Gertrude Stein week. Yes, she gets pretty much a whole week. All by herself. So it goes.
I don’t hate Stein for her exclusivity, though if I had lived in her time, or she in mine, we would have very likely found each other insufferable. In fact, though, just as many Gertrude Stein books grace the shelves of my personal library as any other single ModPo poet, with the exception of Gwendolyn Brooks, who I was privileged to meet as an undergrad when she came to a tiny Baptist Church in Havana, Florida to do a reading (we will look at some of Brooks poetry in Weeks 5). And yes, I have an autographed book to prove it. Stein’s books run a dead heat in my library with Walt Whitman’s and with Paul Laurence Dunbar’s, who is not a ModPo poet But I digress.
My attraction to Stein comes from three distinct directions, a triangulation if you will, focusing on (1) her connection to my hometown, (2) her connection to my current literary saint, Zora Neale Hurston, and (3) her connection to my favorite sonnet writer, Claude McKay, whose work we will study in Week 5. Shall we take the plunge?
Our small DC ModPo group learned, on a field trip to a couple of museums in Baltimore, Stein had been close friends in her youth with the Cone sisters, Etta and Claribel. They traveled together to Europe often in the early 1900’s and Eta typed Stein’s first few manuscripts. The Cone girls became quite the purveyors of art pieces and bequeathed what became a substantial collection to the Baltimore Museum of Art after showcasing the pieces in the Stein salon in Paris. Though their friendship was based mainly in Paris and Baltimore, the Cone family eventually settled in my hometown, Greensboro, NC, where they built a textile empire following the Great Depression, and where, in the 50’s and 60’s, they shared their immense wealth as philanthropists. To this day, Cone Mills continues in operation with at least two production plants, and the Cone fortune continues to fund hospitals, local colleges and universities, museums and arts venues. The Virginia prep school I helped to integrate in the early 70’s admitted Jewish students, one Asian student, and one Native American student and female children of teachers in the same time period. Among the Jewish students admitted was a descendant of the Cone family.
Stein’s connection to famed writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was less direct. Carl Van Vechten, the famed writer and photographer, served as both literary executor of Gertrude Stein and close friend, and often patron of Zora Neale Hurston (and patron to many other writers during the so-called Harlem Renaissance). While I don’t have evidence of a direct meeting between Stein and Hurston (I can only imagine the electricity of a chance meeting between Stein, Josephine Baker, and Hurston in Paris in the years preceding WWII), a mention of Stein does show up in one piece of Hurston’s cryptic correspondence with Van Vechten. Hurston wrote:
My Dear Carl —
A flock of purple rabbits to you.
I just read in the newspaper that you are flying to Chicago on Wednesday, with Gertrude Stein, so you know I want to see you. The fact is, I am determined to do that little brown thing.
Adoringly
Zora
(God only knows what any of that means. But was Stein the “little brown thing?”)
Thirdly, memorialized in Claude McKay’s memoir, A Long Way From Home, is McKay’s impression of Gertrude Stein at the time. It’s not so long, so I will reproduce parts of it here.
“If Joyce was le maitre of the ultra-moderns, Gertrude Stein was the madame, and her house was open to all without discrimination. Even Negroes. I cannot remember how often people said to me: “Haven’t you been to Gertrude Stein’s?” . . . “Everybody goes to Gertrude Stein’s.” . . . “I’ll take you to Gertrude Stein’s.” . . . “ “Gertrude Stein does not mind Negroes.” . . . “Gertrude Stein has written the best story about Negroes, and if you mean to be a modern Negro writer, you should meet her. . . . “
“I never went because of my aversion to cults and disciples. I liked meeting people as persons, not as divinities in temples. And when I came to examine “Melanctha,” Gertrude Stein’s Negro story, I could not see wherein intrinsically it was what it was cracked up to be. In “Melanctha,” Gertrude Stein reproduced a number of common phrases relating to Negroes, such as: “boundless joy of Negroes,” “unmorality of black people,” “black childish,” “big black virile,” “joyous Negro,” “black and evil,” “black heat,” “abandoned laughter,” “Negro Sunshine,” all prettily framed in a tricked-out style. But in the telling of the story I found nothing striking and informative about Negro life. Melanctha, the mulattress, might have been a Jewess. And the mulatto, Jeff Campbell – he is not typical of mulattoes I have known anywhere. He reminds me more of a type of white lover described by colored women. “Melanctha” seemed more like a brief paraphrase of Esther Waters that a story of Negro life. The original Esther Waters is more important to me.”
In a later chapter, McKay wrote,
“Paul Robeson and I met on the Promenade des Anglais. He read one of my stories and said he liked it. I said I would like to do a play for him to act in. Paul asked me if I knew Gertrude Stein. I said I didn’t, that I had not gone to her place. Paul said he visited Gertrude Stein and that she was all right. I shouldn’t neglect such an opportunity, as she knew all the literary people who counted, he told me. I told Paul that although I couldn’t abide cliques, I wasn’t averse to contact, but from my estimation of Gertrude Stein I felt that she had nothing to offer.”
I love reading Stein out loud with a group of people. The way she twists and turns and squeezes meaning out of language is nothing short of phenomenal. She fully deserves to have her own week in ModPo. I was especially “touched” by her short piece, “Let Us Describe,” which I identified as cryptic anti-lynching commentary. Here is the Stein piece and what I submitted to the Forum in 2012:
LET US DESCRIBE.
Let us describe how they went. It was a very windy night and the road although in excellent condition and extremely well graded has many turnings and although the curves are not sharp the rise is considerable. It was a very windy night and some of the larger vehicles found it more prudent not to venture. In consequence some of those who had planned to go were unable to do so. Many others did go and there was a sacrifice, of what shall we, a sheep, a hen, a cock, a village, a ruin, and all that and then that having been blessed let us bless it.
and my submission to the discussion forum:
This poem most certainly depicts a tragedy. May I propose a bit more historic context? This is an anti-lynching poem, describing in very metaphorical terms the extra-judicial murder of blacks in America’s south during the period, as well as the similar murder of Jews in Europe during the same period. Because it was outside the normal judicial process, these murders seldom took place downtown or in the city plaza. Almost always, they occurred in a location removed from the city center, down a winding road, and at night. The road, extremely well graded and in excellent condition, may refer to the logic and the moral rationalization that was a part of the justification process. But make no mistake, it was the road to perdition, well paved with good intentions. The final sentence speaks of a sacrifice, but sets up a hierarchy, from a farm animal (illiterate mob), to a village, to an entire civilization ( a ruin). At each level, we contribute to the tragedy and suffer its effects (having been blest, let us bless it).
Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit (Abel Meeropol): https://youtu.be/Web007rzSOI
ModPo 