THE MICHIGAN DAILY. LITERARY SUPPLEMENT SUNDAY,, MAY 2, .1948 1 Tf 1 MII CH1I Iya1 D"a.LYrLITERARY SUPPLEMENT..SUNDAY.MAY 2.1948 Black and Tan (Continued from Page 5) in my throat and I forced it out in a cracked whisper. "Get away from me, nigger." Very deliberately he began to shake his head, slowly, back and forth. "Ain't no nigger," he said softly., "Ah ain't no nigger. Niggers got mud and dirt in their veins, so ah ain't no nigger." Outside a woman screamed, a high scream full of pain, like a wounded animal, and the crowd roared even louder. He crouched beside me and slowly shook his head. "Ain't no nigger. They's gold and silver a runnin' in my veins an' ah come from far off Buzzard Land, My mother is a horse and my father was God and I'm a stranger from far away. My mo- ther is a mare with a long shining mane and a tail that sweeps the ground, and she's standin' on a hill in the Land of Egypt, a wait- in' for the comin' of God. And ah come here from Buzzard Land." I got my elbows under me and started to move away from him. It wasn't my voice anymore that spoke to him. but a voice that did my bidding while terror gripped its throat and tried to crush the words. "Get away from me nigger. Get away from me or I'll kill you." "Ain't no nigger. Ain't no mud and dirt a runnin' in my veins. It's way off the coast of Missis- sippi, is Buzzard Land, and I come there from the Land of Egypt, where my mother's standin' on a high black hill. a waitin' for God to come ridin' the West Wind, and she's waitin' there tremblin', her black flanks tremblin', a waitin' for the comin' of God." His eyes rolled back,all white and bloodshot and somehow brok- en. It was like looking through muddy smashed glass and seeing nothing but fear and madness be- hind it, nothing but terror and a broken mind. He began to moan, softly, way deep in his throat, his body rocking with the sound of it. "I'm lonely and frightened with the buzzards all around, watchin' for the West Wind, half-brother to the Lord I'm a waitin' on the West Wind, to come and take me to the Land of Egypt, home to my mother tremblin' on the hill, home where God can see me once more." I got my feet under me. Instinc- tively I kicked out at him, trying to keep him away from me. He went over backwards, his arms raised as if in prayer, and he crumpled against the wall. He lay very still. He moaned steadily in his throat, not moving at all. I went out into the alley. The heavy steel door clashed and the 'spring lock clicked behind me. It was dark in the alley, and filled with the stench of stale beer and rotting food. Between the high walls I could see, way off at the end, a house with a porch light burning. I turned and started Walking. I tripped and fell into the trash, heard the tin cans roll- fing, listened to the rats scurrying tff along the wall. It was awfully dark there. I was sorry I'd called him nigger. It seemed very quiet where I was. Somehow I heard a police siren and someone laughing hys- terically.| And then, far off, a win- dow opening and a voice, a wo- man's voice singing softly, slip- ping and echoing between the high brick walls. "The Blues - - The Blues ain't .. . The Blues ain't nothing but a cold grey day, And all night long it stays that way." I started toward the light at the end of the alley. I wish I hadn't called him a nigger. The End "The Blues," by Duke Ellington. "Trouble," by Josh White, Sam Gary, and William White. The fight song: A song some- what similar to the one in the story was heard in a Black and Tan nightclub in Detroit shortly after the Louis-Walcott fight. Spender ... (Continued from Page 4) long way in his search for eternal values. Since his first work was published he has tried many paths, personal, social, political; he has been frequently disappoint- ed; he has not been defeated. Ear- ly poems give little more than hints of his struggles with his world, his refusal to compromise with contemporary society, his constant antagonism to the status quo. Poems of Dedicaton, In addi- tion to its function as an expres- sion of personal sorrow, has these problems as its subject. Ostensib- ly poems dedicated to a memory, fundamentally these are poems of dedication to a faith. In the pages of this volume Spender reaches certain conclusions, theses, tenets of belief. Whether ornot they will prove a firm basis for the produc- tion of a new' and maturer work remains to be seen; there is reas- on to think that they at least lead toward that necessary stability, that "still centre," that inner con- fidence from which the poet must view his world. Spender's problems are not his alone; his struggle has not been his alone. His search for "some . . . brightness to dangle through all" has been followed by almost every poet of recent years. With him, they have explored the mind of the world for some firm- ness of purpose in a time of divid- ed and shifting loyalties. With him, they