What it means to read (and write) poetry has changed since the eighteenth century; this fact will shape how you read the poems we will be working with this semester.
To get you thinking about the kinds of assumptions we bring to poetry (and to give you a low-pressure way to get familiar with the blog), respond to this blog post by identifying a poem that has meant something to you (expressed your emotions, given you new things to think about, baffled you in interesting ways, helped you through a difficult time, angered you...) and saying why.
If an answer doesn't come easily to you (if you find yourself trying to remember the reading from a high school English class, or rifling through a textbook for inspiration), that's okay! Be honest about it and tell us what kinds of literary texts are meaningful for you--and why.
Deadline:
7 comments:
Cinderella by Sylvia Plath
http://www.todays-woman.net/famous-poetsid-757.html
My senior year of high school we had to memorize poems and recite them in front of the English class. I chose this one and I'm mentioning it here because it's the only bit of memorized information I've actually retained for an extended period of time.
Sylvia Plath is an incredible writer and I like her take on the ball scene. I love fairy tales and Cinderella was the Disney movie I watched more than any other. Plath paints a vivid picture of the atmosphere and gives an apt conception of Cinderella's feelings. She "guilt-stricken, halts, pales, clings to the prince." I like emotionally turbulent and/or sparse texts, but it's hard to put a label on my literary tastes. I think these are meaningful to me because I'm not a particularly effusive person and I'm drawn towards similar characters. I'm interested in using minimal words to express maximal meaning.
Previous to reading Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy, in my freshman year of college, I had a very strict idea of what poetry should be. I understood that poetry included free verse and more contemporary issues, but I hadn't experienced more than a couple that could be said to be truly contemporary. Although the poem is published in 1936 it's issues of identity and a universal "pretty" are still important today. The poem tells of classmates insulting the girl's figure and face, and no matter how nice or good she was she can never be seen for more than a "fat nose on thick legs".
The first time I read the poem it shocked me, and I remember going back immediately to read all of it again. It was more direct and in some way important than other poems I had read. It's message was not cleverly hidden, but it was stark and real. The contrast of the poem form and it's directness has since drawn me back to reread it a couple times. It is not a particularly hard poem to understand, and it is not a particularly beautiful poem to read, but it is one of my favorite because of blunt honesty and real truth.
Robert Hass - "Meditations at Lagunitas"
I was first introduced to this poem over a year ago in my discussion section for English 255, yet I retain my original reaction to the poet’s precise yet seemingly effortless choice of words and style. Our TA handed it out even though it had little to do with the course. I highly recommend reading this poem, and you can find it online here:
http://www.diacenter.org/prg/poetry/87_88/hass1.html
Even though it is written from a male perspective, my immediate relation to “Meditations at Lagunitas” was striking. There is something in the nostalgic atmosphere of Hass's poem that seized my attention. Toward the end, he vividly describes a close personal relationship. I was quite impressed with the manner in which he so plainly composes aspects of intimacy – “the way her hands dismantled bread, / the thing her father said that hurt her” – that are often dismissible in daily life.
I like that Hass is able to take a profound concept and make it so evocative and lyrical within the relaxed context of a prose poem. Even to this day, I tend to think of poetry as a much more structured genre, but reading “Meditation at Lagunitas” always reopens my perception of poetry as a whole.
Wow, what great responses to this thread! I am delighted to find myself getting introduced to poems that I didn't know.
Today, in response to something a friend wrote (on her facebook page, no less...) I found myself reaching for a book of poetry that I hadn't opened for a long time: James Wright's Collected Poems, particularly those from his volume, The Branch Will Not Break. It was a book that meant a lot to me a couple of (gulp) decades ago. I was dismayed to see how self-consciously precious some of the language sounded to me now--but this poem still resonates. It is so hard to describe happiness, but I think Wright does it here:
Today I Was So Happy, So I Made thus Poem
As the plump squirrel scampers
Across the roof of the corncrib,
The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness,
And I see that it is impossible to die.
