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...
.....
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"
"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.
"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.
