TextSpace

Looking over the posts which I have made over the semester, I realized that in one of my posts, I really never responded at all and merely posted Wanda Coleman’s poem. Due to this, and in order not to do less work than my fellow classmates, I have decided to write an extra post.

I found it very interesting to read the progression of, not only poetry, but poetic theory as it evolved through the twentieth century. I found the terms that we discussed every week very helpful and was surprised at times by how complex they tended to be. Even though I have studied poetics for quite some time, I discovered quickly that although I may recognize a word and think I understand it, it is very difficult to formulate a fitting definition of such a term. I was also surprised that some terms existed with such a multitude of meanings. Irony, for instance.

I am conflicted in that I wish we would have read over more poetry, but, I would not have wanted to read any less theory. The workload may have been too much if more poetry were added, but the subject is so rich with the need for so much to go over it was necessary to be thin in some areas. Of all that was encountered, however, I would believe poems to be what most of the class had the greatest history of reading, therefore it is only fitting that this be the area to be left somewhat slim. By no means, however, do I feel that this area was lacking, which may sound opposed to what was just said, but if we would have had more time, I would have enjoyed more poetry.

The theory was probably what I enjoyed most. Some of the theorists were familiar, though I had not read that specific article. I liked Heidegger and Olson, probably two of my favorite. I wish we could have worked with a little theory dealing with aurality versus text, but realize that it really didn’t exist within the text. As we both know it takes at least a semester to cover that anyway.

“The characteristic style of ‘Modern’ poetry is an intimate tone of voice, the speech of one person addressing one person, not a large audience…its characteristic hero is neither the ‘Great Man’ nor the romantic rebel, both doers of extraordinary deeds, but the man or woman in any walk of life who, despite all the impersonal pressures of modern society, manages to acquire and preserve a face of his own” (382). Auden

Of all the reading this week, it was this quote that most caught my eye and a passage which I spent most time meditating on. Auden’s words here are significant because they encapsulate very well, not every aspect of what separates poetry of the last fifty years from poems of many years before, nor is it applicable to every poem written in the past fifty years, but it is one facet which holds very true to describing a difference between, as he states it “Modern” poetry, from poetry before hand. Many poems before this time were more of a declaration made by a Poet (a “Great Man”) rather than a poet, to a wide audience, pontificating about a grand idea. Such can be seen in may of the “Odes” which permeate poetry in the past few hundred years.

Many poets of today are more down to earth and have lowercased the “p”, becoming the ordinary folks rather than an other. Personally this is one reason why I am fonder of poetry of the last fifty years than that of centuries past. Poetry of this type is more engaging to a wider range of people, even if is still contains elements which are difficult to understand or ascertain a meaning from. The poetry speaks to the common man or woman and has the potential to present the ordinary in a manner not normally seen and may allow the audience to gain a greater understanding for this idea or object.

This may also be one of my hang-ups with Eliot. For him, the audience should understand a great deal of history in relation to poetry and bring this knowledge to his poetry in order to gain a greater understanding. Eliot would probably greatly dislike the manner in which poetry has evolved and how few pay close attention to poetry’s past. In closing, I enjoyed working with all of you through out this semester and took pleasure in expanding my knowledge in poetry and poetry in theory. I look forward to working with all of you in the future.

Of the articles which we read for class, I found the Enzensberger article to be the most interesting and the most engaging. The Saussurian influence on the other articles was quite palpable, but I found the Enzensberger article both hilarious at times, and chilling at others. The idea of dissembling the idea of an authorial or One interpretation from a poem was the portion in which I aligned myself most with and found the antidote about the butcher’s wife quite amusing.

Reading Langston Hughes and his desire for Black pride amongst African Americans of his time; to embrace the black culture rather than attempt to become “white”. I couldn’t help but wonder what Hughes would have to say about the young, white, suburbanite males and females that embrace and mimic contemporary black culture. The young white people who crip or false flag, trying to represent gangs of LA setup to promote black unity, what can make of them.

