The Poetry of Huckleberry Finn

I’ve known rivers:Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes

Part One: Who is Huck?Huckleberry Finn, young’un to town drunk and

perpetual pariah Pap, is an outcast. Parents warn their children against playing with him; kids find him mysterious and exciting. Poor, uneducated, wild, and ignorant– none of these reasons for 1840 to shun him– literary scholars speculate on his parentage. Is Huck of mixed race?

Cross by Langston Hughes

My old man’s a white old manAnd my old mother’s black.If ever I cursed my white old manI take my curses back.

If ever I cursed my black old mother

And wished she were in hell,I’m sorry for that evil wishAnd now I wish her well.

My old man died in a fine big house.

My ma died in a shack.I wonder where I’m gonna die,Being neither white nor black?

Author's Corner: Shelley Fisher

Fishkin

Genius Child by Langston Hughes

This is a song for the genius child.

Sing it softly, for the song is wild.

Sing it softly as ever you can—

Lest the song get out of hand.

Nobody loves a genius child.

Can you love an eagle,

Tame of wild?

Wild or tame,

Can you love a monster

Of frightening name?

Nobody loves a genius child.

Kill him– and let his soul run wild!

Part Two: Huck’s Adventure Begins

“I went exploring around down through the island.

I was boss of it; it all belonged to me”(49).

Huck’s “wave of sorrow”– namely his no-good, abusive father, the burden of a fortune, and the moral attention of the Widow and her

sister– threatens to drown him. He escapes to a literal island of calmness, quiet, and safety.

Huck can relax, certainly, but he can also think. “I knowed I was all right now.”(49)

Island by Langston Hughes

Wave of sorrow,

Do not drown me now:

I see the island

Still ahead somehow.

I see the island

And its sands are fair:

Wave of sorrow,

Take me there.

Two Nobodies“I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn’t

lonesome, now.”(52)

Huck’s discovery of Jim is more than just an opportunity for adventure. Maybe Tom Sawyer would see it this way, but Huck sees it for what it is: now he’s got someone else, which verifies his own existence. Indeed, Jim and Huck are considered parallel characters.

Twins?JIM HUCK*Father and husband separated *Young man separated from

family by slavery

*Outcast or second-hand citizen *Outcast or second-hand citizen due to race due to poverty or parentage

*Runaway avoiding being sold *Mistreated by Miss Watson and

by Miss Watson and looking runaway looking for something

to buy back family better

*Superstitious seer of the hairball *Superstition believer

*Strong sense of right (stays to *Strong sense of own heart’s dictates help a wounded Tom) (helps Jim hide and escape)

“I’m Nobody” by Emily Dickinson

I’m nobody! Who are you?Are you nobody too?

Then there’s a pair of us– don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!How public like a frog,To tell your name the

livelong dayTo an admiring bog!

"Huck and Jim" by Thomas Hart Benton

Big River

The Mississippi River, the fourth longest river in the world, is located in the central US and flows 2,350 miles from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. When it reaches Missouri, it meets the Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri Rivers, quadrupling its volume.

“Mississippi River Sates [map]”. Enchanted Learning. 2001-2008. 13 March 2008 <http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/statesbw/mrstates/msbw.GIF>.

“It was a monstrous big river down there– sometimes a mile and a half wide….” (Twain 128)

“On the Mississippi” by Hamlin Garland

Through wild and tangled forests The broad, unhasting river flows-- Spotted with rain-drops, gray with night; Upon its curving breast there goes A lonely steamboat's larboard light, A blood-red star against the shadowy oaks; Noiseless as a ghost, through greenish gleam Of fire-flies, before the boat's wild scream-- A heron flaps away Like silence taking flight.

“Take a Little Walk With Me”

-Robert Lockwood, Jr.

Some Mississippi Blues Music

“Novas of our born days”Huck and Jim are novas of

their born days. They are original humans in the original garden with the original sin threatening to undermine their happiness and freedom. The serpent of society is coiled and ready to strike. An ominous tone settles over the novel with the arrival of the Duke and the king.

