Hughes, Brooks

Hughes' "Harlem": For some help unpacking this condensed piece, see the study sheets/exercises (the comments on "Harlem" and "Theme for English B." Understanding how socio-cultural conditions for African Americans in America post WW II relate to the "dream" of the Harlem Renaissance will help explain the ambiguous, disillusioned tone of this poem; it's mixture of militancy and hope. What was that dream, and how did it change? How do you see this tension and ambiguity in the poem's images? it's structure and line breaks? Look closely at contrasting/conflicting details...


The introductory essay on Hughes on PF can also be helpful in dealing with the question of dialiect in his earlier poems: Is he stereotyping, or challenging the academic, Anglified verse of other African American poets in the 20s and 30s (when many of these dialect poems were written)--see Countee Cullen's poetry as an eg)--and representing a more "authentic" voice of the lower/working class African-American? Or could the dialect poems be up to something more sophisticated, diacritically marking the dialect (i.e., putting it, figuratively, in quotes), undercutting the stereotypical language with imagery that reveals the emotional and existential realities--the "human condition," as critics have said of Ferlinghetti--of an underclass experience ("Sylvester's Dying Bed" is a good eg.--conisider the final image, the rhythmic alteration of the final stanza, and also the smudged image of the "River Jerden" two stanzas earlier)?

Brooks: For secondary sources on Brooks' poetry, check MAP, the introduction on PF, and the Literature Resource Center (KBCC databases). It is also interesting to read Brooks and Hughes together, since, though different in style and sensibility (Brooks deploys ebonics at times, rather than dialect stereotypes), they deal with a similar demographic.

Blogs from Previous Classes(6th set down) :
For Brooks, see Andrea, Deborah, Diana A, Diana K, Michael, Murat, and Olya;
for Hughes, see Baruch, Constanza, Rosemarie and Stephen.

Whether or not you are writing about the particular poem on which a blog is focused, if you are writing about that author's work, review my comments, since the comments may still be helpful.

Baraka, Cortez, Waldman, Giorno

RE Cortez: Consider the influence of jazz on Cortez's poetry; "Jazz Fans Look Back," for eg, though this can apply to other poems, as well: How is the poem Jazz-like? The thing to do is to look "Back" carefully at some of the images, esp. in stanza 2, to see how jazz effects the poem's imagery, rhythms, and structure, and how the poem represents, through its imagery and relationships among images, rhythms and tones, the complexity of jazz, its pain, defiance, and vibrancy. "Wailed," "Screamed," "rebellious metronomes," "militant messages," "Embedded record needles in paint on paper," as well as a kind of screaming laughter like "high-pitched" sax riffs and the implied impact of jazz on speech (think of the writing of this poem) as a product of "infatuated tongues"; contrasted with images such as wearing a Holiday flower, and Ray hitting "bass notes to the last love seat in my bones": how do such images suggest the power and impact of jazz in the 50s-70s, the way it "blew roof off" off conventional music, but also impacted (continues to impact, as the speaker "look[s] back") the attitude and mood of the listener? (Recall also the critical comments from last wk on Hughes' "Harlem," which also comment on the connection between jazz and the militant attitude of some of Hughes' work.). Consider also how the power and aggressiveness of the music is a means of giving voice to African-American experience--not just speaking, in Cortez's poem, but "wailing," screaming, screeching out...



YouTube "Bebop" and a tune like Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" to get a sense of the music



On the blogs:



RE Waldman, on "Blogs from Previous Classes" (6th set down): see Diana A's blog and my comments, and the discussion taking place there, and Stephen's blog and my comments;



Cortez: my comments on Andrea's, Richard's and Rosemarie's blogs;



Baraka: my comments on Baruch's and Debora's blogs;



Giorno: my comments on Diana K's blog.



As always, see study sheets/exercises on Bb for these three..







More to come..

Kinnell, Plath, Piercy

Hi folks: for some helpful comments on Kinnell, in "more blogs from previous classes," (6th set) see my comments on Chante's, Deborah's, Michael's, Murat's and Stephen's blogs. For Plath, see my comments Olya's blog.  For Piercy, see my comments on Andrea's and Diana A's blogs; also, in "more blogs from previous classes," (fifth set) see Irina's blog and my comments.   Also, in "bogs for previous classes," for Piercy's "More Than Enough," see my comments on Trisha's blog (3rd set).  Check back for more as I continue to review your blogs...


For Piercy, you may also want to check Meredith Jones article, "Makeover Culture's Dark Side,"  posted to my Eng 12 course on Blackboard this semester (Sp 2020, section  56, CUNYFirst code 15322, respectively--guest access should be allowed, but let me know if problems): go to "course documents," scroll down to "Articles: Media, Cosmetic Surgery (Meredith Jones)," and select the PDF file titled "cossurgmakeover"; read esp the section headed "What A Lovely Corpse," beginning p 96, and esp the highlighted sections on pp 98 and 100--a very interesting discussion of the Snow White fairy tale as it relates to gender issues and cosmetic surgery.  This is support material, but does not replace a secondary source on Piercy's work.

