Response to Modeling Poem

OK, it seems extravagant to analyze my own work so extensively but here it goes. Once I saw a one of those new cars called the “Crossfire” but it looked like Crotchfire for a second. I thought this was a hilarious phrase and as it conveyed a sense of urgency and dealt with light it would make a fine title. I tried to compose the poem in four line stanzas with some enjambment and half rhymes in order to emulate the writings of Lowell, Sexton, and Plath who come between the more formalistic New Critics and the more experimental poets. I also attempted to have a clear speaker who was interested in conveying some kind of meaning to the reader, while still operating in the vague language of poetics. The poem is devoid of any obvious references to classical literature due but rather speaks from my own views and experience. I also tried to keep the language as simple as possible to avoid sounding too formal.
As far as subject matter goes I really only had a few images in mind that I wanted to convey to the reader. I feel the poem worked as a confessional because it dealt with ideas and images that were personal and of a somewhat disturbing nature. I wanted to provide a sense of being somewhat alienated from society and family, as perhaps someone born into something which he didn‘t particularly desire. Growing up I had reoccurring dreams of being outside the house looking in at my family. Unable to enter the home, these dreams often left me feeling as if I was not part of my own family life. I have also often felt, as I’m sure most have, limited by the types forced on me by conditions of birth. I also wanted to allude to the desire to forget the facts with which one is faced. For me, the bottle is a symbol of man’s desire to operate in darkness. I also attempted to contrast that darkness with a sense of light. It has been on my mind much lately that fireplace of old has been replaced by the television of our day. While camping, a fire becomes humanity’s source of light, warmth, and comfort. The fire, for me, is that which is formless, that from which all form springs while remaining itself the stuff of possibilities. I think of poetry as an attempt to mediate between the realms of form and formlessness--to extract some kind of meaning while remaining unbound by any confining and limiting forms.
I also, towards the end, wanted to vaguely reference my brother’s deaths. Having witnessed by brother’s drowning early in life, and another brother’s death later in life, I have often felt as if I too did not belong here. The pressure to “be” something or “do” with a life that could have been as easily taken away has, as often as not, made me not want to do anything at all. I have felt, with Plath, that desire to join with the departed and a certain anger at being left here alone to muddle through the mess with the rest of the miserable bastards.

First Modling Poem

Crotchfire

To know him is to prevail,
To have a place in power.
I turned away at the gate,
or perhaps was turned away.

Today, a dusty bottle drowns
half remembered dreams
of standing outside at night
looking at my childhood home.

Window squares of happy light
Steady bulb and TV glow,
Pointing back to that long gone day
When formless flame illuminates.

And looking towards that formless realm
Where all that’s created breaks down,
I’m often wishing that I had drown,
Like brothers who are dead and gone.

Blog the Third

This week saw us move into some poetry that, I felt, went even father in trying to break down old systems of meaning and explore new ones. Both Sharon Olds and Adrienne Rich seem to want to use their poetry to challenge the masculine dominated system and find a place where women have a stronger voice. While both are excellent poets, I personally found Olds to be more successful in her endeavor as she was able to reevaluate and deconstruct the idea male/female without reinforcing the dichotomy by appearing as biased.
By pointing out the contradictory nature of masculine sexuality and power in such poems as “The Pope’s Penis,” olds shows us the way in which the Patriarchal order puts itself at odds with the nature of the body, or that which is natural. In her poem “Once,” Olds again explores male sexuality through the image of her father’s nakedness. The poem is striking in it’s lack of the very organ which one might expect to most stick out, as it were, in a description of male nudity. Instead we are treated, or subjected, to a view that invokes the yawnic, rather than phallic, aspects of the male form. Rather than vilifying the masculine Olds invites the reader explore the ways in which gender distinctions break down, or the way that they subjugate both genders.
Rich, from my perspective, seemed interested in some of the same moves as Olds but without the ability to start anew. In her essay that we read for class she spoke of the need to move past the anger towards men and create a new space for women’s voices. One gets the feeling that this was perhaps the great struggle of Rich’s life. She also speaks of males as being part of “the system of sexual oppression” simply because of their maleness. While such sweeping statements might fly under the banner of first wave feminism, many queer theorists might point out the ways in which all subjects fail their gender categories.