have searched the heart of a civilization for some sureness of sympathy in a time of weaken- ed passion and insincere feeling. With him, they have examined the problems of half a century in an attempt to catch sight of some plausible, reasonable solution. If some few have had greater success in doing these things, surely none has had greater integrity. Uzman... (Continued from Page 1) a Dialali always a fighter. Honor. Honor. He spat on the ground. Uzman-Dialali woke up before the cock crowed. Strips of light stole through the thatch wall, fall- ing on the bamboo floor and on the mat where his wife lay asleep, one arm flung over her forehead. She moaned softly when he stir- red, turned her back toward him and remained quiet. Uzman-Dia- lali sat up and passed his hand over her body which was naked to the waist, pushing the long hair away from her neck and breasts. She moved, murmuring inaudibly, but did not change her position. "You are mine, Mahommuet. You are mine. No one can take you away from me," his impassive eyes seemed to say as he looked at her. "Uzman-Dialali," she saa, nest- ling her cheek on his palm, "Uz- man-Dialali," but he did not answer. He moved his head to one side as if listening to something and slowly smiled. The cock crows came shrill and muffled atfirst, then growing louder and louder like discordant notes that were plucked on several kutyapis. Inheritance ., (Continued from Page 6) would amount to something be- sides that. It would happen." It is the understandings of this belief, the belief that "it would happen," that makes Walter see life in a better perspective. His Father was not always right; things don't happen as you want them to happen unless you help them happen. It was merely a matter of Walter's placing his family and his past in the proper light, of seeing his relation to the world, or at least to himself . , Certainly not an impossible ad- justment, even for a person so torn by conflict as was Walter. So it does not seem unreal when Eddie, at the end of the book, says, "Look, Walter . .." "Yes?" "Do something great." Partners . . . . (Continued from Page 6) "Johnny's the only one ever climbed that rock, ain't he, Runt?" I nodded again. "So you see," Zeb told me, "if I climbed it, too, Johnny wouldn't be the only one no longer. I'd have took something from my partner. Isn't that right?" I understood then. I'm awful sorry I called Zeb scared. He could have climbed the Witch, wasn't for Johnny. That's why Zeb slipped, he said. He didn't think about it 'til he was way up past the fifth ledge. Then it come to him sudden how he was stealing from his partner. Coming to him so fast, he just forgot where he was and let go. Even then Zeb was going back up, he said, the hank- ering was so bad. But Zeb couldn't do Johnny like that. So he came down. It wasn't because he was scared. It was account of Johnny he came down. Zeb gave me a hoist up on Old Zeb and we came back in to the Big House. On the way Zeb did- n't talk. He was hunched over in the saddle with his chin bounc- ing on his chest. I told him John- ny sure would be happy to hear how much much Zeb had did for him. Zeb sat up straight. "You don't say nothin' about this, Runt. D'you hear! To John- ny or anybody." Zeb was angry. I said I didn't see why not. Zeb had a hand on the saddle horn and he squeezed till the knuckles stood out white. He was fierce looking. Then he loosed hold and smiled at me. 'Why Runt," he said, I wouldn't want Johnny thinkin' I'd even try climbin' that rock. What kind of a partner would do that?" Zeb kept on lookin' at me. "I thought you was old enough to see that, Runt," he said. I should've seen right away how that rock belongs to Johnny. We can't let Johnny know Zeb almost robbed from him. I told Zeb I un- derstood all right. Then Zeb put on his jacket and buttoned it clear to the chin over his tore shirt. He licked the blood off his hand where he'd hit the Witch and pulled on his gloves. "You better wipe up your face some," Zeb said. "So nobody'll know you been bawlin'." I got out my kerchief and wiped my face. It took awhile before I Vacuum-. .. (Continued from P 'age 6) hrough the tic stock descended t French symbolist line. IF COLERIDGE WAS glorified in this conference, Croce was repudiated. After his pape'f was read, in translation, the panel of critics nodded their comment to Blackmur's statement that they had probably all been introduced to aesthetics by Croce but had all outgrown him. The Southern group rejected his theory of art as the expression of intuitional as contrasted with conceptual knowl- edge. Read, though an expres- sionist, was repelled by Croce's failure to recognize and encour- age the new poets and painters. Mr. Blackmur's paper, "A Bur- den for Critics," was the most brilliant, rhetorically, and the most comprehensive. The burden of the contemporary writer and critic is, he said, almost unbear- able, for modern