This will be my last official blog for class purposes.

Tuesday evening I gave my presentation on Frost for our Undergraduate Research Symposium. For some reason I've had the hardest time getting papers out recently - I think I'm overwhelmed and undermotivated. Still, I have found it very interesting discovering the role that Frost created as an American poet. He was like a little poet-celebrity! Seems strange - I know I don't think of the poet as fulfilling that sort of role, and I'd imagine not many other people do, either.

Well, I've been trying to ponder whether or not our class solved any of the questions regarding what poetry is and how it should be manifested. I don't think we did! Still, we explored a lot of the options, including introducing me to things I didn't really know about. Before this class I had never heard or seen anything about e-poetry. I'll have to admit I reacted a little negatively towards it as poetry only (you can read my earlier posts about it), although some of it I really did enjoy. Much of it seemed like the multimedia art now found at many modern museums. I also didn't know much about spoken word poetry or poetry slams. I had these visions of beatnik poetry readings with djembes and snapping and people saying, "Be cool." I was really interested in the poetry slam.

One of the things that sticks out most to me was watching the video "What I Want My Words To Do For You." I had never thought of using poetry in these theraputic or rehabilitation settings. Particularly after hearing Trish talk about her experiences with the women and the Campus for Human Development, this idea seemed particularly intriguing to me. Next semester I'll be taking a class entitled "Writing in the Community" where we will hopefully continue to explore the way in which people can reclaim their lives through the power of writing.

Poetry certainly does matter. It matters a lot, and I think one of the ways that it matters most is in the way that people can relate it to their own lives. Though this might not be the most academic or high-brow function of poetry, it seems to be the most meaningful. Most people aren't great poets. When a person can find a poem that says what they feel and think, there's an attachment there that is both powerful and purposeful. In my research on Frost, it seems that people felt able to latch on to his poems as meaningful to their own lives. Whether or not they were accurate in their interpretation of a poem seemed irrelevant - they were attached to the meaning that the poem had to them, not the meaning someone else had ascribed to it. I appreciate that, and I often find it true for myself.

So go read some poetry. And share it with someone else.

These past few days I've been working on a paper which examines the great American poet Robert Frost and his popularity. No American poet has ever been so lauded, so acclaimed, so known, and so read. It makes for really interesting material. Frost had serious fears of failure and rejection, making recognition and praise extremely important to him. At times it seems like he found little purpose in anything other than the accolades of others. Whenever his poetry books or lectures receved less than glorious reviews, Frost often spun into periods of depression and illness.

He also created for America the role of the poet as a public figure, something I'm not sure we've seen in quite the same way since Frost. Frost spent the majority of his life, right up until his death at nearly 90 years old, traveling and speaking or doing poetry readings: an activity he called "barding around." People literally came out by the thousands to hear him read and to watch his spontaneous, humor-filled presentations. It seems very strange - imagine a poet getting such public attention today!

Frost often covered his insecurities and low self-esteem with big talk. In letters he would write of himself as "the only artist" or the only poet with "a theory." He claimed on more than one occasion to "not care what people think of my poetry, so long as they award it some prizes." At the same time, other statements - and his own behavior - indicate that the love of the popular reader was extremely important for Frost's own agenda as a poet of the people. He looked with disdain - or nervous competition - on the majority of his contemporary authors, and instead sought the praise of critics and academics, knowing that their good words would bring public success.

I find Frost interesting, because at first glance or skim, it seems his poems would be easy and simplistic. They bear none of the modernist trademarks that Frost loathed in his peers: no obscure words, or curious punctuation, or lack of capitalization, or unstructured verse. In form they are classic and familiar, and even in vocabulary they do not hinder the average reader. But in concept, in poignancy, in "sense of sound," and in complexity, they rival the best poems ever written. This is my favorite Frost poem, so far - although I know it is well known, I think it is very beautiful:


Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

The Poetics of Jason Mraz

Some of you might not have heard of this guy yet. Or maybe you heard his song, "The Remedy" on the radio last summer and fall... it got a nice seat in the top 40 rotation for quite some time. His name is Jason Mraz, and you should sit up and take notice. Go here: www.jasonmraz.com

Like John Mayer, Mraz has lyrics worth listening to - lyrics worth reading as poetry. Unlike John Mayer, Mraz has made it obvious that the writing is, for him, paramount, saying in one interview that his object was to "get some poetry into the songs." Later, he said, "Just start writing, and don’t read it. Before you know it you’ll have barfed onto your paper all kinds of things you’d hoped to do. Or you’ll realize that you are doing it, or will do it. That’s how I discovered [writing].”

