Matejka’s Mixology is an in-depth study in the mixing of cultures, genres, musics, and poems written in a startling and refreshing hip-hop lyrical collection of poetry.
There are poems titled after song lyrics, stolen from song lyrics, epigraphed with dead musicians and inspired by them. Matejka completely immerses his readers in a culture of music, city, basketball, and skin. These multiplicitous landscapes are used by Matejka to map a place of middles. He is between genres of music, between styles of poetry, between groups of people, between borders. In the title piece, “Language Mixology,” he simultaneously answers “’The Mulatto Question’” while playing with the language of formal, syntactical English and slang phrases and words making “verbed blackface” out of “-izzay” and “off the chain.” Here, as in most of his other poems, we are adrift with him in discovering the marginal culture of his youth. This is after a brilliant and puzzling ode to Fela and another to Eddie Hazel. Matejka makes us play basketball with him and listen to Radiohead while contemplating the formation of states and the culture/politics of naming and Estevancio.
The only drawback to Matejka’s collection is the necessity of Google or Wikipedia. If you are not in his world of hip-hop and funk or are generationally challenged as I am, it becomes necessary to look up the references to understand the poems. It is successful as a composite mixture of ideas, cultures, images, and explorations, but only for those with the time to explore his world of middles, or those who also straddle his lines. He has, in fact, given us the science of mixing.
I really liked your entire description of Matejka’s work. There are two major themes in his work that I think you hit on. There is his youth, the basketball, music, etc. and the cultural and political side. This is why I really liked this book. He is able to mix these two very different things to make an interesting middle as you said. I really liked you description of the middles in this book as well.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your statement about Google and Wikipedia. There is no way I could have understood these pieces if I had not been able to research things. I would have been completely lost. As for the musicians, I only knew some of them by name, but researching them helped me understand the poems better. I am also generationally challenged, and the research definitely helped me read deeper into the poems and get more out of them. I would also agree that he is successful in mixing all of the ideas that the book centers around. It makes for a very interesting read, which is another reason why I really enjoyed this book and this author.
I really enjoyed Matejka’s Mixology too, It gave me a fresh and new look at a world I really have no understanding of. I felt like Matejka explained this world in such a way that it really made sense to me and I really had a grasp on different elements of it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it did reference many outside sources, I felt as though this only added to the depth and was a good result of his poetry. I disagree that they
need for Google or Wikipedia is a negative. I felt like even though I had to constantly look up things, I learned a lot and got a look at
something new and outside of my own understanding.
It's interesting that you--and others-- bring up the use of Google or Wikipedia in understanding Matejka's poetry, Kelsey. I completely agree with you that these two websites became absolutely essential in really getting to the meat of Mixology. However, this idea gave me another, albeit strange, idea: What would Matejka's poetry be like without these sites?
ReplyDeleteWhen one listens to a rap or hip-hop song he or she isn't necessarily picking up on all of the lyrics and, therefore, not picking up entirely on the meaning of the song. I think Matejka's poetry can accomplish the same thing. The poet has a very adept use of rhythm present in all of his poems which creates a cadence-based atmosphere on top of all of the deeper meanings encapsulated in the poems. So, really, the poems can be enjoyed more so than a Levis poem without having to look up every cultural or literary reference. Curiosity can hamper this, though, if you're one who needs to know. And even if you do, pop culture references beat looking up the classical mythology and "Paradise Lost" references all to present in Levis' poetry. But, back to my original point, even if you don't look up every reference you can probably still enjoy Matejka's poetry in a half-crazy, head-bopping-in-the-library kind of way.