“In the Garden of the Hurricane’s Eye” is the longest poem in John Ciardi’s In the Stoneworks (1961), his eighth published book of poetry. It consists of three parts; the book itself is also broken into three parts. This poem is found in the first section, the poems of which explore an immense array of structures, lengths and tones. Because of Ciardi’s experience with etymology, there is a tremendous depth to his word choice despite its outward simplicity. Based on the title, one might assume that Ciardi refers to the Garden of Eden; in fact, the poem examines the flawed relationships that Adam and Eve (who go unnamed until the third section) have with God, with the Garden, and with one another.
Each of the three sections of "In the Garden of the Hurricane’s Eye" is made up of five stanzas and concludes with a single, final line. There is no definite or direct rhyme scheme, but Ciardi sets up a type of structure by allowing only 10 to 12 syllables per line; for this reason the poem is riddled with enjambments to give the appearance of symmetry. He also makes remarkable use of the hyphen, utilizing it to create words that aren’t really words, then repeating them to validate their authority within the poem (a few examples include blood-music, sky-top, sword-smile and fern-edge).
Section one introduces the reader to the setting; a lush garden full of bird song and fruit trees. Two people, referred to as “she” and “he” at first are sleeping on the ground. Suddenly she wakes up, laughs, and he also awakes: “His lids blew back like mist.” The first intimate interaction in human history takes place between two people; Ciardi describes this intensely, though simply, by incorporating a similar relationship between the man and woman and earth. At every chance possible, a motion of the human body is depicted as if nature itself was committing the act: “His flung arm grew around her. Silently she swelled upon it as upon the wood of which she was the leaf, the fruit, and pod.” The section ends, however, on a rather sour note; the 10-syllable line that finishes it describes a blood-webbed snake coming out of the roots that the man had torn (“blood-webbed” having also been a term used to describe the man’s “bronze gourd burled up in his thighs). It should come as no surprise that a serpent’s presence in a garden can’t mean anything good.
The second section takes the reader back to the Garden in its post-hurricane state. Angels wandering ask questions but the man refuses them and tries to gather what he can; the woman follows. It is at this point in the poem that one sees a definite internal disruption that has stemmed from the actual destruction. The man stays very silent and leaves in the middle of the night to the shore where the Angels had docked; when he accidentally cuts his arm, the blood stains a jib of the boat, “And all the weathers of Heaven could not bleach it.” This line is an example of a way in which Ciardi layered meanings on top of one another; a jib is a technical term for a certain boat sail, but it is also means, “to move resistively or backward instead of forward.” This wordplay allows the reader to predict what the man’s behavior will be and how the poem will unfold. After returning to the woman’s side, he calls her by name, “Eve,” and “his red arm locked round her till she moaned for her crushed breath.” Moreover, as he sleeps she returns also to his side and makes a note of how dark he is – and that she becomes shadowy as she moves closer: “But when she lay beside him, she, too, darkened and went out.” These two stanzas of the poem, using the color red as a symbol for the temptation of sin and darkness of night for literal spiritual darkness indicate that Adam’s behavior directly affects and changes Eve because of how near they are to each other in every sense.
The third and final section of this poem follows Adam in his final interaction with the angels, who are departing on their ship the next morning. Two sails are hoisted; one red, stained by the blood of Adam, and one white, symbolizing holiness and purity. A parallelism is then made between the Garden and the center of a man’s mind; that both have storms raging around them but that God is at the absolute center: “Was that it? to be locked in calm, but powerless to calm what raged?” Adam is full of questions, and a conversation is struck between himself and a sort of shape-shifting angel. The themes of red and white are again revealed in bi-colored doves. Adam asks, “Now, what garden is there but what I make myself?” and a feather falls from the angel’s hawk-head, a bird which represents keen eyesight and guardianship. The bird tells Adam that he may either choose to go with them or stay where he is. Adam refuses the offer and says, “My words are not, ‘I stay,’ but ‘You go.’” The Hawk hands him a burning branch; the final sentence of the poem is, “And the brand burned.” This is another Ciardi moment of brilliance in which he employs more than one meaning of a word; although “brand” does literally mean “a partly burnt piece of wood,” it also stands for the passing of a torch as well as the branding of a people. This poem, despite its lack of rhyme scheme and outwardly apparent structure truly explores, with a great deal of creative simplicity, the story behind God not only branding His people as His own, but giving them the free will to choose a life of their own, whether it includes Him or not.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
length times width times height
In his five-line poem, “Returning Home,” John Ciardi depicts in as few words as possible the instant in which one realizes how it is that one might be happy. In a mere two sentences, the poem not only observes happiness but addresses one’s desire for it, discovers the path to it and realizes that perhaps one might already be happy if not at least capable of being so. A poet’s dilemma and darling commitment is to say as much as possible in as little space as possible- in Ciardi’s case this is especially true. He allows himself only twenty-two syllables to say what many people spend entire lifetimes trying to articulate. As a writer he must trust a use of space nearly as much as use of language.
