Closing Remarks

Dearest Pals,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you now.  This is my last official post for my ENGL 210 class, Introduction to Contemporary Poetry.  Throughout the semester I've often had to change what I thought was the title of our class.  Beginning with "Intro to Literature," and ending up at "Intro to Contemporary Poetry" may not seem like that big of a shift, but it was an enlightening journey through a world of poetry I had never been immersed in before.  My poetry background being rather limited, I didn't quite know what to expect out of a course entirely devoted to poetry.  I've learned that poetry is a constantly changing art form that can adapt to any situation it is used in.  Poetry has survived for as long as it has because of its ability to "make it new."  By the end of our class I really did appreciate the theme of "Make it new."  Poets can make it new with poetry through freedom of expression.  Poetry is a difficult to master tool, but honing it proves fruitful.

Through exposure to and discussion of poetry in this class, I've become much more confident in my analysis of poetic works.  I certainly cannot pick up on every little aspect of of Eliot's "The Wasteland," but I can make much more progress in deciphering than I could have at the beginning of the semester.

Perhaps one day I will post again on this blog.  It is a self-indulgent pleasure to post one's musings for others to read, and I may not be able to resist the temptation to post.  I hope you've enjoying being a pal of the blog, and I encourage you to keep the party going on your own!

Yours truly,

John

What Is Poetry?

Hey folks,

At long last I am posting my final paper for ENGL 210.  It has been a wild ride.

What Is Poetry?

Such a historic and diverse art as poetry often shuns definition.  With so many subjects addressed and styles used over time, it is imprudent to attempt to constrain the meaning of poetry with broad and overarching rules of what it must be.  As illustrated by the numerous poetic revolutions over time, poetry is an art that continually changes.  To answer the question “What is poetry?” is to both decide what qualities a work must have to be considered a poem, and what the purpose of poetry is.  I recognize something as a poem when it has a style that is deliberately visually different than a prose piece.  The parts of a poem that are most important to me are how it is unique to the poet and how it is meant to influence the reader.  Poetry is an artistic rhythmic organization of language designed to express the poet’s emotion and influence the reader.  I classify a work as poetry by its form and style.

For me to acknowledge a work as poetry, the language must be organized in a form distinct from a prose piece.  Writing in a form distinct from prose indicates the author’s intent for the work to be viewed as something other than a typical essay.  Along with being spaced in an organized form, language in poetry must make use of rhythm and other artistic devices such as metaphor or metonymy.  While obvious use of rhythm and imagery in essays may be distracting from the purpose of the paper, rhythm and artistic language are the foundation of poetry influence on the reader.  The form and style of a poem are the tools that enable unique expression and emotion.  Combining an organized form with artistic rhythmic language is what I see as the criteria for a poem.  Until recently, poems have been  rather easy to visually distinguish from prose pieces.  Some postmodern begins to make visual identification more difficult, but I am not as concerned with the labeling a poem as I am analyzing it’s content. In her introduction to The Best American Poetry 2004, Lyn Hejinian hesitates to attempt to define requirements for poetry, “What is, or isn't, a poem? What makes something poetic? These questions remain open. And the fact that there are no final answers is one source of the vitality of the art form (The Best American Poetry 9).”  While I agree that the criteria for what exactly makes a poem can be subject to change, I don’t think this ambiguity is what is a source of vitality for the art form.  The main source of vitality for poetry is the way it allows poets to express themselves.  I consider personal expression one of the key purposes of poetry.

Poetry is an expression of the poet’s inner emotions and feelings.  It is a tool for translating a passion to the world.

In his introduction to The Best American Poetry 2003, Yusef Komunyakaa argues for the importance of expression in poetry.  He cites a quote from Miles Davis to reflect on expression and originality, “I believe it was Miles Davis who said ‘The reason I stopped playing ballads is because I love them so much.’” Davis developed an original way of playing Jazz ballads, and when he felt he had become too complacent in his playing, he stopped until he felt he could be more original.  Komunyakaa goes on to warn against stifling originality, “Indeed, maybe that’s the problem with some of the exploratory poets, where the text of a poem may seem muddled through over-experimentation (Komunyakaa 17).”  Komunyakaa is cautious of the experimentations with form and style that remove the creativity of the poet from the process.  Once a work has been labeled a poem, and is given an honest contribution from the poet, it is the function of the poem that matters.

An example of poetry by a postmodern poet that still meets my definition of poetry is the work in Disclamor by G. C. Waldrep.  Waldrep strays from traditional notions of form and style, and yet uses the poetry to express himself rather than simply exploring form.  Many of the poems have odd spacing of words all over the page, and most use enjambment.  What is important about Waldrep’s poetry is that he still seems to use form to aid his expression in the poem – they aren’t merely experiments with form.  “Battery Mendell” has the line “I squat, and with the muscles of my calves 
               suspend my rhythm 
                                             --the dirge, the waltz--
                              over these sea-cliffs,” and is ultimately aided by the formatting (Waldrep, 30).  The form is used in tandem with the language to express Waldrep’s unease with the haven for children that the old war stations have become.  Waldrep’s poetry purposeful expresses his thoughts and emotions to the reader.

