A new word order in poetry’s pantheon

Her mind is whirligig-ing again, and, within the space of a few minutes, 49-year-old Harryette Mullen has recited lines from a Lord Byron poem and a Wynonie Harris jump blues song and a hand-clapping chant that she remembers from her childhood in Texas. Oh, yes, and if she is to list her wordplay influences, then Mullen, a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry and associate professor at UCLA, must burst into song: “Payless shoe stores so complete, keeps customers walking on happy feet, “ she sings with a laugh.

Mullen’s latest poetry collection, “Sleeping With the Dictionary” (UC Press), was inspired by the influences that pinball through her consciousness, from the 20-year-old shoe-store jingle to the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles to an African American courtship ritual exchange. Her poems fool with anagrams -- words made by rearranging letters such as “tan” and “ant” -- and echoing, or riffs on words that sound alike: “Ocean Potion odd jobs Oingo Boingo okey-dokey old gold/googa-booga/Only the Lonely oodles of noodles ... “ she writes in “Jinglejangle.”

Last month, “Sleeping With the Dictionary” and four other books were named as finalists in the National Book Awards’ poetry category, in which 134 titles had been submitted. The winning poet, along with the winners in the competition’s three other writing categories, will be announced Wednesday in New York. Other poetry finalists are Sharon Olds, Alberto Rios, Ruth Stone and Ellen Bryant Voigt, a stellar group in which Mullen never expected to be included.

“Not the way I write, no,” said Mullen, who almost didn’t return the call about her nomination because she thought organizers were going to ask her to be a judge. “Once I decided to go down the so-called experimental, innovative path, you don’t expect to win those kinds of awards.”

Previous winners have included more traditional or well-known poets such as Robert Penn Warren, Stanley Kunitz and Adrienne Rich. “Looking through the list of winners,” said UC Press poetry editor Laura Cerruti, “yes, they often pick poets who are very established, or [who have] major books of selected works or collected works.”

But even the nomination will spin Mullen into a new light, she said. “I think general readers don’t read a lot of the more experimental poetry.... This kind of award does pull people in. It picks a poet and says this is someone you should be reading.”

Mullen’s nomination sends a message, said poet Toi Derricotte, a past judge in the National Book Award’s poetry division. “I think the National Book Awards are trying consciously to make this a statement about the vitality in poetry today.... Harryette is bringing a new kind of voice.”

Derricotte is a co-founder of Cave Canem, an East Coast-based nonprofit organization that cultivates new voices in African American poetry. Mullen is a Cave Canem faculty member. “Everyone is feeling that this is absolutely the right thing and, at the same time, how validating it is to us to have someone from Cave Canem recognized,” Derricotte said. “It has something to do with all of us, and we’re proud and happy.”

In her English classes at UCLA, Mullen talks about the days when she used to drive hundreds of miles to read for six people, including the organizer, the days when publishers paid her with a box of her own poetry books.

Mullen’s work had not attracted widespread acclaim until “Sleeping With the Dictionary,” her first hardcover book, was published earlier this year. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said, “this volume’s visibility and accessibility should make it a breakthrough. Look for some prize nominations.” The Christian Science Monitor’s review noted: “This is avant-garde territory.”

“Sleeping With the Dictionary,” Mullen’s fifth volume of poetry, also is her most experimental (Her previous book, “Muse & Drudge,” was written in mostly rhymed quatrains.) The new book reflects the kind of playful word transformation associated with Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and the French-based literary experimentalists Oulipo, an international group of writers and mathematicians who apply innovative literary devices -- such as dictionary games -- to poetry, novels and other forms of creative writing. Mullen first began listening to Oulipian poets as a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz, on forays into San Francisco.

Growing up in Fort Worth, Mullen discovered wordplay on the playground, where second-grade boys and girls recited flirtatious exchanges: “What’s cookin’ good looking?” “Ain’t nothin’ cookin’ but the beans in the pot, and they wouldn’t be if the water wasn’t hot.” She was raised by a single mother, who was a schoolteacher, and other relatives including her grandfather, a Baptist minister.

“I remember the bookcase with the glass front, my grandfather’s books. I remember sitting on his knee, and he’s reading to me from Mother Goose, and I can still picture the cow jumping over the moon, and the crooked man with the crooked stick.... All of that is still there,” she said, tapping her forehead.

These days, Mullen, who is divorced and lives in West Los Angeles, still falls asleep on some nights with her American Heritage Dictionary poking her in the side like a muse -- a situation that partly inspired the title of her book -- and she’s still trying to keep up with the work of new poets. She is taken aback and distracted by her newfound attention, by the upcoming black-tie awards dinner in New York.

On a recent afternoon, in her seminar on contemporary African American poets, Mullen discussed the work of emerging poet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, whose first collection, “The Gospel of Barbecue,” is about as thick as a slice of bread.

A student who had volunteered to give a presentation on Jeffers explained that she had sent the Oklahoma poet an e-mail. Jeffers responded in detail, explaining the motivations behind her work, including her heritage as the great-great-granddaughter of slaves.

Mullen’s face brightened. “We want to hear it all,” she said.

*

From “Sleeping With the Dictionary”

Harryette Mullen

Coo/Slur

da red

yell ow

bro won t

an orange you

bay jaun

pure people

blew hue

a gree gree in

viol let

purepeople

be lack

why it

pee ink

UC Press