The New Anthology of American Poetry: Vol. III: Postmodernisms 1950-Present

HARRYETTE MULLEN

461 Harryette Mullen Ø You’d been out—at work maybe?— having a good day, almost energetic. We seemed to be moving from some old house where we’d lived, boxes everywhere, things in disarray: that was the story of my dream, but even asleep I was shocked out of narrative by your face, the physical fact of your face: inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert. Why so difficult, remembering the actual look of you? Without a photograph, without strain? So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face, your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth and clarity of you—warm brown tea—we held each other for the time the dream allowed. Bless you. You came back, so I could see you once more, plainly, so I could rest against you without thinking this happiness lessened anything, without thinking you were alive again 1998 HARRYETTE MULLEN b. 1953 Harryette mullen’s poetry explores the cultural politics of language. Her poems often juxtapose words according to an arbitrary formula, such as a letter of the alphabet (“I’ve just returned from Kenya and Korea”), or they tear words apart to reveal new words within (“yell ow”). These juxtapositions and deconstructions expose new social resonances and ideological links. The poems display humor and sparkle as well as an aura of foreboding and discontent. They avoid the autobiographical “I” of traditional lyric poetry, and yet a personal perspective definitely arises amid the verbal play. Mullen’s work bears comparison to that of other postmodernist poets influencedbytheLanguagepoetrymovement ,suchasLynHejinian,RaeArmantrout, Ø Harryette Mullen 462 Charles Bernstein, and Amy Gerstler. Her work also bears comparison to the projects of other feminists and poets of color, such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Adrienne Rich, Michael Harper, Wanda Coleman, Nathaniel Mackey, and Lorna Dee Cervantes. Mullen’s poetry exposes a range of multiple meanings within each verbal unit while maintaining a critical perspective on social and cultural phenomena. It plays with language and form to refresh poetic practice and to get at issues of gender, race, and sexuality that otherwise remain hidden. Mullen has described her desires as a poet as being contradictory: “I aspire to write poetry that would leave no insurmountable obstacle to comprehension and pleasure other than the ultimate limits of the reader’s interest and linguistic competence. However, I do not necessarily approach this goal by employing a beautiful, pure, simple, or accessible literary language, or by maintaining a clear, consistent, recognizable, or authentic voice in my work. . . . One reason I have avoided a singular style or voice for my poetry is the possibility of including a diverse audience of readers attracted to different poems and different aspects of the work.” Mullen was born in Florence, Alabama, and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. She received a B.A. in English from the University of Texas in 1975 and a Ph.D. in literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1990. Early in her career, she worked in the Artists in Schools program sponsored by the Texas Commission on the Arts. For six years she taught African-American and other U.S. ethnic literatures at Cornell University. Now residing in Los Angeles, she is a professor of English at UCLA. The author of critical essays as well as poetry, Mullen has won many awards, including the Gertrude Stein Award, in acknowledgment of her witty and original work. further reading Calvin Bedient. “The Solo Mysterioso Blues: An Interview with Harryette Mullen.” Callaloo 19.3 (1996): 651–69. Elizabeth A. Frost. “Sleeping with the Dictionary: Harryette Mullen’s ‘Recyclopedia.’” In American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language, ed. Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr, 405–24. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. Harryette Mullen. “African Signs and Spirit Writing.” Callaloo 19.3 (1996): 670–89. — — — —. “Imagining the Unimagined Reader.” In American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language, ed. Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr, 403–5. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. — — — —. Recyclopedia: Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2006. — — — —. Sleeping with the Dictionary. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Amy Moorman Robbins. “Harryette Mullen’s Sleeping with the Dictionary and Race in Language/Writing.” Contemporary Literature 51.2 (Summer 2010): 341–70. Coo-Slur Ø 463 1. Verbal play on United Parcel Service (UPS). 2. A pun on two senses of the word: receive and understand. 3. The loss of the ability...