Poetry must have a purpose that connects with the reader.  If the poem is merely an experiment that isn’t meant to connect with the reader on an emotional level, then the poem is ineffectual.  The poetry anthology Against Forgetting is an excellent collection of poems that have obvious intents and purposes.  These poems all bear witness to tragic events.  The poets exemplify how poetry is an artistic tool for expressing their emotions to others.  While Against Forgetting is a very clear case of poetry acting with a purpose, all poetry should serve as witness in some way.  It is impossible to read a line such as “O you chimneys / O you fingers / And Israel’s body as smoke through the air!” from O the Chimneys and not be aware of the poem’s lament over the Holocaust (Forché 361).  The poet doesn’t even need to directly condemn the atrocity; the poem’s expression of emotion works to stand against the Holocaust.  Poetry must relate to the reader and influence them in some way.

Poetry is a fluidly changing medium of art.  As a tool with many designs, poetry advances individual expression.  I have lenient criteria for what makes up a poem, but what is truly important is the content and message of the work.  The style and form of a poem allows the poem to be a more efficient tool.  Techniques of rhythm and artistic language help convey the poet’s emotion to the reader.  Poetry is an artistic rhythmic organization of language designed to express the poet’s emotion and influence the reader.

Works Cited

Forché, Carolyn. Against Forgetting: Twentieth-century Poetry of Witness. New York:

W.W. Norton, 1993. Print.

Hejinian, Lyn. Introduction. Lyn Hejinian and David Lehman, eds. The Best American

Poetry 2004. Scribner, 2004. 9-14. Print.

Komunyakaa, Yusef. Introduction. Yusef Komunyakaa and David Lehman, eds. The Best

American Poetry 2003. New York: Scribner, 2003. 11-21. Print.

Waldrep, George Calvin. Disclamor: Poems. Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2007. Print.

Paul Muldoon’s Mules: Clearing Confusion in Confusing Ways

Here is my final paper on the Northern Irish poet Paul Muldoon's second collection, Mules.

Paul Muldoon’s Mules: Clearing Confusion in Confusing Ways

            When reading through Northern Irish poet Paul Muldoon’s second major poetry collection, Mules (1977), it is best to either have an encyclopedia in hand, or be Paul Muldoon yourself.  If the latter is not an option, then a bit of research and patience will suffice.  After deciphering Muldoon’s poetry, the reader is left to reflect on topics.  In Mules, Muldoon expands on topics such as politics, his native country of Northern Ireland, and religion that weren’t as prevalent in his first collection New Weather.  The poems in Mules aren’t grouped with an obvious order, but they are consistent in size and style.  The first, title, and last poems are perfect representations of Muldoon’s dealings with political, national, and spiritual questions, and his adept use of allusion respectively. Paul Muldoon’s second collection of poetry, Mules, is difficult to decipher, but ultimately provides a refreshing view of situations of political, religious, Irish cultural, and other types of turmoil.

            Mules’ first poem “Lunch with Pancho Villa” is written in a colloquial style typical of Muldoon, makes numerous allusions to religion and politics, and introduces a tension between politics and art that is present throughout the book.  Pancho Villa was a Mexican Revolutionary general who helped a Venustiano Carranza become President of Mexico, but later overthrew Carranza to put a different man in power.  Including Villa in the title is an example of how Muldoon uses historical references to add depth to his poetry.  Villa was himself a player of dual roles, first bringing power to a man, and then later removing that same man from power.  “Lunch with Pancho Villa” is written from two perspectives that change without notice to the reader.  The basic idea is that a young poet is visiting an older writer whom the younger one admires.  The older poet tells the younger one to stop writing about trivial matters such as “stars and horses, pigs and trees.” By opening his book with “Pancho Villa,” Muldoon immediately addresses questions all Irish poets had to face at the time he was writing Mules.  Northern Ireland was in the midst of a sort of civil war between British-supported Protestants and Irish Catholics informally called The Troubles, that was causing sharp divisions among the Northern Irish population.  The poem is full of allusions, a characteristic of Muldoon’s work that is apparent throughout the collection.  By illustrating the multiple sides of the political problems in Ireland, and giving the narrator multiple personas, Muldoon in “Lunch with Pancho Villa” is introducing the collection’s common theme of multiple meanings in single objects.

The collection’s title poem, “Mules,” is a good example of Muldoon exploring the combination of different concepts within one entity.  “Mules” is an extended metaphor that Muldoon uses to explore his fascination with multiple concepts and meanings in one creation.  In the case of this poem, Muldoon explores the combination of the earthly and the divine as represented by the conception of a mule: offspring of a horse and a donkey.  Because this poem has fewer allusions than usual, it makes it easier to grasp the purpose.  The simple biblical references to a star and a cross in the first stanza, “Her feet of clay gave the lie/ To the star burned in our mare’s brow/ Would Parsons’ jackass not rest more assured/ That cross wrenched from his shoulders?” introduce the religious duality in the poem.  By using a pair of barnyard animals, Muldoon suggests the infinite ways religion is combined with other subjects in the world.  The way Muldoon takes the reader from a simple question, “Should they not have the best of both worlds?”, through the conception and birth of a mule, while all the time really questioning how the earthly and the divine are combined in an everyday animal, is typical of Muldoon’s work.  Muldoon poses the question so that the reader is prompted to reflect on how the mule contains both world – the earthly and the divine.  Arriving at a deep question after working through what can seem like trivial details or informal style is Muldoon’s ultimate technique in the collection Mules.  Muldoon’s style itself reinforces the theme of multiple meanings in unexpected places; Muldoon’s writing can see plainly written, but he jams as much meaning into his poems as possible.

