"Imitation of Life/HARLEM Hopscotch," video by Dianne Smith and "Harlem Hopscotch," poem by Maya Angelou
Author: Dianne Smith and Maya Angelou
1 additions to document , most recent almost 4 years ago
| When | Why |
|---|---|
| May-24-20 | Maya Angelou's Harlem Hopscotch: Official Music Video | Oprah Winfrey Network |
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Imitation of Life/HARLEM Hopsctch from Dianne Smith on Vimeo.
Harlem Hopscotch is part of my Imitation of Life Series which I like to call digital storytelling. The work consists of a compilation of videos and images.
These images and videos are mostly what I have documented as I move through my beloved Harlem community. They are a string of day to day occurrences. They are simply a sum of my lived experiences, that together become very performative.
The videos and images are layered, in a sort of stop motion like way. The aesthetics of the work speaks to a place that is textured, unique, spirited, animated and diverse. With this series I show the dichotomy of the community how the old or nostalgic view of Harlem is ever present, while the new seeks to alter its landscape.
Often times walking up or down Lenox Avenue I feel as though I am gliding amongst the words of Langston, Zora, Maya and Baldwin. Or I am at the Red Rooster as the Deejay or live music vibrates across the space causing bodies to sway almost unconsciously or walking across 125th Street leaves you at times overly stimulated with repetitions of sound, textures, colors, and movements.
At any given moment I can walk out my apartment and encounter a gospel trio on the corner in front of the bodega in song praising the Lord as if they were in church on Sunday morning. There is no other place I could live were music playing aloud on the street during a sidewalk flea market results in a one man dance performance.
Harlem is a vibrant, frenetic community that’s not without its complications. It’s an ever changing community, however with all of its transitions there are things that remain. The pulse, energy, and life fuels my creative practice.
Harlem Hopscotch
The title Harlem Hopscotch maybe has something to do with poverty in Harlem and how the Black community used hopscotch to distract themselves from many challenges. Also, another example of diction is: in the first two lines in her stanza she rhymes.
When there’s two boxes next to each other in Hopscotch, you can put two feet down. The rhyme in the second line feels like when you hop on one foot first and then get to put two feet down second.
Does the rhyme make you feel anything in your body?
by Maya Angelou
One foot down, then hop!
It's hot.
Good things for the ones that's got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
It has a meter which means that certain words have accents. That means that those words are emphasized.
she goes to one place, and she goes to one place and doesnt work out, so she goes to another place and then that works out
but then she tries to rhyme left with self, which can be argued that it is a rhyme but this is more of a slant rhyme.
In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don't stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
since shes black she say that if your black dont stick around. i think this means that if your black you have to move on your own and try your best to pay your bills so you can stay at a place
this means that shes playing the game in real life, and in real life she made it through one part of stage in life, and now she moving on to the next stage in life.
She says" in the air both feet down" as in they are jumping and then she says “since you black don’t stick around. Food is gone rent is due” she seems like she start stalking about her life and how it’s a struggle
I’m not sure if this I right but based on the second stanza my analogy from reading this is that Maya Angelou is using metaphors to compare the struggles of life to hopscotch. She uses metaphors to explain a harsh reality for many black people and how many in Harlem used hopscotch to escape from that reality.
I do see what you’re saying — hopscotch could be a strategy for survival. But I see it as a strategy for jumping from one safe space to another, dodging the dangerous places. When we played hopscotch growing up, we would mark one space in the middle with the word “Safe”. Otherwise it would be too hard to get all the way to the end. You could rest on that step without getting “out”.
Because of it’s quick switch from playing a game with you feet to the accommodations of “living in Harlem”. Late rent, due to the lack of money. Need of food and even the constant arguments inside the household. I believe Maya was talking about how jumping between spaces reminded her of what was going on inside her family home/around the neighborhood. Or even how she may use Hopscotch as an escape from it.
I say this because of her using the steps you take in hopscotch to talk about the things she may have had to deal with, rent, less food, loosing jobs, etc. Every time the person jumps to their next position she tells us something new about the poverty around.
alliteration is repetition of sounds. she using h and h here and other same starting letters throughout like g g and c c.
But so what? Those alliterative "g"s definitely seem to ground a reader in physical reality – they order the muscles in the back of one’s throat to clamp down on each other to make their hard
“g”. Sort of like in hopscotch, when you come to two squares next to each other and you can come down hard on both feet. So the alliterative "g"s in “Good things for the ones that’s got” emphasize the idea that “the rich get richer.”
Now, how do the alliterative "c"s in “Curse and cry”shape the meaning that a reader makes of the poem?
It’s interesting seeing the images of young women playing Double Dutch. Having never been much of even a basic jump-roper, I have marveled since I was a little girl watching the coordination required both for moving the jump ropes and moving ones feet. It is a coordinated effort and one that requires teamwork – contrary to the idea of “Everybody for hisself” from line 4.
I also imagine Double Dutch represents the feeling of navigating Harlem at the time Dr. Angelou wrote this poem.
the tone of the poem changes here. It went from talking about a game of hopscotch to talking about racism.
The tone did shift here.But I think she was talking about racism and hustling the whole time not really just hopscotch.
The poem went from talking about things that she did as a kid to then talking about the problems that an adult might have to struggle through.
All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk.
Cross the line, they count you out.
That's what hopping's all about.
They are all family until someone crosses the line.They all have each others back. Cool just for protection.
Because of the constant reference back to the Hopscotch game while she talks about the struggles of Harlem living. “One foot down then hop”, “In the air, now both feet down” , “Hold for three, then twist and Jerk” . She comes back to it as if we are in one location and then stop and think about in debt meanings, then continue onto the next space.
Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost.
I think I won.
so its a competition and she passed the land but, people say she lost
Maybe this is a competition. Where this game represents life, and people are racing to the finish line.
Why do YOU think SHE thinks she won?
Maya Angelou, "Harlem Hopscotch" from Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Diiie: Poems by Maya Angelou. Copyright © 1971 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House, Inc., 1994)
Added May 24, 2020 at 8:33pm
by Paul Allison
Title: Maya Angelou's Harlem Hopscotch: Official Music Video | Oprah Winfrey Network
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