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.