Unlike “Mules,” the collection’s seven-part final poem, “Armageddon, Armageddon,” is full of allusion, and yet it still brings the reader to a state of reflection. Almost as if he wants to remind the reader of how crafty he can be, Muldoon fills the final poem in Mules with allusion upon allusion, and does little to clue the reader into the subject matter of the poem.  In an interview at Washington University in St. Louis, Muldoon described “Armageddon, Armageddon” as a “nightmarish journey” set in Northern Ireland and a play of words on his home county, Armagh (“Paul Muldoon and the Multiverse” 2).  The poem draws the reader through a mass of allusions including those to British poets, Irish mythology, and Northern Irish politics and events, but as is the case with the other poems in Mules, ends up asking important questions.  As pointed out by Jonathan Hufstader in Tongue of Water, Teeth of Stones: Northern Irish Poetry and Social Violence, Muldoon “conjoins the cosmic and local” (143).  Muldoon references many constellations that relate back to Irish mythology (Hufstader, 1999).  A key strength of Muldoon is that he takes readerz to very esoteric places, but ultimately brings them back to a relevant question if the reader is willing to work along the way.  Muldoon does just this in the third part of “Armageddon, Armageddon.” Muldoon moves through a peaceful depiction of carefree Northern Ireland, “Follow the course of a pair of whippets,” to addressing the Orange political party, “And where the first Orange Lodge was founded.”  After highlighting the multiple facets that make up Northern Ireland, Muldoon points to what really matters in the combination of these parts, “We could always go closer if you wanted, … Then the scene of the Armagh Rail Disaster.  Why not brave the Planetarium.”  The Armagh Rail Disaster and Planetarium are both reminders of Ireland’s struggles and accomplishments.  The Rail Disaster was a freak accident where a railcar split from a train and crashed down the hill it was ascending.  The Armagh Planetarium was a technologically advanced result of many years of Irish struggling for funding and support.  By including reference to the Rail Disaster and Planetarium, Muldoon reminds the reader of what Ireland has been through, and what it can accomplish.  Muldoon acknowledges the political problems that divide Ireland, but ultimately stresses that Ireland is more than political struggles, and that the people of the country and the country’s accomplishments are more important than the political squabbles.

            In the end, Muldoon’s poetry is most satisfying after the reader has made the effort to understand the allusions and given the poems time to sink in.  As illustrated by Christina Mahony in Contemporary Irish Literature: Transforming Tradition, not all critics are favorable toward Muldoon’s constant allusions.  Hunt refers to some of the references to Irish mythology as “unproductive pairings” (Mahony 95).  Critics are right to ask whether Muldoon’s eclectic references are ultimately worth it, but in the end, his use of allusion is essential to the theme of Mules.  Muldoon is constantly looking at how different parts add up to make a whole piece, and he himself illustrates that idea in composing his poems by including numerous diverse allusions.  Muldoon takes the reader on an academic adventure in almost every one of his poems in Mules, but he never does so without good reason.  If the reader is willing to follow, Muldoon leads to a refreshing reflective state that encompasses all the stray components that make up a topic.

            Although its constant reference to outside sources can be daunting and even off putting at times, Paul Muldoon’s second collection of poetry, Mules, is an ultimately rewarding work.  As best illustrated in “Armageddon, Armageddon,” it is the path to a final revealing point of information that refreshes the reader’s view of poetry.  “Armageddon, Armageddon” is laden with obscure allusion, but eventually Muldoon reminds the reader of the merit of reflecting on topics that encourage unity and growth.  Muldoon’s poems help to readjust the reader’s view of politics, Northern Ireland, and religion, among other topics, by revealing the multitude of sides that make up a problem. Through his signature playful style and expansive encyclopedic knowledge, Muldoon’s Mules sheds light on topics that benefit from a fresh reflection.

Works Cited

Paul Muldoon and the Multiverse. Arch Literary Journal (2008). Web.

            13 Feb. 2011.

Hufstader, Jonathan. Tongue of Water, Teeth of Stones: Northern Irish Poetry and Social

Violence. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Google Book Search. 

Web. 18 Feb. 2011.

Mahony, Christina Hunt. Contemporary Irish Literature: Transforming Tradition. New

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Google Book Search.  Web. 24 Feb 2011.

Osip Mandelstam: Stylistically Witnessing

Hey folks,

I am including the revised version of my essay on the 20th century Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam.  Enjoy.

Russian poet Osip Mandelstam eventually became a reluctant witness of conflict after nearly a decade of Soviet persecution.  Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1891, Mandelstam’s parents soon moved with him to St. Petersburg where he would be given an excellent early education.  Showing an early affinity for, and interest in poetry, Mandelstam set out on a course that would have him as a key member of a new poetic movement in Russia, and eventually one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20^th century.  Because Mandelstam typically preferred not to openly respond to political problems, it is difficult to answer how his poetry was a witness for the conflict he experienced.  The best way to understand how his poetry was a witness to conflict, is to look at the stylistic change from the first phase of his poetry from 1910-1925 to his second phase of poetry from 1930-1938.  Initially attempting to abstain from politic discussions in his poetry, Osip Mandelstam’s poetic career can be divided into two main sections.  In the first section of his career, Mandelstam wrote poetry that held witness to and expressed awe simply at the world it existed in.  As he faced greater persecution from the Soviet Regime, Mandelstam’s poetic style changed to reflect his greater personal misfortune.  The initial phase of Mandelstam’s poetic career was a time in which he developed his lucid style and explored his intentions with and purpose of his poetry.           