Mraz is a necessarily hyphenated artist: roots-rock-jazz-hip-hop-country-pop... yeah, that about covers it. In the space of one song, there is a banjo playing while Mraz raps. Above all these things, however, Mraz has consistently impressed me with his lyrics. Again, we're looking at an artist who is concerning himself with a love for words and an understanding of their aesthetic qualities. Sometimes words can be rich with meaning, and other times they can just sound fun. Mraz comments on his inclusion of white-boy rap stylings within many of his songs, saying he loves rap because "it isn't the typical, 'hell, all I need is 12 syllables to complete this stanza'".

Mraz was also trained in musical theater, and thus he brings an element of strength and weight to his performances, which I find interesting in light of our discussions on poetry slams and spoken word poetry. In live musical performance, there is an element of sponteneity and crowd interaction, much like those elements are crucial and influential in spoken word poetry events.

Mraz is often incredibly positive, and within his songs praises the power of words and poetry. From his newest single, "You and I Both":

See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive

I also am impressed with the aesthetic qualities that he ascribes to his lyrics, often using words not only because they fit his message and convey his meaning, but because they sound incredible when placed together. He offers up compact rhymes and choppy quick rhythms that seem highly akin to many of the poetry slammers we listened to. Here are some of the lyrics from a few more of his songs, and just from reading I think they make an impact, though they are great to hear:

I heard two men talking on the radio in a cross fire kind of new reality show
Uncovering the ways to plan the next big attack
they were counting down the days to stab the brother in the
be right back after this
the unavoidable kiss
where the minty fresh death breath is sure to outlast his catastrophe
dance with me, because if you've got the poison, I've got the remedy
the remedy is the experience. It is a dangerous liaison
I say the comedy is that its serious.
Which is a strange enough new play on words
I say the tragedy is how you're gonna spend
the rest of your nights with the light on
So shine the light on all of your friends
because it all amounts to nothing in the end.

And from "All That Lies," I love this play on the word "lies" as both the noun and the verb:

Don't get me wrong cause I don't want to know what the truth is
I believe that I'd be here with or without it
All that lies around put me where I am, where I stand
Tell me can you hear all the pretty sounds to hear
Tell me can you see all that lies around

This is from another unreleased song called "After An Afternoon." I thought it was incredibly and richly poetic, in a way that I'd almost be surprised to know that someone could sing it can do it any justice at all.

I bare my windowed self untamed and untrained
Dreams that hardly touch our complexions truest faults
If room enough for both my drowsy spirit shall fall
Bold waves tumble to the season of my heart
Where you have offended my faith and my trust
Until all is lost into the beauty of the day

Well, these blogs on Mayer and Mraz have hopefully been more than just advertisements for some great musicians. I've been considering a lot lately the way that poetry and music lyrics can - and can not - be the same things. Both these songwriters have impressed me with their clever and generous use of language. I can consider it nothing less than some of the finer poetry that has caught my recent attention.

One thing I really hate is when you write a whole blog entry and then your computer freezes and then it shows you the blue screen of death. I hate that.

So, this is an attempt to reconstruct a very nicely written entry I made just about ten minutes ago. Here we go.
______________

Musings on the Lyrical Stylings of John Mayer

I am not really a musician, so I don't know what technically and theoretically constitutes "good" music. I usually just listen to what sounds good to me. However, as a writer and lover of words, I sit up and pay special attention to songwriters who can woo me with their lyrics. John Mayer and Jason Mraz are two young artists who I think are bringing a respect for well-written lyrics back to the forefront of pop-rock music.

This relates particularly well to our discussion of poetry, I think, and in particular some ideas we've been discussing regarding the poet as a public figure. Many songwriters are able to bring their lyrics - their poetry - to thousands of screaming fans, establishing themselves as a bizarre hybrid: "The Poet-Rockstar." I think these two artists are indeed poets, in the way that their words and their crafting and creating with words can not only seriously impact the listener, but can also stand alone. I imagine that both Mayer and Mraz are poets at heart and in purpose - their words are not merely the vehicle for a great guitar riff or thumping beat.

Mayer first caught my attention freshman year of college, when someone placed a sample single under my car's windsheild wiper. Thank you, whoever you were. I heard his first single, "No Such Thing," on the radio and enjoyed it as vaguely as I usually enjoy music until the stupid ClearChannel radio stations play it every 40 minutes. I got the album, and became one of the bajillion people to do so, and to keep it in the Billboard Top 100 for over 80 weeks. I listened, and then I read.

I know why many pop artists have quit putting lyrics in the lyric booklets - it's because their lyrics suck. They're more about the music itself, or perhaps they're just bad. Whatever. But all of Mayer's lyrics were printed clearly in the CD insert for me to gobble up - they are also all available on his website, www.johnmayer.com.

