests: me and it was published in the Negro digest in September 1965 at the height of the Black Arts Movement. It is Accused is of course a Harlem Renaissance poet. This is a much later poem than some of the others that were looking at. I thought what I do is just go around starting with Gabe asked one person to say to make a point any point at all some entryway into the poem and then the next person in this case Dave would respond to what Gabe said then Davey will launch a new Point Ali will respond will go around like that. So gave where you want to start sure. I think one place to start is the problem of being a problem seems to be here the way in which one person an individual who fits into a social category starts to stand in for the social category and whole and how people outside of that category will relate to the category. So in this case, The speaker is being sort of actually kind of answer for his race to a dinner table of people who are not in that race and want to have some kind of relation to him. Great Dave responded. That's a great point. I thought about that from a different angle to about how the speaker is not just really a representative but it's also depersonalizing the speaker as a person which is you know, what racism does in general in dialogue the points that y'all are raising what occurs to me is the relationship of the phrase that you go problem. They were problem to economic conditions and thinking about trust chestnuts language from 1903 video problem as quote the Practical consequences, which may be apprehended by any mind and something that I do repeat. That's Charles Chestnut. Yeah, turn of the 20th century correct and defines the Negro problem in an anthology of essays called The Negro problem as the Practical consequences would be be apprehended by any mind and something that I think about when I read this poem is the economic condition of being on Park Avenue of this presumably white audience bringing Hughes into this space as a way of masking the Economic conditions on which their wealth was produced that there that white wealth in an American context is necessarily in dialogue with the legacies of slavery. And that's part of what's being masked here. But uses presents great Ally respond to that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's valuable to just point out like markers of the like economic scene. So we have lobster we have Divine wine, you mentioned Park Avenue and even Langston Hughes or if you want to say the speaker of the poem what access are we being asked as readers to assume from him or the speaker? And how how much is he holding in his mind how he can't actually speak to vinegar problem that he's being kind of tasked with in this context. Fantastic. Anna new point. You thought that I was going to do a new point and I do it. Did you respond not ready Shoot. What is you're always ready always ready. I one of my favorite sort of moments in this whole poem is towards the end of the first stanza murmuring gently over Fred's Du Bois. I think that's such like an interesting word play and potentially play call out to WB Dubois. Hmm Fred's new bar, like really sort of delicate really kind of rare special strawberries varies with is it cream? I think that's often how their cert. Yeah, but it's frosty white like It's like fruit of the forest and then like that and WB Dubois is kind of being sort of hinted at or maybe gesture towards and this moment as like an earlier thinker figure that Langston Hughes. I think had a slightly complicated relationship with like on an intellectual level. So that feels to me like a really interesting way to kind of bring Dubois into this dialogue to boys being someone who advanced this theory of double Consciousness and education being a form of like Social advancement quote unquote and I think he uses kind of bring all that into like complicate and ask questions about what that would mean before Ambrose response. You want to add something actually either of you we get this double-consciousness works really? Well if you're reading of Du Bois and Dubois is right. I think it is. There's something about a poem that it's sort of a dramatic monologue poem in a way. It's about the speaker. That's really exemplary of the double Consciousness. There's two feelings to mentalities here. Can we put our finger on what are those two and their kind of contradictory for the speaker? What are the two kind of opposing paradoxical feelings at this person has a Nana's looking to Ambrose? What's the matter anymore? I think one place where we can sort of captured that the tension and feelings is in the second stanza to be a problem on Park Avenue at eight is not so bad. Yeah, because that's there's so much that's being packed in that not so bad part of it is well, I'm being wined and dined and you know, that's not so bad on somebody else's tip, but it's also you know, it's still that capitalized P4 problem is still there. And so he's still very much aware of the conditions under which he's be brought and those are terrible conditions right going back to Davies point about this is so intertwined with Legree legacies of slavery legacies of racial hatred and discrimination, and I'm also thinking about this Mine, which is in quotes. I'm so ashamed of being white and