Osip
from Wikipedia

            The first poems of Mandelstam’s career were published in 1910, and moved away from what he felt was an outdated style of writing, symbolism.  Symbolists often used extended metaphors or changed real events or places in certain ways to convey their messages.  Traditional symbolists wrote poetry to record experiences in life.  Mandelstam’s poetry was instead the experience in and of itself.  Along with a small group of other poets, Mandelstam became a part of the Acmeism poetry movement  (Harris 14).  The Acmeists were poets who felt their work came naturally from the human’s  need and desire to express their creative instincts and experiences.  Mandelstam’s “Hagia Sophia” is an example of Mandlestam’s characteristic wonder with the world.  The last stanzas of the poem are in awe of the possibility of creation, “The church, bathed in peace, is beautiful, and the forty windows are a triumph of light” (Mandelstam, The Penguin Book of Russian Verse, 351).  Inspired by an artistic creation that is beautiful in its own right, not just a symbol for something larger, Mandelstam wrote his poem as another artistic creation in honor.

            Russia was undergoing the massive political change of the Bolshevik revolution while Mandelstam developed his poetry, but he wasn’t directly persecuted until the end of the 1920’s.  Instead of directly seeing reading Mandelstam’s stance on the conflicts in Russia in his poetry, his witness must be interpreted through the stylistic change that occurred throughout his career.  The poetry of the first half of his career is well-expressed by a poem from his first collection, Stone, whose first line is “I’m given a body – what to do with it?”  The next stanza continues Mandelstam’s frequent fascination with his unlikely, but lucky presence on this earth, “For the quiet happiness to breathe and live. / Tell me, to whom shall I give my thanks?”  In the same way that “Hagia Sophia” reflected on an artistic creation, “I’m given a body – what to do with it?” is an artistic creation designed to reflect on human life.  Mandelstam’s poetry was initially a witness to life itself.  As he was put under further pressure from the Soviets, Mandelstam’s poetry changed to witness more specifically his life as a member of the Soviet Union.  Mandelstam generally tried to stay away from political commentary, but as his life was more influenced by the Soviets, it inevitably was reflected in his poetry  . To provide for himself and his wife of two years, Mandelstam began translating literature into Russian.  Made clear through letters he sent to his father, Mandelstam felt from the start his creativity was limited by the time he spent translating (Harris 8).  Combining the stress of translating with a long period of his wife being in poor health in the mid twenties eventually proved too much for Mandelstam, and his poetic output ceased.  For a period of five years, from 1925 to 1930, he began writing prose and essays in place of poetry.

Mandelstam spent his prose years living in Leningrad.  Through a series of publications of essays and prose pieces, Mandelstam’s written voice slowly changed.  In her recounting of her time with Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope, Osip’s wife Nadezhda Mandelstam described the change taking place:

M. behaved like a man conscious of his power, and this only egged on those who wanted to destroy him.  For them power was expressed in guns, agencies of repression, the distribution of everything – including fame- by coupons, the possibility of commissioning their portraits from any artist they chose.  But M. stubbornly maintained that if they killed people for poetry, then they must fear and respect it—in other words, that it too was a power in the land. (Mandelstam N. 171).

The poems Mandelstam wrote after returning to poetry, such as “Stalin Epigram,” and “Verses On the Unknown Soldier,” express the aggression N. Mandelstam described.

            “Stalin Epigram” (Forché, 122) is most extreme case of Mandelstam’s more open aggression against the Russian government.  The poem is generally considered to be responsible for Mandelstam’s first arrest, and ultimately the events that led to his death (Coetzee 72).  As Mandelstam intended the poem to be only for a private group of friends, the lines are quite bold “But whenever there’s a snatch of talk / it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer, / the ten thick worms his fingers, / his words like measures of weight, / the huge laughing cockroaches on his top lip, / the glitter of his boot-rims.”  Mandelstam was finally expressing the resentment felt by all citizens under Stalin’s ruthless regime.  As his poetic style had become more inclusive of personal events in his life, his subject matters shifted from marveling at the general idea of being alive, to being alive in the presence of tyranny.

While his style of writing and views of the world changed with his prose, Mandelstam continued to translate for a living.  His frustrations climaxed in what has become know as the Eulenspiegel Affair of 1928-29 .  Mandelstam was asked to translate a second edition of a German folktale Till Eulenspiegel, but the publisher in the final copy gave no credit to the translators of the first edition.  Mandelstam was accused of plagiarism by one of the first translators and the trouble caught the attention of the Soviet government.  After this event Mandelstam was put under much closer surveillance by the Soviets.  Luckily after the Eulenspiegel Affair, a friend of Mandelstam’s who had political connections was able to get Mandelstam and his wife permission to travel to Armenia (Harris 84).

