SUUUURREEEEEAAAAAALLLL

I often enjoy surrealist poetry, but sometimes I feel very intimidated by it. Sometimes I feel like I am missing a big piece, but other times I love the dream like eccentricities of the poetry, the way it plays with you r mind. I love poems like “Transfiguration.” I like the images evoked in this particular poem. It seems that this “transfiguration” is less of some sort of transmutation and more recanting time. Each image presented is a defining moment of some sort. It is the exact moment of transformation in which a larva becomes an insect, the turning point of its existence, is reversed. This particular image, of the insect and larva, jars a bit with some of the other images. The poem is heavy with biblical allusions and this images neither directly displays nor connotes (as far as I know, my biblical background is not so sturdy as to claim this with vigor) such a religious reference. Perhaps this is a reference to another religious culture; I didn’t find much on this so I am not too sure about that hypothesis. I think the image is present mostly for its reflection of change rather than a retraction of action. Many of the other images are in fact just this--I do not say just as in, merely, but to connote sameness-- and evoke a feeling of highness, of deity and power. I also find it interesting the way these images seem to fix on incidence of conflict and betrayal. We have the murder of Abel by Cain, Pilate and Judas, the death of Christ, the implication of the removal of sin from the removal of Eve (the mother of sin—oh how I detest this blatant misogyny. These are highly negative concepts to be dealing with, and the poet is depicting them as being reversed, removed, as though to erase evil and sin from the source, Eve. But it almost seems that in doing so, good things must also be erased. The words of Moses, the Garden of Eden is untouched and thus unappreciated. What good is beauty if nothing recognizes and appreciates it? And again, the sun “feeds” each day from “the last day to the first” – giving this feeling of moving backwards through time.

I am a sucker for sound. It’s kind of strange I suppose because I have had a serious hearing impairment all of my life, but I suppose that since I have never experienced things any differently, I don’t feel that I am missing something special. I have learned to distinguish notes and melodies and harmonies just as I am, and I have got to say I am addicted. This connects to poetry, I promise!

When it comes to sound over sense, I find myself drawn to poems whose sound appeals to me. This isn’t to say that I read poetry only for the aural pleasure, ignoring the meaning. Hardly! I do very much enjoy getting into the analysis, picking each phrase, each word, each letter apart, figuring out how it all connects. That is perhaps what I love the most, when a poet utilizes every element of expression to convey her message. Unwrapping each brightly packaged implication brings joy to rival Christmas morning!

I was browsing The Norton Anthology of Poetry, that is actually something I do in my spare time, and I came across a couple of poems by John Updike and the particular poem I was drawn to was “V. B. Nimble, V. B. Quick.” First of all, I love the title! I love that play on words (say it aloud if you get it at first.) The focus of the poem is on V. B. Wigglesworth, a professor of Biology in the University of Cambridge and very serious science. The use of perfect rhyming couplets, alliteration, “V. B. Wigglesworth wakes at noon, washes, shaves, and very soon is at the lab,” and “He reads his mail and tweaks a tadpole by the tail,” combined with silly sounding words, “Wigglesworth,” “tweaks,” and “jellyfish,” create a playful air of frivolity and pleasantries. Some of the things he does in the lab, such as “Dip[ping] a spider in a vat” and “Instruct[ing] a jellyfish to spawn,” seem quite ridiculous. This directly contrasts the sterile environment we usually associate with a lab. I think that perhaps it is a satirical critique of science when lost in “pure science” rather than, perhaps practical science. It is as though Updike is criticizing those scientists whose experiments have little to do with the real world, or have no practical results.

Now, I find all of this very fascinating. I love how there is sort of tongue-in-cheek humor hidden in here, however, I would have never noticed had it not been for the lovely sound of the poem. It was the style of the poem, the alliteration, the bubbly rhyme scheme, that caught my attention. This intrigued me and led to further analysis. So basically, my point, it all comes back to sound.

Why I Am Not a Painter

At the very beginning of this course we briefly discussed ars poeticas while talking about Perdomo’s “Papo’s Ars Poetica” and, I quote this from my notes on that particular day, ars poetica is “a poem where you say what a poem should be.” Defining a poem is like defining art, it’s easy and impossible at the same time. You know something is art, but can you explain why? For every element of support, there is a counterexample undermining your entire argument.

I think that maybe that is part of the beauty of it all. You can create something wonderful, something beautiful, something that expresses everything and explains nothing. The creative process involved in the conception of art is something that never fails to fascinate me and perhaps this is why I found myself identifying with Frank O’Hara’s “Why I Am Not a Painter.” I like the way O’Hara opens with the first line, “I am not a painter, I am a poet.” It is so simple, so clean, so very direct. This line could have come off a bit arrogant and self-glorifying, but the next two lines counteract and neutralize that possibility with honesty, a sort of sheepish admission. It makes me feel akin to the speaker, as I too wish I were a painter. I get that urge to paint, sculpt, sketch what it is that am yearning to express, how cathartic it would be to do so. Unfortunately my motor skills are a bit lacking.

