M. NourbeSe Philip’s book, ‘Zong!’, Includes works of found poetry symbolizing the destruction of slaves lives through the unfathomably vague text. Philip leaves the reader with no context of the events occurring. This unknowingness represents the lack of knowledge of one being thrown into slavery, experiencing horrific things with little to no understanding of their experiences. The simplicity and vagueness throughout the poems often dismiss the magnitude of the lives lost and the merciless acts against them. This symbolizes the dehumanization of African Americans across generations. Buried away by a corrupt system, over one-hundred forty slaves were thrown overboard. A Massacre somehow justified that has been overlooked and hidden in American history.
Gregson V. Gilbert, also known as “The Zong Case”, was the document that Philip picked apart to form the poems we see throughout the book. “I mutilate the text as the fabric of African life and the lives of these men, women and children were mutilated”(p.193). The broken wording and incomprehensive format of the text gives the readers a sense that the poems are not complete, as if they are missing something. The formatting demonstrates that the text has been manipulated or destroyed as if it held no meaning to begin with. This mirrors the deaths of many that were stripped of their identity, unable to be remembered. “The African men, women, and children on board the Zong were stripped of all specificity, including their names. Their financial value, however, was recorded and preserved for insurance purposes, each being valued at 30 pounds sterling” (p.194).
The randomization and disorganization in the structure of the poems can be viewed as a representation of the random picking of African slaves. The owners wanted slaves to work with each other assuming this is because it seemed to be more meaningful and productive. Philip makes the correlation in her poetry. “My urge to make sense must be resisted” (p.193). She expresses that grammar is the “force” that makes her words work together, without grammar they don’t.
Discussion Questions
- In what way(s) did you find the organization and randomized structure of the text significant?
- Philip’s emphasizes the need to fight the urge to “make sense”. Do you agree with this mechanism in her poetry and its textual motives?
Citation
Philip, M. NourbeSe. Zong! Wesleyan University Press, 2008.
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Hi Alessandra, great blog post! I love that you highlighted the structure of the poems. When first reading the found poems, I found myself trying to make sense of the letters and words scattered across the page. I highlighted the words that I was able to make sense out of, but was still left with considerable confusion. I was glad to have the insight of the author’s words at the end of the text to help me understand why she structured the poems the way that she did. The structure of the poems, the meticulous randomness, is so significant since she wrote “how did they- the Africans on board the Zong- make meaning of what was happening to them? What meaning did they make of it and how did they make it mean?” (Philip 194). I found this very significant because the author is bringing in the insight that the structure was purposefully made to not have meaning since the slaves on board the ship were not able to make meaning of what was being done to them.
Hi Alessandra, this is a great blog post! The way the poem is presented makes an outsiders perspective so much more interested in what the author is presenting. The author uses words that captivate what they are trying to portray through the actions that are taking place in the poems. When reading this, there were multiple words that I didn’t know the meaning of and had to look up the definitions to understand what the author was talking about. “I murder the text, literally cut it into pieces, castrating verbs, suffocating adjectives, murdering nouns, throwing articles, prepositions, conjunctions overboard, jesttisoning adverbs: . ” (193). Reading this, there were many words that were used in connections to the subject of murder in this poem. This makes the readers understand what the author is trying to present to the readers as they are trying to understand the story of the poem. Your blog post makes these types of connections as well which helps ties them all together for a better understanding of the poem.
Hi Alessandra, I really enjoyed this blog post and loved your perspective on the structure of the poems. The organization and randomized structure of the text in “Zong!” serve as a metaphor for the chaos and disorientation experienced by the slaves on board the Zong. The text is fragmented and disordered, reflecting the traumatic experiences of the slaves who were ripped from their homes, families, and cultures and forced into an unfamiliar and dehumanizing environment. The randomization and disorganization of the text also serve to disrupt traditional narrative structures, challenging readers to engage with the text in a non-linear and non-traditional way. This disruption encourages readers to confront the violence and erasure that underpin traditional narratives of slavery and to recognize the need for alternative ways of telling and remembering the stories of marginalized people.In “Zong!”, Philip emphasizes the need to resist the urge to “make sense” in order to challenge traditional modes of understanding and to disrupt the systems of power that have historically silenced and marginalized Black voices. Through her use of experimental and fragmented language, Philip calls attention to the ways in which language has been used to perpetuate violence and oppression, and she invites readers to engage with the text in a way that resists these systems of power.
Overall, the organization and randomized structure of the text in “Zong!” are significant in that they disrupt traditional narrative structures, challenge readers to engage with the text in a non-linear and non-traditional way, and invite readers to resist the systems of power that have historically silenced and marginalized Black voices. The quote “Must I make sense? I hope not” (Philip 193) from M. NourbeSe Philip’s “Zong!” speaks to the author’s desire to resist the traditional modes of understanding and communication. In the context of the book, Philip is using experimental and fragmented language to convey the traumatic experiences of the slaves on board the Zong and to challenge the systems of power that have historically silenced and marginalized Black voices.