I think what I love most about Mayer is his cleverness in writing. He uses normal words in surprising ways to capture what might have been more cheaply expressed with some meaningless cliche. In fact, he's said of himself that he is "good at avoiding cliches." In "My Stupid Mouth," Mayer sings about being on a date and saying something stupid that made things awkward:

We bit our lips. She looked out the window
Rolling tiny balls of napkin paper
I played a quick game of chess with the
Salt and pepper shaker
And I could see clearly
An indelible line was drawn
Between what was good, what just
Slipped out and what went wrong

There is an honesty and availability there, in the metaphor of comparing fiddling with table things to a chess game. In another song, "3x5," Mayer writes a letter, explaining to the recepient why he didn't include any pictures inside:

Didn't have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it
When I'm in the mood to lose my way with words

Today, skies are painted colors of a cowboy cliche
And strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky
Are next to mountains anyway

I am impressed with his ideas, first of all - something strangely true but I never thought to say, that when you're always taking pictures, always trying to capture with technology, you're not really seeing it and you can't really describe it with your words. So when he stops to really look, he can "lose his way with words" and describe the scene in all its glorious detail. Really intersting thoughts about the power of words: maybe a picture is worth a thousand words, but maybe those thousand words are still more powerful, and far richer in meaning. Maybe that is at its core the plight of the poet.

John Mayer's lyrics are sexy. I'll be honest. I think they're sexy even when he's not talking about love and sex, but they are particularly when he's on those subjects! On his latest album, in the song "Come Back to Bed," Mayer sings an apology song to the girl, who has gotten upset and left the bed. The words... well, they're good. I'd come back. A couple of my favorite lines:

What will this fix?
You know you're not a quick forgive
And I won't sleep through this
I survive on the breath you are finished with

Don't leave me
ninety-eight and six degrees of separation from you, baby
Come back to bed

I could go on. I won't, because I don't want this to sound like the mad ravings of an obsessed fan. I'm just hoping to point out that in an era of pretty crappy popular music, Mayer exists as an author who still values the power of a word and a well crafted line. Without fluff or flattery, I consider his lyrics poetry. This brings an interesting suggestion to the definition of poetry, perhaps, and to the image of the poet. Interestingly, Mayer has said of himself, "I always think about lyrical ideas, but I don’t start putting lyrics in until the music is there. I don’t wake up, jump out of bed and go “Oh my God, I got to write this down.” " So perhaps he's a reluctant poet. Still, he seems to understand the impact of his lyrics and his ability to manipulate the language, as he has also said, "I tend to write confessionally...What would be most detrimental would be for me to change the way I write."

Next blog: the lyrics of Jason Mraz.

Invitation

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come site by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!

That is a poem by Shel Silverstein, and it was incorporated into recent event held by my group in our class: "Poetry Playtime." The following are excerpts from a paper I wrote in response to the event.

***

Poetry Playtime was born of the idea that most people fear poetry. They loathe it. The very idea of it conjures up words like, “boring,” “long,” and “confusing.” Yet for most of us, poetry was an integral part of our childhood development. From the sing-songy scheme of almost all children’s books to the primary colored pages of Dr. Seuss to the simplest of all nursery rhymes, we learned words through poetry. We learned to love reading through learning to read and recite poems. We giggled at the way the words sounded and loved the way they felt spilling from our little inexperienced mouths.

Our group – Tom, Tiffany, and I – hoped to encourage our fellow college students by remembering the days when poetry was fun, not scary. We wanted to recreate the experience of having poetry read to us, and this would come complete with childhood snacks and a “reading” circle.

Our poetry outreach project took place on Wednesday, March 3, at the 10:00 hour. We were hoping for good weather so we could sit outside, so obviously it was raining, and we were banished to Neely Dining Hall. Though we hadn’t picked up any “carpet squares” (an earlier idea that got canned), we arranged some chairs in a circle in the corner of the room. It would be nice, quiet, intimate… or, 70+ people would show up… which is what did happen. Luckily, there were more chairs available, and so the circle expanded. Eventually we used up all the chairs and so some stragglers stood. They may have come for the childlike smorgasbord we had prepared: goldfish crackers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (no crust, cut diagonally), Fruit-Roll-Ups, and Capri Sun pouches. Regardless, they came, and that was the most important part.

Tiffany went first, reading some poems from a Shel Silverstein book. As I looked around the room, some people’s faces lit up in recognition – not everyone, but some. Whispers of, “Oh, I loved this poem!” and “I remember this one.” arose from our reading circle. Now I can’t pretend to know how other people were feeling, or what they were thinking. But I know what I was thinking. As Tiffany recited “Smart,” I remembered memorizing the poem and performing it for my 4th grade class. We all had to pick a Shel poem to memorize and recite, and I was so proud of myself. I was proud because I had memorized the poem, of course, but also proud that I knew that five pennies was less than one dollar.