I can't help but feel like Langston Hughes is sort of I think he's sort of laughing a little bit at these folks who are you know, so ashamed of being white and but you know race is a social construction and and this kind of Social Scene really paints that picture really clearly and I think he does such a tongue a great tongue-in-cheek job of sort of putting a mirror back up to these folks at this table. I love the fact that you used the phrase social construction because if you think of social ass like a social occasion, this is the ultimate social construction in a way. Thank you Lilly. Annew Point. Yeah. I thought maybe we could talk about the last since Amber has brought this up already the last four lines and that like reversal of the rhyme Park to be a problem on Park Avenue at 8 is not so bad solutions to the problem, of course wait, and then the right Throughout the poem has been like more or less like a bee a bee maybe like changing here and there but that moment really stands out and it just I think it it really punctuates wait like wait period and you're like around with something but I forgot back there wait, I have to go back and look and so just thought that that reversal kind of yeah punctuates this feeling of leaving the party and being like sunken like mmm, you're saying that the word wait aside from being that frustrating thing about the politics of anti-racism taking so long 65. This was a big moment. Civil rights legislation Push by the new relatively new president. But but you're also saying that it has a meta poetic function. Can you say that again? How could wait work meta poetically. Yeah. Well, so in terms of the rhyme scheme of the poem you've waited for the rhyme and then it hasn't come so, you know because you get to 8 and you think okay I will get another line and then the one after that will be something that rhymes with eight but we had to wait till the another line and extra lines because it's been reversed or switched and then also to end up home on the word wait, it's like there should be a wrap up of some kind, you know, like we should quote unquote like you would expect there to be a more tidy ending when you get to the end of the poem in your told to wait, but there's nothing else you're like, well, I guess I'm waiting forever. Yeah Molly want to respond to that. Anyway you want. Yeah. I think that that those last few lines give us a really strong sense that the function of this function is not to actually change. That condition that anyway, this is more to alleviate that that shame that white guilt that's pointed out in the end of the first day of the and wine and I and tells us that as well like when you wined and dined somebody you're not trying to actually do something for them. Typically you're trying to convince them of something or bring them over to you. Excuse me to your side. So this really I think just shows us that this is more about making people feel better about their own history specifically the people who are throwing this party than actually taking any sort of action. So the invitee in politely when you invite someone you don't expect them to do all the work for you but in a sense in a sense literally the word weight has a triple pun to it, which is it's almost as if the invited guest is waiting on them. Mmm. Max you get to launch a new point and then there's nobody else to response with the circle all respond to you. Well, I'll look for you Max. I'm doing well. How are you? Good. I'll what kind of wanted to respond to a few things that have ever been brought up. Molly was just talking about sort of what wining and dining means right? It's mean let's just say wining and dining is not this kind of it's not a form of like solving the problem. It's not a form of like economic Justice right? So member rosanddave you have been talking a little bit about how the problem really is this this long historical societal system here that that's underpinning all of the wealth that these people are enjoying in a way by kind of turning the problem into this this curiosity something that they can kind of hang out with it doesn't do anything to solve the problem, right? So that's I think that sort of speaks a little bit more to this sense of of deferral we At the end with this weight, right like, you know, you can you can share your largesse with individuals or but you're still kind of just sharing large as you're not really redistributing wealth in a way that actually solves the problem great. I'd like to invite the responders to add new points if they want to and then we'll open it up for funnel words. So Dave you're a responder. You want to launch a new Point sure just an observation that about this political poem that it's a small P political maybe even a smaller people that are going the way that it tries to give this criticism by not criticizing these people but criticizing the situation so it's doing it in a very sort of genteel way in this setting not saying, not you people are the problem but it's just sort of this General situation, but in a sense, that's even a more damning. Because these are the types of people who are perpetuating it unwittingly. So, you know, they're always the people who are doing things intentionally wrong than the people who are doing things unwittingly