PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness ISSN: 1543-0855 Issue 5 (2007)

Carole Boyce Davies

The poetics of the blues is the aesthetic in which I want to locate this discussion of Claudia Jones’s creativity in poetry. Angela Davis’s Blues Legacies and Black Feminism2 studied the work of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday with one of its aims being to “demonstrate that there are multiple African-American feminist traditions” (xix) . . . “helping to forge other legacies—blues legacies, black working-class legacies—of feminism” (xx). Davis’s work includes a fair selection of blues lyrics as appendix and identifies the recurring theme of imprisonment in both female and male blues. Examples include ‘Jail House Blues,’ ‘Work House Blues,’ ‘Sing Sing Prison Blues,’ ‘Send Me to the ’Lectric Chair’ and ‘Chain Gang Blues,’ which most incisively and realistically addresses this omnipresent fact of life in the black community, given the machinations of the prison industrial complex (102). The convict lease system and the chain gang system, we learn, did not exempt black women “by virtue of their gender” (103). Bessie Smith’s ‘Jail House Blues’ includes lyrics that capture the isolation of prison even as it speaks its resistance:

I don’t mind bein’ in jail, but I got to stay there so long, so long
I don’t mind bein’ in jail, but I got to stay there so long, so long
When every friend I had is done shook hands and gone.3

As we shall see here, for Claudia Jones, creative output in poetic form communicates some of the political positions, journeys, and emotions that she experienced and asserted. For during imprisonment, she wrote in the manner of the prison blues, expressing both pain and resistance. Her contributions to the form are but another expression of her poetics—a poetics which also contributes to our understandings of “other legacies—blues legcies, black working-class legacies—of feminism,” in the way that Angela Davis defines it above.

While poetics in this entire discussion is understood as the range of her creative and intellectual assertions in a variety of contexts and genres, this article deals with her poetic interpretations of very difficult situations. In my view, in those periods of her life in which she experienced the most intense pain or the most intense joy, poetry became the only means of succinct articulation of deep and complex positions and definitely pain—both physical and emotional pain. I have included as well in this discussion a few poems which honor Claudia Jones. These serve as emotional clarifications at certain points or they may be emotionally reciprocal counterpoints which capture in poetic form the meaning of her life and contributions in ways that she could not express herself.

I would like to identify three types of prison blues literary creativity in order to further situate this discussion. First, that produced by the already-recognized writer, incarcerated for political views, writings and positions, who upon and after incarceration writes poetry, political treatises, and reflective autobiography which deal with the condition of incarceration and the larger social and political issues that resulted in his/her imprisonment. Ken Saro-Wiwa4 of Nigeria perhaps is the ultimate representative of this group, a challenging creative writer and political activist voice, protesting the environmental degradation and exploitation of his community (The Ogoni people) for the benefit of huge corporate oil interests, and put to death despite world outcry. Barbara Harlow provides a discussion of a large group of such writers who have produced prison memoirs across the world.5 Relatedly, Nawal el Saadawi herself was incarcerated for political views on various occasions by the Egyptian government and continues to have to defend herself against the Egyptian state for taking critical feminist positions in a context in which women should be silent. Of course, she wrote Firdaus or Woman at Point Zero6 which organizes well the structures of incarceration; the thresholds between inside and outside; the concentrated location and meaning of the cell within the prison complex. Firdaus’s narrative is told finally within the death row prison cell of a woman on the verge of being executed for killing a man who would exploit her. The rest of the novel had showed how the society at large also functioned as a prison for this young woman, curtailing her ability to be fully in the world at every point of her life. In the end, prison becomes a kind of liberated, creative space.

A second documentable category of prison writing is the autobiographical writing of the political activist who uses the space of incarceration and the time of detention to reflect on the conditions of being incarcerated, the political conditions of the state; and the nature of the human condition and his/her life up to that point. Some of these were/are political activists who, like Jomo Kenyatta7, Assata,8 Nelson Mandela,9 Winnie Mandela,10 George Jackson, Angela Davis,11 Nkrumah,12 and Domitila,13 document an oppressive state’s actions and their will to resist it and simultaneously initiate new frameworks.

A third identifiable category of prison writing, in the context of orality as literature, is easily the creative individual (blues singer, hip hop artist, spoken word poet) also imprisoned by the state for crimes that have to do with living and surviving in oppressed communities. Upon incarceration, this artist also reflects on the condition of imprisonment and the nature of his/her community’s condition. The lyrics of a range of blues singers communicate this ‘prison house blues’ genre as identified above. Spoken word poets and lyrical artists such as Tupac Shakur14 contribute to the articulation of this particular mode of creativity as well.