Smart

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head --
Too proud of me to speak!

Tiffany closed the session with an excellent rendition of Dr. Seuss’s classic, "Oh, the Places You’ll Go!" I would guesstimate that two-thirds of high school graduates either received this book as a gift, or heard some part of it recited during a graduation speech. Tiffany spoke briefly on this, and mentioned that perhaps in rereading it could be meaningful to us again and again as we encountered new phases of our lives.

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...

OH! THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

It’s corny, I know. Yet I feel that so often we are ushered into this “adult” world and unfortunately we leave behind the meaning we found in simplicity, exchanging it for an embittered quest into what we assume is a “more mature obscurity.” I think there is as much truth to be found in Dr. Seuss’s monosyllabic stories and Shel Silverstein’s whimsical poetry as any other poet or storyteller could wish to have. It is powerful and poignant, just in an easy-to-open wrapper.

Our poetry project touched on the very oral nature of most children’s poetry. I thought this was interesting as it coincided with our in-class discussion on spoken-word poetry. Most children’s poetry is extremely adaptable to being read out loud, and I would venture to say that most of it is better when read out loud. The act of reading to a child is incredibly powerful and purposeful. Children who are regularly read to associate reading with the comfort of having another person’s undivided attention. It also encourages them to begin to read, as they sound out the words. If you pay attention, a lot of young children first learning to read almost always read out loud to themselves. In a sense (and our program tried to capture that), we could learn a thing or two from these children. Much poetry is better understood after reading it aloud. Our poetry reading combined the remembered sense of ownership of reading aloud with the remembered sense of comfort from being read to.

I think our group addressed in our poetry outreach project the need for poetry to be accessible again. People who may have struggled with understanding or appreciating poetry for most of their “academic careers” may have walked away from Poetry Playtime with a refreshed outlook on the craft. Though perhaps they did not rush out to buy the latest Norton Anthology, maybe a few went home and dug out an old copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends. At the very least, I am certain that people came, had an encounter with real, meaningful poetry, and left feeling non-threatened, non-confused, and probably a little happier. That is good enough for me.

On Monday in class, we watched a documentary entitled, "What I Want My Words To Do For You." This critically acclaimed film follows a writing group in a maximum security women's prison, and then the performance of some of the pieces in a special presentation at the prison by actresses like Marisa Tomei, Glenn Close, and Rosie Perez. Here is the website about the film: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/whatiwant/index.html

I first want to address that this film is challenging on ethical grounds, because murder is murder, right? And yet to see and hear the stories of many of these women, one is struck by the honesty and remorse and shame - they become real people, not just faces and names that you flip past in a newspaper. Then again, their victims also had faces and names - but many of these women now realize that. So it is interesting, to say the least. I did appreciate that the film wasn't trying to make the point that these women should be released or given special priveleges. I don't even think it was making the point that the judicial system is bad or that prisons are bad. The message I got was that groups like this create a community in which writing becomes theraputic, and rehabilitative.

The honesty with which many of the women presented their stories was shocking and thought-provoking. One story in particular that struck me was that of a former prostitute who had, in a fit of rage, stabbed to death one of her "johns." As she told her story, she was crying, explaining that she knew that in a few minutes, that man had received all the guilt, shame, and hurt from years of sexual and physical abuse from her childhood and adolescence. She was acutely aware that she took the life of another human being, a real person with a name and a family. She was even conscious enough of her crime to say that, looking back, she knew the man she'd killed was not a pervert or sex-addict, but an elderly man who had recently lost his wife of 40 years and was craving intimacy. The fact that she could be that understanding and compassionate about a man she murdered really jarred me. At the same time - she did commit a crime, and she should be in prison. So---

Now on to the writing aspect. In class someone half-jokingly remarked that they'd have liked to see how this program worked in a men's prison facility. I think there's some truth to the idea, however, that a community of writers like the one in the film may only have been possible with a group of women. Men and women are so different in their ways of communicating, and something about the trusting - and even nurturing - nature of the women made their sharing capable. They wanted to listen, and more importantly they wanted to be heard, because then it made their stories of change and sorrow matter.

More thoughts to come later...

Well it's been a few days since my last post, but with good reason - I just got engaged! And then I was on Spring Break. So it's been a whirlwind two weeks of calling everyone I know and setting a date, which was oddly enough a very stressful and difficult challenge. But the date has been set -Saturday, March 12, 2005. Yay!

And now, back to poetry.

