Jimmy Santiago Baca

Baca's amazing life story is reflected in the depth of his poetry. Reading "Who Understands Me But Me," I appreciate his ability to illustrate the initial powerlessness of abandonment and depression and the incredible (but often misinterpreted and difficult to understand) power that comes with the realization that one has ultimate responsibility for one's life and that one is a person whose existence is worthwhile. The lines: "they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends, / they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell" were very moving. These lines come from a place of being burdened with the aftermath of others' transgressions--especially one's parents. His later lines: "I can live with myself, and I am amazed at myself, my love, / my beauty" show the mindset of self-actualization. It is an amazing challenge to love one's beauty, in the deepest--non-superficial--sense. I commend Baca for being able to put this internal challenge into words.

Amiri Baraka "Somebody Blew Up America"

An emotionally-charged and highly controversial poet, Baraka even shocks me with his work. I decided to raed "Somebody Blew Up America" after finding out that it was written in response to the 9/11/01 attacks. But what really piqued my interest was seeing that many people were so upset by his art that they had difficultly being objective when it came to judging it as art. After reading that poem and one of his earlier works, it's clear that, even if his style may have changed, it is the same poet--the same thinker--who wrote both. Of course, he's grown and changed, but it's still so evident that the same man wrote both works. One thing in particular is the raw and intentionally crude/crass/ugly language he employs to bring the reader into his frame of thought and feeling. Add to that the courage and integrity it must have taken to write what he did about 9/11--whether I agree with every last bit or not--and Baraka has quickly become a man I respect as a person and an artist. If any of you guys do read Baraka, let me know how you feel about his style.


The two poems I read:

"Somebody Blew Up America": http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/03/somebody-blew-up-america/

"Babylon Revisited" on PF: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171267

Langston Hughes

Having studied some of Hughes' poetry years ago, I found it very refreshing and eye-opening to re-read his work given my new vantage point--so to speak. I read the poems "I, Too" and "I Look at the World." What strikes me about both of these poems is the incredible aura of optimism they possess. There is also some resonance with his illustration of the cultural struggle of being a black man in our society, but mostly I found his self-awareness extremely encouraging. In particular, in the poem "I Look at the World," Hughes goes from having "awakening eyes in a black face" (at the start of the poem) to having "eyes no longer blind." Eyes with which he can now "see that [his] own hands can make / The world that's in [his] mind."

Did anyone read any other poems of his? And how did they find optimism/pessimism in them?

Galway Kinnell's "Blackberry Eating"

I found Kinnell's poem to resemble Snyder's poetry in the way that it takes something technically mundane and transforms it into poetry. At the same time, "Blackberry Eating" has a much more vibrant and attention-grabbing aspect to it than much of Snyder's poetry. But I digress, this isn't about comparing the two poets. This poem does an amazing job of going "full circle." Kinnell connects words with individual berries--two seemingly unrelated things--and proceeds to describe, illustrate, and extrapolate upon their essential connectedness. He even proves that the words he uses to describe berries can be used to accurately and poetically describe words. In the very last line Kinnel even plays with syntax to get us to think about the poetry of this potentially mundane situation.

I wonder if anyone can come up with a way to make the most mundane thing they can think of meaningful and poetic. (I'm kinda stealing the idea from Professor L, but it does fit with this poem!)

Gary Snyder -- "I Went into the Maverick Bar"

Truth be told, I had a hard time really getting into this poem. It's short (which isn't really a problem) but it also seems very straight forward--too straight forward. I had to read a couple of his other poems to try and get a feel for his style and make a decision as to whether this poem wasn't in his usual style. I found very quickly that it is exactly like him, and even is one of the things people expect from his poetry. But enough about my challenge deciphering this piece--I eventually found it to be quite compelling.

The poem is relatively clear cut in that it is literally about a time that the author "went into the Maverick Bar." But there are multiple layers to his experience that become more visible upon multiple readings. What I think is the core message of the poem is at the end. After taking in some different sights and experiencing his own reactions to them, the speaker of the poem leaves the bar. He and his companion go out "onto the freeway shoulders-- / under the tough old stars-- / In the shadow of bluffs." And it is there that he "[comes] back to [him]self, / To the real work, to / 'What is to be done.'" In the end he was able to find himself again when he returned to his element, to his mission/passion/reason for being--whatever we want to call it. So I'd like to ask about this in particular. How do you guys approach the idea of "mission" or "reason for being"? Especially as students, I think we're at a special place in our lives where this question is perhaps more important than other times (if that's even possible).


"I Went into the Maverick Bar" on PF:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177249

"Sunflower Sutra" by Allen Ginsberg

There is so much that makes this poem captivating. As it's my first Ginsberg poem, I'm having a hard time figuring out what is a particular charm of this one poem and what is his style and approach to poetry (and life). A few things I notice are his intentional casual language. I imagine that he had the literacy to use proper grammar, spelling and syntax and that he instead chose to keep the poem in the language of the common person. Much like many religious reformers who advocated for their respective churches to speak in the language of the common folk, he keeps his poem accessible to us all. There is much darkness in his poem, but it comes from a raw, real look at the world. There is beauty in the same places. But overall I find the spirit of him poem exciting. He and the other Beat Generation took political and social dissidence very seriously. It is all over this poem, comfort with homosexual relationships, questioning the paradox of beauty that the sunflower represents (beautiful, yet wilted in some places--much like what the Beats might have thought of America). To bring this back home, I'd like to ask if anyone can think of present day artists who embody this spirit. I can think of some conscious rap artists and maybe some serious fantasy fiction writers such as Lupe Fiasco and Ursula K. Le Guin, respectively. I'd love to know who else is out there!


