Amateurs, Eh?

Since my thesis involves the rise of the amateur artist thanks to new media platforms, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the amateur writers littering social media sites like Tumblr. One in particular that holds my attention is Tyler Knott Gregson. He's an "amateur" poet known for his typewriter poems and daily haikus on the site. But is being an amateur really a bad thing? For him, all signs point to "no." Writing isn't Gregson's day job, (he makes his living as a wedding photographer) but his words still reach a wide audience, making an impact in their lives in the same way that poets in print impact others.

Helen and Helen

One of my favorite poems that I read in high school was Edgar Allan Poe's "To Helen." I loved the way in which Poe describes everything about the often mentioned "most beautiful woman in the world":

Helen, thy beauty is to me
   Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
   The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
   To his own native shore.

Poe represents  Helen's beauty not through a description of her physical appearance in this stanza, but rather how her presence would make him feel were he to behold her. The simile describes Helen's beauty as being like rescue ships bringing a man lost at sea to "his own native shore." It is this complex comparison that allows the reader to gain a sense not only of Helen's mesmerizing form, but of the speaker's complete fascination with the her.

As I was talking to a friend about this poem, she told me to check out H.D's "Helen," which I found serves as a sharp contrast to Poe's poem:

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

A very straight forward statement of the speaker's feelings towards Helen if you ask me. It is interesting, however, that though this poem is quite different from Poe's (his being from the Victorian era and hers being from the modern era) this one employs similar elements to create an image of Helen rooted from a base of emotion. H.D uses a metaphor to describe Helen's empty eyes, and as she continues to describe her appearance, she mentions that Greece reviles at her, "remembering past ills."

To me, this is a beautiful demonstration of the poet's power to control literary elements to persuade you to feel how the speaker feels. In Poe's poem, I imagined and felt how enchanting a demigoddess would be, yet in H.D's poem I could feel myself  "revile" at a stony-cold face who brings nothing but trouble.

The Whole Deal with Romanticism

William Wordsworth is a very well known romantic poet. The elements associated with this genre are very present in the two poems that I plan to analyze for my final paper: "The World Is Too Much With Us" and "I Wandered
Lonely as a Cloud."

Yet, how did I recognize that these poems belonged in the genre of romanticism (aside from looking at the dates they were written in)? Well, this genre comes with some general characteristics that I was able to recognize and that helped me in understanding the themes of these poems and even discover some incompatibilities.

The Romantic Movement was a response to the Enlightenment, or the age of reason. Romanticism argued that emotion was more important than logical thought when interpreting the world around us. It therefore emphasized the natural world and the feelings that we derived from our interaction with it.

And The Winner Is...

My Evaluation Claim!-

Although it is important to analyze the literary elements in "The World Is Too Much With Us" in order to understand the underlying theme that is emphasized through this, if the breaking apart is taken too far, one might lose meaning instead of finding it.

That is the one that I had posted in this post, and I've slightly revised it to this:

It is important to analyze the literary elements in poetry, such as that of William Wordsworth's, in order to understand the theme at a deeper level; however, as the taking apart of a poem progresses, one may reach a point in which the essence is lost and in which one is "murdering to dissect."

Well there it is so far! Thank you guys for your input! It helped me to choose between the two that i was thinking of and it helped me narrow my claim.  I received feedback from my peers through the comments posted on my blog post, and I used one of my personal media websites (Tumblr), from which I received some great feedback too:

And also a literature blog follower!-

I also made some of my roommates personally offer feedback throughout the weekend:

Overall, I felt pretty good about sharing the process of writing my paper with others!

What Has Struck Me

As I have looked back at the posts I have made in this blog, all the works that I have discussed and all the genres that I have explored, I have pinned down certain topics that have caught my interest (which have also appeared in posts from our English class bubble) and which I would like to further explore:

Engaging Literature Socially

Part of my efforts for engaging literature socially have happened online. I've had a Tumblr blog for about two years now and have been able to communicate with a lot of different people through the site. Lately I've been able to have some pretty cool discussions about poetry with people who follow me. For those who are unfamiliar with how Tumblr works, you can personally message other bloggers in a simplistic email-like format.

Over the last few weeks one of my followers who knew I love spoken word poetry messaged me to ask for recommendations of who he should listen to. I told him my favorites, much as I have in previous blog posts, and we agreed to discuss it again after he had watched some. The next day we had a really cool conversation about poetry and our likes and dislikes in regard to some of the poets. It was really awesome to be able to connect with someone based simply on our interest in one sub-genre of poetry, and it reminded me of how literature helps people relate to one another and see each other more complexly.

Today he messaged me this video of an eighteen year old girl reading Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe in a toddler voice. It's definitely an interesting addition to the consideration of how the delivery of a poem can affect the way you view it. 

What do you think?