In terms of said language, Ciardi’s is very plain. It flows easily as one line of text and is not distracting or sing-song. The work itself has very little time to develop as a narrative, so instead it is used as more of a directive, as a statement through which the reader may see themselves or the world or those they love in new light – and thus the beauty of carefully chosen words. For Ciardi it provides a great deal more flexibility then iambic pentameter or rhyming couplets might have. The hard “I” sound in “admired” and “I” as well as the hard “a” sound in “they” and “made” are repeated internal vowels that contribute to the smoothness of the poem as a whole.
What makes the theme of the poem particularly clear is the use of the words “happy” and “happiness.” This repetition both supports and makes sense of the established meter (or lack thereof). To commit to a single word or version of a word more than once in a poem that is only seventeen words long must be paid very close attention. What gives this theme purpose is in fact its technical structure. The five lines are broken down individually into either five or four line syllables. This evenness gives the poem an almost box-like aesthetic. Boxes are consistent. They have exact, equal dimensions. They are stable. There are rules about boxes, about squares, about cubes that will never, ever change. Happiness is the same way. There will always be a sense of security in ideas that are recognized as universal; ideas like boxes and happiness and the exact dimensions of those things. Consistencies like these feel safe; this poem is consistent – precise. Equal. Not particularly difficult to navigate, wonderful to rely on.
I imagine that the reader is either the speaker of the poem or the speaker’s observer. The mood, created by the simplicity of the poem itself, is a very genuine calmness. It is as if the speaker is wholly convicted of what they are saying of another person and at the same time quietly, smilingly realizes something for him or herself. The “you” in this poem is not actually you or I, but rather a person the speaker is observing; a person the speaker knows very well or loves very much. The love, however, and the observing is being done from a disjointed state, from a point of watching rather than acting. The title of this poem, “Returning Home,” is that way for an imperative reason: in their observing, the speaker is taken “home;” to the familiar, to some memory or mindset having to do with that “you” who makes them feel so safe and comforted and familiarized.
In short, Ciardi had taken two simple, or seemingly simple, sentences. He has broken them into nearly equal lines of four to five syllables, using unassuming word choice and sensitive structure. Through this carefully executed and approach to writing, a poem of intense consistency is born; consistency that feels safe, familiar – like learning, finally, of happiness, whether it be yours or someone else’s.
In terms of said language, Ciardi’s is very plain. It flows easily as one line of text and is not distracting or sing-song. The work itself has very little time to develop as a narrative, so instead it is used as more of a directive, as a statement through which the reader may see themselves or the world or those they love in new light – and thus the beauty of carefully chosen words. For Ciardi it provides a great deal more flexibility then iambic pentameter or rhyming couplets might have. The hard “I” sound in “admired” and “I” as well as the hard “a” sound in “they” and “made” are repeated internal vowels that contribute to the smoothness of the poem as a whole.
What makes the theme of the poem particularly clear is the use of the words “happy” and “happiness.” This repetition both supports and makes sense of the established meter (or lack thereof). To commit to a single word or version of a word more than once in a poem that is only seventeen words long must be paid very close attention. What gives this theme purpose is in fact its technical structure. The five lines are broken down individually into either five or four line syllables. This evenness gives the poem an almost box-like aesthetic. Boxes are consistent. They have exact, equal dimensions. They are stable. There are rules about boxes, about squares, about cubes that will never, ever change. Happiness is the same way. There will always be a sense of security in ideas that are recognized as universal; ideas like boxes and happiness and the exact dimensions of those things. Consistencies like these feel safe; this poem is consistent – precise. Equal. Not particularly difficult to navigate, wonderful to rely on.