Each moment of time is a mountain.
An eagle rejoices in the oak trees of heaven,
Crying
This is what I wanted.
I do not have any particular poem that I can claim to be my favorite. So, instead, I will talk a little about a type of poem that I think has been (tragically) ignored by quite a few poetry buffs.
Japanese culture has, for many hundreds of years, refined the practice of crafting a type of poem called a "waka" (or more specifically "tanka". It is a subset of waka... it is complicated).
It is just a poem that conforms to/what ends up in translation as a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count per line. There are also a few other iron rules. No rhyming. At all. It was considered very bad form. Also, there were ideas about what acceptable subjects were.
I'd link the wiki site for it, but it gives two poetic examples that I don't think are very good. Look at your own peril.
The reason why I have something of an obsession with this form is two-fold.
1) by strictly limiting syllables, poets were forced to write works that are simple and very very powerful in the images and emotions conveyed. It is almost as if, by limiting words, you can better capture the essence of a thing that words can never express.
2) many people might view the rules imposed upon waka as limiting the potential creativity of the writers. Not so! By forcing poets (who were sometimes in direct competition, making poems on the spot in teams and individually) to conform to strict standards it forced them to be far more creative in order to have a strong poem that conforms to the accepted rules AND is markedly different from other poems.
Basically, it is easy (for some) to be original with no limits. It is genius to be original within them.
When I read older Japanese poetry I am struck by emotions FAR more strongly than I am by many more involved poems written in English. In the ones I like most there is a sort of sweet and slow sadness. A sense of inevitability of life that is struggled against, with that struggle being no less noble for its futility. A depth and beauty to things, even in their passing. It is difficult to describe, and no one tanka does it justice.
My favorite poem is not a poem, in fact is not usually read at all, but rather heard, possibly over the radio. It is the song “Drops of Jupiter” by the band Train. I love the song not only for its soaring melody, but also for its lyrics. The song is about a guy wondering if he will still be what his girlfriend needs and wants after her journey of identity. He tries to stress that the extraordinary is no better than ordinary everyday occurrences. This song never fails to cheer me up after a bad day and any failure I feel is relieved slightly by this song’s message of trying to move forward but still remembering where you have been.
Most people of today’s world do not sit down and read contemporary poetry or any poetry at all. However, I think that poetry can still be found in music. Granted not all of today’s songs are incredibly deep, but not all poetry is incredibly deep either. You may not see a young man sitting in the coffee shop writing a love sonnet, but you could see him writing lyrics to a love song. All forms of music have links to poetry and today’s emphasis on music with lyrics may have very well been the natural progression of written poetry.
"Dinosauria, We" by Charles Bukowski (1992)
I first encountered this poem not in its written form, but spoken aloud by the poet himself in the biographical documentary Bukowski: Born Into This, and it honestly knocked me right off of my feet. Hearing the grizzled old prototypical sad bastard of a man recounting his disillusionment and discontent towards the day and age that has come to be honestly felt like a pound of rocks in my stomach. His constant repetition of "Born like this / Into this," and subsequently "Born into this" lend a sense of futile predestination that leaves little hope for current or future generations. As the poem continues on, the short, rapid fire presentation of commentaries and images prevalent in our society and media create an almost cinematic cut-sequence effect. One could imagine watching an amalgamation of television screens mounted on a wall presenting stock footage of all the things that he speaks of, all of the atrocities of humankind, ushering in the age of Armageddon that Bukowski seems to hold as the only possibility for salvation of the planet. He doesn't even seem to care about society or humankind, simply the eradication of the filthy mess humanity has made of a once great society. Now, I'm not saying I agree with Bukowski at all on these matters. However, I can hear his grim, steadfast voice booming out "Born like this ....... into this" betaween drags of a loosely rolled cigarette and it still haunts me to this day. It really made me feel something profound and lasting, which I suppose the goal of any type of serious poetry or literature should be.
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