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This is the week—some 42 years ago—that I became an American citizen. I was remembering the day fondly, and decided to make a poetry connection. I was 10 years old and my German-born parents were becoming naturalized citizens, so I was, too. I remember getting out of school, going to the Dallas courthouse, the seriousness and the celebration, and the chocolate milk shake that followed. What a day! A few years later, as a teenager, I helped my Oma (grandmother) master enough American history in broken English to pass the questions that were asked of her as she became an American citizen, too. This is the little old lady who stood up to Hitler and was a German refugee fleeing with five children and an elderly mother in tow. I am still touched when I see swearing in ceremonies and look at all the different faces that are proud to call the United States home. I know it may seem corny, but this is very real in my family.

And there are many poets who have written about their feelings about this country, both good and bad. Maybe that’s why I love Langston Hughes and his “I, too am America” poem—although I recognize a very different struggle there. Or why I relate to Janet Wong’s poem, “Speak up” about kids taunting a child who speaks another language. Many Latino/Latina poets have addressed this issue of immigration, language difference, and cultural assimilation in their work, including Pat Mora, Gary Soto, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Francisco X. Alarcón. One poetry collection that really speaks to me on this issue is Monica Gunning’s America, My New Home (San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press, 2004). Although Gunning is my mother’s age, and comes from Jamaica not Germany, her poems speak with wonder about the contrasts between her old home and new home, and about the challenges in straddling old ways and new, in ways that echo my own experiences and emotions. Across cultures, there are still children for whom “home” is a very real question, whose families talk seriously about loyalty and identity, and who walk the tightrope of keeping family traditions while being “real” Americans.

I looked for the perfect poem to share and decided to try an experiment. My 19 year old son has been educating me about “mashups,” a new trend in music to blend parts of many different songs into one. It’s led to interesting discussions between us about artistic freedom and copyright infringement, but it has also prompted me to think about what that might look and feel like in other arts—like poetry. So, with all due respect to two fantastic poets, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman, here is a “mashup” of two of their poems meshed into one: “I, Too” and “I Hear America Singing.”

I, too, sing America.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, sing America.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

I, too, am America.


Thank you, Langston and Walt. Langston’s words are in brown and Walt’s are in green. FYI. What do you think? Is this poetry sacrilege? Or new and innovative? I’m not sure…

Join the rest of the Poetry Friday Round Up at The Simple and The Ordinary.

Picture credit: Me at 5, attending kindergarten in Germany

Poems by Alan Katz Drawings by Edward Koren Margaret K. McElderry / Simon & Schuster 2008 Okay, once again just to make sure we're all on the same page: do not give your book a title that can be used against you in a review. You would think editors would be the first to understand the rules of making a book review-proof. Of course, it's also a good idea to make sure the content followed the

David Domke is Professor of Communication and Head of Journalism at the University of Washington. Kevin Coe is a doctoral candidate in Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. They are authors of the The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. To learn more about the book check out their handy website here, to read more posts by them click here. In the post below they look at Huckabee’s recent attack on the press.

With John McCain looking to wrap up the Republican Party presidential nomination, challenger Mike Huckabee is just looking for a way to remain relevant. Earlier this week, Huckabee tried going on the attack against a familiar target: the press.

At a breakfast meeting with reporters from the Christian Science Monitor, Huckabee decried journalists’ focus on his religious background, saying: “There has been an attempt to ghettoize me for a very small part of my biography. The last time I was in the pulpit was 1991.” (more…)

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Last week David D. Perlmutter, a professor in the KU School of Journalism & Mass Communications, and author of Blogwars, took a look at whether book authors should blog. This week he investigates the influence of bloggers on “the people.” Be on the lookout for Blogwars which examines the rapidly burgeoning phenomenon of blogs and questions the degree to which blog influence–or fail to influence–American political life. Read Perlmutter’s other OUPblog posts here.

In Blogwars I compile much survey data that shows that people who blog about politics, as well as the readers and commenters—interactors—of political blogs, are not “the people.” That is, they are not a true cross-section of America: They tend to be male, white, upper income, higher education. But even if blogs are not vox populi, it does not follow that, as blog critics love to taunt, bloggers are the tinfoil-hatters of American political life. To the contrary, while bloggers may not be the people, there is growing evidence that they have an extraordinary and extra-proportional effect on the people, and on politics, campaigns and elections, public affairs, policy-making, press agendas and coverage, and public opinion. (more…)

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In honor of President’s Day we asked Mark McNeilly, author of George Washington and the Art of Business: Leadership Principles of America’s First Commander-in-Chief as well as Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Managers, to reflect on what our original President would think of the current elections. The views he expresses are his alone and are not meant to represent those of any company or institution with which he is affiliated.  Who do you think Washington would have voted for?