I imagine that the reader is either the speaker of the poem or the speaker’s observer. The mood, created by the simplicity of the poem itself, is a very genuine calmness. It is as if the speaker is wholly convicted of what they are saying of another person and at the same time quietly, smilingly realizes something for him or herself. The “you” in this poem is not actually you or I, but rather a person the speaker is observing; a person the speaker knows very well or loves very much. The love, however, and the observing is being done from a disjointed state, from a point of watching rather than acting. The title of this poem, “Returning Home,” is that way for an imperative reason: in their observing, the speaker is taken “home;” to the familiar, to some memory or mindset having to do with that “you” who makes them feel so safe and comforted and familiarized.
In short, Ciardi had taken two simple, or seemingly simple, sentences. He has broken them into nearly equal lines of four to five syllables, using unassuming word choice and sensitive structure. Through this carefully executed and approach to writing, a poem of intense consistency is born; consistency that feels safe, familiar – like learning, finally, of happiness, whether it be yours or someone else’s.
a happy obsession
After graduating from three different universities and serving three years in the Air Force, poet John Ciardi embarked on an unbelievably successful literary career which lasted for nearly 46 years, publishing 24 books of verse and receiving nearly 20 awards in his lifetime. This multifaceted career was not limited to poetry, although poetry was the predominant reason for his popularity; Ciardi was also a renowned (and in some ways, infamous) critic, editor, professor, anthologist, children’s writer and etymologist. His experience as a scholar of English and as an editor impacted his style enormously and was directly related to his tempestuous relationship with the developing community of contemporary poets of the time. He was known for being very outspokenly critical of writers who said more than was needed simply because they were too consumed by their own unawareness; from Ciardi’s perspective these individuals were namely new-age poets who wrote for their own sake rather than the reader’s. His forthrightness worked quite well considering his own authentic love affair with language landed him with a brimming bank account.
Ciardi wore many a literary hat during the span of his career – he was a Professor of English both in Rutgers University and as at Harvard and devoted nearly 30 years to lecturing and directing the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. Though he played many roles in this respect, his approach to writing never changed dramatically and rarely, if ever, lost focus. His words were always channeled toward the general public. Ciardi was very vocal in terms of making poetry accessible to the masses – an approach not even marginally accepted by his peers until the late 1950s. Although he by no means sacrificed his own approval of his works for popularity, he still managed to gain a large following because of the intellectual yet approachable elements in his work. It was Ciardi’s desire that the general public would someday be brought together by more than just an interest in poetry.
In The Stoneworks (1961), was Ciardi’s 8th book of poetry. It exemplifies the styles that he employed throughout his entire career – not overemphasizing anything, saying only what needed to be said, making use of the natural world and the most basic & yet most intimate human relationships to show the reader something about their own reality that perhaps they did not see before. The year that he published In The Stoneworks was actually the same year in which Ciardi left his teaching positions at Harvard and Rutgers – a decision that allowed him to further pursue his own literary undertakings full-time, although throughout the rest of his career he did continue to participate in the world of academia via lectures, television appearances and poetry readings.
Ciardi, throughout his career, brought on a lot of disapproval from his peers in criticizing newer contemporary poetic tendencies. Though Ciardi’s work was never totally drowned by any of these new trends, he isolated himself by being openly critical of the shifting values insofar as what constituted “good” poetry. He always insisted that poetry demanded practice; that it is not easy but that the creative process is rather unbearably, wonderfully difficult because it forces one to face failure (Contemporary Authors Online). He is known for having been very frank and obsessing over the re-evaluation of himself and his work time and time again until the poem could be more or less perfected – in his mind, the poem was the central authority, not its author. He valued very much the notion of learning from mistakes; of being able to grow out of bad writing and make something better.
