Countee Cullen- The loss of Love

All through an empty place I go,
And find her not in any room;
The candles and the lamps I light
Go down before a wind of gloom.
Thick-spraddled lies the dust about,
A fit, sad place to write her name
Or draw her face the way she looked
That legendary night she came.

The old house crumbles bit by bit;
Each day I hear the ominous thud
That says another rent is there
For winds to pierce and storms to flood.

My orchards groan and sag with fruit;
Where, Indian-wise, the bees go round;
I let it rot upon the bough;
I eat what falls upon the ground.

The heavy cows go laboring
In agony with clotted teats;
My hands are slack; my blood is cold;
I marvel that my heart still beats.

I have no will to weep or sing,
No least desire to pray or curse;
The loss of love is a terrible thing;
They lie who say that death is worse.

Countee Cullen

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-loss-of-love/

I really like this poem because it is true. Now I cannot say that I have lost love but I have had break ups and they are definitely hard to lose someone. This poem was written somewhere around the 1920s and 1930s which means that it was written during the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance, many poems were repetitive and focused on concerns and issues of the time. I do not feel like this poem focuses on a huge issue of the time. The issues more likely to be focused on were the racial discrimination and other more severe problems. Harlem Renaissance pieces also contained a fragmented structure. This poem does not seem to contrain any major fragments either. I feel like this poem is simply a love and grief poem. “The Loss of Love” is talking about losing someone you love and it sounds like this person died. No one in my close family has ever died therefore, I have never quite felt Cullen’s despair. According to Cullen, it is very difficult to recover from a loss. “I have no will to weep or sing, no least desire to pray or curse, the loss of love is a terrible thing; they life who say that death is worse.” Losing someone would be very challenging and would cause the despair Cullen expresses.  

Chosen Poet: Gary Snyder

How Poetry Comes to Me
It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

Source

Snyder is a postmodern poet.  He combines a Buddhist point of view with the influence of his Beat contemporaries; he emphasizes clarity, in the minds of his audience and in the relationship between humans and their surroundings.  That can be seen here, as poetry comes to the edge of the camp like a deer would, if the deer were curious.  This personification of poetry creates a fluid relationship between the speaker, most likely Snyder, and poetry.  It allows them to grow closer and to trust one another.  The only punctuation is that comma after night, representing the longest pause in this encounter.  The poetry is clumsy on the rocks, and Snyder is the one who has to coax it to him; he knows its there, but he's the one who has to do the work to get it to truly manifest itself.  That idea goes against the postmodernist idea that "'first thought, best thought,'" is best for aesthetic appeal.

Gregory Corso (use this one)

1959 Uncomprising year—I see no meaning to life. Though this abled self is here nonetheless, either in trade gold or grammaticness, I drop the wheelwright’s simple principle— Why weave the garland? Why ring the bell? Penurious butchery these notoriously human years, these confident births these lucid deaths these years. Dream’s flesh blood reals down life’s mystery— there is no mystery. Cold history knows no dynastic Atlantis. The habitual myth has an eagerness to quit. No meaning to life can be found in this holy language nor beyond the lyrical fabricator’s inescapable theme be found the loathed find—there is nothing to find. Multitudinous deathplot! O this poor synod— Hopers and seekers paroling meaning to meaning, annexing what might be meaningful, what might be meaningless. Repeated nightmare, lachrymae lachrymae— a fire behind a grotto, a thick fog, shredded masts, the nets heaved—and the indescribable monster netted. Who was it told that red flesh hose be still? For one with smooth hands did with pincers snip the snout—It died like a yawn. And when the liver sack was yanked I could not follow it to the pan. I could not follow it to the pan— I woke to the reality of cars; Oh the dreadful privilege of that vision! Not one antique faction remained; Egypt, Rome, Greece, and all such pedigree dreams fled. Cars are real! Eternity is done. The threat of Nothingness renews. I touch the untouched. I rank the rose militant. Deny, I deny the tastes and habits of the age. I am its punk debauche .... A fierce lampoon seeking to inherit what is necessary to forfeit. Lies! Lies! Lies! I lie, you lie, we all lie! There is no us, there is no world, there is no universe, there is no life, no death, no nothing—all is meaningless, and this too is a lie—O damned 1959! Must I dry my inspiration in this sad concept? Delineate my entire stratagem? Must I settle into phantomness and not say I understand things better than God? Gregory Corso http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1959/ Gregory Corso was a postmodern poet that died in 2001 and lived in New York City, NY. He was an important member of the beat movement. He lived in the time of 1959, so the poem speaks from a real life experience about the time. Hardships and struggles are evident from the poem. It acts as if giving up was close. “There is no of us, there is no world, there is no universe” is a very dark and radical view of the world. He felt that there was no meaning, and he uses poetic devices to convey this attitude and a negative connotation. He uses imagery to further this negative image about the darkness of life. He was 29 at this time, so he had an educated view that he had experienced a lot in his life at this point. It is a free verse poem, which goes along with the way he described this and wrote. The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who wrote in the 1950s, and they had a distinct culture. Beat culture included rejection of received standards, innovations in style, experimentation with drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition. Corso had radical beliefs, and he fit in with the other Beat Generation writers, yet the things he had to say were meaningful and possibly how a lot of people felt after World War II.