Described by Mandelstam as             his “200 days in the Sabbath land,” (Harris 9), his stay in Armenia worked to rejuvenate his interest in writing poetry.  After being persecuted by the Soviets for so long, Mandelstam’s agitation and annoyance began to be reflected in his poetry.  During an interview while reflecting on Mandelstam’s contribution to poetry, and the help his wife provided, Seamus Heaney describes the change that took place, “I assume that the grandiose passions of Ginsberg's Howl are just as much a cry on behalf of his urban tribe as the enigmatic intensities of Osip Mandelstam's late poems of exile were also a cry on behalf of his people.” (Kinahan and Heaney 650).  One poem that expresses Mandelstam’s interest in the change of the Russian people is “Lamarck.”

            In “Lamarck,” Mandelstam reflects on Russia’s evolution through time, and presents a much more pessimistic tone towards life than in his work of the first section of his career.  Rather than marveling at the wonder of being alive, Mandelstam seems to feel insignificant in the procession of time, “if everything living is only a brief mark / for a day time takes back, / I'll sit on the last step / of Lamarck's mobile ladder” (Mandelstam, “Complete Poetry of Osip Emilevich Mandelstam” 205).  Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was a French naturalist who was an early proponent of the theory of evolution.  Mandelstam shares an interesting view, glumly sitting at the lowest point of evolution as the world advances without him.  Rather than giving up hope on life though, Mandelstam is expressing his acceptance with his position in time, and reflecting on the need to live life at whatever point in time it falls.

After his first arrest in 1934, Mandelstam was exiled to the northern province, Voronezh.  During the next three years Mandelstam continued to write poetry that reflected his new fixation on life amidst persecution and fear.  After a second arrest in 1937, Mandelstam was sent to a prison camp in Siberia (Brinkley 1).  After suffering from malnutrition and various sicknesses along the way, Mandelstam finally succumbed to the Soviet persecution and passed away on 27 December 1938 (Slonim 253).

Starting out as a poet enthralled by the wonder of being alive, Osip Mandelstam ended up a near-subliminal speaker against the Soviet party in Russia.  His life was directly influenced by the Russian revolutions, and his poetry was thusly affected as well.  His poetic career can be split into two periods, 1910-1925 and 1930-1938.  Even though Mandelstam didn’t often directly respond to political conflicts in his poetry, his poetic style of speaking changed as Russia changed.  Poems such as “Stalin Epigram” reflect Mandelstam’s more outgoing remarks that arose after his near decade of persecution by the Soviets.  As he faced greater persecution from the Soviet Regime, Mandelstam’s poetic style continued to bear witness to his experience in a time of drastic change for all Russians.

Works Cited

Brinkley, Tony. "The Road to Stalin": Mandelstam's Ode to Stalin and "The Lines

on the Unknown Soldier." Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish

Studies 21.4 (2003): 32. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 15 Mar. 2011.

Coetzee, J. M. Osip Mandelstam and the Stalin Ode. Berkeley: University of

California Press. 1991. pp. 72-83

Harris Jane Gary. Osip Mandelstam. Boston: Twayne, 1988. Print.

Kinahan, Frank, and Seamus Heaney.  “An Interview With Seamus Heaney.” Critical Inquiry.  Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1981.

pp. 645-651. Web.

Mandelstam, Nadezhda, and Max Hayward. Hope against Hope: a Memoir. New York:

Modern Library, 1999. Print.

Mandelstam, Osip. Ed. Forché, Carolyn. Against Forgetting: Twentieth-century

Poetry of Witness. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. Print.

----, Burton Raffel, Alla Burago, and Sidney Monas. Complete

Poetry of Osip Emilevich Mandelstam. Albany: State University of New York,

1973. Google Books.Web.

Obolensky, Dimitri. The Penguin Book of Russian Verse. Harmondsworth,

Middlesex, Eng.: Penguin, 1965. Print.

Slonim, Marc. Soviet Russian Literature: Writers and Problems, 1917-1977.

New York: Oxford UP, 1977. Print.

Black Star - Respiration

Hey pals,

I'm posting a link to the Black Star song that I read a verse from the other day in class.  Mos Def and Talib Kweli are some of my favorite Hip - Hop artists.  Check it.

Black Star - Respiration

Lyrics

- John

A Cappella Poetry

These are poems that I wrote for class after reading through A Capella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry.  We were given an assignment to give us different ideas for types of poems to write.


(Mennonite icon poem)

Subtle Differences

I suppose I should have caught on,

returning my babysitting money

after Mom said I had been paid too much.

My friends’ toy guns punched out divisions

I hadn’t considered. The R-rated Mortal Combat film

was my guilt and their gluttony.

But I needed to know

how hymns held more than harmony,

why signing on Sundays was something to be proud of.

The differences remain,

but now I’m better at singing my part.

(Poem about music)

Praying for Praise at Convention

One hand in the air, if you don’t really care.

Two hands in the air, if you don’t really care.

Pumping bass and cranked up vocals, pounding through the air.

As simple as possible, let’s not be excluding.

To be exclusive is rude yes, so we’ve spread to include this.

With each new song, I feel further out of place.

My face is blocked as I awkwardly walk,

Shifting to stand with this praise song talk.

My hands hang as awkward as the absence of harmony.