In Eliot’s poem there appears the following statement:
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
This portion of the poem drew my interest several hundred years ago when I first encountered the poem and it was shortly thereafter that I had to read this poem for a class. Not this one. The personification of the yellow fog is very catlike and cat like in that it is both lethargic and has qualities similar to a feline. In the class, and before class, still not this one, I came to the conclusion that the yellow fog was symbolic of sunlight, and I was promptly silenced by the oppressive professor who in her tyrannical explanation explained the yellow fog and smoke as smoke.

Brilliant. I was such a fool. Yes, of course the smoke is symbolic of smoke. According to her, early nineteenth century London was an highly polluted by remnants of the Industrial Revolution, and I have found a reference to this: “At that time (during the Industrial Revolution) coal was the prime energy fuel to power most of the factories and to heat most of the homes in the cities. Because of the burning of coal, the air over such industrial cities as London became filled with huge amounts of smoke and soot containing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.”
http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_51_100/pollution.htm
Sulfur does burn yellow and thus much of the smoke may have had a tint of yellow. However, the Industrial Revolution took place much earlier (late 1700’s) and even the Second Industrial Revolution took place around 1850. This poem was published in 1917. This would have been some serious smoke. Secondly, this yellow fog “Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys”. The fact that it does this signifies that it is not of the soot from the chimneys and therefore is something different. Third, the yellow fog on two occasions is quite concerned with the end of the day, “Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,” and “And seeing that it was a soft October night, /Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.” Why would smoke be concerned with the evening? Light, especially sunlight is very concerned with the dark. Ok, maybe not concern, but, in light’s absence we have dark. And, being a October night, with the chill in the air, would not more people be burning coal to keep the house warm?

Olson is nothing less than brilliant in his ideas and suggestions in Projective Verse. By leaving the rime and meter which had grown more than stale by 1950, it was essential for change and Projective Verse was a catalyst which perpetuated the evolution of poetry to its present form. The idea of using space (the page) in order to control time and the sound of the poem without using sound is amazing. The ability to measure through breath was paramount in transforming poetry from a rigid form to free. With constraints placed around poetry for so long, it was essential that a new restraint be set around poetry, but one which allowed for freedom.

The ability to use outer form with the typewriter was also a stroke of genius. I am curious how Olson would utilize today’s technology in relation to the poem. I would suggest that he would probably be tempted to drop the page and utilize our recording technology to exist in its stead. Given that “A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it, by way of the poem itself to, all the way over to, the reader” (289), I would believe that Olson would also be very interested in live as well as video recorded poetry readings, as well as podcasts.

The focus on sound, not rime and meter, but the true sound, that of syllable are the true beauty of the poem in conjunction with the utilization of breath. I am in full agreement with Olson and would suggest that the use of old fashion traditional form is as useful today as trying to commute by horse. While it may bring pleasure the individual riding, it is no longer practical. The processes is obscure, obstructive, and for those attempting to may progress in a world of automobiles and aircraft, antiproductive.

Black Alice Laments

by Wanda Coleman

one midnight flight to Xanadu
i got lost in the sky
the cloud i rode had quite a load
that dwindle bye-and-bye
it made me late, a fact i hate
but i’ve not learned to lie

by the time i got to Xanadu
my night had turned to day
all the gold had turned to gilt
and all the crystal, clay
the partyers were snoring bores
the goodies stashed away

by the time i arrived in Xanadu
sweet mama proved a crone
cracks and crannies sported dust
and brambles maned the stone
and everything i thot was steel
had crumbled as if bone

as i made me descent on Xanadu
my bowels were in my throat
my hair was gray my hands were red
and i couldn’t sing a note
and as i warbled at the swans
my last glass slipper broke

by the time i stormed dear Xanadu
all the stories had been told
the mirth was spent, i hadn’t a cent
my courage was going cold
and when i touched the hand of God
it simpered into mold

by the time i found lost Xanadu
my rose had lost his bloom
the music men had packed and fled
the dance floor was a tomb
and all the thrills that might’ve been
were shrieking in the gloom

one midnight flight to Xanadu
my heart fell from the sky
the cloud i rode had quite a load
that dwindled bye-and-bye
which made me blue, but ever true
for i’ve not learned to lie