Judgement: Pilates and Jesus

After being betrayed by Judas (who returned the 30 pieces of silver and hung himself), Jesus was brought to Pontius Pilate, the governor. Pilate asks Jesus if he is the King of the Jews to which Jesus replies  “It is as you say." Jesus is further questioned and he does not answer. Pilate offers to release one prisoner of the peoples choosing to the people. The two under consideration were Jesus and Barabbas ( a notorious prisoner.) When asked who the people wanted they call out for Barabbas. When Pilate asked what should be done to "Jesus who is called Christ," the people yelled "Let him be crucified." When Pilate asked what evil Jesus had performed the crowed simply yelled out "Let him be Crucified." Pilate did not want Jesus' blood on him (especially because his wife repeatedly told him to "have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him.") and washed his hands clean in front of the crowd. To which the crowd responded "His blood be on us and our children."  Barabbas is given to the people and after being scourged, Jesus is delivered to be crucified. 


Everyone views judgment as morally unacceptable even though judgment is unavoidable. Now, not to sound like a crummy person but, we have all judged and been judged. This is obvious through the fact that no one is friends with everyone. There are without a doubt people you have judged because they act differently than you or have different morals. For the same reasons people have judged you. In our society, it is wrong to judge someone. While no one would say, "I do not want to talk to them because they look weird," it happens everyday you walk through HCHS hallways. There is no way to prevent judgment of others, the only option is to lessen judgment for the wrong reasons (race, sex, etc.) Judging due to race and sex is terrible and avoidable. Nonetheless, no one could ever try and stop someone from judging another for their actions (this happens in HCHS hallways, interviews and public places.) 

W.H. Auden

W.H. Auden (1907-1973) was a twentieth-century poet who was somewhat modernist, but tended to "transcend labels". Half of his poems he wrote as an English citizen before WWII, and the second half as an American citizen after the war. Of his poems, I chose "The Unknown Citizen", written in 1939.
(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument

Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
   saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content 
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
   generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
   education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

This particular poem deviates from the standard expectations of modernist poetry as it is entirely a satirical commentary on the true uniqueness of man. The poem starts out with a message saying that  the following is for a marble monument for the citizen, beginning the satire. Throughout the poem, the speaker basically describes the things that the citizen had done in his life that was good, like serve in the army, not get fired, quietly live his life. However, because the man had lived a very quiet and cautious life, he was considered free because it was in his will. This is quite contrary to the speaker's beliefs, who believes that non-unique behavior does not equal freedom. The satirical nature of the poem is summed up with the two questions at the end of the poem; literally, the speaker is saying that "Of course! Of course he was free, he's just like everyone else so naturally we would know if he wasn't." The true meaning of what the speaker is trying to say is that what everyone else sees as freedom and happiness is simply just a highly conformist nature masked by the idea of a free country.
As I mentioned before, the poem doesn't very much align with modernist poetry. It is pretty independent in itself, but it does align slightly more with postmodern poetry due to the irony and satire present and the political issues it addresses. I also think it's interesting how Auden wrote this poem after he moved to America after the war, as this poem talks about a citizen's "free" life after the war.





I found the poem on this website:
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/unknown-citizen

Frank O'Hara

Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) was a poet of the "New York School" Movement, which had strong ties to the growing art culture in New York at the time. Like their visual art friends, their form of poetry was designed to help readers see the world in a new way through new comparisons and ideas. His poem "A Step Away from Them" is particularly enticing as O'Hara provides this new perspective on modern culture as it developed in the mid-20th Century.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171374

A Step Away from Them
BY FRANK O'HARA

It’s my lunch hour, so I go

for a walk among the hum-colored   

cabs. First, down the sidewalk   

where laborers feed their dirty   

glistening torsos sandwiches

and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets   

on. They protect them from falling   

bricks, I guess. Then onto the   

avenue where skirts are flipping   

above heels and blow up over   

grates. The sun is hot, but the   

cabs stir up the air. I look   

at bargains in wristwatches. There   

are cats playing in sawdust.

                                          On

to Times Square, where the sign

blows smoke over my head, and higher   

the waterfall pours lightly. A   

Negro stands in a doorway with a   

toothpick, languorously agitating.   