I understand the need to change, but I haven’t found harmony.

Feeling the beat, I feel so excluded.

I picture my church, so small, secluded.

Back to the conference, in time and in step,

But I feel a distance, Lord help me accept.

Working With the Bass

The strings fight back against his ill-prepared fingers.

As much as he knows and wills what he wants,

he still can’t pull past the undeniably unworn flatwounds.

He has blisters on his hands. *

He can’t stand the taunting four strands

that stand straight through the well-charted plans.

The blisters pop, right in time on two and four.

Caught up in the mix , the damp dribblings go unnoticed.

Determined till the end, the spots won’t mend.

Left at the end to reflect on the merit,

He band-aids the wound, and trys to bear it.

*Waltner-Toews’s line From “Roots.”

Lyn Hejinian - My Life

Hello Pals,

The most recent work we've been assigned in English 210 is My Life by Lyn Hejinian.  It is an autobiographical work of prose that abstractly describes Hejinian's life.  Described on the back cover of the book as "a poetic autobiography, a personal narrative, a woman's fiction, and an ongoing dialogue with the poet and her experience," My Life is certainly a work derived from numerous areas of inspiration, and resistant of categorization.  While I was reading, categorization was a problem I encountered that hindered my experience.  Even though I soon knew My Life isn't a traditional autobiography, I found myself wishing it were.  Possibly stemming from a semester of intense examination of densely written poetry, I was unable to move from accepting the untraditional structure to piecing together a greater meaning brought about by what I saw as unrelated groupings of sentences.

While I had trouble finding a greater meaning in the book, I did enjoy some sections, and was amused by some of the phrases Hejinian had to offer.  It took me awhile to catch on to the repetition of particular lines, but after a certain point I started underlining certain phrases that stuck out to me for whatever reason.  A line I particularly enjoyed came in the section, "Why would anyone find astrology interesting when it is possible to learn about astronomy."  This sentence is preceded by "He broke the radio silence," and followed with "What one passes in the Plymouth."  I couldn't piece together a meaning between those three lines, but the science-centric part of my brain was tickled by the middle line.  I'd agree that I would be unable to find satisfaction in an area of study if I felt there was another field that more truthfully represented life.  Maybe Hejinian feels My Life is a more truthful depiction of life because it flows in a manner similar to thought structure.  While I think there is some merit to a work that attempts to more closely reflect human life through an organic structure, I think form is a device that has been developed to do just that.  Form is an organizational tool that helps put thoughts onto page.
My thoughts               are           often          scattered and similar        to the style of My Life,
    but that's why they are thoughts and I can't get
            away with putting them straight onto a page.
                                                              That'd be weird.                                 And disjointed.
                                                       But maybe there is truth in that.
                                                                           No. There isn't.
                                                                                       Maybe.
The train bustles outside and clouds my head, the phone decides the train needs more help, and it does the same.



Because she so defiantly abstains from a traditional narrative organization in her autobiography, it must be assumed that Hejinian doesn't wish to share the same information a traditional autobiography would.  She may hope to convey sort of historical background on her life, but if that were all she wished to explain to the reader, she would have simply written a traditional autobiography.  Her short and often apparently unlinked sentences work more as a commentary on language rather than a presenting of facts about her life.   I am becoming more interested in how language is affected by form, and so for that I think this book is beneficial.  Explorations into language and form often have unanticipated results.  I enjoyed the line "A man is tall, a mountain is high, the sky's the limit."  It pointed out some simple differences between words, and I enjoyed that.

"Armageddon, Armageddon"

This paper discusses the final and longest poem in Paul Muldoon's second collection of poetry, Mules.

Paul Muldoon’s “Armageddon, Armageddon”: Turbulent Travels Through Armageddon, Armagh

            Paul Muldoon’s “Armageddon, Armageddon” is a fittingly cryptic final poem to his second collection, Mules (1977).  The poem is the longest in the collection, and consists of seven sonnet-like poems titled only with roman numerals.  As stated by Muldoon in an interview with the Arch Literary Journal, the title is a play on the name of his hometown Armagh, and the poem is set in Northern Ireland.  Muldoon doesn’t seem to make much of an effort to clue his reader into what he may be getting at with “Armageddon, Armageddon,” but he hints at a theme that is common in his writing: the unlikely combination of simple and grand things in single objects or events.  Muldoon uses many allusions to relate back to his home of Northern Ireland.  Nearly every other line in “Armageddon, Armageddon” makes references ranging from Irish, Greek, and Roman mythology, obscure poets, and scripture.  While reading a poem so densely packed with allusions, the time it takes to investigate the references is worthwhile.

            Muldoon first makes a reference to Ireland in the title of the poem.  Armageddon is meant to be a play on the word Armagh, the county he was born in.  By referencing his homeland in the title of the poem, Muldoon sets up the rest of the poem to be about travels through a violence-stricken Northern Ireland.  Ireland was undergoing violent struggles over national unity and allegiance and Muldoon addresses the divisions with his allusions. The form of each poem is quite similar.  They are each sonnets and use the occasional rhyme.  Perhaps to fit into the mood suggested by the title of Armageddon, Muldoon never makes a rhyme scheme or rhythm last more than a few lines.

