Reading Response 11/12

The poems by David Henderson in The Low East side seem to be reflective of the time period and setting he was in. Most of them have a mention of alcohol and a sense of loneliness.  But despite this and the fact that some of it may sound depressing, the use of imagery and the idea of blues doesn't present it that way. In other words, through song, many people can gain a sense of hope through the day. You can see this in the first poem, the kid. It features an African America man that is drunk on a Sunday morning. He is happy, keeps to himself and singing a tune while walking. Soon he is interrupted and harassed by two officers. During this conversation he reveals his living situation, explaining that he has no job or money. He does all of this with a jaunty tune or at least that is what I imagined. Even with that horrible experience he still goes on with his day. He then gets the first smile of the day(The text is cut off, so I am assuming he gets the smile of the new day, not this one).

Some of the text seems like a prelude to the things that come next. It sort of gives a story of things before the poem happens, like in Good Johanna. A lot of the poems later on in the text sound much more like Jazz. A lot of the words are improvised or a lot of them are not grammatically correct, probably for the sake of being on a rhythm or tune. There is a lot of storytelling throughout the poems even if some go about it differently. Some of them are actually songs, while some seem like songs written as sentences.

Music is a tool humans can use to celebrate their greatest moments with friends or even simply to brighten up your day. For some reason while reading this I couldn't help but feel if I was could rearrange the texts and change a few words, I could create a song with them.