A blonde chorus girl clicks: he   

smiles and rubs his chin. Everything   

suddenly honks: it is 12:40 of   

a Thursday.

                Neon in daylight is a   

great pleasure, as Edwin Denby would   

write, as are light bulbs in daylight.   

I stop for a cheeseburger at JULIET’S   

CORNER. Giulietta Masina, wife of   

Federico Fellini, è bell’ attrice.

And chocolate malted. A lady in   

foxes on such a day puts her poodle   

in a cab.

             There are several Puerto   

Ricans on the avenue today, which   

makes it beautiful and warm. First   

Bunny died, then John Latouche,   

then Jackson Pollock. But is the   

earth as full as life was full, of them?   

And one has eaten and one walks,   

past the magazines with nudes   

and the posters for BULLFIGHT and   

the Manhattan Storage Warehouse,   

which they’ll soon tear down. I   

used to think they had the Armory   

Show there.

                A glass of papaya juice   

and back to work. My heart is in my   

pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.

One of the biggest devices used by O'Hara here is his extensive use of imagery as he depicts a largely materialistic world that, in many ways, did not leave much room for artistic expression in the forefront of society (of course, looking back, it became a huge part of our history). When O'Hara uses phrases such as "laborers feed their dirty   

glistening torsos sandwiches and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets on", he has essentially made this new kind of connection between pop culture and poetry that few before him had been able to do. In addition to that, he includes references to a blonde girl, an African-American, and Puerto Ricans, something which we can link to the cultural perception of America as the "melting pot". However, a lot of these modern and pop culture connections seem to be dissolved in the final stanza of this free verse poem. O'Hara writes "A glass of papaya juice and back to work. My heart is in my pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy". Just like that, it seems like the entire building up by O'Hara has been thrown out the window. Papaya juice (not sure if there was some phenomenon for it in the mid-20th Century) seems like something well off the beaten path from "Coca-Cola" and, per today's terminology of "hipster", seems to definitely fit the bill. The same can probably be said for the book of poems by a French artist. 

Perhaps the breaking of modern ties connects to the possible theme: Poetry is so entwined into modern culture until you go back to the surface of it all.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)

BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

Constantly risking absurdity

                                             and death

            whenever he performs

                                        above the heads

                                                            of his audience

   the poet like an acrobat

                                 climbs on rime

                                          to a high wire of his own making

and balancing on eyebeams

                                     above a sea of faces

             paces his way

                               to the other side of day

    performing entrechats

                               and sleight-of-foot tricks

and other high theatrics

                               and all without mistaking

                     any thing

                               for what it may not be

       For he's the super realist

                                     who must perforce perceive

                   taut truth

                                 before the taking of each stance or step

in his supposed advance

                                  toward that still higher perch

where Beauty stands and waits

                                     with gravity

                                                to start her death-defying leap

      And he

             a little charleychaplin man

                                           who may or may not catch

               her fair eternal form

                                     spreadeagled in the empty air

                  of existence

When this poem was written, it was one of the sparks of the "San Francisco literary renaissance of the 1950s and the subsequent "Beat" movement." Ferlinghetti writes to defy popular political movements and writes like jazz-a very contemporary style where the poetry reflects either the subject matter (including the shape of the poem) and or adds the shape as a stylistic effect adding emphasis and meaning to the poem. Like in "Constantly Risking Absurdity" Ferlinghetti uses a scattered line placement to suggest an almost crazy look to the poem itself, but because of the poem's words, the poem remains connected just like its "constantly risking absurdity".  Ferlinghetti also uses enjambment to have the flow of the poem seem endless just like the act of writing poetry as a never ending struggle and balancing act. Imagery is also used to draw comparisons for everyone to understand. By using three different examples describing poetry authors, the tight rope walker, the realist, and the charleychaplin man, he connects with different levels of education and age with the audience. Reaching those differences was a large part of the characteristics of that time period and of Ferlinghetti's writings. To me, the meaning of the poem is describing how difficult it is to actually write poetry. Most people don't necessarily understand the art of composing a poem that is deep in meaning and power. This poem addresses that issue for Ferlinghetti's readers that might not appreciate other authors as much because the poems just seem like jumbled words that anyone could put together.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lawrence-ferlinghetti

This is just some Biographical information on Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his accomplishments taken from http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/lawrence-ferlinghetti.

On March 24, 1919, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York. After spending his early childhood in France, he received his BA from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the Sorbonne.

During World War II he served in the US Naval Reserve and was sent to Nagasaki shortly after it was bombed. He married in 1951 and has one daughter and one son.

In 1953, Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin began to publish City Lights magazine. They also opened the City Lights Books Shop in San Francisco to help support the magazine. In 1955, they launched City Light Publishing, a book-publishing venture. City Lights became known as the heart of the “Beat” movement, which included writers such as Kenneth Rexroth,Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.

