Discourse on the Logic of Language Summary
Now that you've read M. Nourbese Philip's "Discourse on the Logic of Language," click the link below and watch the poet read it herself. How does it differ from the text on the page? How does it differ from how you read it? How do we know how it is supposed to be read? Is there even a 'right' way to read it? Note that even the poet slips up and doesn't always follow the sequence of words or lines. Can we be in control of our words or language? Can we be in control of someone else's words or language? I want to suggest that these differences, confusions, and impasses are a reflection of the content of the poem itself—they are commentaries on discourse, logic, and language. How does the experience of finding a way (or a different way or another way) to read the poem evoke the content itself? How do your experiences reading, hearing, and thinking about the poem relate to that content? In short—what is it like to experience this poem and how does this poem communicate its meaning on multiple registers? Answer any number of these questions in 400-450 words. https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=424yF9eqBsE
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Discourse on the Logic of Language
Marlene Nourbese Phillip's poem "Discourse on the Logic of Language" criticizes racism, colonialism, and sexism in order to express a wide subjectivity. Through the original structure, the integration of multiple texts into the poem, and their spatial arrangement onto the page, Phillip portrays the ways in which language, through enforcement of English as the father tongue, is used to oppress and displace the colonized. It leads to frustration of identity formation and self-realization. The poem is also used to show the anguish and pain that a subject undergoes through a colonial legacy of linguistic silencing and subjugation. As a result, the subject has no mother tongue.
Philip also undermines the authority of the conventional English poetic form by her use of different fonts, orientation of words in a page and not forgetting to include sections written in different diction styles. This places emphasis on the poly vocal nature of poem. The poem clearly brings out poetic and mythic discourses as antagonistic in nature. This is especially clear in the poem's live performance. Both are presented by the writer's voice but they compete for the reader's attention hence portraying the speaker's internal struggle.
The mythic section is written in capital letters and appears sideways down the page hence screaming for the reader's attention. It seems to be deeply rooted in her culture but not in logic. On the other hand, the poetic section portrays heavy investment in logic:
not a foreign lan lan lang
language
l/anguish
anguish
-a foreign anguish (Philip 56.4-8).
The speaker tries to understand cultural langua...