Let's talk about Cowboy Poetry, today, shall we? Yes, you heard me correctly. Cowboy poetry. The poems of cowboys. Cowboys do still exist, and while they don't have shoot-em-ups with Indians, pretty much all the rest of the stereotypes apply. I can say this with some certainty because I was born and raised in Oklahoma. Listen to a Garth Brooks CD, if you don't believe me. I know what "spurs and latigo" are. Anyway, I was quite surprised to find that there is an entire subculture of spoken word cowboy poetry, and that these wranglers of the wild west get together at little conferences to share their poems.

Go on and snicker if you want, but the truth is that I think it is wonderful. It's no more silly and superficial than a rapper singing about being a pimp who likes his hos in Louis Vutton bikinis. In fact, it's strangely enough in the same vein - dreaming and bragging and speaking out to a group of people who consider a good horse the best bling-bling money can buy. I mean, they have a "Lariat Laureate" - how CUTE is that?! This is what LaVonne Houlton, one of the current Laureates, had to say about Cowboy Poetry:

"Cowboy Poetry isn't about kings, tycoons or posh surroundings. It is about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, be they set in the past or in the present. It covers an important time and aspect of American life that many people cherish, and children still dream of... I believe that poetry portrays the Cowboy and the West better even than prose can do."

In all seriousness, this quote, and others you can find at www.cowboypoetry.com, suggests a serious reconsideration of poetry as the primary method of storytelling and history-keeping for an entire culture. We are swept from the 20th century American West to BC Classical Greece, to the time when Homeric epics were woven and spun and retold from generation to generation. Cowboy poetry mirrors that exact desire to record great feats, to embody the dreams and fears of a people, to carry all those things from the past into the present through the oral sharing of poetry. What seems hokey and rusticated is, surprisingly, ultra-formal in both form and purpose.

For the past few weeks we've been continuing our discussion of spoken word poetry, though that discussion has branched off into related topics: namely, what defines poetry and should poetry be categorized into "literary" and "other." We read an article by a man named Dana Gioia called, "Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture." You can look at it here: http://www.poems.com/essagioi.htm
This is the article I want to talk about right now.

Gioia's statements are all based on his opinion that our society is seeing the decline of print as the primary form of communication. He supports this claim well, and it is not hard to see certain tendencies in our culture that make me want to agree. For example, I really don't think that children read any more, or at least not in the way that they once did. The accessibility of other forms of entertainment such as TV, movies, video games, music, and particularly the computer and internet, all make reading seem antiquated and boring. He listed some statistics I might question, however. After all, it's true that I probably spend a couple more hours a day looking at articles online than I do looking at an actual book - but isn't this still print? I mean, technically I could print the articles out and then read them in that way... so I'm not sure if the written communication is what is being abandoned or lost, so much as it is the physical manifestations of these texts in books, anthologies, magazines, newspapers, etc.

I also found it interesting that while Gioia believed print to be a dying media, he does not believe verse to be a dying art form. In fact, quite the opposite: verse is flourishing in non-print forms in a way that poetry hasn't seen in... well, ever. I particularly enjoyed this quote, which sort of sums it up: "From a poet's perspective, however, both the mass media and the culture critics miss the most interesting aspects of the new popular poetry, which is not the extravagant personalities of its creators or the sociological nature of its contents; rather, it is the unusual mixture of radical innovation and unorthodox traditionalism in the structure of the work itself and the modes of its performance, transmission, and reception." It surprised me to think of a poetry form like "rap" as "traditional" in any sense of the word, but as I thought more it seemed more true. Rap and spoken word poetry pick up many poetical devices that the modernists deemed unnecessary and lesser: rhyme, fixed meter, vivid sensory imagery.

It is not much of a stretch for me to think of some rap as poetry, as spoken verse. After all, as Gioia points out, "Rap has already become a major branch of commercial entertainment. It would be no exaggeration to say that rap is the only form of verse — indeed perhaps the only literary form of any kind — truly popular among American youth of all races. If there is a new generation of readers emerging in America, rap will be one of its formative experiences — just as jazz or movies were to earlier generations." Still, when I think about poetry, I'm hard-pressed to include something like 50 Cent's "In da Club"

Go, go, go, go, go, go, go shawty- ish yo birthday
we gon party like ish yo birthday
We gon sip bacardy like ish yo birthday
and u noe we dun give a f*** if that's yo birthday

and say it's in the same category as what I would consider more gifted and serious "poets" - even "popular" spoken word poets might agree. I don't really know.

In class we've now moved on to a study of spoken word poetry. Specifically last week we learned about Poetry Slams and I was introduced to this whole other subculture of poetic artists who, in my opinion, have revived poetry's original purpose and pleasure in the oral tradition.

When we think of great poetry of ancient times - the Odyssey, the Illiad, Beowulf, the Psalms, Culwyth and Olwen - little do we often realize that these poems were spoken for hundreds of years before they were ever written down. Before writing existed, people were speaking poetry. These keepers of history and legend were revered and rewarded for their great memory and delivery, and above all else for their stories.