Ferlinghetti is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including Time of Useful Consciousness (New Directions, 2012); Poetry as Insurgent Art (2007); Americus, Book I(2004); San Francisco Poems (2002); How to Paint Sunlight(2001); A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997); These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993 (1993); Over All the Obscene Boundaries: European Poems & Transitions (1984);Who Are We Now? (1976); The Secret Meaning of Things(1969); and A Coney Island of the Mind (1958). He has translated the work of a number of poets including Nicanor Parra, Jacques Prevert, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Ferlinghetti is also the author more than eight plays and of the novelsLove in the Days of Rage (1988) and Her (1966).

In 1994, San Francisco renamed a street in his honor. He was also named the first Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 1998. His other awards and honors include the lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle in 2000, the Frost Medal in 2003, and The Literarian Award in 2005 presented “for outstanding service to the American literary community.”

Currently, Ferlinghetti writes a weekly column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He also continues to operate the City Lights bookstore, and he travels frequently to participate in literary conferences and poetry readings.

Sonia Sanchez

POEM AT THIRTY 

it is midnight

no magical bewitching

hour for me 

i know only that 

i am here waiting 

remembering that 

once as a child 

i walked two 

miles in my sleep. 

did i know 

then where i 

was going?

traveling. i'm 

always traveling. 

i want to tell 

you about me 

about nights on a 

brown couch when 

i wrapped my

bones in lint and 

refused to move. 

no one touches

me anymore. 

father do not 

send me out 

among strangers. 

you you black man

stretching scraping 

the mold from your body 

here is my hand. 

i am not afraid 

of the night. 

______________________________________________________

Sonia Sanchez (1934-) has taken important roles in the fight for women's rights as well as the Black Arts Movement, just as other African American writers of the time had. Reflecting on and delving into her personal life through her writing has enabled her to speak for the people.

This poem, "poem at thirty, deviates from the style of writing of the time some. Bringing the tone and content to a more personal level, Sanchez reminisces about her life on the eve of her thirtieth birthday. At the beginning of the poem, she seems frustrated about all that she missed out on, looking back. The organization of the poem (the interrupted thoughts and the short sentences) help to reveal the frustration of the poet. She reflects on all that she has endured, and the tone becomes more prideful towards the end.

Though it does not exactly reflect the style of writing of the time, it does capture the struggles of an African American woman growing up, which fits thematically with poetry at the time.

Source: "No More Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets" (1993), Florence Howe

Death is a casual countryman

Charles Olson was born in 1910 and died at the age of 60 in 1970. Olson would be categorized with the black mountain poets. This group of poets began with a school for the arts known as black mountain college. This institution was only open for 23 years and enrolled fewer than 1200 students. Charles Olson actually introduced an open field poetry form, in which each line could be read in one breath and phrase.
The most intriguing poem of Olson's to me was "Cole's island"
Link for your viewing pleasure here
If read correctly you can see how his poem lines up with the style characteristic of the group and time period after.
The meaning of this poem also makes me think. Olson is implying that this man walking near him as if he is just minding his own business, is death. So casually does death stroll past without giving any more acknowledgment to Olson's character than a mere head nod. In life this becomes apparent also. death seems to stroll among us as if he owns the "island" we populate. This is brilliant. Olson is a very creatively accurate poet from the black mountain college.

Perseus and Medusa

The story of Perseus begins with the oracle Delphi telling Acrisius, the king of Argos, that his own grandson would one day kill him. That grandson would be the offspring of his daughter Danae. Like any logical person afraid of his or her own death, Acrisius imprisoned his daughter in a room beneath the earth to prevent any intercourse/mating/childbearing acts.
But this didn't stop Zeus. Obviously. It's Zeus. He came to Danae in the form of golden rain. I actually had to stop to laugh for a good 2 minutes straight when I read that. Nothing, not even a prison under the earth, is going to stop Zeus from mating with whomever he pleases. This interaction caused Danae to fall pregnant with Perseus. When Acrisius learned of this, he did not believe Zeus was the father, and he let his daughter and grandson out on the open sea on an ark. They ended up at Serifos Island where they were adopted by a man on the island. That man happened to be the brother of Polydectes, the king of the island.
Polydectes wanted to wife Danae, but he knew with Perseus there he wouldn't be able to make that happen. So he decided to send Perseus on a crazy mission where he asked for the head of the gorgon Medusa.
Now we come to Medusa. Medusa was one of three sisters, all gorgons. She was the only mortal one. Legend has it that all three used to be beautiful maidens. Medusa was so beautiful that Poseidon fell in love with her. She did not reciprocate, so Poseidon cursed her and her sisters to be gorgons: monsters who turned anyone who dared look them in the eye into stone. They also had snakes for hair. Just as an added touch.
So Perseus had a difficult task. Athena and Hermes provided assistance, supplying Perseus with winged sandals, a cap that made him invisible, a sword, and a mirrored shield. If you've seen Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, this should sound familiar. Seeing the reflection of Medusa did not turn one into stone. Perseus successfully beheaded Medusa, and from her drops of blood rose Pegasus, the winged horse, and and Chrysaor, a giant or winged boar. And yeah, that was kind of it. Perseus did it. Yaaaaay.