wrong and unwittingly the people who are doing things unwittingly wrong can do more to perpetuate it than just attacking the intentional Bad actors. I may have misheard you but are you also saying that the poem ironically participates in the demurrer in the gentle? I mean it's irony is peace pretty severe but it it's not a I'm so angry at all of you. I'm going to my poems going to scream. Is that what you're saying to exactly? It's participating in this type of dialoguing at this Cobra this dinner conversation. That's an assist genteel elegant refined aspect. But at the same time really knowing on the part of the speaker, who knows the who knows the situation and is in a sense strategizing about how to make the best out of such an evening Ali want to Put out a new Point. I'll respond very quickly and then I'll your respond. Well, I was just also thingy so in that context you could see the rhyme and the form as as playing into the game. Basically the social game that this poem is presenting and so getting back to Lily's point the deferral of the rhyme at the end with weight is kind of Almost seems like a bit of an intentional failure. If because the rhyme which were expecting is not the thing that's going to offer the solution basically, so that's something I've been thought I've been thinking about and also just the title dinner guest me. There's something about the way that me is presented after the colon that is just an unusual way of talking about a subject and so it's there's also just this like sense of like dinner guest me, but also like what's for dinner and so like me subject as consumption as in addition to like subject as subject. Wow, that's we got to come back to that unless somebody is going to sort of naturally come back to that. I really want to return to that Ambrose your the next responder that you want to Throw out a new idea. Yeah, I mean, I guess I want to offer two small thing one has to go back to the boys who contributed to that collection of essays published in 1903. The Negro problem but is also really well known for his work the study of the Negro problem. And a lot of that work was actually done in Philadelphia and for a while at the while he was employed at the University of Pennsylvania. Yeah. And so I guess I just wanted to bring that history on to our table as we're thinking about kind of the layout of where these things were happening. But I also want to draw attention to the solutions to the problem. Of course wait in that last line. I'm not sure if that's capitalized. I'm realizing that now in this text that we have most of the first letters of the lines are capitalized, but I'm interested whether it's Langston hughes's point or ours that Solutions is also capitalized in the way that the Negro problem is capitalized and I Sort of a gin like it's Langston Hughes is having a conversation with someone who's asking him questions and they're waiting for him to respond and he's waiting for them to respond and we'll just sort of sitting there looking at each other because what he's saying is actually I don't have the answers that you're looking for the answers the solutions are actually things that are in your power and I think that's another reason why that weight is so poignant. I just see like Sam Houston and they're like you go to the web and search this poem the first couple of things that come up are you know, how do you teach this poem or a little Little cheat sheets for teachers and so forth and the word awkward as used to look it's an awkward situation and I mean it felt sort of follows. It's almost humorous how awkward it is socially awkward like who's who's been invited? What am I? What's my role? How's it going and awkward is definitely a term for a later generation because it has a very powerful ironic context. But but awkward also for those that are uncomfortable or that are ashamed right? So not every reader of the poem is going to be in the position where they might feel like the the host. There are some readers of the poem that feel like the dinner guests. That's right. And so I think when were thinking about teaching the poem that we remember, you know, not all audiences are the same not everyone will have the same relationship to the text into the experience a really important point and I'll just throw out a mansion of video in the teacher Resource Center of mom. Which deals with this problem entirely teachers really need to know something about how they anticipate their students are going to respond in various ways to this and if the teacher is white, then the teacher has to recognize that there's a kind of structural irony in the presentation of the poem. Potentially Molly. You were responder. You want to throw out a new idea. Well, not so much a new idea. But I really liked the idea of that third meaning of weight as the dinner guests being the one who's actually being asked to do the labor here. The hosts are probing and asking these questions wondering how things got this way when they're really the very people who are perpetuating exactly how things got this way and they're asking this person that supposedly they've brought there to support or to help to they don't have talked out Solutions in some way which is not not how that's Supposed to work like the people who have