Synopses & Reviews
A central theme of this memoir by poet and translator Willis Barnstone is that of labels--names, ethnicities, all distinctions that cause suspicion, anger, and destruction. A fresh and significant contribution to American letters, We Jews and Blacks wrestles with problems of identity, difference, and the human condition. It is a dramatic, whimsical, and literary work that also contains a number of Barnstone's poems, which offer a second view of an event, a crystallization of his thinking, both sorrowful and joyful. The book includes a dialogue with Yusef Komunyakaa and a small selection of his poems.
Review
"A work of profound intelligence and utter humanity; it is intensely engaging, exquisitely playful, unabashedly erudite without a trace of pretension, and radiant with love for fellow creatures." --Andrei Codrescu Indiana University Press Indiana University Press Indiana University Press
Review
"[A] moving, and at times astonishing, memoir... it sparkles and informs with intelligence and good intentions." --Publishers Weekly Indiana University Press
Synopsis
A poignant memoir that wrestles with problems of identity, difference, and the human condition
About the Author
Willis Barnstone, distinguished poet and translator, is author of two other memoirs. He is perhaps best known for his translation of The Gnostic Bible. He lives in Oakland, California.
Yusef Komunyakaa is distinguished senior poet at New York University. He has received numerous awards, including the William Faulkner Prize (Université Rennes, France), the Ruth Lilly Prize for Poetry, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His latest book is Gilgamesh, a verse play. He lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
Contents<\>Acknowledgments
Verse 1 A Chat with the Reader
The Hell Face of Sacred DistinctionsThe PlotVerse 2 Jews and Blacks of Early Childhood
Swans over ManhattanAnatole Broyard (192090), the InventorWhat Was a Jew?Dad Grew Up in the StreetsLanguages of the JewsSpanish JewsVerse 3 Jews and Blacks of Early Adolescence
"At the Red Sea," by Yusef KomunyakaaAssimilation and Passing under the Shadow of War and HolocaustYehuda Maccabee and Hellenization of the JewsGnosticism and Other HeresiesA Summer Camp in Maine with the Scent of PalestineSammy Propp of the Black ShoesBlack PeopleLeah ScottMy Unseen Black Grand-StepmotherOthelloReading the Bible in HebrewBar Mitzvah"Othello's Rose," by Yosef KomunyakaaVerse 4 Early Jewish Corruption and Bayard Rustin, the Black Nightingale
Early CorruptionYeshua ben Yosef Passing as Jesus ChristSo Long, SammyOff to the QuakersBayard Rustin, the Black Nightingale Singing His People into the Heart of the Makers of the Underground RailroadMore Deadly Application BlanksVerse 5 Jews and Blacks in College, and Freedom in Europe
Bowdoin College: The Jewish and Black Ghetto in Old Longfellow HallA Letter to The NationComing Out of My Own Ghetto of SilencesOff to Europe, Where Old-Fashioned Bigotry Is Huge, yet Now Who Cares? Not MeChanging Money on the Rue des Rosiers and Getting Married by the Grand Rabbi of ParisVerse 6 Having Fun at Gunpoint in Crete
Working in Greece for the KingWhite Islands and Northern Monasteries on Huge StalagmitesThessaloniki, a City of PeoplesGreeks and Jews and Blacks and RussiansJews, Greeks, and Romans in AlexandriaCavafy and His Poem "Of the Jews (A.D. 50)"Romaniot Jews in ByzantiumThe Sephardim in Muslim SpainJews and Greeks in ThessalonikiFacts on the SlaughterThessaloniki and Absence Days and Nights with Odysseus on the Way to Holy AthosThe Madness of a Jew Trying to Marry in a Greek Orthodox Church in CreteVerse 7 A Black and White Illumination
Friendship in Tangier with a French Baroness Who Told Me I Had Killed Her LordVerse 8 "Sound Out Your Race Loud and Clear"
A Jewman in the U.S. ArmyA Touch of FreedomFort Dix: "I'm Black and My Balls Are Made of Brass" "Sound Out Your Race, Loud and Clear! Caucasian or Negra!" Yelled the White Sergeant in Segregated GeorgiaHoly Communion of Bagels and Lox for Jewish PersonnelBlack Barbers Brought on Base to Cut Black Men's HairCaptain Hammond, Baritone, and the Children of the PérigordVerse 9 Mumbling about Race and Religion in China, Nigeria, Tuscaloosa, and Buenos Aires
Ma Ke, a Chinese Jew with Whom I Shared Suppers in BeijingOlaudah Equiano Bouncing around the Globe as a Slave Sailor under a Quaker Captain Until He Settles Down in London as a Distinguished Writer and Abolitionist"Some of us grow ashamed," by Yusef KomunyakaaYusef Komunyakaa, the Black Nightingale Singing on Paper with the Richness of a Sweet Potato (YK and WB)A Diversion Down to ArgentinaVerse 10 Saying a Hebrew Prayer at My Brother's Christian Funeral
Saying a Hebrew Prayer at My Brother's Christian FuneralMy Brother Needed to Pass Like the Spanish Saints of Jewish Origin. Here Are Ancestors Whom My Brother, Not by Inquisition but by a Deeper Knife of Fire, EmulatedMy Father, Who Never Tried to Pass, Succumbed to Denial of His Being and Passed from LifeDeath Has a Way
Appendixes