Another reason why John Ciardi was so widely loved by the public and (likely) why he rejected the fluff of many new contemporary poets is because he never tried to overcomplicate what he was trying to write or make into something it couldn’t be. Said Ciardi on this subject: “I'm not a complicated man and I don't have any gripping internal problems. But I get interested in things. Words have become a happy obsession" (McCarty). In fact, for a portion of his writing career, Ciardi fueled fully his fascination in etymology and where certain words even come from – this fascination resulted in his publishing several volumes of The Broswer’s Dictionary, a method which he hoped would bring the meticulous nature of language-loving closer to the public. Ciardi loved language. He used it to write about anything he could – hurricanes, history, sex, grace, gardens, death; and he did it tremendously well, all the way until his death on Easter Sunday in 1986.
Works Cited
Seaman, Donna. "The Collected Poems of John Ciardi." Booklist 15 Apr. 1997: 1377. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 3 Feb. 2011.
"John Ciardi." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 3 Feb. 2011
McCarty, Mary. "Cincinnati Magazine." Editorial. Cincinnati Magazine Dec. 1985: 100-05. Google Books. Web. 4 Feb. 2011.
Works of Poetry John Ciardi
• Homeward to America, Holt, 1940.
• Other Skies, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1947.
• Live Another Day: Poems, Twayne, 1949.
• From Time to Time, Twayne, 1951.
• As If: Poems New and Selected, Rutgers University Press, 1955.
• I Marry You: A Sheaf of Love Poems, Rutgers University Press, 1958.
• Thirty-Nine Poems, Rutgers University Press, 1959.
• In the Stoneworks, Rutgers University Press, 1961.
• In Fact, Rutgers University Press, 1962.
• Person to Person, Rutgers University Press, 1964.
• This Strangest Everything, Rutgers University Press, 1966.
• An Alphabestiary, Lippincott, 1967.
• A Genesis, Touchstone Publishers (New York, NY), 1967.
• The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of his Poems with a Critical Introduction (poetry textbook), edited by Miller Williams, Scott, Foresman, 1969.
• Lives of X (autobiographical poetry), Rutgers University Press, 1971.
• On the Orthodoxy and Creed of My Power Mower, Pomegranate Press (Cambridge, MA), 1972.
• The Little That Is All, Rutgers University Press, 1974.
• For Instance, Norton, 1979.
• Selected Poems, University of Arkansas Press, 1984.
• The Birds of Pompeii, University of Arkansas Press, 1985.
• Echoes: Poems Left Behind, University of Arkansas Press, 1989.
• Poems of Love and Marriage, University of Arkansas Press, 1989.
• Stations on the Air, Bookmark Press of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1993.
• The Collected Poems of John Ciardi, University of Arkansas Press (Fayetteville, AK), 1997.
Ciardi wore many a literary hat during the span of his career – he was a Professor of English both in Rutgers University and as at Harvard and devoted nearly 30 years to lecturing and directing the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. Though he played many roles in this respect, his approach to writing never changed dramatically and rarely, if ever, lost focus. His words were always channeled toward the general public. Ciardi was very vocal in terms of making poetry accessible to the masses – an approach not even marginally accepted by his peers until the late 1950s. Although he by no means sacrificed his own approval of his works for popularity, he still managed to gain a large following because of the intellectual yet approachable elements in his work. It was Ciardi’s desire that the general public would someday be brought together by more than just an interest in poetry.
In The Stoneworks (1961), was Ciardi’s 8th book of poetry. It exemplifies the styles that he employed throughout his entire career – not overemphasizing anything, saying only what needed to be said, making use of the natural world and the most basic & yet most intimate human relationships to show the reader something about their own reality that perhaps they did not see before. The year that he published In The Stoneworks was actually the same year in which Ciardi left his teaching positions at Harvard and Rutgers – a decision that allowed him to further pursue his own literary undertakings full-time, although throughout the rest of his career he did continue to participate in the world of academia via lectures, television appearances and poetry readings.