"Sunflower Sutra" at PF:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179382

"Prisoners" by Denise Levertov

Levertov's poem is about life. She takes the euphemism of the journey to death's doors and gives us metaphors built on this being an almost literal walk down a path. There is a lot to discuss within her poem, but the theme of foods is especially powerful. Levertov says that, on the journey we take these days, we are fed on rotten "knowledge-apples." She is clear that it is not the apple itself that's bad but that it's been tainted by "poisoned soil" and that we are now forced to eat this disgusting apple. The one we used to eat was sometimes hard to swallow but it had substance and was refreshing. The other food she mentions is the "plain bread" that we could eat with the apple. This bread is "common happiness"--something she says we are sorely missing these days.

Putting aside the possible interpretation that she is just another "old fart" who doesn't appreciate the younger generation, I feel like there's a lot of truth in her poem. I know I've personally seen some people, young and old, who seem to be "prisoners" of their lives rather than sampling the delicious fruit that is presented to them. This poem brings to my mind the adage: "Master your mind; don't let your mind master you." But the question I have is: now that we have this tainted fruit, this poisoned knowledge-apple, is it possible to live a life with the "common happiness" Levertov praises? Is there any healthy fruit left to eat?


Here's the poem on PF:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171236

~Disclaimer~ Sex Without Love

Disclaimer: I decided to get a little real since we're all adults and this is a pretty real poem.


Reading Olds' poem I was struck by the very end of the poem. The runner and the many factors in the running experience that must meet and interact but never become one served as an amazing closing image. But the thing I immediately cued in on was "the truth...the / single body alone in the universe / against its own best time." This forced me to review how I myself deal with sexual relations--am I just practicing sitting alone in the universe when I'm with my own lovers? It was easy to answer, in large part because I think of this often. I find that I, like some other young men I've met can honestly say that I don't pursue sex without a deep emotional attachment. That's not to say that I don't enjoy sex with someone I'm not in a relationship with, it just soothes a different ache. And in fact, it doesn't do the best job of that without the love. I think Olds would agree with me in that the ideal sex involves love.

My position is that sex without love is enjoyable, but the two together make it a magical experience. I've experienced both and I just think they have their separate places in our lives but neither is inherently bad. I'd rather have the love but the sex might do in the meantime. I don't think this makes me opportunistic or a player, especially if both actors know the reality of the situation. Now, here's where I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts. Not to make this a heated debate, but I wonder what other people think about sex and love. Also, do any of you think Olds would feel this way too?

Robert Frost -- "Reluctance"

Frost does an exceptional job of building up to--and one might even say disguising-- the core philosophical question of this poem. In the first two stanzas, he paints a picture with skill such that any of the Imagists could have no complaints about his form. It is only in the third stanza that I realized Frost's storyteller is not just recounting his physical travels, but building a metaphor for his emotional state. Suddenly, we are greeted by a connection to a human with: "The heart is still aching to seek, / But the feet question 'whither?'" Until this point, there was only plant-life, landscape, and the idea of a journeyman--in contrast with his form.

Beyond the form and expression of his poem (which I could comment much further on), Frost technically asking the reader a question, but I feel his meaning is closer to that of a quiet lamentation. He is commenting on something I think all of us have experienced at some point or another: the difficulty to move on. We can know intellectually that it's time, there may be signs all around us--like dead leaves at our feet such as in the poem--and yet the heart may not be ready to let go. It is this aspect of human nature that Frost is seeking to express.

The message here is universal to human beings. From one person to the next, I'm sure we can find someone with a deep attachment to something that goes beyond their ability to reason. I think this also has its connection to the realm of ethical philosophy, where the ability to reason clearly and at least have an understanding of one's attachments is fundamental. This unwillingness of the heart to move on is natural. And I honestly believe in many cases it can be enriching to the person feeling this way (provided they can process these feelings in a healthy way). At the same time, I think we must learn to temper our attachments with reason.


Thanks for reading!

"Reluctance" by Robert Frost @ Poetry Foundation:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238118

William Carlos Williams -- "Danse Russe"

What is most striking to me--from my first to my current reading--about Williams' poem "Danse Russe" is his choice to shock the reader several times. He uses his imagery and the connotations of the language he chooses to lure our perception in one direction, quickly snatching us back to the real course of his poem. 

He or she (given the nature of the poem and what I've read of the poet, I think it's safe to assume the character is male) "dances naked" by himself, which brings to mind a sort of freedom and carefree energy, and then he hammers a near-morbid reality into our mind with the word "grotesquely." He then waves his shirt around his head and begins to sing. But instead of the up-beat Bon Jovi-esque ballad one might expect, his song starts out somber and somewhat sad. Williams quickly rectifies this by ending the song with the dancer's exclaimed affirmation of joy at his circumstances. There are more traps laid within this poem in more subtle ways as well. 

This abrupt switch that occurs brings to mind the idea of perceptions--those we have of ourselves, those that others hold for us, and the chasm that can lie between the two. Even the end of the poem points me in this direction. This man asks a rhetorical question. "If I admire [my features]...against the yellow drawn shades,-- / Who shall say I am not / the happy genius of my household?" He knows he may not appear to be the most attractive to onlookers, but in this moment--where he is his only judge--he reinforces the approval of the one person whose opinion of himself he should truly care about--himself.

I found his poem extremely refreshing. Personally, I feel that the sort of self-discovery and internal sense of approval and worth expressed here are ever more difficult to cultivate in our time. The way I see it, there will come a day when we will be alone in our room with the blinds closed no matter what. We can take what seems like a risk by trying the exercise now and maybe being a bit frightened by the reality of our lives, or we can wait until the moment happens to us and live with the person we've become at that point. 

Thanks for reading!

"Danse Russe" by William Carlos Williams @ PoetryFoundation:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175782