I know that poetry week is over BUT

Our study of poetry has come and gone, but not for me! This is because my personal learning plan centers around poetry, and in an effort to work on it during this drama week, I found some very interesting cross-overs between it and poetry. Having talked about Hamlet in my last post, I couldn't help but delve into some other works of Shakespeare. I chose another one of my favorites, Othello, The Moore of Venice. 

Othello and Iago

Although not of all the play is written in poetic form, I found many instances where Shakespeare used iambic pentameter:

"Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,  
If I would time expend with such a snipe.
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:"

I began to wonder why Shakespeare would structure parts of the play in this way. Then, as I was reading, I noticed that the shifts between meter and no meter often correlated  with who the character is speaking to and what they were speaking about. For instance, in the excerpt above Iago is first commenting on his use of Roderigo (where there is iambic pentameter,) but then there is a transition to a sort of rant about his hatred for Othello (which is followed by prose.) In other words, Iago is at first more calm, paralleled by his structured language, but as his emotions grab a hold of him he begins to speak more freely.

I though that this was an interesting thing to point out, because it shows that an element usually associated with poetry can also have an effect when used in other genres, such as drama in this case.  This also helped me in that I:

•  recognized poetic elements portrayed in unusual means---->
•  which is helping me better understand how they work to have an effect on the literature they are presented in ---->
• In turn, this relationship will help me to make claims about the intentions authors have in using these elements to create a theme or make a point. 

Have you observed any crossovers like this?

When half-gods go/ The gods arrive

I do not enjoy studying. However, it's one of those things you just gotta do, unless you are an uber freak who just memorizes everything instantly. If that's you, go away, I don't like you.

In an effort to study for my test, I decided to analyze a poem (which I'm horrible at) using poetry terms that I studied (blech).

I chose Give All to Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which is a poem I had planned to read for my personal learning plan.

GIVE all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the Muse—	5
Nothing refuse.

Prezi is Awesome

As I was looking at ways in which poetry is presented differently now that we have all of these technological tools with which to experiment with, I found a poem that was presented as a Prezi (like Dr. Burton's poem):

Click to go to the Prezi!

"Stop Drilling" by Natasa Bosic Grojic, a blogger who was experimenting with Prezi, showed me a new way in which to convey poetry that I had never known about before! I think that the visual way in which poetry can be presented through this medium is exciting because it really opens a new creative window into poetry. As you can see from the Prezi, the zooming in and out allows focus on a specific line of a poem. This is nice because it really helps the reader to isolate that line and perhaps ponder it with greater significance in their minds. There is then, of course, the positioning of the lines, which in of itself offers further meaning along with aesthetic quality. For instance, in "Stop Drilling," the path of the text follows a pattern around the blown up title as it moves from the left to the right, instead of a random order. This aids the reader into following the poem's story visually. One can also comment upon the design used. This specific author used a very simple template. I thought that this was effective for their poem because the words themselves, aided by the effects of the zooming, are the forced as the focus, and they begin to weigh upon the reader as they go through the poem.

I enjoyed this Prezi Poem so much that I am thinking of making one myself! 

Murdering to Dissect?

I decided that, in preparation for the midterm I would take a stab (no pun intended, haha) at analyzing a poem from the common readings of our class. I chose Wordsworth's  "The World is Too Much With Us" because when I felt it called out to me as I first read it. And so I proceeded to take it apart, perhaps to what would have been Wordsworth's dismay:

This shows the markups I made while analyzing the text

I really loved Wordsworth's overall message about our under-appreciation of nature, a theme which helped me categorize this poem as a Romantic Poem. I first looked at the poem as whole. What is it really saying? What I interpreted was that Wordsworth is complaining about how people during his time were foolish in wasting all their energy in daily matters (getting and spending,) completely ignoring the wonder that is nature. Wordsworth then express his deep frustration by saying that he wishes he was like the people of the past who worshipped pagan idols, specifically those regarding nature (hence the allusions to greek gods.)

As I gathered the message of the poem, I sought to find the devices that translated this message. For instance, I looked at the form of the poem and noticed that it was a petrarchan sonnet in iambic pentameter. As I discovered this, I noticed a shift that occurred both in the rhyming scheme (from ABBA to CDCDCD) and in tone. The portion highlighted in yellow on my annotations, demonstrates a narrator who is passively recounting an observation. However, midway through the poem, and throughout the blank portion, the speaker expresses his passion towards the issue. I concluded from this that Wordsworth choice of a petrarchan sonnet was suitable for conveying the message that humanity is not sufficiently attentive to the beauties of nature because through this he first introduced the problem, but then quickly took up a sharp view on the subject. I felt like the way in which this was structured gave the message a sense of urgency, and effectively transmitted Wordsworth's message.

