Muse and Drudge

Harryette Mullen beautifully incorporates the individualistic everyday occurrences of numerous black women from all around the world into a seamless compilation and summation of the life of black women in her collection of poems, Muse and Drudge. By including no titles with the poems, Mullen is able to create an almost prose like collective narrative within her writing.

Her use of dialect, word play and fashion create a witty and truthful outlook on the consumerism which occurs in the United States and around the World. However, I find myself agreeing with Geoff’s remark in class on Friday during our discussion of the cover art and how consumers do by books by their covers. Perhaps Mullen could be said to be calling black people only eager to purchase a book because it has a black woman on its cover. This not only questions the intelligence of her fellow race, but also forgets to mention that white people might benefit from reading this collection of poems so as to understand the collective feelings of oppression. By placing a black woman on the cover of the book, perhaps a white person would fail to pick up the book. If Mullen’s aim was to create an open space and feeling of understanding on all sides, she should have picked a more neutral cover picture, or even no picture at all, just letting the title Muse and Drudge speak for itself. Indeed the title of the collection is very compelling and encompasses many different meanings for many different people, which is what Mullen wanted. So many questions arise in my head when I think about the meaning of the title. Is it white vs. black? Is it a description of the struggles of black people? Does it have Greek connotations? All are possible and truthful in their own ways.

I really enjoyed reading Muse and Drudge, especially after analyzing and discussing the poems with the class. Now that I have reread many of the poems and discussed the book in its entirety, I really see Mullen’s use of a collective narrative. This narrative, much like Rolling the R’s, is so seamless that it really drives home her message and feeling that all black women have come resemble a single identity to the outside society. Every person must be instead celebrated for their individuality.