experience is vast, our society disorganized, our traditions disintegrated. Modern writers like Joyce and Shaw have reflected the disintegration of our world, but they must do mbre- they must achieve order. Recent criticism has elucidated the dif- ficult poetry and painting of our age, but it must do more-it must judge. Poets must be forced by criticism to make positive state- ments as well as intimate private preted and judged not only as to its technique but as to its ideas. The critics must explore are for that full aesthetic knowledge of reali t y combining conceptual thinking with concrete experience through symbols. This fulness of knowledge makes art superior to science which can offeryonly ab- stractions from reality. There- fore, nowadays we look to the aesthetic experience to discover what life is. The critic in inter- preting and evaluating the aes- thetic expreince must exercise his rational imagination. Blackmur's attempt to reunite concept and in- tuition in the creative act, univer- sal statement and particlar image in the poem, and reason and im- agination in the critical judgment seemed to this listener the most promising utterance of the whole occasion. Our hopes were somewhat clouded during the final sympo- 'sium when, under pressure from. Read, Blackmur admitted that the judgment of the critic was valid not for the poet but for the audi- ence. Joyce, Mann, and Gide whom Blackmur had described as expressing disorder and break- down, he now asserted to possess order which their readers failed to perceive and which it was the crit- ics function to point out. This member of the audience wondered if the aesthetic order imposed by the great poet or novelist is quite the same as the moral, intellectual, and social order we are all so hun- LITERARY SUPPLEMENT Z ip Sirrigan &d13j VOL. I, No. 1 SUNDAY, MAY 2, 1948 I ZMAN-DIALALI .. . By lieutriz Manuel An feelings.. No poem is completely gry for. Is there any usuable, liv- performed until it has been inter- able order in Finnegans Wake, got up courage to ask Zeb. After! a bit I did- 'Zeb. Havin' this secret from Johnny and all. It kind of makes us-partners, too. Don't it?" I held my breath. Zeb grinned and put his hand on my shoulder. "Sure does," Zeb said, "Part- ners." I never felt so proud. Zeb didn't talk any more 'cept- ing that once just before we got back. "Nobody need know. Nobody never need know," Zeb sort of whispered, with his face all dark. Zeb sure feels bad about almost robbing his partner. Then we rode out of the big grass into the clearing front of the Big House and saw Grandpa and Johnny waitin' on the porch. That's why I'm gettin' the tan- ning. It's worth it, though, Zeb and me bein' partners and all. I' sure hwish I hadn't called Zeb scared. The Counterfeiters, the Joseph novels? The mask of irony is magnificent but can we wear it and be real in a real world? The distresses and brutalities of the great and common world are so much simpler and more terrible than the subtle agonies of these self-tormenting geniuses that the exquisite orderliness of the work of art, its symmetry of sounds and balance of moods, its perfected design give us no clue to possible orders in the real world-except perhaps an order in retreat, a composure in renunciation, a dig- nified withdrawal into art. Since du:ng the symposium all the speakers had insisted that fullest and best insight into life, imaginative literature offered the I wanted to arise at this late point and ask, "Just what life are you and your poets in contact with?" The answer might well have been, "The life of the spirit." But it did seem remote, and veiled, and a little scented. I left without asking the question and felt more at home on the bus to the station. Beatriz Manuel came to Mich- igan in 1946 as a transfer stud- ent from the University of the Philippines. Switching from a con- centration in pharmacy, she is now a senior in the literary college majoring in English. Born in Man- ila in 1925, Miss Manuel grew up in Bavao, the locale of her story, and the place to which she wants to return to do newspaper work aftereherr" graduation in June. WHEN UZMAN - Dialali walked into the small store, scraping the mud off his bare feet against the floor, he noted that the four men who sat before the table drinking tuba had suddenly stop- ped talking. He put one hand into a small denim pouch that hung by his side, took out a betel nut and chewed it noisily. He passed by the table, looking straight ahead and spat on the floor. The pinch- faced Chinese left his abacus and approached him. "Give me a can of sardines," Uzman-Dialali said.I Pushing aside the bunches of bananas that dangled before the shelf and covered with fruit flies, the Chinese took a small narrow can from the top of a pile ar- ranged in a pyramidal form. "No. I want the Cortadela kind," Uzman-Dialali said in a mono- tone. He heard the chairs being pushed back, and