And so, I really hope that Wordsworth would not be too upset with me. My compromise to this is that though I looked at different elements of the poem, I attempted to see what all of these elements did to create the whole, so that perhaps that way I would not be murdering "The World is Too Much With Us." 

How do you feel about this issue?

  

For life's not a paragraph and death I think is no parenthesis

I was introduced to this poem but my best friend growing up, Megan. It meant a lot to her, so much so that she decided to have a rendition of the last two lines tattooed on her wrist.

A paragraph symbol inside parenthesis

In those growing up, teenage years you learn so much about who you are from your peers and Megan was a huge influence on my life. Her taste in literature and poetry shaped mine which is how E. E. Cummings became one of my favorite poets.

So to better illustrate this poem, here's a spoken rendition.

Before you listen to it, read the poem. Then notice the different meaning you get from listening to it.

since feeling is first

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Compare this to my friend, Megan's reading below:

I love this poem so much because it contradicts what every poet strives to do which is capture the tiny details of life in the beauty of poetry. But Cummings is so correct in stating that you can never really capture life in a poem or a book or a movie because life is no paragraph, feeling comes first.

If you’ve ever read anything else by E.E. Cummings, you’ll notice that the way he designs the look of his poems has a lot to do with the meaning. Take a look at r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r- or notice the use of parenthesis in Maggie and Milly and Molly and May . 

So I think it’s cool to hear Cummings' poem read aloud. It lets you get a different aspect of it. The whole point of Cummings' poem is that paragraphs and syntax and written things can't give the true feeling of life. Feeling itself comes first. So listening to this poem almost makes more sense, to be able to ignore the syntax of it.

The part that stands out the most to me when listening to it is:

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

It has an intonation that I didn't get reading it in my head. And yet by listening to it, you miss the dash. But if you're ignoring the syntax, like Cummings suggests, does that dash even matter?

Like I've mentioned before, poetry is not my strong suit by any means. I prefer the idea of feeling the poem instead murdering to dissect (i.e. analyzing the heck out of it).

But check out my amazing analyzing skills. The whole written poem shows enjambment. But once again you miss that feature when you hear it read aloud. So what does that mean about that written poem, does the enjambment mean something? I'm inclined to believe that specific literary techniques in this poem are negligible based on the theme of the poem.

What do you think?

What differences were you able to take from the recorded version vs the written version?

Poetry in Pairs

So I love spoken word poetry. No surprises there. But one of the things I love about it is how it stretches the boundaries of what constitutes a poem and of how poems can be experienced.

Take collaboration, for example. If I find out that a novel or a poem was written by two people, it seems a little strange to me. How much did each person participate in the writing of said piece? Because I can't pick apart the work and figure out which words belong to each person, I don't enjoy it as much.

But collaboration in spoken word? I love it. The use of two voices can make an entire poem what it is. The poets can use their voices individually, in tandem, and as echoes all in one piece.

Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye are two of my favorite spoken word poets, and they're both absolutely brilliant on their own, but together they bring to life poems that just wouldn't be the same otherwise.

Here's "When Love Arrives" 

And "An Origin Story"

"Do not go gentle"

I loved reading this poem. It was one of our common readings for our Literary class and I found it to be very thought provoking about life and death. After analyzing it and marking where it rhymed and repeated it certain places I found deeper meaning in it. I noticed that it repeated itself many times throughout the poem which I underlined in the above example. This gives the poem an echo effect, almost like those who have gone before had spoken and we are receiving their messages.  For me this adds to the theme of the poem being about death and the fight we should give before it. Also I noticed at the end that the poem was directed to the speaker's father who is dying. This gives a personal touch to the poem as the speaker is asking his own father to "not go gently". He is asking him to keep fighting it till the end. He wants him to be one of those wise, good, or wild men. He wants his father to prove himself before going into that good night. Reading this reminded me of when my grandfather died. My family and I had seen my grandfather go from a strong, healthy man to someone crippled by the effects of cancer. We loved grandpa and we begged him to keep fighting till the end. And he did.

Invictus and Morgan Freeman

My favorite poem I have ever read is Invictus by William Ernest Henley. Back in the winter of 2009 I was involved in a local rugby club. I loved the sport because of its intensity and challenging nature. It became a daily thing for my friends and I to go to rugby practice. We we would play colleges and other clubs on the weekends. It was a big part of my life. One day as I was studying I saw the trailer for a movie called Invictus based on the story of how Nelson Mandela used rugby to unify his new nation. Of course my friends and I were super excited to see this movie because of our connection to rugby. But I took away something far greater after the movie. Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned for most of his life because of his race. Later he was elected President of South Africa when his party took control of the State. This man had the power to do oppress the whites as they did to his people. Instead he chose to forgive them. The film was about more than just rugby. It was about overcoming our circumstances in life. It was about controlling our fate. The following clip is a recitation of the poem by Morgan Freeman in the film:

This movie illustrates for me how poetry can be effectively transmitted to new audiences through media in our modern day world. After watching the film I decided to put the poem up in my room where I could see it and I have kept it up in all of my apartments since.