My hair has an interesting history. I was born with dark brown hair. My mom says the first and only thing she was able to see of me when I was born before they took me away (I was premature) was my dark hair. All three of my sisters had relatively light hair compared to me. As everyone may well know, I am no stranger to hair dye. I began dyeing my hair in the fourth grade (I'm not kidding.) I started off with wash-out blonde hair dye that turned my hair a coppery color. I didn't redye it for a good year or so, so I had horrendous roots. My mom finally redyed my hair right before picture day in the fifth grade. It was dark brown, but in the picture it looks hilighted light brown. I remember I got a really bad perm in sixth grade so my hair was really frizzy. I didn't dye my hair again until the summer before freshman year though, when I dyed it red. Though it really turned out more auburny. I kept the reddish hair all year until my birthday when I wanted to go back to my natural color. I used some foam dye that dyed it really dark brown but it washed out immediately. So I had the reddish brown color until October of my sophomore year when I accidentally dyed it black. The box said it would be light brown, my hair turned black. I kept that hair until I bleached my tips, and every so often I would make my tips green. That wasn't the best hair color I've had. I chopped off my tips at the very end of sophomore year and redyed it deep red, and it stayed that way until the beginning of junior year when I dyed it dark brown. (Do you see a pattern here?) It stayed a good dark brown color until last summer when I decided I wanted to go back to red. This decision was entirely swayed by the book series I was reading at the time. The heroine was redheaded, I wanted to be redheaded. At some point in the beginning of senior year I decided I wanted to try to dye my hair blonde. That's what resulted in my "pumpkin spice," or my really orange hair. I kept that until the Catching Fire movie came out and I impulsively dyed my hair dark brown. It stayed that way for like a month or so until I went back to my "pumpkin spice" hair. I was then swayed to dye my hair red again, and I used my tried and true hair dye. It dyed my hair, no joke, Ariel from the Little Mermaid red. It did not look like real hair. I tried in vain to dilute it by taking like 20 showers in a row but nothing lessened the intense red. So I dyed my hair about 4 times afterwards to get to a normal brownish color. That was a crazy weekend. But yeah, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to bleach my tips so I did. And that's the color history of my hair so far. It will probably change at least two times more before we graduate. I don't ever put thought into my hair. If I want to change the color, I pretty much immediately do it. Oh well. SORRY FOR THE LENGTHY POST ABOUT MY HAIR BUT I'VE DONE A LOT TO MY HAIR.

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English Romantic poet. Of his poems, I chose "My Heart Leaps Up" (1802).

MY heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Romantic poetry was mainly focused on transcendence. The poems of this time were written in "real language" of men and about common life. It embraced the large, impressive forces of nature and the infinite resources of the human imagination. It also embraced the pastoral over the urban.

This poem is about Wordsworth's love for rainbows. Really. He is talking about how much joy he derives from rainbows and how it has been this way since he was a little boy. He also hopes he feels this way about rainbows when he is old or else he will want to die. He also asserts that since the child comes before the man, the child in all of us is the "father" of us. I'm making this more complicated than it is, he's just trying to say that the youth we retain stays with us forever and comes out in times like when you are viewing a rainbow. Wordsworth ends the poem on a deep note by wishing all of his days could be strung together with the beauty of nature and whatnot.

I think this poem fits the characteristics of Romantic poetry. He wrote this poem one day after he wrote another poem of his. It was an ordinary day and he took the idea of a rainbow and made it transcendent. He made a simple rainbow an extraordinary thing and something very integral to his life. 

jesus is metal as frick

Alright, so, I'm fairly certain that I'm supposed to be doing my allusions blog on the Agony of Christ. Here's to hoping I'm right.

From what I've gathered - and mind you, I'm far from a Biblical scholar - the 'leaders', said to be the chief priests and scribes, were formulating a way to kill Jesus. There's also something about Jesus being anointed at Bethany, but from my frantic Googling to figure out exactly what this scene is (it's not as well-known as the parting of the Red Sea, it's a bit more nebulous than that) I've gathered that this part isn't what's most important. What's most important is that before what became the Last Supper, Judas made a deal with the priests to betray Jesus and he got paid for it. I would try to be funny with this, but for some reason, the humor's just not happening right now. Maybe it's because I'm not funny, maybe it's because I'm typing properly for the sake of maintaining some semblance of reverence for a sad Biblical story.