“Nova” www.udel.edu

From “The Concrete River”

We sink into the dust, Baba and me, Beneath brush of prickly leaves; Ivy strangling trees--singing Our last rites of locura. Homeboys. Worshipping God-fumes Out of spray cans. Our backs press up against A corrugated steel fence Along the dried banks Of a concrete river. Spray-painted outpourings On walls offer a chaos Of color for the eyes. Home for now. Hidden in weeds. Furnished with stained mattresses And plastic milk crates. Wood planks thrust into thick branches serve as roof. The door is a torn cloth curtain (knock before entering). Home for now, sandwiched In between the maddening days. We aim spray into paper bags. Suckle them. Take deep breaths. An echo of steel-sounds grates the sky. Home for now. Along an urban-spawned Stream of muck, we gargle in The technicolor synthesized madness.

This river, this concrete river, Becomes a steaming, bubbling Snake of water, pouring over Nightmares of wakefulness; Pouring out a rush of birds; A flow of clear liquid On a cloudless day. Not like the black oil stains we lie in, Not like the factory air engulfing us; Not this plastic death in a can. Sun rays dance on the surface. Gray fish fidget below the sheen. And us looking like Huckleberry Finns/ Tom Sawyers, with stick fishing poles, As dew drips off low branches As if it were earth's breast milk. Oh, we should be novas of our born days. We should be scraping wet dirt with callused toes. We should be flowering petals playing ball. Soon water/fish/dew wane into A pulsating whiteness. I enter a tunnel of circles, Swimming to a glare of lights. Family and friends beckon me. I want to be there, In perpetual dreaming; In the din of exquisite screams. I want to know this mother-comfort Surging through me.

Lost, Losers, and Loss

Jim and Huck are separated several times (raft accident, Huck’s flights on shore, and when Jim is sold). Each feels the other’s absence sorely. As Jim says, “You’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fred’ ole Jim’s got now.” (101) Huck declares that he’d go to hell for Jim (228).

When the King and the Duke join the travelers, the dynamics of the boat change. Jim is hidden, invisible once again; Huck is submissive, as he was with Pap. Neither feel free or happy with the two confidence men. Their nonsense leads to Jim’s imprisonment and Huck’s “capture” too (back into civilized company).

Dream by Langston HughesLast night I dreamt

This most strange dream,

And everywhere I saw

What did not seem could ever be:

You were not there with me!

Awake,

I turned

And touched you

Asleep,

Face to the wall.

I said,

How dreams

Can lie!

But you were not there at all!

Nonsense and NonesuchThe Duke and the King, two frauds and confidence men,

represent the greedy, base aspects of humanity. Huck is ashamed on their behalf; humans are commodities to these scoundrels– something to sell, trade, or use. Neither the Duke nor the King have any scruples. They shows the classic signs of sociopathy

1. not learning from experience 6. chronically antisocial behavior 2. no sense of responsibility 7. no change in behavior after punishment 3. inability to form meaningful relationships 8. emotional immaturity 4. inability to control impulses 9. lack of guilt 5. lack of moral sense 10. self-centeredness

The Sociopath by Vince GullaciThe Sociopath

The heartdoesn't missa beatthe lies put the detectorto sleepand the gullibleled to the slaughterlike good sheep.

Vince Gullaci

http://www.k-state.edu/womenscenter/Wolf.jpg

Lightin’ out…“But I reckon I got to

light out for the Territory before the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before…. Yours truly, Huck Finn.” (307)

Huck knows who he is and what he stands

for. He is comfortable enough in this

knowledge to make decisions that go

against the mainstream.He also

knows what society is and what it stands for.

Song of Myself, I by Walt Whitman

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.

Click here to view Escher's Biography and Artwork

“Rind 1955” M.C. Escher

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www.mcescher.com/Gallery/gallery.htm.

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