knew that the men were leaving. He kept his eyes on the Chinese who was part- ly concealed among the bananas. The cans suddenly rolled to the floor one after the other. The face of the Chinese was blanched, almost a sickening yel- low and the eyes were dilated as he stood before Uzman-Dialali. "Can I give you some other brand?" ."No." "I'm afraid I do not have any Cortadela right now." "Afraid? You certainly chose the right word. Afraid? Afraid to die, eh? All men are alike. Mo- hammedans. - Buddhists. - Chris- tians. All are afraid of death. Huh, you are like the rest. Too useless to die," he thought. He walked away from the counter. His sack lay by the doorway, its mouth sagging. Loosening the drawstring, which had been white before but was now a dirty brown almost the color of the sack, he drew out a small bundle wrapped in banana leaf and tied with braided hemp. He sat down on the top step which was shaded by the mango tree. Squinting his eyes, he looked at the front-yard, bare except for the gumamela bushes, untrimmed and dirt-covered. Mov- ing his fingers about the bundle, not taking his eyes from the bushes, he untied his lunch. The rice was already cold. He molded it into small balls, inserting small pieces of the broiled fish in each ball and ate. No one was around. Not even the old men who sat' on the benches in the front-yard stroking and petting their cocks. Only the nails on the ground to which the cocks were tied re- mained. They, too, like him were waiting. With fascination, Uzman- Dialali looked at the ground about the nails where the spittle of the eock-fighters had given it an al- most brick-red color. He glanced back at the straggly bushes then to the brick-red earth. Uzman-Dialali ate very slowly. When he finished, he folded the banana leaf into a small square and placed it back into the sack. Everything he did had a deliber- ateness in it, as if he had planned and worked for each act. Kneel- ing on the floor, he opened the sack's mouth, peered into it, thrust his hand inside, and got up-carry- ing the sack with him. The store was empty when he re-entered. He placed the sack on the counter. As he poured water into a glass from a small earthen jar, he saw that the cans were still on the floor. He sat before the table, fac- ing the counter, tilting his tur- baned head to one side and clasp- ing and unclasping his hands. He looked at his fingers. They were knotty and long and the thumb nails were red from the betel nut stains. He held them before him, bracing his elbows against the edge of the table. They did not tremble. His fingers never trem- bled, especially before a duel. This was his first fight against a Chris- tian, and while he flexed his wrists he wondered why he ever gave that a thought at all. As if being a Christian made all the differ- ence. Moros and Christians were no different from one another. Maybe they were. He had to see after the fight if Christians bled as much as the Moros did. Unconsciously he called his wife, Mahommet, to his mind. His brows wrinkled, confusion spread over his bronze face, but in an instant it assumea once more c 'nex- pressive mask. "Fool. Only fools think about such things before a fight." His spittle fell on the low- est rung of the steps where beer- bottle tops were nailed wrong side up close to each other. His wife was seated on the bam- boo stairs, a winnowing basket on her lap, when he left the house that morning. Her black hair drawn away from her face and caught in a big knot at the nape mace her look surprisingly thin and old. They both gazed at one another and did not say anything. Her eyes were swollen but met his bravely. "My husband, I'll wait for you," she whispered. Even as he neared the bamboo clumps that grew by the bend of the road, the words came back, "My husband. My husband. Wait. Wait." Waiting. He was waiting for Mahommet to come home from the river where she did her wash- ing the night she stumbled along the trail naked and fell on the stairs. He waited until her moans and sobs ceased. He waited while she told the story. Piece by piece. He waited for his own voice to come out, and when it did it was harsh and strange-sounding. As he lay beside his wife he waited and waited for the dawn to come. Uzman-Dialali was a fighter. All Dialalis were fighters. No Chris- tian could ever accuse him of cow- ardice. He had challenged An- selmo to aduel that afternoon. He even let him choose the time. An- selmo might as well pick the time most suitable for his own death. He recalled that the last fight he had was on a hot noon day and he almost got killed in one unpre- pared second because the glare from Marad-Adji's kris blinded and made him dizzy. Uzman-Dialali seldom spoke to the other hemp strippers in the plantation, so when the new work- er, Anselmo, came he considered him like the rest of the workers. Boisterous. Lazy. Drunkards. He only grimaced when the young