Both Plath's and Piercy's poems explore/explode various stereotypes associated with femininity: Piercy esp body image and gender; Plath conventional notions of motherhood and pregnancy.

Snyder, Ferlinghetti

Most of what I want to say about these poets I've said in my blog comments on blogs from previous classes--see below--and also my own articles on Snyder...


For Snyder, see my comments in on Chante Barnes, Michael Curro, Murat Zace, Rosemarie Bruno ("more blogs from previous classes," fifth set). See excepts below in this post

For Ferlinghetti, see my comments on Andrea Cantarini, Bruce Tauber, Debra Pena, Diana Arutyunyan, Norlynn Graham, Richard Capozzi, Stephen Martinez ("more blogs from previous classes," fith set). See excepts below in this post


Always more to be said, of course, which is to say, for once more, follow thoughts here through to comments/excerpts on the study sheet on BB, hence on to other secondary sources, which leads to:

In addition to critical resources on the LRC and MAP, there are useful overview essays on PF for these poets (this is true of most of the more well-established poets we are reading; these overviews are always worth a look, often including quotes from critics that could be integrated into your journals as secondary sources), which brings us back to (a click away from) the poems....

More to come?... Keep checking back...

See excerpts below; titles of individual poems are inset in quotes, and the comments follow...

on Snyder:

    "Hay for the Horses"

 that the poem is about "hay," which is to say more than one may at first realize, here. "Hay," of course, is the business at hand, but it would help to put this poem in context of other Snyder poems, and his world view as suggested in those poems--see my comments on others' blogs discussing Snyder's poems "RiRap" and "I Went into the Maverick Bar": how does this poem also give us a glimpse, through the "cracks" of the work-a-day world, of the "real work" he refers to in "Maverick Bar" and that the image patterns of these three poems DO (the "real work" as, in one of its manifestations, creative work of mind/imagination, of imaginative ecology, and finding the "real" interconnectedness in nature); this is a William Carlos Williams "The Red Wheelbarrow" poem, in this way--count down the lines to the image at dead center of the poem--the end of the first 12 lines, and then 12 more lines following it. This central image is the keystone of the poem (as is the red, rain-and imagination-glazed wheelbarrow in W C W's poem)--read the poem without this image, and you'll see the difference; what looks on the surface like a farily straightforward social commentary, as you outline on your blog, gets a twist with this image--the only one that begins to lift us out of that routine, literally and metaphorically up through, following "alfalfa" (the name suggestive, with "a"s,first things, and Alfa...) the "shingle-cracks" in our "ordinary mind," as the Zen monks might put it, to...not any arrived at concept, or any particular single thing, but "light," which is why the image stands as it does in all its ambiguity; it's the direction, the rhythm of movement, that "Whirling,"-- swirl, spiral--again, that's important, leading to, among other places in "space and time" ("Riprap"), the Milky Way.... (see the poem "Riprap," and comments on blogs). Through the cracks, we can glimpse the light, penetrating darkness below...

    "Riprap"

 It's very true that the poem suggests that we need to be very deliberate and careful in the way we put words together. But why? Try thinking of the rocks not as obstacles, but as a metaphor for words, which, in the context of a poem, can be a way of building open-ended pathways for the mind/imagination; look at the full context of the poem, the way the line breaks and visual placement on the page, work as a kind of riprap--which, in the literal sense, is a zigzag mountain trail...follow the poem's imagery... see my comments of other blogs, and review the study sheet/exercise in Blackboard...

.....

The connection to William's is interesting,since following the trail of the imagery,in both poems,leads us from the immediate and present to the universal and, in Snyder, pre-historical/geological and back; here, time and space ambiguous and rapidly shifting between the immediate presence of "things" and deep space as well as deep geological time; the value of the aesthetic, the creative leaps of mind/imagination, crucial in both poems. The study sheets and exercises, as well as my comments on other blogs on other Snyder poems, will give you a lot to go on, here, as well

...

Trace the image patterns, the repetition and variation/transformation of key images (think swirl),the great leaps between lines & stanzas...

    "I Went into the Maverick Bar"

Well, yes, I think we want to see the name of the bar as ironic, here--normally, we think of "cowboys" et al as "mavericks," but in the poem the bar is more a microcosm for un-selfaware, "stupid" America (as I discuss on another blog)--though I think you could make a case for the speaker as the "real" maverick, here, is as much the "real work" is work outside the accepted social norms/concerns... the real work of tracing out the interdependence/interconnection/interpenetration of all.. . Snyder's Zen mindset important, here--and the real work--the work of ecology, and of ecology/Zen-minded poetry/imagination--clarified in other poems noted ("Riprap," "Mid-August...", "Milton by Firelight,"  etc).

on Ferlinghetti 

    "People Getting Divorced"



Generally right about the confusions, doubts, insecurities/uncertainties and emotional wear and tear--think of the heels that will need to be replaced--involved in divorce--this brings up an important formal point: the poem uses an extended metaphor (based on an item that might get lost in the breakup)to talk about the hardships of divorce. In writing a journal on this, consider the details...