Ciardi, throughout his career, brought on a lot of disapproval from his peers in criticizing newer contemporary poetic tendencies. Though Ciardi’s work was never totally drowned by any of these new trends, he isolated himself by being openly critical of the shifting values insofar as what constituted “good” poetry. He always insisted that poetry demanded practice; that it is not easy but that the creative process is rather unbearably, wonderfully difficult because it forces one to face failure (Contemporary Authors Online). He is known for having been very frank and obsessing over the re-evaluation of himself and his work time and time again until the poem could be more or less perfected – in his mind, the poem was the central authority, not its author. He valued very much the notion of learning from mistakes; of being able to grow out of bad writing and make something better.
Another reason why John Ciardi was so widely loved by the public and (likely) why he rejected the fluff of many new contemporary poets is because he never tried to overcomplicate what he was trying to write or make into something it couldn’t be. Said Ciardi on this subject: “I'm not a complicated man and I don't have any gripping internal problems. But I get interested in things. Words have become a happy obsession" (McCarty). In fact, for a portion of his writing career, Ciardi fueled fully his fascination in etymology and where certain words even come from – this fascination resulted in his publishing several volumes of The Broswer’s Dictionary, a method which he hoped would bring the meticulous nature of language-loving closer to the public. Ciardi loved language. He used it to write about anything he could – hurricanes, history, sex, grace, gardens, death; and he did it tremendously well, all the way until his death on Easter Sunday in 1986.
Works Cited
Seaman, Donna. "The Collected Poems of John Ciardi." Booklist 15 Apr. 1997: 1377. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 3 Feb. 2011.
"John Ciardi." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 3 Feb. 2011
McCarty, Mary. "Cincinnati Magazine." Editorial. Cincinnati Magazine Dec. 1985: 100-05. Google Books. Web. 4 Feb. 2011.
Works of Poetry John Ciardi
• Homeward to America, Holt, 1940.
• Other Skies, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1947.
• Live Another Day: Poems, Twayne, 1949.
• From Time to Time, Twayne, 1951.
• As If: Poems New and Selected, Rutgers University Press, 1955.
• I Marry You: A Sheaf of Love Poems, Rutgers University Press, 1958.
• Thirty-Nine Poems, Rutgers University Press, 1959.
• In the Stoneworks, Rutgers University Press, 1961.
• In Fact, Rutgers University Press, 1962.
• Person to Person, Rutgers University Press, 1964.
• This Strangest Everything, Rutgers University Press, 1966.
• An Alphabestiary, Lippincott, 1967.
• A Genesis, Touchstone Publishers (New York, NY), 1967.
• The Achievement of John Ciardi: A Comprehensive Selection of his Poems with a Critical Introduction (poetry textbook), edited by Miller Williams, Scott, Foresman, 1969.
• Lives of X (autobiographical poetry), Rutgers University Press, 1971.
• On the Orthodoxy and Creed of My Power Mower, Pomegranate Press (Cambridge, MA), 1972.
• The Little That Is All, Rutgers University Press, 1974.
• For Instance, Norton, 1979.
• Selected Poems, University of Arkansas Press, 1984.
• The Birds of Pompeii, University of Arkansas Press, 1985.
• Echoes: Poems Left Behind, University of Arkansas Press, 1989.
• Poems of Love and Marriage, University of Arkansas Press, 1989.
• Stations on the Air, Bookmark Press of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1993.
• The Collected Poems of John Ciardi, University of Arkansas Press (Fayetteville, AK), 1997.
written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar
Earlier in the semester, our class was given the opportunity to center our individual focuses on contemporary poets of our choosing. The next several weeks were spent selecting, researching, scrutinizing, exploring, picking apart and eventually writing about said poets. This process has proven to broaden the way our class sees a poem – instead of a standalone piece that is hailed as either good or bad, it is one of many parts, each of which is just as important as the next. My personal experience with this began when I misplaced myself for a good number of hours in the campus library, slowly winding between shelves, collecting a heap of anthologies high enough to make me wonder if I’d ever leave (my incompetence in the art of choosing did not help this matter). In time I realized that the only way to make a decision before the library closed was to be as blind to the covers as I was to the poems between them. With diplomatic eyes I selected the plainest, simplest, most bare-bones hardcover as possible – and thus, my research of poet John Ciardi began.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
tilting, leaning
whatever will happen when this alter gives out
when the nails bend when the
board snaps when the unplumbed injury suddenly
exists
and the holy wretched mess of oak is
splintered
in you
and the hardened blood
braillescape arm
is at once familiar and welcomed into the family of limbs
as if it was always there?