Interesting poetry forms: Swan and Shadow

                             Dusk
                         Above the
                    water hang the
                              loud
                             flies
                             Here
                            O so
                           gray
                          then
                         What             A pale signal will appear
                        When         Soon before its shadow fades
                       Where       Here in this pool of opened eye
                       In us     No Upon us As at the very edges
                        of where we take shape in the dark air
                         this object bares its image awakening
                           ripples of recognition that will
                              brush darkness up into light
even after this bird this hour both drift by atop the perfect sad instant now
                              already passing out of sight
                           toward yet-untroubled reflection
                         this image bears its object darkening
                        into memorial shades Scattered bits of
                       light     No of water Or something across
                       water       Breaking up No Being regathered
                        soon         Yet by then a swan will have
                         gone             Yes out of mind into what
                          vast
                           pale
                            hush
                             of a
                             place
                              past
                    sudden dark as
                         if a swan
                            sang

I think John Hollander's "Swan and Shadow" is a fresh take on poetry. I love the shape that compliments the title. I think it really adds something to the poem, making it visually appealing. He takes the "ripples of recognition" literally. Here are some other concrete poems I thought were great:

The Second Circle

I am not going to lie I have realized Dante's The Inferno was an incredibly hard choice of poetry to read. The language is filled with words I don't recognize, mostly because they haven't been used in hundreds of years. The way the passages of the poem are organized and the grammar of it all is also ancient. I feel like I have to read each chapter three times in order to get a grasp of it. So after reading poetry and reading about poetry from our textbook for a few hours I decided to test out some of my newly acquired knowledge on The Inferno.  I started at Canto V, which details Dante's descent into the Second Circle of Hell, which is centered on Lust.

Thus I descended out of the first circle
Down to the second, that less space begirds,
And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.

Interesting use of words here who knows if they were common in Dante's day. I had to invariably look these up so I could get the full meaning of the passage. Begirds means to encircle with or as if with a band. Dole means a charitable dispensation of goods, especially money, food, or clothing. But archaically it means one's fate.  Goads means to prod or urge with or as if with a long pointed stick. Fascinating how understanding the definitions of words in a poem can change the meaning of it or deepen your perception. When I first read this it just described a man going further into hell. Now there is more claustrophobia, suffering, and fate attached to it. After analyzing and defining just this opening passage to Canto V I decided that poetry maybe can be fun with some deeper insight. I continued on...

There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;

Examines the transgressions at the entrance;

Judges, and sends according as he girds him.

I say, that when the spirit evil-born

Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;

And this discriminator of transgressions

Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;¹⁰

Girds himself with his tail as many times

As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.

Always before him many of them stand;

They go by turns each one unto the judgment;

They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.

While I was reading this I was able to see the relationship between Minos, who seems to be a judge in hell, and those who are to be judged. As I read I noticed that many action words were used to describe this relationship: Standeth, examines, judges, sends, girds, confesses, seeth, thrust, speak, hear, hurled. All action words, all quick. When I read the action words I associated the poem with comics I used to read as a kid making it easier for me to analyze. The condemned go through their line moving at a quick pace, with Minos the monster and their judge hurling them down to hell. I could visualize the scene in my head, frame for frame. This was just the first page of the Canto, but I honestly loved it! Breaking the poem down allowed me to have greater understanding and gave me something I could compare it to which always helps.

Entering the Inferno

So after spending about three hours of my morning going over the common readings and some literary terms while getting some errands done I decided to soak up some sun by the pool. While I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the fiction stories provided with the common readings I thought I would try brushing up on my poetry skills and have a little self introspection. I brought along a book of poetry I recently purchased called The Inferno by Dante. For those of you who know what that is, you know that it isn't really light poolside reading.

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark....

The Inferno is the story of how one man (Dante) is guided through hell by a famous poet named Virgil. From what I have read so far he is not enjoying his experience at all and he is only a spectator. Now I know this is kind of an interesting choice for a book given the subject matter and the difficulty in reading 14th century epic poetry, but bear with me. I follow a show called Mad Men, which I consider to be the most well written show of all time, and after seeing the show's main character Don Draper reading and quoting passages from the book I felt compelled to read it and understand it myself. Don Draper himself is going through a bit of hell right now in the show, and there has been a constant tone of death felt throughout this season. By reading this book not only have I gained some insight into my favorite show, but I have also gained some personal treasure from it, much like when I read the scriptures. Two hours well spent. My favorite passage from today:

"Thy soul attainted is with cowardice,

Which many times a man encumbers so,

It turns him back from honored enterprise,

As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy."

Canto II: 45-48