stripper on seeing him for the first time in the Chinese store called him "Datu Uzman." He saw him mostly on paydays, which occur- red twice a month, when he would stagger out of the store singing ri- bald Visayan songs at the top of his voice or quarrelling with the other men. "Hello, Uzman, Datu Uzman," he called out to him once, "Datu Uzman, Enrique here tells me that you have a beautiful wife. And very young, too. Where do you keep her? In your Moro cotta? Huh, Datu Uzman?" "Shut up, Anselmo," his com- panion told him, "do you want to die soon? Why you've got so many 1 years to live yet. And why pick aI Mora? Can you stand her black- ened evenly filed teeth?" It was during the harvest sea- son when Mahommet came to the stripping mill bringing a basket of food. She wore a tight pink jacket and a black cloth wound around her slender hips. All turned as she walked by, the men unloading the brown trunks of abaca from the carts, those squatting on the ground cutting the young leaves off, and the others in the bodega, their faces covered with oil-streaks and dirt. When Uzman-Dialali, who was drying the hemp fibers saw Ma- selmo, you will certainly make some girl happy by being a lav- andero yourself." "Ah, the great Anselmo in love. Ah, lucky man." "Hey, not so loud. Even these trunks cAWhear:" "Fool! Who ° is afraid to say whathe thinks is right aloud?" The sound of men's voices caught Uzman-Dialali's attention. They were all outside. He took the sack from the counter, got his kris and a white jacket with pearl but- tons that ran along the front. He put the jacket on, buttoning the tight-fitting sleeves, unwound his 9It F -r- --John Page 7 f' : I i ' e i A at Mc ma sai th C kri grc aft sel ka: lk cal of to in 1 hi off crc ma At as th is Ir P fig ot Tb ed m cal er qu the ter no be ou c frc in of fel me no Op he go So fi th w do ag th Da se: of hi Se t0o o fo be oni hi tw f a: w bhc hi ba wi se me pe va frc ai tw to da Bi th ti fi IL IF YOU WRITE WE HAVE IT HEADQUARTERS for STUDENT and OFFICE SUPPLIES TYPEWRITERS and FOUNTAIN PENS TYPEWRITERS SCHOOL SUPPLIES Office and Portable Models ALL MAKES Bought--Sold.. Rented-Cleaned-Repaired Folding Tables, Typewriter Stands Typewriter Ribbons and Carbon Paper FOUNTAIN PENS NORMA 4-COLOR PENCILS CORRESPONDENCE STATIONERY Zipper Notebooks-Spiral Notebooks Loose Leaf Notebooks Notebook Fillers-Clipboabds Brief Cases--Card Files-Book; Ends Blotter Pods and Blotters Typewriter Paper - Erasers Mimeograph Paper - Pencils Drawing Supplies Flourescent Lamps Goose Neck Lamps hommet he met her. "What do you have there?" "Oh, broiled fish, dried shrimps, sweet potatoes-" "Hey, Datu Uzman," Anselmo's voice came, "you promised to in- troduce me." "And perhaps you have some papayas, too," Uzman-Dialali con- tinued. "Yes," Mahommet replied, her face flushed, "I have three small ripe ones." "Is one for me?" Anselmo said. "Come, Mahommet," Uzman- Dialali said, holding her elbow, "let's sit over there and eat." After they had sat down, he observed that Mahommet turned toward the mill. Anselmo and Mahommet. An- selmo and Mahommet. Of course, they never spoke about these two in his presence. Not directly. He knew the workers sneered at him. A Moro outwitted by a Christian. He told himself that it was only because they envied him. Did not all Christians crave everything for themselves? What did they care about their non-Christian broth- ers? "Oho, Anselmo, another new shirt?" Uzman-Dialali would over- hear as he twisted the yellowish fibers around the bamboo poles. "Haven't our young men been to the river too often? Well, An- turban revealing his head that had been shaved. He held the kris. It was still in its scabbard. It was bad luck for one to unsheath his weapon before the actual fight. He always took his kris out when he already faced his opponent. He stood in the doorway, broad-shoul- dered and tall. By his side hung the kris. A small circle of men had formed in front of the store. Anselmo sat between two men, one of whom was the overseer. An- selmo was quiet. Uzman-Dialali held the handle of his kris, passing his fingers gently over it. To him the spec- tators were nothing but chatter- ing monkeys. The kris was his only friend. He walked down the steps. The circle brcke as the people let him pass, then closed in again. Uzman-Dialali saw that the nails had been removed. Only the brick-red on the ground was there. Some of the men smiled faintly at him, buL no one spoke to him. "Who has the time?" a man with an open shirt asked. "Two minutes. Two minutes be- fore three," one replied, placing the watch back into a hip pocket. "Well, what does Anselmo say?" the man with the open shirt said. '.Huh?" "That Moro is a better fighter. Sheaffer Parker Eversharp Waterman Esterbrook Kimberley Ball Point Pens 0{ D. MORRILL 314 SOUTH STATE STREET The Typewriter and Stationery Store Since 1908 Phone 7177 ' I ..I_. . ,... X *'__. . _ c -.