Ellis Island Prison Blues

A letter written by Claudia Jones while incarcerated on Ellis Island sums up well the intent of her creativity under incarceration. Written to John Gates, editor of the Daily Worker, the entire text is worth citing here as it is captures the emotions surrounding her incarceration as it does her awareness of the reality of “political imprisonment.”

Ellis Island
Saturday afternoon

Dear Johnny,

In thinking about the collusion of the ‘free press’ with the ruling circles’ attack on American democratic liberties, I decided to write to you. Of course, if I attempt to write descriptively, it will only be because, while I know you (and I) hold brevity to be the soul of wit, description should not be the second-class citizen so here goes my letter:

Homing pigeons gather aimlessly in the large yard on an island which lies in New York’s great harbor. Occasionally a pigeon flies in from the bay dotted with white caps and the pigeons scatter.

They either gather in a solid mass and noiselessly fly away together, or, with loud grace, flap their wings and soar away... One flapped his wings 31 times before he ascended to fly over the massed brownstone buildings with numerous windows.

If one looks closely, it is obvious this is not just a haunt of homing pigeons or seagulls. The windows on all buildings are all wired with crisscross light iron bars. Others are heavier. . . . Around the huge yard, barbed-wire way beyond the height of a man, towers and outdoor lights, as on a baseball diamond, are spaced with regular frequency . . .

Look even closer. . . . Men in shirtsleeves or rough lumber jackets peer out from occasional windows on the right end of the yard, looking out on the bay, where now and then, on this foggy, rain-swept day, foghorns cry their warnings to occasional vessels. . . . Some of the ships are more beautiful than others. There are tugs and passenger ships. . . . Coastguard cutters and barges are anchored to the pier on the left of the island, which barely commands our view.

It is not too foggy to see the towering skyscrapers which beckon beyond the bay, on the other shore, on the mainland.

One cannot imagine the mainland without its wealth of men, women and children of many lands, who for centuries—and likewise today—toiled in mine, mill and factory and the endless plain—all the stretch of these great green states to make America.

From this view, another famous island, that so many ships and their passengers from five continents have eagerly nodded to, throughout the last 300 centuries, cannot be seen. Bedloe’s Island, home of the Statue of Liberty, gift of the descendants of Joan of Arc, lies on the left of this shore. . . .

And well it does—for this woman, with liberty’s torch, still stands proudly aloft her earthy home. . . . And literally stands with her back to Ellis Island.

Here, on Ellis Island, it would not be well for her shadow to grace the newly established wing of the Attorney General of the U.S.—or as the 17 imprisoned inmates of this wing call it—‘the McCarran Wing.’ In this wing, are 17 men and women—a virtual United Nations in composition. Oh yes, and the guards—one woman guard and two men guards.15

The letter, poetic in its own right, offers a scopic view of the place of imprisonment, Ellis Island, paradoxically, the entry point into ‘freedom’ in the United States. So the images of freedom are deliberate—birds able to fly; homing pigeons at times captive, at times free. The birds and flight contradict starkly with the images of captivity. For the subsequent images are of prison bars crisscrossing and thereby incarcerating its inhabitants. Another similar juxtaposition in order to produce the contradiction in the delivery of US freedom that she applies is the image of the Statue of Liberty, itself symbolic of freedom and a gift from France—“the descendants of Joan of Arc,” a woman also persecuted for political positions—and, deliberately in Claudia’s summary, “with her back to Ellis Island.” What is behind this statue and its representation of freedom carries its significance—the “McCarran Wing” which contained a range of political prisoners, of international composition, and therefore in her words, a fair representation of the United Nations. But more importantly are the seventeen arrested communists, thirteen when tried and sentenced, now political prisoners of the United States because of their ideological commitment to communism. A third image of freedom that she invokes is that of the ships at a distance, able as well to come and go, different types of sea vessels with a variety of functions. It is reminiscent of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative16 in which he describes his recognition of freedom in the free movement of ships and birds. These contrast well with images of barbed wire and iron bars and of men peering out behind these, unable to be free as those ships and birds outside.

Typical of Claudia Jones’s rhetorical style, there is an opening jab at the nature of the US press and its inability to be fully a free press in its reportage. Thus, her letter written for the Daily Worker, with its decisively left/liberal readership becomes the only place where voices like Claudia’s can have full public recognition. But she also takes the space to weave into her narrative commentary on capitalist America’s urban and rural landscape and the contrasts again between its beauty and its oppression of its working poor, toiling in “mine, mill and factory and endless pain.” These for her are the “wealth of the mainland.”