In class this week we talked more about digital poetics and the influence of form on poetry. I feel like I’ve sort of made my case on digital poetics already, so I thought I’d do a little critique/commentary on a particular e-poem. It can be found at www.poemsthatgo.com. It is called “The Last Day of Betty Nkomo,” by Young-Hae Chang. Go watch it and then come back and read what I have to say. 

*****

Okay. If you’ve just watched/experienced/whatever-ed this poem/art/slideshow, then you are probably wondering how exactly this fits into your definition of poetry. For me, this is closer to poetry than other instances of digital poetics I’ve seen.

There is a linear quality to the poem. There are no aspects of computer interaction, nor are there images or video to accompany the poem. If you were quick enough, you could write down the words in the order they are presented and the poem could exist pretty closely to the way it does online. Though the music and speed control reading to a large extent, the poem could be written on the page and the speed of the reader controlled by spacing, something like this:

Today it’s cool in the shade.

My cheek is cool against the dirt.

Yes it is!

I will lift my head up today, then see if I can sit up.
I will lift my head today.
I will stretch my arm from the shade and set a hand in the sun.

I will look up and out the doorway now at someone passing
Will he come?
And if that someone is my son, I will smile.

I will lift my cheek from the dirt and set my hand in the sun.
I will lift my head today, or maybe tomorrow.

Don’t believe it! Ha! Ha! Ha!

The rats go in, the rats go out.
The sun goes up, the sun goes down.
The world goes ‘round, the



Of course it’s not exactly the same, but then that’s why digital poems aren’t exactly poems…

I also think this “poem” succeeds because the simplicity keeps the words in focus, and any multimedia elements that exist are very carefully added to bring more of a context to the poem. It’s almost like learning about the poet or what the poet intended when reading a poem in print. If it’s a decent poem, it’s probably not necessary to know those things, but it always makes it interesting to find it out. That’s sort of how I feel about a digital poem like this one. The music, the author’s name, the minimalist aspects of the presentation, all suggest a particular cultural setting. One can imagine a Korean village; a woman broken by age and poverty, lying in her dirt-floored home, gazing out the window into the hot sun, hoping that today will be the day her son returns. Perhaps he is at war, perhaps he is at work, perhaps he is dead. It is a powerful poem, I think, and a powerful presentation at that. I really enjoyed this “digital poetics.”

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful day, and realizes that Valentine's Day can be about any kind of love: romantic, family, friendship, or just plain human. To celebrate the day, some friends and I went and did some volunteering at a refugee resettlement program. We get love, so we give love.

Moooving on to the realm of poetry...

For our class, students get in groups for "poetry outreach programs." This basically means organizing an event that brings poetry outside of the english department and into "the world.” Last week the first group in our class had their event, a love poetry reading in honor of the upcoming Valentine’s Day. I went to be supportive (and to get some much needed personal-growth convocation credit), and strangely enough I was really spurned to think about poetry and how the average person perceives it.

The event was held in a little restaurant at our school, so people came and went, or overheard the poetry (and the less-than-subtle announcements of convo credit) and came to check it out. I think that the way the information was presented was perfect – people could pick a poem to read out of a little book the group had compiled. Interspersed within the readings were very brief biographies of some of the poets. The audience and participants were learning about poetry in a completely non-threatening manner. The compilation of poems included everything from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to the lyrics of 80’s love ballads, and I think this helped people reevaluate their definitions or assumptions about what constitutes “poetry.” As they got up to jokingly dedicate a poem to their friends, the participants were learning that poetry doesn’t have to be scary. It doesn’t have to be overanalyzed and academic – it can be fun. While I doubt anyone left with a conscious new appreciation for poetry, I’m certain that most left with one of the most positive and least threatening poetry experiences of their lives.

As I promised, a continuation of the e-poetry discussion...

My second major reason for saying that "e-poetry" is mixed media art and not just poetry is because poetry is all about words.

The gift of the poet is to create (in fewer words than a novel or an essay) with language. The entire basis of human speech is at the poet's disposal. They craft with words, be it the language of beauty and love, or death and despair, or rage and rebellion. The words themselves are enough - enough to stir emotion and passion, enough to paint a stunning visual image, enough to spark a connection, or in some cases enough to alienate and confuse.

Whatever the case, the poet has chosen his/her medium. And it is word. The problem with classifying digital poetics as true poetry is that it relies on far more than the written or spoken word. It uses images, sounds, speed, and many other aspects to influence the reading and reception of the piece. In some cases, the viewer is even forced to hunt for the words or work to "catch" them all. This to me immediately signifies a separation from the very medium, the very essence of poetry. Again, I feel that while digital poetics utilize poetry, they are not in and of themselves poems.