I like how both painting and writing are portrayed in such a lengthy, procedural way, while still maintaining the artistic vision. The creation of the painting and the creation poems last over days, subject to alterations and modifications. The way the artist adds sardines to fill an empty space, reflects the necessary deliberation an artist must make. This is not unlike the poet, who reflects and creates with premeditated purpose. At the same time, the sardines are removed when they become “too much” and the poet’s single line inspired by orange transpires into twelve poems, where the poet hasn’t even “mentioned orange yet.” Somehow the poem, the painting, each has evolved beyond its original design. For me, this really reflects art, writing anything and everything creative in the way that one small taste, smell, color, texture, can inspire pages and paintings and sculptures and photographs, each full of words and wishes and images and dreams.

Hello to all! I hope everyone enjoyed fall break, whether here in Ithaca or elsewhere. Did anyone else procrastinate all of their studying until today?? I know I did, which I suppose is why I am writing this in the early hours of the morning. Well anyway, enough chatter, down to business. I’d like to focus on a couple of different things today. To start off, anyone have any favorite poems in this bunch? I always appreciate the poems we read for class, I enjoy them, but I don’t always have a particular favorite. This go round I found myself quite drawn to W. H. Auden’s Lullaby. I found Auden’s imagery to particularly moving. He addresses a “delicate” subject with taste and elegance. I find that he aptly describes his subject matter without offending the reader’s propriety. This is essential because the audience is mixed, not all people can embrace such explicit portrayals of sexual intimacy. When the poet pushes the imagery too hard, sometimes the poem is lost in the expression and the audience loses focus. Auden uses metaphor to paint quite vivid scenes that would otherwise be categorized as pornographic. By expressing himself in this manner he leaves no doubt as to his subject matter, creating the imagery vibrantly, but not offensively, leaving the censoring up to the reader. This allows the reader to focus on the emotional implication of poem. We are filled with the passion of the lovers while the images generate the sensory ardor that only strengthens our amorous zeal.

I could ramble about that a bit more but I had another topic I wanted to address. I was wondering if anyone noticed the way Harryette Mullen’s Dim Lady paralleled Shakespeare’s sonnet 130. I actually read Dim Lady first, then the sonnet. Though I am rather familiar with this particular sonnet, I didn’t recognize the congruency while reading Dim Lady. By the end of the second line of the sonnet, however, I had already taken Dim Lady out again to read the two poems side by side. I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I really like the contemporary interpretation of the sonnet, the cultural references that place the sonnet in a new, more relatable context. On the other hand, I feel like it objectifies the poem, making it seem more like a commodity that has gotten old and needs to be reinvented. Or perhaps like old software, computer systems out of date that must be updated and made-over with a brand new spin to boost sales. Maybe that’s the point. I feel that Shakespeare is timeless, or rather that his work is timeless. This is what defines his literary genius as literary genius. So, by reinventing Shakespeare, is Mullen commenting on our society? The way we fail to appreciate that greats that were, the way we are caught up in what is new and shiny. Any opinions?

Green-Colored Nightmares

Dulce Et Decorum Est is one of my favorite poems. I tend to really like poems of experimental form, poems that either defy or mutate and disguise traditional structure. Hence, this piece, with its oh-so-traditional meter (it’s roughly iambic pentameter) and predictable rhyme scheme (abab), doesn’t exactly fit the genre for one of my regular candidates. This recipe for banality succeeded in shocking me with its powerful imagery. I think it was Julia who mentioned in class that after reading this poem, she had a dream about being gassed. I actually read this poem for my English class last year, but the first time I read it, the piece had the very same effect on me! I had this bizarre dream where I was in chemistry class and this alarm began to sound. Everything in the room turned a strange under-sea blue-green hue and plumes of green smoke filled the lab as we dove under lab benches and into in the chemical supply closet. I literally began to choke, smothered by the fumes. Needless to say I woke up in a bit of a panic. I had actually given myself an anxiety induced asthma attack from the dream (hence the suffocating).
Clearly, the poem had quite an effect on me.
So my question, exactly what does the poet do to create such a powerful impact? I know that, for me, this poem exposes a deeply disturbing scene. I know I mentioned this in class, but I the way Owen opens the poem by describing the soldiers as they march, really gets to me. The typical depictions would glorify the soldiers as brave, proud, marching tall, shoulders back, head held high. But these soldiers are “bent double, like beggars under sacks.” Owen puts the men usually glorified and celebrated alongside the creatures that repulse us, those we alienate and ignore. When the gas bombs drop, the soldiers do not spring into action, there is “an ecstasy of fumbling fitting the clumsy helmets just in time.” Here the use of “fumbling” and “clumsy” really fleshes out the image of the downtrodden, overwrought soldier. And then the sheer helplessness of the man who doesn’t get his helmet in time, “guttering, choking, drowning,” infuses the atmosphere with futility and despair. Both the victim and the onlooker are helpless to do anything as the victim slowly dies, horribly and grotesquely. The onlooker hears the “gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” and can do nothing but continue to listen. As the gas, the violence, the war itself acts “obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud.” The pure irony of the last line is nearly painful with the stark contrast of the eloquent Latin to the horrific scene just depicted.
I find the whole piece emotionally overwhelming.