“The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant…” So began George Washington in his Farewell Address to the nation in September of 1796 as he prepared to finish his second term as President. Knowing he did not want to have a third term in office, Washington used his Farewell Address to provide advice to the citizens of the fledgling nation by offering “…some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.” Looking back at this and other writings of Washington, as well as his actions in history, we might surmise what he may have thought of the upcoming election. (more…)

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Morton Keller is the author of America’s Three Regimes: A New Political History, in which he argues that while most historians popularly categorize America’s history into short periods of time (most “eras” or “ages” lasting no longer than a decade) the truth is quite contrary. In the post below Keller, Spector Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University, puts the 2008 primary season in historical perspective.

As the 2008 election slowly proceeds, it gets curiouser and curiouser. (more…)

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David Domke is Professor of Communication and Head of Journalism at the University of Washington. Kevin Coe is a doctoral candidate in Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. They are authors of the The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. To learn more about the book check out their handy website here. In the article below Domke and Coe reflect on the Iowa Caucuses.

The victories by Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday make one thing clear: in America’s heartland, the God strategy works. Recent history suggests it won’t stop there. (more…)

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Morton Keller is the author of America’s Three Regimes: A New Political History, in which he argues that while most historians popularly categorize America’s history into short periods of time (most “eras” or “ages” lasting no longer than a decade) the truth is quite contrary. In the post below Keller, Spector Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University, looks at how our past informs our polarized present.

As the election cycle heats up, and political punditry spreads over the land like kudzu grass, the prevailing assumption is that to understand what is happening we should focus on the present and the near future, and ignore the past. Matt Bai observes in his new book The Argument that most bloggers regard the Clinton impeachment of 1998 “as ancient … as the underlying causes of the Peloponnesian War, and about as useful.” (more…)

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James B. Rule, author of Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience is Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley and a former fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is also a winner of the C. Wright Mills Award. Privacy in Peril looks at the legal ways in which our private data is used by the government and private industry. In the article below Rule reflects on an article that claims that the average American is caught on film 200 times a day.

China is gearing up for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing—determined to ensure that no demonstrations, terrorist events or unruly crowds mar the bright face it intends to show the world. To that end, the Party leadership is mobilizing sophisticated technologies to keep track of potentially disruptive personalities. Relying on IBM and other western companies, the authorities are planning to monitor the movements of crowds by computer and to respond instantly to any hint of trouble. (more…)

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Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of Ownership Society: How the Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America which looks at how defined contributions (IRAs, 401(k) accounts, 529 programs, FSAs, HRAs, HSAs…) have transformed tax and social policy in fundamental ways. In the article below Zelinksy turns his sight towards health care reform.

The financing of medicine has emerged as the central domestic issue of the 2008 presidential campaign. Hovering over this debate is the memory of the failed health care initiative spearheaded by the then First Lady in 1993. Senator Clinton’s supporters suggest that Senator Clinton has learned from that earlier, unsuccessful experience. Her opponents contend otherwise. (more…)

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Last week, after Terryl Given’s piece about Mormonism and politics, I started to wonder about one of my favorite Mormons, Orson Scott Card. I’m not a huge Science Fiction fan, but the Ender’s Game series captivated me as a young teen and I still list the series among my favorite books. Below, in an excerpt from Given’s book People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture is a look at Card in light of his religion.

Orson Scott Card has been called the Mormon “who to this point best — and most radically fulfills the great prophetic hopes for a world-class as well as genuinely Mormon literature.” One of the most prolific and arguably the best science fiction writer alive, Card is best known for his Enders saga, the first volume of which won an unprecedented doubleheader, scoring both the Nebula and the Hugo awards, as did its sequel, in a feat still unequaled (Ender’s Game, 1986; Speaker for the Dead, 1987). Some of his corpus is recognizably Mormon in fairly conspicuous ways. Saints and Folk of the Fringe, for instance, represent direct engagement, the former historical and the latter futuristic, with Mormonism itself. His Tales of Alvin Maker series (six volumes and counting) is a thinly veiled version of Joseph Smith’s life, cast as fantasy that reconceptualizes American history. Earlier, he published a five volume science fiction series clearly based on the Book of Mormon (Homecoming, 1992–1996).

(more…)

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It is not easy for anyone to become ill and be at the mercy of doctors, but what about doctors themselves? How do they react to being on the other side of stethoscope? In When Doctors Become Patients Robert Klitzman, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University, looks at what the experience is like for doctors who become sick, and what it can teach us about our current health care system and more broadly, the experience of being ill. In the excerpt below Klitzman explores how doctors go about researching their own diseases and how this research seems more disheartening once they have become part of the statistics.

‘‘We know very little,’’ Roxanne, the gastroenterologist, said, referring to the medical literature on the causes of cancer. As suggested above, once ill, many of these physicians came to reassess the role of research in individual medical decisions, and became more critical in their evaluations of research as a whole. Roxanne, for example, became more sensitive to the elusiveness of ‘‘the truth,’’ no longer thinking there was just one answer. ‘‘People base things on the literature and on one paper that’s not been duplicated. I’m skeptical. There’s a lot of literature, but also fashions—things used in the past. Now we’re into other treatment approaches. We can’t cure anything.’’ Indeed, these ill physicians appeared previously to have paid little heed to the implications of this pattern. (more…)

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Philip Davis, our favorite new blogger is back with more commentary today. Davis is professor of English literature at Liverpool University, author of Bernard Malamud: A Writer’s Life, and editor of The Reader. This post originally appeared on Moreover.