The digital poet has the ability to manipulate the viewer with outside aspects, and to put them in the same category as true poets is to undermine both the integrity of true poetry and the expansive creativity of these digital artists. E-poetics are a separate and unique form of art that should be recognized in its own way. While these artists use words - "poetry" if you will - their creations are not 100% poems.

One could remove the words from e-poetry and then perhaps assemble them on a page to be a poem. But doing so ruins the effectiveness of these pieces, and in fact ruins the creation of the artists. The words and pictures and sounds and interaction all combine together to form one unique work of art... but not a poem. In my opinion, that is.

Digital poetry. E-poetics. Whatever. Here's my deal.

I am not saying that these creations aren't creative, and I'm not saying that they aren't utilizing poetry. They obviously are. I would call them works of art. In fact, a visitor to a modern art museum such as Tate Modern in London would see media presentations akin to the E-poetry found all over the web. But that's just my argument - these are mixed media works of art. Not poetry.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Over the past few days, I've been viewing several websites that host so-called "e-poetry" and "digital poetics." Some of these sites are:
http://www.poemsthatgo.com
http://www.poetspath.com/exhibits/digitalvistas.html

Looking through all these "digital vistas" is really interesting. Many are interactive, where the viewer can control aspects of the program by choosing links or moving the mouse. Most use music or audio enhancements. It is fun, and I encourage you to browse these sites and decide for yourself. But this is what I think:

Poetry has always had an oral aspect. In actuality, poems were being spoken and sung long before anyone was writing anything down - Homer's Odyssey, Beowulf. And through history poetry has retained this oral element. I would go so far as to say it has never been separate. Therefore, I would call this oral aspect of poetry a defining characteristic of poetry itself. Poetry that can not be shared orally is not poetry. There, I said it.

These digital poetics lack the ability to be shared completely by mouth. I can call my friend and read her Carl Sandburg's "Fog." I can type it here and you can read it for yourself:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Now, let me try to share an instance of "e-poetics" with you. I'll write as if I'm "reading" this poem to someone. It is titled "dear e.e." You can find it at: http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/summer2001/ee/ee.htm

Well, there is a poem in it. I couldn't tell you what it is, exactly. The words go too fast for me to write them down, and I can't copy and paste from a flash video. I suppose if I watched it enough times and wrote a little each time I could get all the words down. It starts off like a letter, and the person is describing a dream where someone rearranged his/her apartment. Then it switches from gray pieces of paper to a quickly sliding scene. Letters of the alphabet fly by, fading in and out. There are drawings of a sink, a door, a refrigerator, something else... oh yeah, words pop up really quickly, I think they are part of the poem. If you hold your mouse over it they stay a little longer, but you have to keep pulling it back into your little window. If you press on "wake up" then it takes you to a bio of the artist/author. I guess that's the "end" of the dream sequence.

Now, did you get all that? And do you think it meant anything at all to my friend on the other end of the line? It's like trying to describe a work of art to someone who can't see it, and in fact that is exactly what I'm doing. To read a poem, to absorb it, you don't need to see anything. (I know there are some poems where viewing the shape on the page is important. Okay.) It is my opinion that these e-poems are not poems at all, but works of mixed media art combining graphic design with poetry. Using poetry, but not poetry in and of itself.

More on this later.

This entry is adapted from a paper I wrote for class. It is an informal discussion of how a poem's technical elements advance the meaning.

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Holy Sonnet 14
-John Donne-

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit You, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love You, and would be lovèd fain,
But am betrothed unto Your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.


This sonnet by John Donne is one of my favorite poems. I love the way in which he takes a common subject – a person’s relationship to God – and sets it apart with powerful words and unique images. Rather than discuss the way this poem affects me when I read it from a personal/spiritual standpoint, I hope to show that the technical elements of the poem are equally important in successfully conveying that spiritual meaning.

We can first examine the “pre-critical mass” of the poem – that is, everything that is noticeable without delving into analysis. First, the title tells us that we are reading a sonnet, and the poem’s form agrees. The type of sonnet is debatable. The rhyme scheme does not exactly match that of an English or Italian sonnet. The first eight lines suggest Italian: ABBA ABBA. The next six lines are more typical of an English sonnet, particularly in the inclusion of a final couplet: CDCDEE. It is iambic pentameter, although not all lines are exactly ten syllables. (Sometimes it is difficult to judge with older language – my pronunciation may be incorrect.)

The poem would probably be classified under lyric poetry, due to the nature of its content and the identities of the speaker and addressee. The poem is “primarily about a subject and contains little narrative content… [and] the persona…is closely identified with the poet himself” (Gwynn 9). We know Donne was a great preacher, and thus the subject matter of this poem would likely make Donne the speaker. The poem is not about a certain time or place, but an idea –the speaker knows he is in desperate need of God’s intervention. Lastly, the poem is addressed to God, and speaks so directly to Him that it is much like a prayer.