Whatever. At the Last Supper, Jesus basically tells his apostles 'one of you will betray me', and they all freak out, and he says that the one who will betray him will be one who 'dippeth with me in the dish'. Whatever that means. I think he's just again reiterating the fact that one of the people eating with him (ding ding ding, Judas included) will betray him. I just realized that I probably should have said earlier that Judas was one of Jesus' apostles, but I think you all know that already, so it just seems redundant. It was at the Last Supper that Jesus also told them 'eat this bread, it's my body, drink this wine, it's my blood'. Hannibal would be proud.

Then they go to Gethsemane and go into this garden, and Jesus basically tells them, 'the fact that I'm going to die makes me sad.' So he just lays down in the grass and OKAY I JUST LOOKED IT UP I THINK I KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW. Jesus prays three times to God, at first basically asking 'WHY DO I HAVE TO DIE. THIS SUCKS.' but eventually he's like 'okay, if you want this, it's chill.' And he sweats blood. Metal. But yeah, in between all this blood-sweating prayer he checks on his apostles, who have, like. Fallen asleep or something? And after the third time he's like 'GET UP GUYS I'M ABOUT TO BE BETRAYED.' So that's exciting.

And then Judas betrays Jesus and yeah yeah yeah. I'm not even sure if I got the right section of the Bible when doing this. Is this the Agony of Christ? I have no idea, but I do know that I wrote too much.

tl;dr Judas promises to betray Jesus for some cash, Jesus tells his apostles at the Last Supper that he will be betrayed by one of the people eating with him, he also starts communion, basically, and then after coming to terms with his fate and sweating blood like the metalhead he is, Jesus is like 'I'm gonna be betrayed now' and then Judas betrays him. Pretty agonizing. I think the 'agony' is just him wailing to God about why he has to die and how he doesn't want to, but then he deals with it. Go, Jesus.

An agonizing thing I've had to face at Henry Clay... too many things to count. I'm going to take the lame route out and not say much about this because I've already written plenty as is. Uh. That big chemistry lab sophomore year. AP Environmental Science. All those biology dissections. Mentoring crap. HOORAY FOR MISERY.

Amiri Baraka

I selected "Ka'Ba" by Amiri Baraka, written in 1969. Barak was born in 1934 and died earlier this year, and is best known for his role in the Black Arts movement.

In assessing the degree to which Baraka fit into the Black Arts movement, it's important to note that he evolved as a writer very significantly. Initially, he was a moderate civil rights advocate who became radicalized and extreme, until ultimately he abandoned the Black Power movement to instead be a Marxist (at which point he rejected racial differences). That said, the poem I selected clearly fits within his Black Power years, and is a strongly worded praise of Afrocentrism that, though it avoids the offensive language towards nonblacks/women/Jews/Arabs/Christians/LGBTQ+ people that many of Baraka's other poems contain, is nevertheless more on the Garvey side of the spectrum than the MLK side. "Our world is more lovely than anyone's," states Baraka, and "We are beautiful people." The message here is not one of equity but rather of blacks being superior to whites. This fits within the more radical strains of the Black Arts movement quite well, and though this poem is not aggressive, many of his others are. He does recognize the oppression confronting the black community: "we have been captured," and "we sprawl in gray chains," and so on, and he wants black people to "raise up/return, destroy, create."

The title of the poem, Ka'Ba, denotes Islam's holiest place, a shrine in Mecca. Amiri (prince) and Baraka (blessed) are his chosen names, drawn from Arabic, because Amiri was a black Muslim whose stances often paralleled those of the best known black Muslim group, the NOI. Baraka describes a crowded, hectic courtyard (he's from New York), with the beautiful sounds of black voices. He then ties those black voices to African culture, which he maintains, though fettered, remains vibrant. He next turns to exploring how blacks have been oppressed in America: chains (though once literal, now figurative), have kept black people from expressing and actualizing themselves. Now, he contends, is time for them to stand up, destroy their chains, and claim their righteous places. It's not exactly clear what this process entails: the word "destroy," for instance, is used--but is it the obstacles that are to be destroyed, or white culture? There is also an element of mysticism in that he claims that "spells" are needed, and that the "sacred word" must be found.

Gregory Corso

The Mad Yak
I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my bones.
Where are my sisters and brothers?
That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his -- I never saw that muffler before.
Poor uncle, he lets them load him.
How sad he is, how tired!
I wonder what they'll do with his bones?
And that beautiful tail!
How many shoelaces will they make of that!

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/corso/onlinepoems.htm

Gregory Corso (1930-2001) was a member of the Beat Generation of literature. "The Beats" was a Post-world War II phenomenon that practiced anti-establishment, and visionary art. To most members of this generation, Buddhism was very important and they all had a great connection with nature. On the powerpoint it says that many of these poems follow the idea of "First thought, best thought!" and most of the poems referenced or were in response to political ideas of the time.