when the nails bend when the
board snaps when the unplumbed injury suddenly
exists
and the holy wretched mess of oak is
splintered
in you
and the hardened blood
braillescape arm
is at once familiar and welcomed into the family of limbs
as if it was always there?
the wasteland, part ii
The Wasteland T.S. Eliot
A Game of Chess, the second section of Eliot’s five-part 1922 poem is broken into two separate poems: one revolving around a moment in the life of a wealthy woman in a very unhappy, apparently loveless marriage. Considering the way she addresses the person who one assumes is her husband or lover, she has a very erratic personality and is paranoid (or at the very least anxious) about her life its circumstances. Despite her affluence, she is disdainful of the dreariness of the wealth around her. One is made aware of when one poem merges with the other at the first repetition of the phrase, “hurry up please its time.” At this change, the reader is plunged into a totally converse scene (although the theme is very similar). Two women are discussing the current situation of a mutual friend whose life has been enormously weighed down by her having five children and a husband in the army who is never home – the concern in question is that he’ll get her pregnant with their sixth child and that she will not be capable of bearing it – literally and figuratively. The poem ends with the pub closing and the two friends saying goodnight to one another.
This setup makes for a venn diagram of poetry; though it transpires in two opposite places (a palace of a house and a pub-like setting), the people are very similar. There is erratic, pretty paroxysmal hopelessness followed by a collective, mournful hopelessness – that head-shaking, “what-a-shame” sort.
Themes dealt with here are the bourgeoisie versus normalcy, the repetition of “hurry up please its time,” the concepts of emptiness and loneliness, the use of teeth, bones, and the idea that life and love are both games (though not necessarily playful ones).
The elements of symbolism and allusion to outside works of art and literature in this piece are at first somewhere between daunting and annoying – mainly in the sense that they’re hard to keep track of. The references are reserved more for the first half of the poem that focuses on a wealthy lifestyle, likely to accentuate the notion of the upper class being better educated (although the “lazy” stereotype fits the bill a bit better).
To describe Part II of The Wasteland in a succinct manner would go a little something like this:
Life is an unhappy game; it is easy to ignore until it has been recognized that life’s general bareness has seeped into the lives of us all.
A Game of Chess, the second section of Eliot’s five-part 1922 poem is broken into two separate poems: one revolving around a moment in the life of a wealthy woman in a very unhappy, apparently loveless marriage. Considering the way she addresses the person who one assumes is her husband or lover, she has a very erratic personality and is paranoid (or at the very least anxious) about her life its circumstances. Despite her affluence, she is disdainful of the dreariness of the wealth around her. One is made aware of when one poem merges with the other at the first repetition of the phrase, “hurry up please its time.” At this change, the reader is plunged into a totally converse scene (although the theme is very similar). Two women are discussing the current situation of a mutual friend whose life has been enormously weighed down by her having five children and a husband in the army who is never home – the concern in question is that he’ll get her pregnant with their sixth child and that she will not be capable of bearing it – literally and figuratively. The poem ends with the pub closing and the two friends saying goodnight to one another.
This setup makes for a venn diagram of poetry; though it transpires in two opposite places (a palace of a house and a pub-like setting), the people are very similar. There is erratic, pretty paroxysmal hopelessness followed by a collective, mournful hopelessness – that head-shaking, “what-a-shame” sort.
Themes dealt with here are the bourgeoisie versus normalcy, the repetition of “hurry up please its time,” the concepts of emptiness and loneliness, the use of teeth, bones, and the idea that life and love are both games (though not necessarily playful ones).
The elements of symbolism and allusion to outside works of art and literature in this piece are at first somewhere between daunting and annoying – mainly in the sense that they’re hard to keep track of. The references are reserved more for the first half of the poem that focuses on a wealthy lifestyle, likely to accentuate the notion of the upper class being better educated (although the “lazy” stereotype fits the bill a bit better).