Blog Two: Sexton &Plath

Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath follow Lowell nicely as both can be seen to build on the tradition of the confessional poet while making forays into new ways of exploring meaning. Plath can be seen as following the tradition of some of the more canonical poets of the past with her use of literary reference and apparent desire to be accepted into the cannon. At the same time her subject matter and tone set her apart as a new voice of the times. Plath’s use of language to create her own meaning marked her as a poet more interested in conveying truth than in entertaining the general public than in entering conversation with an academic elite.
Sexton took her poetry even farther into the realm of the public sphere by making her poetry accessible to the general public by using subject matter that was of general knowledge at the time. Her references to Jello and other pop culture references, as well as her rather more straightforward language has made her one of the most well read poets of our time.
One of the most interesting aspects of Sexton’s writing is her use of multiple perspectives within her poetry. As described in the essay we read by Karen Alkalay, “The Dream Life of Ms. Dog: Anne Sexton’s Revolutinoary Use of Pop Culture“, in her classic poem “Hurry Up Please, It’s Time,” Sexton begins the poem in the voice of her as an exhibitionist and child like figure exploring her sexuality. The poem also speaks as poor Anne who is depressed and perhaps house ridden. She also gives voice to a character called Ms. Dog who seems to be Sexton’s daring and adventurous side. The character Skeezix also makes an appearance as a kind of intermediary between the internal and external worlds. This multiplicity of characters is truly unusual when most poems include one, or a much more limited, perspective.

First Blogging Assignment

The most significant aspect of poetry which we have discussed so far, in my mind, is the relationship between form and content. Poetry seems to be the place in which the use of the language (form) really collides and pushes up against what he poet is trying to say. It’s fascinating to see that as the rigid forms of poetry began to break up, poets began to write about material that was less traditional as well. Or did the form loosen in response to the new material covered? Either way you look at it, in the material we are now covering we can see the poets pushing up against the limits language, and beginning to play with those limits. It was interesting to read Tate’s reaction to Lowell’s “new” style of free verse and confessional material and realize that to Tate this was not poetry at all. Looking back at the influence that “Life Studies” had on the movement at the time is a testament to staying true to the aesthetic which you feel best reflects what you are trying to say.

Another significant move made by the poets we are now studying, as opposed to more traditional poets, is the inclusion of the author’s own voice and perspective within the work. The poem we read by Tate was written in some kind of universal, almost disembodied voice, and was concerned about the history of literature and art as much or more than what was going on around him at the time. The effect of such poems leaves the reader feeling as if they had attended some kind of lecture on the merits of “high art” and are included or excluded based on their ability to read these predefined set of codes. I noticed in our groups that so many more interpretations were able to be arrived at from the works of Lowell. One gets the feeling that every reader is able to take from the poem his or her own ideas, and to me that’s really what art is all about.

One reading that I was able to take away from the poem “Skunk Hour” by Lowell turned out to be based on class or hierarchal position. The poem seems to generally work on a kind of zooming in effect, in which we start out looking at the island and its various inhabitants, middle up on the author driving his car up the hills, and finish with a look at some skunks ravishing a garbage pail. For me, the poem seemed to be speaking of class layers as it moves from the upper crust, the heiress with old money, to the next level down, the L. L. Bean wearing millionaire with his new money. Then the middle class is introduced in the form of the lobsterman who now has the millionaire’s boat. The author presents himself as cut off from the rest of the human inhabitants of the island, watching the others playing at love, but himself in hell. He IS hell. The author’s only refuge seems to be the skunks that he sees scavenging around for “a bite to eat.” The only form of resolution seems to be in the fact that these, the lowest of all the island’s creatures, will not scare. It seems significant that it is this lowest level of society, where one must feast on the garbage of others, from which Lowell takes his solace. Perhaps the author is pointing out our common struggle for survival, and the follies that come from thinking that one has more than another.

It will be interesting to watch as language continues to be stretched and broken in the effort to convey meaning, to step beyond the realm of form and touch upon that which is formless. One can not help but feel that these verses and ideas are simply language at play in the fields of endless possibilities.

First Blog EVER

I wonder at the origins of the word "blog."

It's a funny kind of word.

"A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

And now I know.

Ahhhh . . . the joys of internet.