Attempting to read a poem without influence on external contexts is not possible, but it is precisely this ability to be applicable to new external contexts which enables a poem to exist with a dynamic state. This is one of the beauties of poetry in that, unlike fiction which has more elements which may stamp it into a certain period, poetry has the ability, in some respects, to transcend relevancy to a specific period and become pertinent to an entirely new era, situation, or people with a renewed existence. The renewed meaning which the poem then encompasses has left the realm of authorial influence, which allows the poem to be a much more powerful entity; an entity which is self sufficient without the author, his or her influence, and the context of that period.
This is exactly the situation discussed in class which was used by Churchill which allowed the poem an entirely new meaning while not being written under that idea or purpose. This is a facet which in prose fiction is available to a lesser degree than poetry, in that we can apply external contexts to texts, but the multitude of meanings is limited by various structures which make up the text. Whereas portions of a story, such as characters, may be viewed as metaphors for something else, we are limited in our ability to extrapolate meanings via external contexts due to the confines of the prose structure. In other words, the poem is limited in that in is composed of a certain number of characters, actions, settings, and other specifics which may be altered in a limited manner. The same can be said for drama as it is read, and our limits are further reinforced in a drama as it is performed; for example, “Waiting for Godot” can have no more that five characters as read, but as read, we may envision these characters to the specificity of our mind, yet as performed, these decisions have been made for us.
We may apply, in a drama, novel, or poem, external relevance which may be a result of contexts which exist as time has the ability to change our understanding of the world, however we must be aware that this is a conscious effect upon the work of art and may produce a fallacy rather than an understanding. For example, a Marxist theory may be applicable to a literary piece from a time before Marx, yet we can be assured that this was not the concept within the mind of the writer, yet this knowledge may nevertheless provide an insight. We must be extremely weary of using external context out of context in relation to literature due to misunderstandings which could potentially be present and produce such a fallacy. This may seem to undermine all that has been said above, but we cannot use external context to extract infinite meanings. Poetry has the ability to be least infringed by this, however, in that the understanding which we have of the poem is not limited to our striving to understand the meaning which was inscribed by the poet, rather, we are treating the poem as its own entity, one which may live on to evolve even after the poet does not.

My reading of Easthrope, in conjunction with other readings from the past have allowed me to formula the following equation in reference to poetry and the ability and potential to extract meaning from a poem. Nearly any poem which has been examined has the potential to of containing three facets of meaning. The first facet is represented as Pz. P shall be designated as the meaning placed within the poem. The z is the variable which is determined by time, performance, and internalization within the poem which may alter P.

The second facet is best demonstrated in the equation (1) G((D-F)E) = R. R represents the number of meanings extrapolated by the audience of the poem. D is representative of the number of meanings which have resulted due to the number of times the poem is read. G is equal to the number of people who have encountered the poem. F is representative of the meanings which the audience came to as a result of applied literary theory. E is representative of the various versions of the poem which exists. Therefore, we come to R by taking the number of meanings extracted during the reading (or listening) of the poem subtracted by those meanings which may have been discovered by the use of literary theory multiplied by the different versions of the poem and multiplied by the number of people who encounter the poem.

The third facet is represented by the equation ((A) (B+Y) X) C = N

In dealing with poetry as a spoken art, as was stated by Lowell, we must remember that poetry was once strictly oral, filled with memorization aids such as clichés, rhyme, meter, repetition. The residue of these memorization aids were maintain until (and after to some extent) Pound and Eliot broke from the form of their contemporaries. With the advent of free verse, which Lowell speaks of in the conclusion of her essay, it is absolutely a great benefit for poetry to be aided by the performance thereof. Walter Ong in his book Orality and Literacy states that “In oral speech, a word must have one or another intonation or tone of voice—lively, excited, quiet, incensed, resigned, or whatever. It is impossible to speak a word orally without any intonation. In a text punctuation can signal tone minimally: a question mark or a comma, for example, generally calls for the voice to be raised a bit. Literate tradition, adopted and adapted by skilled critics, can also apply some extratextual clues for intonations, but not complete ones. Actors spend hours determining how actually to utter the words in the text before them. A given passage might be delivered in a shout, by another in a whisper”. With free verse being so diverse in its presentation on the page, questions of emphasis, intonation, pauses, and other extratextual cues would benefit a readers understanding of the poem.