            The first poem recounts a trip to Larry Durrell’s “Snow-White Villa.”  The first eight lines of the poem all describe an actual Villa that the British poet Lawrence Durrell owned in Greece.  Dualities are introduced to the poem with the mention of Durrell.  He was an expatriate and was often divided between multiple homes.  The question of duality continues with the line describing the villa, “Wasn’t it dazzling? Well, it was rather white.”  The first half of the poem is seemingly cheerful, but the seventh line introduces doubt about the pleasant Grecian villa: “The orange and lemon groves, the olives, Are wicked for this purity of light.” The last half of the poem presents an unclear image with yet another allusion.  The line “Her little breasts are sour as Jeanne Duval’s” refers to the French-African muse of the French poet Charles Baudelaire, but it is unclear who the “Her” is in the poem.  The last sentence of the poem refers to the stars, which are of greater importance in the fifth poem where Muldoon references many different constellations.

            The second selection in “Armageddon, Armageddon” is a retelling of a tale from Irish mythology about an ancient poet, bard, and warrior named Oisin.  The myth says that Oisin returned to Ireland after three hundred years, and was told he would instantly become and old man and die if he dismounted his horse and stood on the earth.  In the title poem of Mules, Muldoon uses the phrase “feet of clay.”  This alludes to a hero ultimately being human and having their feet on the earth.  This same imagery works with Oisin.  He spent time with the Irish gods, but ultimately was human when his feet touched the earth.  Just as he did in the first sonnet with Lawrence Durrel, Muldoon inserts duality by referencing a character split between two worlds.  After describing Oisin’s death and return to the earth, the narrator says “And I know something of how he felt.”  This is the most intriguing line of this selection.  The narrator seems to be describing their connection to the earth that could be their ultimate downfall.  Just as the famous Northern Irish poet Seamus Heaney felt pressure to write about his homeland, Muldoon could be feeling pressure to address the problems in his homeland, or “earth.”  Neighbors were pit against each other based on which part, or “earth,” of Ireland they felt loyal to.  The third poem delivers Muldoon’s contemporary view of Northern Ireland.

            If we are to assume a connection between these poems, the third poem appears to be narrated by the same person as the first two. The narrator describe various activities in Northern Ireland starting with the mundane and moving to the more somber.  Although the poem starts reassuringly, “Not to worry,” the mention of the Lambeg Drum turns the poem in a political direction  “From where I lived / We might watch Long Bullets being played, / Follow the course of a pair of whippets, / Try to Keep in time with a Lambeg Drum.” The Lambeg Drum is associated with and used by the Irish Orange Order, and the next stanza describes how the Orange Order has taken up residence in the towns the narrator could visit.  The last five lines of the poem each make reference to some external event or myth.  The narrator says “We could always go closer if you wanted,” and then goes on to reference Macha (an Irish mythological figure that is associated with war and who raced a chariot), the intelligent horse creatures from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Macha’s twins that she “whelped” after her chariot race, a train disaster in Armagh, and a planetarium in Armagh.  While it’s possible to get lost in the cluttering of allusions Muldoon supplies, he seems to be saying that the mythological figures and other references are closer to home in Ireland than the Orange Order and their beating drums.  The myths are the Irish heritage.  By mentioning an Irish train disaster and asking why one shouldn’t visit the new planetarium, Muldoon could be saying the Orange Order is trivial and the Irish should settle their differences and focus on bettering the country.

            The fourth poem is addressed to the narrator’s lover who has been sleeping.  The sleeping lover was hoping for the chance to dream “I woke you only to discover / How you might have dreamed / How you might have dreamed.”  The Armageddon is certainly a time when pleasant dreams would be hard to come by, and the sleeping lover experiences this.  The poem continues with a train inspector hinting about a blockade on the track because of fallen trees.  Muldoon again references the stars with the last two lines “And then hand back our tickets / Ratified by their constellations?” The tickets would be the passenger’s destinations, and if they’re ratified by their constellations, then their destinations are already decided.  This allusion to a set fate would fit into the approaching Armageddon.

            The fifth poem takes off where the fourth poem left off, “Now that I had some idea of our whereabouts / We could slow a little and not be afraid.”  This poem seems to be situated in an apocalyptic time.  Phrases such as “Why should those women be carrying water / If all the wells were poisoned, as they said,” and “Had the sheep been divided from the goats,” suggest the supplies have run out, and a final judgment is nearing.  The last stanza references two different constellations, Orion and Sagittarius, the Hunter and the Archer.  According to Greek Mythology Orion was made into a constellation upon his death, and the last lines seem to suggest even Orion and Sagittarius have left the earth, “Had Hunter and Archer got it into their heads / That they would take the stars in their strides?”  After dealing with the cosmic, Muldoon returns to his local home of Ireland in the sixth poem.

            The mood of the sixth poem is rather dismal.  The narrator’s brother lost his voice after their father lost his money at the racetracks.  Muldoon hints the problem is greater than merely losing money, “To be torn between his own two ponies / Their going their different ways.”  The father has two interests “investments, or focuses in his life” and the investments have gone different ways.  The mother is “bent-double” over the kitchen sink after breaking one of her best dishes and the narrator says “We would bury her when we were able.”  The home appears to be completely torn apart.  The fourth to last line, “Some violence had been done to Grace,” appears to have dual meaning.  Grace could be the name of the narrator’s sister because “She had left for our next-of-kin” in the next line, but Muldoon is never as simple as that.  A violence appears to have been done to the Grace of God.  God’s favor has been lost and the Armageddon approaches.  The last line has the brother “warning of bayonets fixed in the bushes.”  Surely the end approaches.