.....

 I like the way you're kicking around the extended metaphor of the shoe, and also the loss of "home"/stable place; what "values and choices" do you see being questioned?....  It's not the shoe being on the wrong foot, but the sense of loss, separation... also, don't forget the second part of the poem, which gives us something else/more...

    "I Am Waiting"

religion references, spec. Christianity, is only one of the problems the poem takes up; "problem" because much of the poem is ironic and sarcastic--an indictment of "Christian" (big "C") ideology and rhetoric. This is really a poem of critical consciousness (much socio-political criticism here, as well), rather than a paean to conventional religiosity (the speaker is "waiting" for a rebirth, not of Christ, but "wonder"; not a renaissance of conventional religious iconography/ideology, but (note the details,it's all in the details) "the last supper... served again / with a strange new appetizer"; on the rocks, with a twist...

    "In Golden Gate Park that Day"

You're doing a pretty good job of putting essential thematic issues into words; on target about the revelation of emptiness at the end (a kind of anti-revelation, with which,on retrospect, the poem is shot through); about the ironic contrasts between the "scenic" imagery and the "human condition" as represented by the couple, which is also the key to "meadow of the world"--the speaker letting us know that the poem is not concerned with describing a particular couple on a particular day in a particular park--it's how this generalizes (transcends?), through the specificity of its imagery, to something more existentially essential.

    "Don't Let that Horse"

You're right about seeing the imagery as metaphoric/symbolic of something essential about the human condition, as critics like to point out about Ferlinghetti's often off-beat beat poetry.... the subject is the painter Marc Chagall; though the situation is fanciful, it is in keeping with the spirit, and emotional/spiritual/psychological impact-- of Chagall's painting (try to view some of Chagall's paintings, perhaps this particular painting, online, or, better, in person). Yes, there is much here about going against the grain of what one "should" do, what is acceptable--in art as in life--and the risks/sacrifices and ultimate (perhaps somewhat lonely, in a way, since the painter is on a ride with his own creations, and must leave conventional society behind) benefits...last image enticing, ambiguous--no strings on the violin? still, of course, it is a gift--por l'art..

    "The Changing Light"

Perceptive comments about the image lift and drift of the poem, and the at once colloquial and precise language-- a feature of many of F's poems. You might make something of the fog imagery, and the city becoming first an island, then a boat adrift... hmmm, also the way the "changing light" changes, alters, the urban scene--the repetition of houses painted new--a bit of WCW there?... the study sheets focus on other poems which may bear more substantial analysis.

    "In Goya's Greatest Scenes We Seem to See..."

Yes, very much an indictment of contemporary, and esp. pop, culture; you can find some of these woodcuts online--Goya's "Disasters of War" http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarArt/StudyGuides/Goya.html -- scroll down till you see "Disasters of War," the scroll a bit farther for links to some of the prints), and the "Caprichos" (http://www.wesleyan.edu/dac/coll/grps/goya/goya_intro.html) are worth checking out. Viewing these will help foreground some of the poem's imagery. For other things to consider, see study sheets/exercises.

Beat, Beatitude, Downbeat, Beat Down

More Blogs From Previous Classes (6th set down). For starters, for Ginsberg, see Curro's, Capozzi's and Martinez's blogs and my comments on those blogs.  If your are writing about Ginsberg, read all blogs on Ginsberg, and my comments, since similar concerns run through many of the poems, and techniques deployed are often similar.

Also, for AG and Kaufman, check the exercises/study sheets on Bb, which give some pointers and point to some secondary sources (full articles in the Lit. Resource Center and excerpts in MAP, as usual; Poets.org also has some articles on AG).

Formally speaking, one interesting thing to observe about Ginsberg (esp. Howl), is how he uses image juxtapositions and ellipsis to bring worlds/world views/socio-cultural realities normally separated or cordoned off into dynamic confrontation ("hydrogen jukebox," for eg., "Mohammedan angels / staggering on tenement roofs," "supernatural darkness of cold-water flats," "teahead joyride / neon blinking traffic light," "submarine light of Bickford’s," etc.; "hydrogen jukebox," for example, as an image condenses--and brings into direct confrontation-- references to the military-industrial complex and 1950's escapist, pop youth culture ); Ginsberg also uses ellipsis and image juxtapositions to better re-present the experience of distorted/contorted cultural conditions ("cowered in unshaven rooms," "ate fire in paint hotels"...).  See the study materials on Bb in "assignments" for an explanation of these and other formal and thematic aspects of Ginsberg's poetry--see esp the first two wk 6 exercises on Ginsberg.  See also the fourth wk 6 exercise, on Kaufman, if you choose to write about his poetry.  Howl's imagery gains a lot of its power by looking beneath the Leave-It-To-Beaver, repressive/restrictive ideological surface of American culture in the 1950s and giving a prophetic voice, through long-line free verse. to the disavowed other/underside of that culture.