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I thought that “The Poet and the City” by W. H. Auden addressed some pertinent issues concerning the occupation of writing. He shows concern over the direction artists in today’s technologically advanced world have taken. He specifically spells out the difficulties artists face in modern society and gives readers what he considers to be the four aspects of this decline. These aspects really gave me a great deal to think about and for the most part I agree with Auden’s viewpoint.

I found Enzensberger’s piece to be entertaining, although I found myself confused at times because of some parts of the article that seemed to contradict itself. I liked the fact that Enzensberger played off of Swift’s Modest Proposal and thought that it was an interesting approach to his subject matter. I thought that he illustrated his point well, especially when he presented readers with his fictional letters from students and teachers of poetry. I have known teachers who were as cruel as those mentioned in the text. I just hope that I can do better than that.

Poetry as a cultural narrative is addressed in DuPlessis’ article. This article gives voice to new and different kinds of discourse. For example, it shows how poetry can look at women, men, blacks, whites, etc. It can also explore social issues such as equality, politics, race, gender, as well as many others. The point of this text clearly fits into the same vein of thought as Hughes’ and Rich’s writing. Hughes focuses primarily on issues related to race, but this also could be the argument for the inclusion of a variety of cultures and social issues. Hughes fights against the white standard as well as the submissive attitudes of his own race. He feels that the black artist should embrace their culture and not deny who they are.

Guillaume Apollinaire’s piece was a pretty interesting commentary on poetry. It wants readers to think of poetry as being present in different forms than just the written. This reminded me of some of the recordings we heard in class. It is amazing how many different ways poets can compose with technology. I guess some people would not consider this to be poetry (and I am not completely sure that I do) but it gives us new ways of exploring poetic possibilities. Apollinaire also gives us a definition of a poet. One is as a poet who can give humanity truth no matter what field there are in. The poet is anyone who discovers new joys and truths. This is an interesting concept that I had not considered before, but I would agree.

The issue of imitation comes up again in this article. Apollinaire advocates that there should be an “imitative harmony.” Using others’ works as springboards or to learn from can be beneficial. Imitating sounds like an airplane or train can also be useful in poetry because it adds more effects and emphasizes certain aspects of the poem for a reason. I agree that meaning should be attached to the imitation. Straight imitations only usually do not create good poetry because it is not creative and does not have the element of surprise.

Finally, I enjoyed how McGann’s article presented historical context in which to read Yeats’ poem. The connections of the poem between printed books in the rag and bone shops and the material production of books were clearly laid out in the text. This reading made me see the importance of printed accuracy when it comes to modern poetry and those authors who experiment in their writing such as Stein. If a press makes a mistake it could change the whole meaning of the poem. Modernist writers tend to use more techniques such as the space on the page as well as word order so it was crucial that the printed version be exact. This was an interesting piece of historical information.

I am not sure that I completely get Olson’s theory of poetry. I think that the image and sound can be just as important as the syllable. Olson seems to argue that the syllable and line are the fundamental aspects of good poetry. His example of showing the roots of syllable was valid and made me realize how paying attention to the small parts of words can provide information about the poem that would usually go overlooked. This kind of method can be beneficial in that it give readers new insights and new avenues of exploring a poem. However, I think a more holistic approach to poetry provides readers with the best understanding of a poem. I also would like to know how is it possible for a poem to be a high energy-construct and an energy-discharge at the same time?

I thought that Imamu Baraka’s discussion of the artificial to be interesting. I tend to agree that natural is usually better and that making the art some kind of commodity destroys it to some degree. This made me think of the quilts and other crafts of Appalachia, which can be seen as a kind of functional art. On the other hand, why should there not be artificial art, or art that could not exist without being made by a man, as well. While I prefer natural art, I can see the benefits to both ways of approach art.

Perloff’s text made me consider several new issues concerning poetry that I had not thought about before. The issue that grabbed my attention the most made me question whether or not some forms of prose can be considered poetry. It is true that in prose we notice grammatical issues and spaces much more and consider them to be out of place and incorrect, while if these things are being used as poetic techniques in verse form we think that they help to create good poem. This is a very subjective issue that has no clear answer for me. I do think that prose can have characteristics of a poem, but does that make it a poem? Poetry does not necessary depend on format alone, but it is a good indicator. It is hard for me to consider prose to be poetry, but I sometimes think that this is my own perception of poetry that has been ingrained in me. It is hard to break away from that. I’m still debating this issue.

I have made the comment found in Jarrell’s piece, The End of the Line, which is “I like poetry- but not modern poetry.” What I consider to be poetry is very traditional and conventional. This is why I prefer Robert Frost’s poetry with its meter and rhyme rather than Gertrude Stein’s poem about Picasso. I do not think modern poets have to disregard tradition in order to produce good poetry. I think that it is okay to use a natural sounding language is describing nature or something similar because it fits in with what the poem is talking about and so would a poem with specific rhythmic pattern since nature can be very mathematical. I just don’t like poets that to try to be different for differences sake. If the poet strays away from tradition the poem should call for that and not the poet.

I really enjoyed reading McLaughlin’s text on figurative language and found that he explained these aspects of poetry very clear for me. It was very helpful for me to see exactly how figures of speech such as metaphor and personification were at work in William Blake’s “The Lamb.” I feel that looking at McLaughlin’s examples will help me to recognize how other poems make use of figures of speech. Trying to understand how these elements of poetry are used is much more interesting to me than trying to figure out the meter of a poem. Plus, I think that dealing with these aspects of a poem provides readers with more meaning and depth than meter ever could. It seems to me that it would take more insight, work, effort, and creativity on the parts of both readers and writers to struggle with figurative language rather than meter.

