What is Poetry?
Protest Poetry
Strongly Autobiographical Poems
Modernist "Poetry"
One of our last sort of units was looking at modernist poems. I had bones to pick with a few of them because they were so short, or so confusing, that it felt like there was no real message to me. For the rest of the semester every time I read a poem, I first thought about whether or not I thought it really should be considered a poem.
If I told Him, A Complete Portrait of Picasso by: Gertrude Stein. Having the name Picasso in it's title, yet not saying the name once in the poem is one of the mainly things that is confusing about this poem. I hesitate to call this a poem because while it does have elements like repetition, and the general form of a normal poem, these elements don't convey a clear message, or really any message at all to me.
A Carafe, that is a Blinding Glass by: Gertrude Stein
"Poemy", a word I thought I created, however apparently is real. In relation to the modernist poems that felt too short or confusing to be a poem, there were also some poems that just didn't have a "poemy" vibe. "A Carafe, that is Blinding Glass" is one example because the form makes it look like an essay or book sentence rather than a poem. A poem can be a great poem, but not feel like a poem; simultaneously a poem can feel "poemy" and not be very good.
[you fit into me] by: Margaret Atwood. While we all seemed to really enjoy this poem, the length and simple message made some question it's "poemy vibe." Tessa explained in our discussion that she felt the poem was a little elementary and overdone because of it's length and content, and I agree. The message of the poem is quite obvious to the point there is little thinking required, and the point was made in four lines. To some this poem sparked a lot of ideas, and for others it felt lack luster and not "poemy" enough.
During our discussion about Gwendolyn Brooks I realized that a lot of her poetry serves as activism mainly towards social issue regarding discrimination of Black people.
Primer for Blacks by: Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem could be read as a speech to encourage Black people to embrace their heritage. Brooks uses very direct language in this poem, making statements and demands. She is demanding that people mixed with Black not hide behind their other ethnicity in an effort to not be Black. Brooke goes through some skin tone colors, saying all of them are Black even if they are lighter. She is really speaking to the Black community here, even people who don't consider themselves apart of the community. She is saying that Black people should embrace their heritage, not hide it, while also explaining how white people have made it hard for others to embrace being Black.
Young Afrikans by: Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem addresses the challenges that Black people face due to discrimination around the world. She spells African with a K because most African languages use K's instead of C's. With this she is showing solidarity with the Black community, and as the poem continues she aims to bring attention to the injustice Black people deal with and the rights they are not afforded.
The Red Wheelbarrow by: William Carlos Williams. It's hard to say this poem doesn't feel "poemy" to me, because it is a classic that basically everybody loves. But, I feel like it's fits in the category because it is so short, and the message is not super deep nor requires a lot of thinking.
In a Station of the Metro by: Ezra Pound. This poem is one that feels very "poemy," yet I would argue it is not what I would consider a poem. The language used is what makes it feel like a poem because it is a metaphor and it makes you try to compare all of these seemingly unrelated things. But, the length and confusing message make me feel like this isn't what I would consider a poem to be.
Objective Correlative
I found this term to be very intriguing because the idea that one thing can make everybody feel the same way is something I would normally say isn't possible. Everybody has different experiences which means they interpret poetry differently. But, after we talked about objective correlative I started thinking about universal emotions conveyed through the rest of the poems we read.
Some poetry functions as a way for poets to explain their experiences, rather than relate directly to their audience. We saw this mostly at the end of the semester, where we found that we needed context of the writer and their life to understand the poem. Normally, you separate the writer and the speaker in poems because it could be written from a different perspective that the poets own; but in these examples the writer and speaker are clearly the same person.
Catastrophe is Next to Godliness by: Franny Choi. This poem is clearly about a very specific event in the writer's life, and we can see that through lines like, "The day A. died, the sun was brighter than any sun." and "When the bad thing happened..." These lines reference a very specific memory and experience that not all readers can relate to. The poem prioritizes explaining the specific ways the writer felt before having a universal theme the whole audience can relate to.
Someday I'll Love by: Ocean Vuong. This poem serves as a memoir of sorts for Vuong. Knowing the life story of Vuong is almost essential in understanding this poem. He addresses very specific memories from his life, but does so in an ambiguous way. Lines like, "...no matter how many times our knees kiss the pavement." and "Don't be afraid, the gunfire is only the sound of people trying to live a little longer and failing." are about Vuong's experience being born in Vietnam, and explain a little of why he left. Not many people will be able to relate to these lines, especially cause some of them address the writers name directly, but that isn't entirely the goal, instead they give the audience a glimpse into the writer's real life.
Those Winter Sundays by: Robert Hayden. While writing my essay for this course on this poem I watched a video that included many different people, all of which related to and have been heavily influenced by this poem. It is impossible to read this poem and not think about your own parents and the work you didn't notice, just like Robert Hayden is explaining. The language choice is very strong, which makes lines like, "...put his clothes on in the blueblack cold" make everybody imagine a dark and freezing environment.
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by: E.E. Cummings. The speaker does not address anyone or anything directly, which allows the audience to connect and think of whatever or whoever they love most in their life. No matter who it is, everybody will be thinking about something very close to them and feel the exact same way about it as the speaker.
Dreams by: Langston Hughes. While it is pretty straightforward, this poem universally makes the audience think about the future, and how they wish for it to look. Through metaphors Hughes explains how vital it is to hold onto dreams because life is dark and cold without them.
The speakers perspective being so obviously the writer's in these two poems made me think about perspective in general. We talked about this earlier in the semester talking about how men used to write poems from the perspective of Mary. This then made me think about the poems we read that are quite obviously not written from the writers perspective.
The Little Black Boy by: William Blake. Pretty much any poem from Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" fit into this category of clearly not being written from the firsthand perspective of the writer. Most of the poems in this collection are from the perspective of children, and for most there is a matching poem with the opposite perspective.
Obviously Blake isn't a girl, or Black, or a child, so perspective is something that he really played with in this collection. I picked "The Little Black Boy" specifically because it does not have a matching poem, which makes it seem like Black kids are not equal to white kids. We discussed in class whether or not it is problematic for poets to write from a perspective they cannot relate to, and the general consensus was it's okay as long as it isn't harmful. I would say this poem is an example of one of the ones that is harmful. Creatively it is cruel to say writing from another perspective is discriminatory; but this poem serves as the reason some people are bothered by it.
Further thinking about perspective, the poem "To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks openly shows her trying to think from another perspective, and in a less problematic way. In Blake's collection, you wouldn't know it wasn't written by a little girl for example because he doesn't write it as such. But in this Brooks poem, she is proposing ideas for how someone with a different perspective could think to help themselves. The poem is from Brooks point of view, but it is about how she thinks another perspective should think.
A Small Needful Fact by: Ross Gay. This poem can serve as a message that there is beauty beyond death, but it also works as activism against the laws mistreatment of Black people. The story of Eric Garner's life, and the small needful fact of him working with plants shows the beauty of his life in a way, and the irony behind him helping people breathe and him dying from a chokehold. The story of Eric Garner's life has a message, and the story of his last day in particular is where this poem has the activism aspect.