In the technological age in which we all no reside, it would be pertinent to reexamine the idea of poetry and its oral beginnings. Now with the ability to capture the voice and moving image of a poet, how are we to apply these aspects of the poet’s poem to the text. Are the secondary entities that we should take note of? Should they be given equal ground as the text thereby needed to be examine in conjunction with our understanding of the text? Should they take precedence over the text due to their inclusion of extratextual values? What are we to make of difference which may occur between text and performance? Should live performance take precedence over recorded or vice versa? What are we to make of deviations between several recordings? If a poet reads her poem at age thirty and we have a recording and its meaning completely differs from a performance read in her sixties, what are we to make of this?

As can be witness, a plethora of questions can be raised when considering the addition of performance to a text poem, be the performance recorded or not. Lowell insists that poetry should not be read as if it were prose, where a performer recognizes the punctuation. She also states that mispronunciation of words has plagued poetry from quite some time and states that these are “bad traditions” in regards to performance. This later idea being of less concern, how is it then that we are to read a poem? What separates a good reading from a bad one and who is to judge? She also indicates disdain for impersonators reading poetry. Lowell has a great amount to say of how not to read a poem, but doesn’t seem to elaborate on “how to read a poem”. Although I am in agreement that poetry should be performed, I am not sure that Lowell should instruct us on how to read a poem or perform a poem. While it is bad to mispronounce words, I would contend that these other elements of the performance are not subject to her conjecture. Performance is the responsibility of the performer. The performer, not the poet, has the ultimate say on how the poem will be performed, unless the performer is the poet. The poet loses that privilege when the poem is brought into the public sphere. The semantic qualities thereof are to exist in a binary state where meaning is subjected onto the poem by the performer in one realm and by the audience in the other. Each audience member can, and most likely will, attribute similar but different meaning to what has been perceived. This reality of the poem as perceived is manufactured into a triad when examine by use of theory, but this is an argument for a different discussion.

I was very pleased when reading Leavis’s essay when he found fault with certain critics, such as J.C. Squire. The views of Squire are based upon preconceived notions that “a poet can mention a rose, but not a Rolls-Royce, that poetry is a refuge and not an attack, that a poet is a sensitive refugee and not a man facing life”(197). Such ideas are ludicrously based on poetry which was not contemporary at the time, as in T. S. Eliot, but based on older poets or poets of older styles and I was thankful that Leavis came to the defense of the poets attempting to make change within the art.
Leavis outlines what he believes a poet is, no doubt preparing us of the later defense which we just encountered. His account of what a poet is very interesting, and very accurate for poets not only his time, but pervious and after. He states that a poet is “unusually sensitive, unusually, aware, more sincere and more himself than the ordinary man can be” (195). The poet, therefore, must use these abilities to encapsulate the time in which he or she lives and utilize this expression in a manner most clearly representative to the poet’s time. With the vast changes occurring in Eliot’s time, it only makes sense that poetry had to undergo dramatic changes as well. It is also understandable why those who disliked the style and content of Eliot’s poetry would remark that a poet cannot write about a Rolls-Royce and that the “poet is a refugee and not a man facing life” (197). It was therefore essential for those who found Eliot’s poetry amiable to come to the defense of him and his form.
Leavis demonstrates early on in his essay how other critics, such as Arnold, desired to demonstrate an hierarchal structure in regards to poets, placing Shakespeare, Milton, and Spencer at the penultimate level. With these three at the top, our ruler for the measurement of other poets is skewed substantially. In order to judge other poets, we must be sure that the manner in which they write is similar to those poets mention, and thus writers such as Eliot would rate extremely low, especially since his rhythm and rhyme are no where near those of the three kings. Living in a mindset such as this would not allow for changes in the art, after all, the best poets would have been long cold by that time anyway.