While I thought McLaughlin did a good job of explaining and stressing the importance of figurative language to poetry, I also understand the dangers that can arise when trying to distinguish figurative language from language’s “proper” meaning. Readers can often misinterpret poems when they read too much into it. It did not occur to me before reading this article that this is also an issue for the fields of science and philosophy and not just literature. I had also thought of these areas as being factual and focused on the literal. I learned a great from this article.

Reading Easthope made me realize that there is so much as work in poetry. I had never considered all the different elements like. I do not have a strong background in literature, especially poetry, so I was completely unaware of many of the aspects of poetry that he addressed. While I found some of the theoretical language to be hard to muddle through, I felt that he brought up several interesting issues in his writing. I think that even though I did not grasp everything, I was introduced to some interesting information concerning poetry.

I was interested in how the Romantic defined rhetoric as bad poetry, which Easthope talks about in chapter 7. I’m not sure I agree with the Romantic assumption. I think that rhetoric can use poetic techniques that make it a form of good poetry. Political speeches, slogans, etc. can make use of rhetoric combined with rhythm, alliteration, and assonance in a way that makes it like a poem.

I was a little lost by the information presented in the theory article. I took from this text that poetry is viewed differently in American and Britain. The British critics appear to define poetry more in terms of the poet while American critics tend to focus on the poem itself. I did not fully understand the point he was making concerning discourse. A poem is considered to be parole because it is an utterance constructed according to and within a system of language. I think he is saying that individual poems can join with other poems to create a poetic discourse, then other texts can join creating an even larger discourse. This poetic discourse is determined materially, ideologically, subjectivity. I was most interested in the author’s talk about subjectivity because this type of discourse is a produce of the reader. However, I am still not sure how I can use this essay to help me understand the poetry I am reading. Help!

I liked what Lowell had to say about the similarities between poetry and oratorical prose. I think I would like to deal with this subject for my final paper. It would be interesting to look at how people who give speeches such as politicians, religious leaders, etc use poetic elements in their prose as well as why they use this method as opposed to straight forward prose. Add rhythm to ordinary words can make a world of difference.

It is difficult for me to understand some of the theoretical works we have been reading about poetry. In some ways I feel that this approach to poetry kills some of the spark and emotion of poetry. On the other hand, I can see that looking at poetry through different lenses can lead to a deeper understanding of poetry. I’ll try to give my interpretation of Leavis, but I am not sure it will be correct. He does not care much for the way 19th century poetry did not recognize the time in which it was created. Instead it dealt with classical times or other worldly places and times. Leavis felt that Eliot and other modern poets did a good job because the mark of their day and age could be found in their poetry. This made their poetry more realistic and true.

Brooks just reiterated some of the stances toward poetry that he made in last week’s reading. He calls for a reading of poetry that deals with interpreting the poem without solely relying on contextual information. He appears to say that the poem should give readers all of the meaning they need within the poem itself. I don’t think that restricting a reader’s interpretation in any way is good. It is important to consider all of the things that can give a poem meaning. Readers should be exposed to these things and use their own judgment to figure out which ones best fit the intention of the poem.

Brooks states that poetry is something that is natural and a fundamental human activity.
Many people dismiss modern poetry as irresponsible, but it is really no more difficult than traditional poetry. Like traditional poetry, readers have to search for the meanings in the poem. Readers must take into account all that the poem is communicating. All poetry calls for careful reading. Maybe it is harder to understand some of the abstractions of modern poetry and easier to understand the general meaning of traditional poem, but a close reading of both kinds of poems would reveal deeper insights. An example of how complicated traditional poetry can be is found later in Brook’s text when he talks about the debate over how a single word can change so much meaning in a poem. Eliot, Murry, and Garrod all interpret Keat’s line “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” in different ways. This shows that all poetry is full of meaning that good readers have to dig for if they want to get the full affect of the poem.

I found what Eliot had to say about poetry to be interesting and confusing at times. He stated that poetry is an escape from emotion and personality and that the artist is about self-sacrifice. I do agree that the artist does sacrifice a part of themselves in order to make creative pieces. I can see how some artists feel so burdened by their emotions and life that they feel a tremendous need to get those out and the way for them to get it out is to write poetry, play music, etc. So I understand that writing those emotions are really an escape from such feeling, which if kept in could cause a lot of pain and hardship for the artist.

Cook talks about ambiguity in poetic language, which is something with which I have a great deal of difficulty. When I read poetry, it is always a struggle for me to understand its meaning, I don‘t seem to be able to see what some people see. Even though it is hard to grasp, I see why ambiguity is important to poetry. It is unraveling and striving to understand the mystery of a poem that makes it more interesting. It makes poetry interesting because it charges language with multiple meanings and ways of understanding the poem according to Cook. I think it is important to pay attention to all aspects of the poem such as meter, sound, order of words, etc. I feel that Hollander’s text would be very helpful for understanding these aspects. I realized from reading Rhyme’s Reason that one of the reasons I find poetry so ambiguous is because I am not aware of many of the poetic techniques present in the book such as recognizing certain types of poems and poetic functions. While the meaning of a poem may not be clear at first it is the search that helps readers realize the true quality of a poem. This can be a very frustrating process, especially for people like me who are not too familiar with poetry.