Doing Time in Alderson

The infamous Alderson Federal Prison for women in West Virginia would be the home to a number of resisting women over the years.17 What is significant in a sense is that like the “McCarran Wing” of Ellis Island, Alderson became a place at which a number of politically active women would be incarcerated at the same time. And Claudia Jones would be one of that prison’s most illustrious prisoners, spending the most sustained portion of her imprisonment as a political prisoner in the United States there. Sentenced to a year and a day, Claudia Jones faced tremendous difficulty in prison because of ill health and was eventually released early because of this situation. Gurley Flynn reports that Claudia “had developed a painful condition in her feet in September and spent 25 days in the hospital. Whether the ailment was due to working loom with her feet or the cement floors in the craft shop or both, the doctors could not determine.”18

While no autobiographical reflections by Claudia Jones are available for this period, most helpful in documenting the Alderson experience has been Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s The Alderson Story, in which we read, through her reportage, some of the conditions of this prison farm.

Betty, Claudia and I were now en-route to a federal prison. It ended one ordeal of four years and commenced another . . . The Federal Reformatory for Women is located in a remote southeastern corner of West Virginia, in a mountainous region. We three women went from New York in two Pullman compartments, made into one. We were accompanied by a man and woman, federal marshals. They occupied the upper and lower berths on one side, while I occupied the lower and Betty Garnett and Claudia Jones were crowded into the upper on the other side.19

Gurley Flynn describes their arrival at Alderson and the imposed solitary confinement. After release, she learned that Claudia had been sent to the hospital on the day of their arrival suffering from ‘cardiac asthma and had been in the hospital several times in New York. This had probably influenced Judge Dimock to give her a one-year sentence in contrast to Betty’s two years and my three.’20 Gurley Flynn provides pretty extensive details about the geography of Alderson, the racial conditions, and the quotidian experiences of a political prisoner as she survived in that type of prison facility.

With reference to Claudia again, she provides details of some of their initial experiences there: “Claudia Jones had been delayed by hospitalization and remained in orientation. Later, she was assigned to a segregated “colored cottage” and to work in the craft shop, which was then in the basement of the Auditorium Building.’21 Jones technically also integrates Alderson at this point. Flynn described the joy she felt when she learned that Claudia Jones would be moved closer to her even though that meant that she would now be in a maximum-security unit. This moment of integration is described this way: “But the silver lining to my cloud was that Claudia Jones was now moved from a segregated cottage to 26 . . . assigned to a vacant room two doors from me . . . ”

I can never forget my joy at seeing her in the doorway, with friends helping carry her things. It changed my life in prison for that period. She worked days in the craft shop weaving. She made over 30 beautiful colored tablecloths for the staff dining room. She became interested in all the crafts taught there—ceramics, pottery, metal jewelry, wood carving, and leather work. Miss Helen Smithson, in charge of the craft shop, refused to be classified as a custodial officer and was officially designated as an occupational therapist and teacher. She told me later that Claudia was the most talented pupil she ever had. It was remarkable, since Claudia had never done any of those things before.22

That Claudia was brilliant and creative is identified with surprise by the teacher and even by Flynn, but it is clear from Flynn herself that Claudia was determined to make the best out of even this very difficult situation: “She even set up a loom in her room and wove a centerpiece and matching place mats of white and gold, which won a prize at the local county fair. . . . Claudia taught several girls in our cottage to model in clay and another to play the piano . . . ”23

An entire chapter of The Alderson Story is devoted to Claudia’s departure and it is here that we understand Claudia’s concern about maximum-security incarceration.

As the time approached (for her departure in October 1955), she became increasingly concerned about leaving me in Cottage 26. She knew from experience that life was easier elsewhere. . . . Claudia was very indignant that I had been kept in maximum security for so long. . . . On leaving though she gave each cottage inmate a gift which she had made—a ring, pin, ashtray, and the like. They tearfully bade her farewell at lock-up time. In the early dawn, the officer who came to dress her . . . opened my door for a hurried ‘Goodbye.’ My doorway faced the roadway, and I was able to see her leave. She turned to wave—tall, slender, beautiful, dressed in golden brown, and then she was gone.24

Claudia herself recounts the Alderson portion of her life only briefly in her autobiographical reflections to Comrade Foster. She reduces the experience to skill development.

January 11, 1955: entered prison serving a year and a day sentence at the Federal reformatory at Alderson W. Va. Got 72 days off, serving 9 months and 18 days for so called ‘good behavior’ . . . won First Prize Blue Ribbon at August State Fair of W.A. for women skills learned there.25

Lessons from Nature/Metaphors of Freedom in Incarceration

Claudia’s poetry consistently uses nature effectively to communicate its meaning and address life conditions. ‘Elms at Morn’ and ‘Storm at Sea’ were written during periods of isolation and pain: the first while imprisoned at Ellis Island, the second while she was hospitalized in Yalta in 1962. ‘The Elms at Morn’ poem accompanied the letter to John Gates, editor of the Daily Worker cited above. The poem identifies the harsh reality of her confinement. It begins with the harsh, concentration camp image, man-made negativity contrasted with nature: “barbed wire fence surrounds me/And the fog rolls slowly in/The elms stand tall and stately/And the maples crowd them in.” Here fog accompanies the barbed wire image and the stateliness of the elms remain imperious, seemingly untouched by what surrounds them and also what “crowds them in.” The image in the next verse is of the work that accompanies imprisonment and the women who are near to her: “. . . The mops are on the porch my dear/And Frances sits beside me/Lois smokes a cigarette/I am in an awful net.” In this way the last line of the poem repeats the incarceration of the first, and in a way likens her to a captive butterfly or fish perhaps. Though the “net” is a less brutal image than “barbed wire,” the effect of containment is the same.