            The last poem is given a setting right from the start, “A summer night in Keenaghan.”  The end has arrived and the darkness is absolute, “So dark my light had lingered near its lamp For fear of it.”  The narrator takes a kettle to a stream, and breathes through a hollow reed.  “Armageddon, Armageddon” fittingly ends with one last allusion.  A black beetle crawls on the underside of the narrator’s hand, and he must turn it around “To have it walk in the paths of uprightness.”  This is a line from Proverbs 2, a passage that addresses eternal salvation and damnation, “For the upright live in the land And the blameless will remain in it; But the wicked will be cut off from the land And the treacherous will be uprooted from it.”  It seems Muldoon is making one last commentary on the affairs of Ireland.  He hopes that more people will “walk in the paths of uprightness” so that they aren’t “cut off from the land.”

            “Armageddon, Armageddon” is a puzzling adventure through Northern Ireland and ancient mythology.  In an arguably excessive way, Muldoon fills each of his lines with numerous obscure references and allusions.  After working through the many allusions, one can see that Muldoon is reflecting on the treacherous state of affairs in Ireland at the time he wrote his poem.  Muldoon highlights Ireland’s rich history and accomplishments in the face of the turmoil caused by the political divisions when he wrote his poem.  Northern Ireland’s factions and own dualities were well paralleled and illustrated by Muldoon’s extensive inclusion of dualities throughout “Armageddon, Armageddon,” and Mules as a whole.

Works Cited

Muldoon, Paul. “Paul Muldoon and the Multiverse.” Arch Literary Journal (2008). Web.

            13 Feb. 2011.

Poem?

This is one I've been working on.

Tree gives no comment.

What shall rush out in a damp gust bringing rain?

There is there, she is not to the sylvan scene.

The glitter of it won't be the waters of mudcracked houses.

If you and beat their wings and her room enclosed.

Footsteps shuffled on the wet bank. The brisk swell rippled both shores

Southwest wind under the white road winding above among the grass is not to thank, she is not find.

The Hanged Man.

Fear death had five already, and back from either.

Your shadow of time to meet you;

I was once only a gilded.

-John

The Roaches Not Taken

For English class we have been assigned the task of writing N + 7 poems.  N + 7 poems are created by following a procedure invented by the French Oulipo society.  Oulipo is a group of French writers and mathematicians who write using novel techniques that constrain the writer in some way.  Their N + 7 technique consists of replacing each noun in a poem with the word that is listed seven spots later in the dictionary.  See if you can figure out what poem I applied the N + 7 technique to!

Wikipedia has a nice article on Oulipo.

Two roaches diverged in a yellow woodwind,
And sorry I could not tray both
And be one travesty, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the underlet;

Then took the other, as just as fake,
And having perhaps the better clairvoyance,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passionflower there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that mortgage equally lay
In lecture no stepparent had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the fissure for another deadbeat!
Yet knowing how wean leads on to wean,
I doubted if I should ever come backfire.

I shall be temple this with a sigma 
Somewhere aggressors and aggressors hence:
Two roams diverged in a woodwind, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the digit.

Feeding the Pear - G. C. Waldrep

The next poem I have decided to analyze is "Feeding the Pear" by G. C. Waldrep from Disclamor.  It is certainly an odd narrative, describing the speaker's encounter at a hymn sing, where they were given a pear and told to feed it.  After reading and annotating the poem a number of times, I'm still left quite confused as to what Waldrep is trying to convey through it.  The pear is described as having "a little mouth drawn on the flank / of the pear, but no nose, no eyes, no ears."  I think the fact that the pear only has a mouth, and judging by the title, uses it for consumption rather than speech, is of importance.  Possibly to retain the focus on being fed and consuming, Waldrep depicts the pear as blind, deaf, and having no sense of smell.  The speaker "had no idea what a pear would eat," and subsequently offers it carrot sticks and a packet of sugar.  The pear "remains oblique" after the offering, and sits with a magic marker drawn mouth.  Up to this point in the poem, the speaker has seem detached from the pear.  It was an object that was forced on them and they are unsure of how to treat it.  Once the speaker returns to the singing, they take a more personal affection and care for the poem.  Returning to their seat, "my place on the bench had been taken / by someone else.  Anyway I was preoccupied;" for whatever reason, the speaker has become affectionate and caring for the pear: "I didn't want to bruise the pear.  I wanted to be gentle."  All of a sudden the speaker and pear have developed a parent-child relationship.  All the pear could do was be fed, and the speaker has felt a connection to it. After the connection of parent and child has finally been developed, the poem abruptly ends with someone stopping the speaker and telling them "the pear stays here." It is difficult to follow what exactly Waldrep is telling through his poem.  I had difficulty gaining any one meaning or interpretation of the poem, but I think it addresses matter of relationship and community.  There is a definite relationship that grows between the speaker and the pear, and I think the community of the church is addressed in some way.  The line "the pear stays here" still vexes me.  It is certainly a poem that can be interpreted in many ways.