In Corso's poem, "The Mad Yak" there is definitely the connection to nature that is present in many works of the time. The poem talks about how people just use yaks and don't consider the effects it has on them. This commentary sheds light on the issues of mankind's cruelness through the juxtaposition of the monk's lack of care for anyone else, and the yak's compassion for his family.

There is a shift in the poem between lines 6 and 8, where the poem shifts from the yak's own issues to the issues of his family. The selflessness demonstrated here is supposed to contrast the selfishness shown by the human race and adds to the support of how cruel humans beings are.

I was curious as to whether or not there was certain significance of the yak....in some cultures the yak symbolizes ancient wisdom and an understanding of a higher purpose so that would make them more knowledgable than humans adding to the ideas. Also, they are considered loyal to their small group so that would also show the caring nature described in this poem.

And here is something interesting.....I googled "Buddhism and Yaks" to see if anything came up and turns out that in 2011 there was a documentary made, 108 Yaks: A Journey Of Love And Freedom, that is about 22 herders and porters that led 108 yaks through the mountains to some villagers who could take care of them. Animal liberation is common in Buddhism, thus relating back to the poem.

(http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/yaks-buddhism-and-the-soul/article3620678.ece)

If you are ever interested in learning some more stuff about yaks......here is a link to the documentary!! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxBxS20qR5Q

"Child" by Sylvia Plath

"Child" (1963, confessional) Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing. I want to fill it with color and ducks, The zoo of the new Whose names you meditate --- April snowdrop, Indian pipe, Little Stalk without wrinkle, Pool in which images Should be grand and classical Not this troublous Wringing of hands, this dark Ceiling without a star.

Sylvia Plath was a confessional poetry writer, leading the shift to writing and publishing poetry of a more personal nature, as exemplified through her poem "Child." In it she writes takes on the persona of a doting mother, showing the reader her love for her children. Her desire to "fill [the child's clear eye] with color and ducks" shows her desire to provide all that she can for her children. However, the shift in her last stanza displays the hardships she was going through at the time, such as depression and separation from her husband. This poem, in fact, was written only two weeks before she committed suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning. "Child" gives the reader insight into the psyche of Plath with boundless love she has for her children accompanied with the the "troublous" times she was experiencing. 

"Sylvia Plath: Poems Summary and Analysis." Sylvia Plath: Poems Study Guide : Summary and Analysis of "Child". N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. <http://www.gradesaver.com/sylvia-plath-poems/study-guide/section8/>.

e.e. cummings - anyone lived in a pretty how town

"anyone lived in a pretty how town" (1940, modernist)

anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down) 

spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did 

Women and men(both little and small) 

cared for anyone not at all 

they sowed their isn't they reaped their same 

sun moon stars rain 

children guessed(but only a few 

and down they forgot as up they grew 

autumn winter spring summer) 

that noone loved him more by more 

when by now and tree by leaf 

she laughed his joy she cried his grief 

bird by snow and stir by still 

anyone's any was all to her 

someones married their everyones 

laughed their cryings and did their dance 

(sleep wake hope and then)they

 said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon 

(and only the snow can begin to explain 

how children are apt to forget to remember 

with up so floating many bells down) 

one day anyone died i guess 

(and noone stooped to kiss his face) 

busy folk buried them side by side 

little by little and was by was 

all by all and deep by deep 

and more by more they dream their sleep 

noone and anyone earth by april 

wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing and went their came

sun moon stars rain

Modernist poetry is said to have begun with the French symbolist movement and ended at the beginning of the WWII, despite some modernist poets, like e.e. cummings, continuing to write in the Modernist style continuing into WWII. Within the modernist movement, poets often questioned impersonality and objectivity, rather heralding the imagination, memories, and emotions of the poet. One can see in "anyone lived in a pretty how town" how e.e. cummings, rather than commenting on the social policies of the era, tapped into the human emotion with the love between anyone and noone, symbolizing a man and a woman. cummings explores the apathy of the community towards these two people through time (symbolized through the seasons and the astronomy in different orders) until they died and were forgotten. One can see through the lack of formal grammar, as well as the free verse, both a era of conventionality and the personal style of e.e. cummings.

Langston Hughes

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes (Harlem Renaissance)

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609

 

 

The Harlem Renaissance began in the twentieth-century after the Great War. During this time African Americans were moving to the north, beginning what is now called the Great Migration. Harlem Renaissance poetry characteristics include conflicts African Americans faced at the time and repetitive or fragmented structures similar to blues or jazz music. In this poem, "Let America Be America Again," Langston Hughes (1902-1967) primarily voices the message that the American people are not living up to the standards that they had set for themselves when America was first established. From the beginning, our nation has been advertising the need for freedom and justice, yet they discriminate against "the poor white man... the Negro... the red man..." etc. He repeats the line "America never was America to me" throughout the poem and also "Let America be America Again." Also, each stanza has a repetitive structure. For example, beginning in the eighth stanza, Hughes repeats "I am..." and continues with each type of people who make up the nation. This and the rhyming creates a lyrical feeling within the poem.





