Strategy Response 1, Week 3

Strategy: The Poetices of Power
Work of the Week: "America's First and Foremost Black Superstar" by Adrian Matejka

In Matejak’s piece, “America’s First and Foremost Black Superstar,” the speaker communicates with the audience from what appears to be a boxed up collection of old comics. One of the strongest instances indicating that the speaker is the character from a comic book is seen here: This ain’t no shakedown, / but it smells like Seagate all over again: one cell / leads to another and the story don’t never finish. / Who’s hiring me in this box” (lines 4-7). The never ending “cells” refer to the drawing cells or panels printed on each page of a comic strip. In this poem I was able to detect the strategy concerning, “poetics of power.”

Even though Luke Cage is the superhero speaking in this poem, he does not have the power to do some of the actions that he wishes he could perform: Sure, them foxes / are here with me, but I never get at’em unless / I’m bailing those broads out of one scrape or another. / And I still don’t get no residuals (lines 7-10). He also wishes to change his outfit and to try some Texas barbeque. He knows that his world is different from that of the reader, and he indicates that he wants to partake in the reader’s world: Dig it, I just want to step out for a minute (line 23). He may have super-powers, but they are not truly his own. Instead, his power comes from a reality that his audience and the folks at Marvel have created for him. Cage is aware that others control him, just as humans are aware that essentially, there are others who control certain elements of their lives.

However, Matejka does allow Cage to have some power by giving him a voice throughout this work. According to our text, power is evident in all relationships, from intimate to generalized. Matejka pinpoints several of Cage’s relationships in this work (e.g. Jerome Mackey, Jim Kelly, Iron Fist, etc.). In turn, when Cage relates these characters to the audience, he develops even more relationships (this time with his readers). He then uses his power to enhance those relationship by speaking in everyday jargon the audience understands and can relate to: “What’s the beef;” “I’ll give you five to one it ain’t fun;” “Let Cage get at some of that Texas barbeque,” etc. (lines 4, 17-18).

So Cage’s power not only lies within his own comic book realm, but also in the relationships he has formed with the audience reading the piece.