To describe Part II of The Wasteland in a succinct manner would go a little something like this:
Life is an unhappy game; it is easy to ignore until it has been recognized that life’s general bareness has seeped into the lives of us all.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
we come and go
Heritage Countee Cullens
The Lovesong of Alfred J Prufrock T.S. Eliot
Walking out of class after discussing Eliot and Cullen left me with the sense that I was supposed to have taken a side and stuck with it; which poem is more American? Which is more effective? Which is better?
As the discussion began, I was immediately under the impression of two things: One, a reader’s being discouraged by the complex language or ambiguity of a poem seriously affects their ability to enjoy it. Two, enjoying a poem isn’t exactly the point. Although poetry theoretically should be an agreeable experience, a writer’s goal is not to please his or her readers (the world of literature would be a very disappointing realm if this was not the case). Similarly, a reader’s failure to instantly grasp what a poet says is not always an indication of a poem’s quality.
Therefore, rather than pledge loyalty to one poet, I opt instead to consider the purpose of poetry and how each man accomplishes that.
Cullen is clearly committed to viewing the world through the spectacles of race; he can hardly help it. There is nothing wrong with this except that racially-centered writing has an intrinsic appeal to less people. Eliot, on the other hand, asks much broader questions of existence but does so in a bizarre context that is more challenging to navigate; in this way, he creates potential to turn off his readers very quickly.
Both ask questions of the individual living in a society of prejudices, whether they are based on race, age, disability, poverty or sex. Both approach the individual’s predicament in completely rational ways; in either case, the individual experiences a sense of abandonment from the inside of a compliance culture. As society’s manners of viewing and judging its members changes, one’s perspective of self accordingly adjusts. Eliot asks universal questions in the first place, but Cullen’s question of the individual is poised in such a way that it surpasses the narrow focus of Africa and extends to the universal self. The difference here is that Cullen deals with one’s sensitivity to cultural roots; Eliot’s focus is on age. Both handle the question of how one fits into one’s surroundings, functioning as one part of many.
We as readers should be able to relate to both poems; perhaps a person who has experienced racism directly is drawn more to Cullen. Perhaps familiarity with a crisis of age catches the attention of another. Whichever poem you relate to, it asks the same thing;
Who are you? What are your surroundings? And: Do you dare to be that person in that place?
The Lovesong of Alfred J Prufrock T.S. Eliot
Walking out of class after discussing Eliot and Cullen left me with the sense that I was supposed to have taken a side and stuck with it; which poem is more American? Which is more effective? Which is better?
As the discussion began, I was immediately under the impression of two things: One, a reader’s being discouraged by the complex language or ambiguity of a poem seriously affects their ability to enjoy it. Two, enjoying a poem isn’t exactly the point. Although poetry theoretically should be an agreeable experience, a writer’s goal is not to please his or her readers (the world of literature would be a very disappointing realm if this was not the case). Similarly, a reader’s failure to instantly grasp what a poet says is not always an indication of a poem’s quality.
Therefore, rather than pledge loyalty to one poet, I opt instead to consider the purpose of poetry and how each man accomplishes that.
Cullen is clearly committed to viewing the world through the spectacles of race; he can hardly help it. There is nothing wrong with this except that racially-centered writing has an intrinsic appeal to less people. Eliot, on the other hand, asks much broader questions of existence but does so in a bizarre context that is more challenging to navigate; in this way, he creates potential to turn off his readers very quickly.
Both ask questions of the individual living in a society of prejudices, whether they are based on race, age, disability, poverty or sex. Both approach the individual’s predicament in completely rational ways; in either case, the individual experiences a sense of abandonment from the inside of a compliance culture. As society’s manners of viewing and judging its members changes, one’s perspective of self accordingly adjusts. Eliot asks universal questions in the first place, but Cullen’s question of the individual is poised in such a way that it surpasses the narrow focus of Africa and extends to the universal self. The difference here is that Cullen deals with one’s sensitivity to cultural roots; Eliot’s focus is on age. Both handle the question of how one fits into one’s surroundings, functioning as one part of many.
We as readers should be able to relate to both poems; perhaps a person who has experienced racism directly is drawn more to Cullen. Perhaps familiarity with a crisis of age catches the attention of another. Whichever poem you relate to, it asks the same thing;
Who are you? What are your surroundings? And: Do you dare to be that person in that place?
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