Marianne Moore

Award winning author Marianne Moore was born in 1887. Having published her first poem in 1915- many new she would be a force to be reckoned with. Moore won numerous awards for her poetry that focused on the fundamentals of nature, writing, and athletics. She most definitely qualifies as a modernist poet. I chose to analyze her poem To a Snail because I felt it exemplifies the idea of modernist writing pretty well. 

The formatting is a little weird- check out the link below for better formatting of the poem: 

http://poetryx.com/poetry/poems/8793/

To a Snail

If “compression is the first grace of style”,
you have it.  Contractility is a virtue
as modesty is a virtue.
It is not the acquisition of any one thing
that is able to adorn,
or the incidental quality that occurs
as a concomitant of something well said,
that we value in style,
but the principle that is hid:
in the absence of feet, “a method of conclusions”;
“a knowledge of principles”,
in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.


After first looking at this poem I was thinking, boy this is strange. Since I new to look for ties to modernism I first noticed the title. "To a Snail" is very interesting, my first thoughts jumped to the idea that it must be about nature- that's a tie to modernism! Alas, I quickly realized this poem is talking about the fundamentals but not the fundamentals of nature, but rather the core of writing. Specifically, the beauty and technique of writing conclusions. I will be honest this is not what first came to mind, but after reading more about Moore and this poem this theme did not seem so strange. The line starting with "as a concomitant..." is talking about how a good ending almost always accompanies a well said idea. She follows by saying that in the feet or end of the poem or writing hides the "'knowledge of principles." If talking about the fundamentals of writing and nature is not enough I read that many modernist liked to experiment with the form and structure of poetry. Though I think this analysis may be a stretch I read that some believe that the enjambment that makes the poem have a long line followed by a short line, repeated over and over, represents the motion of a snail contacting and expanding. Overall, Moore was one cool lady who clearly fit the modernist style of writing. To a Snail is only one example of many. 

A Brown Girl Dead by Countee Cullen (For Extra Credit)

Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was an African American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to his well known poetry skills, he was also, according to the Poetry Foundation, President of the Harlem Chapter of the NAACP. His poem "A Brown Girl Dead" is one which I've chosen to dissect because of its terse, yet overly complex nature when related to the spirit of African-Americans during his time.

A Brown Girl Dead
By Countee Cullen

With two white roses on her breasts,

   White candles at head and feet,   

Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;

   Lord Death has found her sweet.

Her mother pawned her wedding ring   

   To lay her out in white;

She’d be so proud she’d dance and sing   

   To see herself tonight.

First off, whenever I've read poetry written by African-American or Hispanic-American poets, I can't help but notice the contrast between white/light and black/dark that they often make. Cullen is no exception in this particular poem. The pairing of the words "white" and "roses" in Line 1 registers in our minds this aesthetic beauty to the color white (the color of African-American oppressors) as being pure. This association is further enhanced with "White candles" in Line 2, which is contrasted by Cullen's depiction of the female subject (that we assume is African-American per the title) as a "Dark Madonna" in Line 4. Another major component in this poem is the narrative description by Cullen in Lines 5-6. "Her mother pawned her wedding ring/To lay her out in white;" just goes to show the difficult circumstances placed on the black culture during this time of oppression and suffering. I think that directly ties into the theme in that Family and Love extend beyond the social and economic confines no matter what the circumstance. At the end of the day, this girl's mom was going to support her no matter what, which is a testament to the love and fortitude she has. This links into the trends of the Harlem Renaissance in that the persevering African-American spirit of which Cullen was apart of never dies, even when things seem bleak. 

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas!
          When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
          When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
          Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
          And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
          When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
          But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A lot of poetry during the Harlem Renaissance addressed African American concerns and issues. These African American poets use repetitive structure that resembles that of jazz or blues music. 

In the poem above by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) , the poet discusses how he feels being African American in a "white" society. He claims that he knows just how a caged bird feels, trapped, wanting to escape, feeling trapped as an African American in this time period. The structure of three stanzas of the poem are quite similar and the repetition of phrases and sounds such as "I know" and "-ore", respectively, illustrate repetition as a characteristic of the poems in the Harlem Renaissance. The language of the poem becomes more "serious" as the poem progresses, bringing to light the insecurities of most African Americans at the time. 

In conclusion, the poem "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar most definitely fits the style of poetry of its literary period.