Natasha Trethewey Is One Smart Lady

Natasha Trethewey’s reading at the H. Bruce McEver Poetry Reading offers more than poetry. She puts the poems in context by offering background about the topics in the poems as well as her experiences that helped the poems come about. Her first poem about forgotten soldiers uses rhyme and short lines to convey a haunting tale.

A common theme in her work is race. She uses her poetry as political commentary. She discusses her family and miscegenation, which turns her life into poetry into political activism. She is also the current U. S. Poet Laureate.  

DO NOW: Please click on Comments and give your ideas about this poem.

Yusef Komunyakaa: More Than Simply Fun To Say

Yusef Komunyakaa uses his own history to develop his poetry. His intonation and timing at the reading for the PoetryEverywhere project create an inviting scene and a haunting tale. His poetry uses detailed imagery of war to shock and to tell the truth. "Facing It" encompasses both literal and figurative meaning, intermixing them to the point of confusion. Reality is questionable, yet very certain.

Komunyakaa is another contemporary poet. He, too, fits into other "categories" of poets. Where does he fall and why?

DO NOW: Please click on Comments and give your ideas about this poem.

So Very Beat

Dismayed with a war and the overall tone of American life, the Beats emerged as writers who went against the grain and rallied for the unpopular and marginalized people and ideas. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs became the main voices of this generation. William T. Lawlor’s “General Introduction” is a helpful overview of the time period and the ensuing movement.

Here’s how to find it: Lawlor, William T. "General Introduction." Beat Culture: Icons, Lifestyles, and Impact. Ed. William T. Lawlor. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC Clio, 2005. xiii-xviii. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 222. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.





You might also better understand some of their writing if you understand some of their references: Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats and The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.  

DO NOW: Click on comments. Compare any of the poems by McKay, Hughes, Ginsberg, or Ferlinghetti from the text, the handouts, or the video clips. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Two Female Poets, One Eerie Scene

Mental illness haunts many people.  Sylvia Plath lived a troubled life, ending in suicide. Her poem, "Metaphors," is of the Confessional sub-genre of poetry. Pieces of her troubled life come through in all her confessional poems, including this one. While it is difficult to figure out for some, its message is one of strong social commentary.

Stevie Smith's poem, "Not Waving But Drowning," is as troubled as Plath's life. The image here is terrifying. Put yourself in the poem. Become that person who cannot swim. Call out for help. Watch everyone on shore wave back at you as your lungs fill up with water. This is heavy stuff.

Charles Alitieri’s “Modernist Realism and Lowell's Confessional Style” helps define this subgenre. Here’s how to find it: Altieri, Charles. "Modernist Realism and Lowell's Confessional Style." Modernism Revisited: Transgressing Boundaries and Strategies of Renewal in American Poetry. Ed. Viorica Patea and Paul Scott Derrick. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. 207-223. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.

                                                 

DO NOW: Please click on Comments to offer ideas about tone and social commentary. Compare either or both poems to a movie, television show, book, or song.  Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

Bluesmen

Everyone at some points sings the blues. Langston Hughes sang the blues. His poetry is very close to music. Even the poem "Ballad of the Landlord" indicates music. His meter is musical rhythm. His rhyme is lyrical. Even in his narrative poems, he uses a lyrical quality, which is what a ballad is. The late night television show, Late Night At The Apollo, was an homage to The Harlem Renaissance (whether on purpose or not). Harlem was the place to be for writers, singers, artists, and dancers. Despite racism and segregation, Harlem rose in spirit and artistry. The Apollo was the epicenter. Through all art forms, the oppressed found a voice and let it be heard. And now for some tunes:
 
Sometimes instead of singing, or writing poetry that is like singing, poets wrote poems in form to express more than blues, but also bitterness. Claude McKay was also part of this movement in Harlem. He separated himself from some of the writers of the time through his socializing as well as his artistry.  
DO NOW: Please click on Comments and offer ideas about the art of the Harlem Renaissance--writing, singing, dancing, painting--making sure you include something about our two poets. Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.

All Kinds Of Love

A lot of poetry deals with race and gender, not necessarily in that order. The video of Lucille Clifton reading at Dodge should help develop a sense of voice for her poems. She looks and sounds like a poet. Not that a poet looks and sounds like anything or anyone in particular, but she exudes poetry. She commands her audience to listen with the strength of her lyric.

Present in most of her work are issues dealing with the human body compounded with the aforementioned topics.  Mark Bernard White believes, “Clifton often rhapsodizes about her body” (White).  Her body becomes symbolic of other bodies.

Relationships in any form present conflict.  The William Carlos Williams poem, “This Is Just To Say,” is a simple, short verse.  Simple, short poems usually carry much weight.  Here, a plum is not just a plum.  An ice box is not just an ice box.  Janice Michaelson avers, “the situation is more complex than first meets the eye” (Michaelson). While Clifton focuses on women’s issues, Williams takes that a step further to focus on women and men.

These are plums. Or ARE they?????

Michaelson, Janice. "Another meaning of plums in Williams's This Is Just to Say." The Explicator 66.2 (2008): 95+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.

White, Mark Bernard. "Sharing the Living Light: Rhetorical, Poetic, and Social Identity in Lucille Clifton." CLA Journal 40.3 (Mar. 1997): 288-304. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 162. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Dec. 2012.

DO NOW:

Please click on Comments and give your ideas on these poems.  Compare and contrast their speakers, tones, structure, and conceits. What does each say about love? Sign your comments with your first name and last initial.