set up this system to disenfranchise like a star supposed to be the ones who are doing the work to correct it but that doesn't really seem to happen most of the time. I'm going to throw out three little historical footnote e things and then I'm going to invite a few people to offer some fun words. So little historical footnote anything number one the word weight in 1965 Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail uses the word wait about 50 times. This is the end and that was not not just published but widely distributed by 1960. So I think that word weight has maybe a fourth connotation, which is a reference to King basically said I'm in jail and a lot of my fellow pastors are white pastors are telling me that I'm rushing I need to wait and here's like 50 reasons why I don't want to wait. So that's one the second the Negro problem, of course goes back to the turn of the century and the black sociological discussion of it led by black intellectuals. The Negro problem also becomes a phrase used by the Communist Party of the United States. There's the Jewish problem. There's the not the nationalism problem the Communists and other sort of organized leftist through the 30s and 40s the time when the Harlem Renaissance poets got interested in both modernism and leftist politics that phrasing becomes ironic you mean I'm becoming a problem and the and ironically the left should be the more open Progressive side of the conversation, but by rendering things into there's this problem in there's this problem and oftentimes the Communist Party in the 30s would say to people who are demanding for instance to do something about evictions in Harlem the congress party. They will know this problem is ahead of that problem in our ideological plan. And so the Negro problem becomes kind of inflected by the left and the third thing 1965. So this appears in negro digest and it's hard to know how he uses figuring himself with respect to the more radical side of Black Arts. But he's presenting a situation where this black maybe intellectual or a black poet or black activist is being invited into presumably funders donor supporters, white liberals and pack Park Avenue and is making a choice that many in 1965 would start to condemn so it's kind of a brave thing for him to put this out there whether he's taking the side of someone who would make this choice to go to this dinner or not. So funny, you know to follow up on that. I just thought I'd throw that up final thoughts. Game, fun fun. Yeah, I think I want to say that to be a problem. The problem is a an issue of forum. And so the two things I want to say about that is like first of all that the title you were mentioning the title Ally, but the way that I kind of read. It is almost like a cast of characters like a dramatis personae like who's playing the role of the dinner guests me the me is so there's a way in which this whole poem is about being sort of cast. And secondly, the other problem of form is actually in that line to be a problem on going back to Lily's point about the rhyme. It seems like the line to be a problem on separates or interrupts to quatrains that are like to have a rhyme between them and that like right when that line hits then the Rhine switches from being the first and the third line, excuse me, the second and the fourth line to being the first and the fourth line and so like to be a problem kind of as a line actually just interrupts the form of the whole thing. So there's something real. I mean, they're the I think he As a kind of formulas poet is just thinking a lot about the metatextual sort of form of the poem and the form that the person is kind of taking in this social event. Wonderful thing one more final thought. Yeah. I want to come back to something that Dave started to start us on with the the way that the that there's so much control being sort of There's so much control over the form of this poem. The rhyme scheme is really really tight right up until I gave and Lily has said it kind of breaks down at the end and I really think that that is part of creating this sense of this is a really sort of structured social situation the dinner guests. It's Park Avenue. There are certain kinds of foods that are being served we can imagine the table setting has like Three Forks and you know, like the state, you know, all the stuff something about the way that it makes a lot of sense that that likes and he's would be using a form like this that is tightly controlled that the Rhymes are perfect. No, dick and Sony and slant Rhymes Here No - is nothing actually there's one - Darkness USA right after that but there's but there's just this real sense of the speaker isn't complete and total control and it's there's so much like restraint to have it then fall apart at the Moores wait. Which I just that's a really good point. There's a there's a kind of mm maybe unintended implicit empathy for the situation of a poet like countee Cullen who's often writing about the constraint that a black poet. Yes feel constantly and how we always have to keep it together as a phrase. I was thinking of that's the yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to get this together. Yeah, because it's so hard. I mean I could go off a second. Thank you all this was really good.
