16 pages • 32 minutes read
my dream about being white
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: The Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement
Clifton’s work was originally discovered by Langston Hughes who was a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes included some of Clifton’s earliest works in his anthology The Poetry of the Negro. The Harlem Renaissance was not necessarily a cohesive movement with unifying themes. It was, rather, a time in history in which many African American writers and artists rose to prominence. These included writers and artists such as Hubert Harrison, Anne Spencer, Fenton Johnson. and Zora Neale Hurston.
The Harlem Renaissance gave rise to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s, which was founded by Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) and was closely associated with the Black Power Movement. It was distinguished from the Harlem Renaissance by a deliberate separation from mainstream Western culture, focusing instead on African American culture and creating art directed explicitly toward communicating with African Americans. Reciting poetry was a way to rally crowds, and spread a message in a way that was concise, powerful, and memorable. Poets of this movement include Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, Robert Hayden, Nikki Giovani, Larry Neal, Mari Evans, June Jordan, and others. The focus of the Black Arts Movement was to reclaim pride in African culture and African aesthetic, bringing up their rallying cry “Black is beautiful.” This movement sought to unify African American communities in political and personal ways.
Poetry of the Black Arts Movement depicted aspects of the African American experience, incorporating slang and idioms their intended audiences would have heard spoken at home and on the street. They also relied on rhythm and lyrics inspired by jazz music, and spoken-word poetry and jazz became closely linked. Clifton’s poetry elevates common dialects and idioms of African American culture, using them to create lyrical language that expresses complex feelings in a small space. “my dream about being white” is one example of a poem that seeks to uphold the value that “Black is beautiful,” by metaphorically awakening from the dream (or socially imposed belief) that Black women need to look more white in order to shine.
Authorial Context: Spiritual Influences and Themes
Eventually, the Black Arts Movement waned in popularity. Critics suggested that it limited creative expression and that it focused on politics to the detriment of artistic vision. Many poets of this movement continued to write long after the historical moment had passed. Clifton’s books of the late 1970s and 80s focused on personal memoir, stories of her family, and issues of feminism and spirituality. Still rooted in African American experience and history, and still making liberal use of the stylistic techniques of the Black Arts Movement, her next set of books were more personal than political.
However, there is something about Clifton’s poetry that transcends any moment in history. This may be because of her spiritual beliefs and practices. Clifton called herself a “two-headed woman,” a type of medium who can communicate with the spirit world. She wrote about those experiences and the messages she received; however, her spiritual writings were never published. Clifton believed in reincarnation and that she had lived both as a man and as a white person in previous lives.
Although Clifton’s work was often rooted in the experience of being an African American woman and has been claimed by feminists, it often transcends temporal and focuses on the spirit above all else. In “my dream about being white” for example, the speaker seems to be aligned more with the spirit than with the body. She can go back and forth between being a person who is white and a person who is African American, presenting the question about personal identity outside corporeal form. Clifton wrote many poems that described “dreams” about being other people or about talking with herself in a dream. She wrote several poems in which the speaker is a biblical figure, such as in “my dream about being mary” and “my dream about the second coming.” It is ironic that a poet whose themes are so closely rooted in her experience of being an African American woman ultimately transcends explicit identification with the body, focusing instead on the immaterial, namely the spirit. This transcendent quality has made her a poet for all time, gaining renown across diverse audiences and changing cultural movements.
Unlock all 16 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Lucille Clifton
