Sunday, March 28, 2021

Apr. 30, 2021— Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, by Aimé Césaire

 The next meeting of Great Books KC Will be April 30, 2021.  We will discuss Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, by Aimé Césaire.

Meeting Location & Time:

Date: April 30, 2021

Time: 7:00 pm

 Zoom On-Line Meeting:

 —an email with link to join will be sent prior to meeting.

 —the link is sent to a limited mailing list of those who have either attended a meeting in the past year or have requested that their name be included on the mailing list. Requests to be added to the mailing list may be sent to GreatBooksKC@gmail.com 


Description of Book:

Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939), variously translated as Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, Return to My Native Land, or Journal of a Homecoming, is a book-length poem by Martinican writer Aimé Césaire, considered his masterwork, that mixes poetry and prose to express his thoughts on the cultural identity of black Africans in a colonial setting.


4 comments:

Clif Hostetler said...

Once again this year Bernard Norcott-mahany is publishing daily YouTube.com poetry readings during April "poetry month."
If reading Cesaire isn't sufficient poetry for you, the following link will take you to the daily links for Bernie's reading of Pindar's Odes.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21927139-pindar-s-odes

Clif Hostetler said...

Message I received from Don Pepper:

https://youtu.be/21RD5Rv7XO4

Clif,
This YouTube, 1-hour+ college classroom interactive interpretation helped me grasp what is "going on" in the poem.

I recommend this to anyone who read the poem "cold turkey", without context or back story, and felt it was dissonant and bizarre gibberish.

Don

Clif Hostetler said...

Here's a link to my review of the book:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3974601170

Clif Hostetler said...

The following is a list of those who attended the Zoom meeting of April 30, 2021:
Jack Granath
Clif Hostetler
Bernard Norcott-Mahany
John Rasmus
Ed Doering
Tom Brown
Don Pepper
Judy Covell
R. Gina Renee
Gregory Brown
Rex Nowland
Janelle Sjue
Bill Randolph