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.