Untitled, and: Marvin Gaye Sings the National Anthem, 1983

Abstract

Untitled, and: Marvin Gaye Sings the National Anthem, 1983 Bruce Smith (bio) Untitled Reconsidering how James Brown [nearly] saved these United States: wherethere were laws and lengths of rope, there were other means, there were screamsthat could ease a [lost] someone [or two], what’s frightful could be yelled as in no place[church] or favelas, reservations, tent cities, movies, the super dome. Because the feelcould give you time [and mercy] and a chord change could save a nation [he believed]. [End Page 665] Marvin Gaye Sings the National Anthem, 1983 at the NBA All-Star game and nothing changesfor Marvin or the nation, yet everything changes in the 2 minutes and 35 seconds of voice and drummachine as he sings “stars” in 5 syllables as if counting the points of a stylized luminous thing. He singsas if he were the nomenclator for a dim-witted king running ahead of the slow procession and runningback with the names of Moses, Magic, Dr. J – Julius Erving, Bird, and #33, Kareem Abdul Jabbarwhose name means Noble one, servant of the Almighty. Augur of energy and culture and almost unbearablepresence, he sings at the shadow play of hurt and healing, in the theater of race and sex, mercy and moneywhere absurdly vertical male figures are standing at a certain angle to violence and women and the worldexecuting the killer crossover, sneakers squealing from child labor. It’s basketball, Jack. It’s art under halogenlights with hate and humorlessness removed. Marvin sings “ramparts” with sincerity and irony as if he were keepingwatch on the battlements for Hamlet’s father’s ghost. Who’s there? he asks in a double-breasted suitand mirrored shades and pocket silk. He removes [End Page 666] one stone from apartheid. He sings and it’s treason.It’s Reagan. It’s strategic marketing. It’s miscegenation. It’s cocaine chopped and snorted off a mirror reflectingthe dilated decade. He takes the British drinking song of bonhomie and puts it through a war and the forgetting.He sings so far behind the beat it’s as if he’s remembering the beatings, the burden, the chitlin circuit, askingis it more or less beautiful now and was it the singing? [End Page 667] Bruce Smith bruce smith is the author of several books of poems, including The Other Lover, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. A “Discovery”/The Nation Award winner, Smith has received a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as grants from the NEA and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Arts. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry and the 2009 Pushcart Prize anthology. Smith was a coeditor of the Graham House Review and a contributing editor of Born Magazine. He taught at the University of Alabama and Syracuse University. Copyright © 2016 The Massachusetts Review, Inc.