Hi Alessandra, I really love what you wrote about the formatting in “Zong!” as it was also the first thing that caught my eye about the text. I think the disorganized formatting of the passages in the first 20 pages shows the disarray and problematic nature of the event occurring. I have a potential interpretation for the formatting that goes off your analysis. The words are by themselves usually and alone in black ink but on a white page. This may be an attempt at mirroring the way that the African people were thrown overboard by the white people in power. This parallel can be demonstrating the lost, helpless, and confused feelings that they felt as it was all going down. Furthermore, it exemplifies how valueless they seemed to the people who threw them over the side which can be supported by the quotation, “the good of overboard/ justified a throwing/ of property” (Philip 16). To their murderers, they were seen merely as property which though dehumanizing, can be their internal justification for the horrific crime they committed.
Hi Ally, After reading your blog post it made so much more sense as to why I was so confused by Zong!. At first I thought I just wasn’t reading it right but then I started to realize that it was like that on purpose. Blatantly leaving out pieces of the texts in the poems and not really explaining anything is the whole point of this book. “ The poems resist my attempts at meaning or coherence and, at times, I too approach the irrationality and confusion,” (Phillip 195). It was made clear to me that the reason why a lot of information was missing is because it is a way of explaining the past and present history of the corrupt society we lived in and are living in. Certain things that have happened in our history arent ever brought up, mentioned, or talked about because they don’t want to give a voice to people who have been treated poorly. Another reason why the poems aren’t structured the normal way and are confusing is because that of the slaves on board felt the same way.
Hi Alessandra, I really enjoyed your blog post! Your blog did an amazing job at capturing the details within the poetry and explaining why it is formatted the way it is. At first, I was really struggling to understand what exactly was going on but after reding your blog post and re-reading the text I was able to make some sense out of what was happening. To answer your first question, the significance behind the randomization of the text is to in a way represent the craziness that was taking place and how the inexplainable things were taking place to the slaves. At first glance is seems as if the poetry is sloppy or misprinted on the pages but it can be understood towards the end of the book, as stated by Philips, “this story must be told by not telling — there is a mystery here” (190). Although it is a little hard to understand, after reading again I now understand more of the story and found it to be truly heartbreaking.
Hey Alessandra, I thought your analysis was great and very insightful into why Philip wrote this book in this way. When first reading the introductory found poems, I was completely confused. Some words and phrases were able to be made out but I was not able to understand it all. As a reader it left me very frustrated and not wishing to continue reading. But this is exactly how the slaves would have felt, with no explanations or reasoning subjected to a life they could not understand and did not want to be a part of. “How did they- the Africans on board the Zong- make meaning of what was happening to them? What meaning did they make of it and how did they make it mean?” (194). Just as we the readers are unable to make meaning of the words we read, those enslaved were not able to either. We as readers have contextual evidence and the knowledge of slavery and worldly events but for the slaves this was an entirely new experience that they did not know where it would end, which oftentimes would be cruel deaths.
Hey Alessandra! I love your blog post and I want to highlight the way the poem was written and illustrated. In a sense I feel how he structured the words in a blob and not full sentences it was done purposely to show the ignorance people have towards these African Americans and the experiences they are going through. The reason I say this is because when I saw the big blob of words scattered across the page I didn’t stop to read every word or even really bother to read it in depth I kind of just skipped over it because it was to big and complicated to read. In my opinion, this correlates to the problem at hand and them being ridiculed and neglected just like some people (me) may have neglected the way the poem was structured and not even read all the important words it entailed. Further more, the text states “the suffered in die the me in I become” (Phillip, 18). I think this adds more to the structural difficulties of the project because to understand this you need to look at more than meets the eye and try to dissect his word choice. Overall, the structure and illustrations of the poem definitely have a meaning but can be taken many different ways in my eyes.
Hi Alessandra, I enjoyed reading your blog post as it assessed the intricate manner the words were placed. This is significant as it makes introduces an aspect that makes the pages different for each person as they may be interpreted in any fashion. With that, there is an accentuation of the adversity as the loss is recognized as well as the dissenting part of the Zong case. There is a deeper meaning as parts of the structure seem like they are falling such as hope and justice do. Those enslaved felt insignificant, deprived of sense, and life, and were written as an insignificant part of history but Phillip can revive this sense of history through the structure. His structure introduced the significance of the loss, irrelevance, and pleading in a different aspect as the broken words are structured in a sense of begging. At points, there was confusion as Phillips describes that “the poems resist my attempts at meaning or coherence,” in a purposeful way (Phllip 195). This technique is done so tastefully as the poems derive purpose in language and purpose to evoke a reaction. The structure altogether accentuates the confusion to describe the injustice in the case in a sensible way.
Hi Alessandra! I enjoyed reading your post and liked the fact that you touched base on the structure of these poems. I think my favorite part about this poetry book is that each poem can be interpreted in many different ways and the structure plays a major role in that. The way I interpreted many of the poems was that the broken-up language could represent the feeling of brokenness or helplessness these people were feeling. Philip wrote, “Which is revealed only when the text is fragmented and mutilated, mirroring the fragmentation and mutilation that slavery perpetrated on African Americans, their customs and ways of life” (Philip 195). I think this is really powerful. This shows that Philip did have a purpose with the formatting by expressing that the fragmentation of the poems can represent the fragmentation of the lives of many African Americans as they are stripped of their humanity as they are forced into slavery. While reading the poems whether it be out loud or in our heads, we notice the silence between each of the words or phrases as the poem is broken up and that silence can be interpreted in many ways.