‘Morning Mists’ is more hopeful. ‘Deep in my heart I know beyond the mists/Lies Morning—that full blown morn/Will waken free from list of rest/That comes with dawn.’ This is the way it begins. She sees the cycle of the rolling in and receding of mists as, in a sense, paralleling the nature of human existence. Still instinctively the body as the mind rebels against incarceration. She sees a future beyond incarceration and its constriction of her body, but not her mind.

While this I know, my heart rebels
At screens that shut off sunlight’s beams
My thoughts rise too like tinkling bells
To welcome shafts of light in seams.

Ere as I write bright rays peep through
Their fiercer power pierce this dew
Strength born of atoms held at bay
Simulation of men’s will to cast all doubt away.

These last two verses of the poem seem to capture the resolve that obviously sustained her in prison. Sunlight always pierces through the fog and again nature provides the answer she needs about the human condition and its role in nature. There is a power in nature as in the storm, as also in the sun, which can conquer adversity.

The ‘Storm at Sea’ poem marvels at the delightful fearfulness and power of nature in this manifestation. Like the ‘Paean to the Atlantic,’ it captures the movement of this body of water: “Today I saw a storm at sea/A choppy fearful sight/T’was if it were beside itself/And running from some fright.” It ends: “Today I saw a storm at sea/its bilious white and black/It spent its forces as if it knew/The power of its back.”

Two other poems complete this group. ‘Radiant Season’ deals with the meaning of autumn—its beauty linked to pain and change, the transience of human existence. Although fall is beautiful as a season, its longevity is temporary. It is as though nature shows its best in order to foreshadow the impending betrayal:

How fickle is your radiance
Unseemly this bright dalliance
Your tang is false, your garb’s untrue
Smile of your beauty’s full of rue.

Still she returns to the theme of lessons from nature. For fall is linked to maturity, knowledge and a certain leaning towards the natural cycles of life.

And yet this much I’ve learned from you
Though costly is my pastime new
That riches lie in store for those
Who gaze on changeling, transient pose
For your’s the time that bids all things
Retire unto winter’s wings
You autumn—known as radiant season
Is really knowledge come to reason.

In general, poems in this group deal with human existence, borne of reflection on nature, but always clear about a consistent political commitment. ‘Radiant Season’ seems to be written as a mature response to her life, and in a way foreshadows her own sense of her life as transient. Another poem in this reflective vein is ‘There Are Some Things I Always Remember.’ What she identifies is a sequence that begins with ‘the hurts,’ ‘the cruelty of cruelness, the harshness of reality.’ But she raises them to dismiss them, suggesting that as one remembers them they should also be forgotten: ‘staunch the hurt, mend the rip of heartbreak. . . . .’ It reminds one of the sentiment of ‘Letter to My Sister’ by Angelina Grimke,26 but significantly does not go as far as the Grimke suggestion about silencing oneself.

An assertive response to dealing with the insurmountable personal will is revealed. Still, memory betrays as one “remembers till it hurts remembering too. . . . ./the plans, the buds of/forgotten dreams.” There is a memory of youth there and of the dreams one conjures up for the future that seem to be betrayed by “the fleetness of summer and/the suddenness of autumn.” Aging and memory come together in this poem. Claudia was conscious that she was entering her mid-life. Although she would die before her fiftieth birthday, it was a life rich with activity that she lived. Although Claudia accomplished much that she intended, there is also the sense that she knew she would never be able to achieve all that she had intended. Nature teaches again, but it is a painful lesson and though she does not seem to want to, the hurt and the pain in a personal and political sense seem to dominate this poem.

Closing

Claudia Jones would be deported following her incarceration at Alderson, after a trial which has been identified for its lack of fairness and objectivity, caught as it was in McCarthyite hysteria and anti-communist state oppression.27 She foreshadows therefore the kind of massive increase in incarceration and deportation which has been applied to black communities in the U.S. since then. To the end, she lived a full life with a rich legacy of political commitment, writing and principled activism. Her death in London in December of 1964 brought to a close an important chapter of history which would be bridged significantly by the anti-war, civil rights and black power movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Notes and References