The juxtaposition of images and words, as spoke of on page 9 in The Well Wrought Urn where T. S. Eliot is quoted as saying “that perpetual slight alteration of language, words perpetually juxtaposed in new and sudden combinations”, is a poetic element which exist in contemporary poetry, as well as poetry of the past, which I find to be one of the most striking and aesthetically pleasing. The poets ability to create metaphors or images in a fresh manner which teases out new understandings or feelings about the subject by such juxtaposing can elevate the poem, and what we take from the poem to a level much higher than by the use of more commonplace metaphor or vocabulary. Several examples which I have found in poetry of the last fifty years include a description of football player in James Wright’s poem “Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio”. In second line of the final stanza Wright describes the players as “suicidally beautiful” in a word combination which I would imaging to be used quite sparingly in regards to describing people, especially the children, as the image was formed through the eyes of the parents.

An example of a metaphor which exhibits “new and sudden” combinations can be found in Charles Simic’s poem “Dismantling the Silence” where the silence is personified as having a material form which is not only tangible, but able to be dissected. In the third line of the first stanza he instructs about silence, “With a sharp whistle slit its belly open”. In such an instance, not only is silence given an odd quality of being tangible, but silence is to be used as a scalpel. This unusual metaphor of destroying silence with a whistle by dissecting its “belly” is another juxtaposing of unexpected images and qualities which enable the reader to have a new understanding or idea of how a common activity of breaking silence with a whistle can be viewed.

A third instance very similar to Simic’s expands on the idea of using and uncommon way of envisioning an event or object. Jan Beatty in her poem “Report From The Skinhouse” uses the juxtaposing in the title in one word “skinhouse”, but continues in the first three stanzas:

I went looking for a body

The apple, tree, the river.
Gliding voice, curve of arm,
Pearly blue uterus.

Muscled calf, the neptune green
eye, blood with the same
taste as mine.

In this instance, she begins using images of nature to describe a body, but turns the flow of the poem by interjecting “Pearly blue uterus”, which interrupts what could be viewed as beauty with an image of the grotesque (especially in regards of the use fact that in order for the uterus to be blue, it must be dead) and unexpected. In the next stanza she uses the same technique, this time using “blood with the same taste as mine” to interrupt the flow and present an uncommon element into the poem.
These poetic devices are elements which I find, no only quite appealing and intelligent, but markers of strong poetic ability when utilized in a manner which is beneficial to the poem, as in the examples above.

It is evident in Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” that his poetic style (this poem published in 1923) had not evolved or estranged the idea which was spoken of his 1913 collection North of Boston. The poem exudes the same qualities referenced in Poetry in Theory where Edward Thomas is quoted, stating that “Frost’s poetry derived its language and meter from ‘common speech and common decasyllables.’” In contrast to Wallace Stevens’ “The Idea of Order at Key West” which is contained vocabulary not found in every day speech (with the exception of perhaps the university), such as “veritable” and “demarcations”. Frost’s poem thrives in its simplicity, just as Stevens’ poem gains its allure in its complexity in rhyme, alliteration, and word choice.

I found the Hollander text to be informative, but very distracting. The interjection of poetry as text was intrusive and slowed my reading in a negative way. Although it was novel in its approach, I found it to be obstructive and enjoyed Poetry in Theory much more enjoyable. Poetry in Theory, like Hollander’s text, was very informative and displayed many ideas in a confined space. What struck me most appeared in the first paragraph, “large issues about past traditions or political futures seem to depend on how poetry is written and how it is to be read. The right attunement of language of the world, the survival of modes of perception and feeling all become implicated in poetry’s continuation.” (Cook 1)