Since any of the poets we have been reading the last two weeks (including Baraka and Cortez, as well as this week's writers) often perform their poems, and since the urge toward oral performance often partly shapes the poems' forms (use of a public address rhetorical mode in Cortez's "There It Is," from last week selections, for eg)--or, we might say, an urge toward performance is embedded in the poems' forms and structures--since, that is, the poems exist both on the page and off the page in live performances--it could be insightful, as part of your analyses, to consider some of the performance versions of these poems. Check YouTube for videos...also PennSound for sound recordings...
Harjo:
"she Had Some Horses"
Certainly, the horses can be seen to represent her personal life, but also the cultural history of a people (Native American), and human nature generally, so you 'd want to notice how the horses symbolize human desire, fear, spiritual need--the good, the bad, the ugly, and even the humorous--the full range of human experience--but also a particular (native American) world view rooted in involvement with the (natural) other--ie., a self that can incorporate the personal, transpersonal, and the nonhuman as well as the human; the prehistorical, myth and dream, as well as the earth in its deep (geologic) time. The poem is trans-historical, trans-temporal, in this way, and brings to mind both Waldman and Snyder.
"Equinox"
Note how the speaker turns the suffering of the history of people and a culture into song--i.e., poetry; much of the imagery is Native American, Harjo's cultural roots. This poem, pubished in 2002, was performed as a tribute to the jazz singer Leana Horne. Though not written for Horne, the personal and cultural history of strife the poem images, and the need to finally bury those dead and move on, as the crocuses pushing through the "frozen [i.e, psychologically/emotionally paralyzing circumstances] earth" (an earth stunned by that suffering) teaches us, can apply to Horne and African-Americans as well as Harjo and Native Americans. You can view Harjo's tribute performance of this poem and others on YouTube.
Sanders
"The Cutting Prow"
The painter is Henri Matisse (check out some of his works on Google images); what is the significance of the image constellation scissor-scepter-cutting prow? think about the compiling of metaphoric suggestions. How do they interrelate, as images, and why "cutting prow" (the scissor of course becomes the cutting prow, but in what sense)? This poem, like Ferlinghetti's "Don't Let That Horse," has something to say about the value of poetry.
Also, check out this video of Sanders performing the poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hkreT3J2h
Sanchez:
"Ballad"
There is both defiance/challenge and sadness in the speaker's tone; Sanchez uses the ballad form, with the repetition at the end, to effectively express this ambiguity. Both the young and old are, or will be, "jilted," so to speak, from this "love"; "love" in quotes since, note, there are really at least two different types of love, here. One is the more obvious, human/sexual/"romantic" (though nothing stereotypically romantic in this imagery) love between couples, which often involves on partner sacrificing "Her" identity to the other (this is the typically, male-dominant type of relationship heterosexual "love" relationship. The second stanza, though, provides a different sort of imagery, and suggests perhaps a broader, or at least not so narrowly focused definition of "love"--and the imagery there is full of sexual passion and earthiness, as well...
The wisdom of the elder speaker, with her more comprehensive grasp of love and experience, and the overly self-confident attitude of the "young" is also relevant... the speaker finds that love is at once perhaps more fulfilling and complex, and also more lonely, than the youthful veresion may allow
Baca:
"Into Death Bravely"
Note the use of an extended metaphor of warfare to comment on the struggle for survival in a tough environment. If you're from an agrarian cultural context like Baca's, your people depend upon the land--closely tied to natural cycles; so the "war," from one perspective, really is between "man and nature": the winter makes things hard on plants and animals. What "defeats" winter, of course, is the spring; nothing we can do. So, yes, there's a lesson there for us humans, and a respect for they way things are.
Harjo:
"she Had Some Horses"
Certainly, the horses can be seen to represent her personal life, but also the cultural history of a people (Native American), and human nature generally, so you 'd want to notice how the horses symbolize human desire, fear, spiritual need--the good, the bad, the ugly, and even the humorous--the full range of human experience--but also a particular (native American) world view rooted in involvement with the (natural) other--ie., a self that can incorporate the personal, transpersonal, and the nonhuman as well as the human; the prehistorical, myth and dream, as well as the earth in its deep (geologic) time. The poem is trans-historical, trans-temporal, in this way, and brings to mind both Waldman and Snyder.
"Equinox"
Note how the speaker turns the suffering of the history of people and a culture into song--i.e., poetry; much of the imagery is Native American, Harjo's cultural roots. This poem, pubished in 2002, was performed as a tribute to the jazz singer Leana Horne. Though not written for Horne, the personal and cultural history of strife the poem images, and the need to finally bury those dead and move on, as the crocuses pushing through the "frozen [i.e, psychologically/emotionally paralyzing circumstances] earth" (an earth stunned by that suffering) teaches us, can apply to Horne and African-Americans as well as Harjo and Native Americans. You can view Harjo's tribute performance of this poem and others on YouTube.
Sanders
"The Cutting Prow"
The painter is Henri Matisse (check out some of his works on Google images); what is the significance of the image constellation scissor-scepter-cutting prow? think about the compiling of metaphoric suggestions. How do they interrelate, as images, and why "cutting prow" (the scissor of course becomes the cutting prow, but in what sense)? This poem, like Ferlinghetti's "Don't Let That Horse," has something to say about the value of poetry.
Also, check out this video of Sanders performing the poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hkreT3J2h
Sanchez:
"Ballad"
There is both defiance/challenge and sadness in the speaker's tone; Sanchez uses the ballad form, with the repetition at the end, to effectively express this ambiguity. Both the young and old are, or will be, "jilted," so to speak, from this "love"; "love" in quotes since, note, there are really at least two different types of love, here. One is the more obvious, human/sexual/"romantic" (though nothing stereotypically romantic in this imagery) love between couples, which often involves on partner sacrificing "Her" identity to the other (this is the typically, male-dominant type of relationship heterosexual "love" relationship. The second stanza, though, provides a different sort of imagery, and suggests perhaps a broader, or at least not so narrowly focused definition of "love"--and the imagery there is full of sexual passion and earthiness, as well...
The wisdom of the elder speaker, with her more comprehensive grasp of love and experience, and the overly self-confident attitude of the "young" is also relevant... the speaker finds that love is at once perhaps more fulfilling and complex, and also more lonely, than the youthful veresion may allow
Baca:
"Into Death Bravely"
Note the use of an extended metaphor of warfare to comment on the struggle for survival in a tough environment. If you're from an agrarian cultural context like Baca's, your people depend upon the land--closely tied to natural cycles; so the "war," from one perspective, really is between "man and nature": the winter makes things hard on plants and animals. What "defeats" winter, of course, is the spring; nothing we can do. So, yes, there's a lesson there for us humans, and a respect for they way things are.