Dear America,

This week someone from Education (it would be) said to me, ‘I am comfortable with my belief-systems.’ I blame you, collectively, for this. (more…)

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D. Michael Lindsay is the author of Faith in The Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite and is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University. In the post below he examines the influence of religion on the military based on his experience interviewing prominent evangelical Americans. Read more by Lindsay here.

In the buildup to the General Petraeus’s appearance before Congress, we’ve been hearing a lot about partnerships between the American military and Sunni tribal leaders, like the so-called “Anbar Awakening.” These military leaders are often the only Americans Iraqis ever meet. And these leaders are more and more likely—especially at the elite level—to be evangelicals. (more…)

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Shlomo Ben-Ami, the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy, is an Oxford-trained historian, a former member of the Knesset, Minister of Public Security, and finally Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has been a key participant in many Arab-Israeli peace conferences, most notably the Camp David summit in 2000. In the post below Ben-Ami looks forward and backwards at the peace process. (more…)

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A Creed for Americans (1942) by Stephen Vincent Benét We believe in the dignity of man and the worth and value of every living soul, no matter in what body housed, no matter whether born in comfort or born in poverty, no matter to what stock he belongs, what creed he professes, what job he holds. We believe that ever man should have a free and equal chance to develop his own best abilities

I’m a nature girl. Few things make me happier than spending a spring day climbing a mountain, or exploring a lake in a kayak, or walking the shoreline at the ocean… So when summer arrives, (especially on Fridays) I yearn to be away from my computer outside in the sun. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet, but amidst all the voices online you can sometimes lose your own. In fact I once spend three WHOLE days away from the internet, away from phones and books and toilets, on a three day solo in Maine. Just me, a lake, my sleeping bag and a journal. It is a truly refreshing experience, learning to spend time with yourself. So, it may seem natural that Thoreau is one of my favorite authors.

Recently I found an Oxford book titled Walden Pond: A History by W. Barksdale Maynard, and I thought it might be nice to share an excerpt from it with you. Perhaps you will find time this summer to visit Thoreau’s refuge, or to spend time thinking in your own personal Walden Pond.

(more…)

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It has been a lot of fun (and educational!) to have John Ferling featured on the OUPblog this week. Be sure to check out his original essay and his Q and A. Below we have excerpted the beginning of the introduction to Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence, entitled “My Country, My Honor, My Life”: Bravery and Death in War.

October 18, 1776. Captain William Glanville Evelyn, resplendent in his British uniform, stood tall in a coal-black landing barge, the first orange rays of daylight streaming over him and glistening on the calm waters of Pelham Bay above Manhattan. Men were all about him, in his craft and in countless others. They were soldiers, part of an operation that had begun hours earlier during the cold, dark night. (more…)

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Yesterday John Ferling, author of Almost A Miracle wrote a piece for the OUPblog about the turning of the tide in the Revolutionary War. Today he has kindly agreed to answer some questions about his work. To learn more about Ferling keep reading and be sure to check back tomorrow for an excerpt from his new book!

OUP: Compared to the Civil War and America’s twentieth century wars, the War of Independence appears to have been pretty tame. Do you agree? (more…)

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One of the best things about the lit blogosphere is all the different voices. So here is a sampling of the voices weighing in on last weekend’s festivities at BEA.

Ferham writes about her panel appearance. So does Chekhov’s Mistress.

Sarah Browning weighs in on the freebies. (more…)

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Happy Friday to everyone.  I am back from my UK trip and at the Javits center today for Book Expo America.  What an experience!  A literal city of book lovers, I am in heaven.  The OUP booth is 2357 so if you are nearby come say hi.  We are having beer and popcorn to celebrate the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink at 3:30 so come introduce yourself!

More updates to come…

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I may just like this excerpt because it gives me a lot of good excuses. However, J. Eric Oliver makes an interesting case in this excerpt from Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America’s Obesity Epidemic. What are the real reasons that Americans are getting fatter? They may be different than the ones that are commonly blamed.

(more…)

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Our favorite event of the year is rapidly approaching, Book Expo America. If you are there please stop by the OUP booth (number 2356) and introduce yourself. I will be blogging all three days about the people I meet and the speakers I hear.

On Friday, June 1 starting at 3:30 join us for Beer and Popcorn presented by The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink.

On Saturday, June 2 starting at 3:30 join us for Cannolis and Coffee presented by The Oxford Companion to Italian Food.

All three days stop by to enter our raffle and win a free copy of the Oxford English Dictionary.

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