Another immediately noticeable aspect of the poem is its use of verbs over adjectives. Unlike other poems full of flowering language, Donne constructs lists of active verbs: batter, knock, breathe, shine, seek, mend, rise, stand, overthrow, bend, break, blow, burn, make, labor, love, divorce, untie, imprison, enthrall, ravish. There is also an evident repeated inclusion of the pronouns “You,” “me,” and “I.” Only two lines do not include these subjects, and eight lines include them more than once.

Now we can move on to a technical analysis of the poem’s language, including word choice, figurative language, and symbolism. Examining these aspects of the poem suggest the creative construction Donne used to convey his message.

One of the most stunning aspects of “Holy Sonnet 14” is its use of sound-words. Using onomatopoeia, Donne chooses words that have an auditory significance to the reader. Words like “batter,” “blow,” and “break” are pronounced with sounds similar to the actions they dictate: the crackling strike of BATTer, the forceful thud of BLow, or the crisp snap of “breaK.” Other words have a gentler sound; for example, the passing of air out of the lungs as one says the word “breathe.” The poet employs alliteration, particularly with the “b” sound: batter, breathe, bend, break, blow, burn, betrothed, break. He also uses a variety of vowel sounds in quick succession: knOck, brEAthe, shIne, sEEk, blOw, bUrn. These sounds interact to make the reading experience rough and intense – each word stands out individually as a significant action of either God or the speaker. The implication is that God’s actions to change a man’s heart are neither easy nor comfortable – they are powerful and sometimes very forceful, but with great result.

The poem is not as full as figurative language as one might imagine. There is one simile, in which Donne the speaker compares himself to a town that has been seized by an enemy. The idea of being held prisoner by the enemy runs throughout the poem in a sort of extended implied metaphor: the speaker is “betrothed unto [God’s] enemy” and thus God must break in and seize the speaker for His own. Other “military” words reinforce this idea: “defend,” “captived,” “o’erthrow.”

Donne uses personification in only one specific instance, calling Reason God’s “viceroy in me.” A viceroy is one who serves as a leader of a colony on a sovereign’s behalf. In other words, Donne is saying that our human reason is a servant of God in us. Unfortunately, Donne’s reason is like a viceroy who has failed his sovereign by being captured by the enemy: it is “weak or untrue.” Again, this use of personification links back to Donne’s overarching method of comparing himself - his inability to do God’s will - like a town that has been seized by an enemy. Donne was apparently the master of this literary technique of comparing two unlike ideas, known as "metaphysical conceit."

Lastly, Donne employs two recognizable Christian symbolic ideas within his poem. The first is the image of God knocking at the door of a person’s heart and waiting for admittance. It is directly from scripture, when Jesus says, “Behold! I stand at the door and knock.” Donne the speaker takes the image a step further: he begs God to break in, because he is too weak to open the door on his own. Secondly, Donne in the last two lines applies the Christian idea that true freedom comes from being “captive” to Christ. Though the words seem to be contradictory – how can one be free if he is imprisoned? – a Christian reading the poem would understand clearly that being God’s servant provides the greatest freedom of all.

All of the technical aspects of Donne’s poem – the form, the rhyme scheme, the diction choices, the symbolism – combine to create a highly successful piece of literary genius. One could certainly read this poem and be overwhelmed by the content alone – it is a dramatic and surprising confession of human inadequacy before God. Nevertheless, having an understanding of the poem’s technical aspects merely enhances and supports the themes of the piece. The rough words and military imagery reveal even more dramatically the force needed for God to truly rescue humanity.

This past week we began to talk in class about the matter of poetry - in particular the formal elements of a poem's construction. It is challenging for me to talk about poetry in such academic terms, because it sort of sucks the enjoyment out of reading poems for the sake of poems.

However, on Monday for the first time I was challenged to consider how a poem's meaning was enhanced by its form. My group read a "Sonnet 73" by Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote the sonnet according to appropriate sonnet form of 14 lines, with a specified rhyme scheme, in iambic pentameter. At first, it seemed to me that such strict gridlines left little room to creatively employ the sonnet's structure in the poem's message, but I was obviously wrong. The speaker's attitude towards death - calm, resolved yet sad, at peace - was reflected in the poem's form. A reader is guided slowly and methodically through the words, learning gently and calmly that the speaker's death was near. There is no rushing in the even rhythm of rhyme, no uncontrolled emotional outpouring. It is simple, sad, bittersweet, peaceful.

And now for something completely different.

Recently (due to my ever-approaching honors thesis) I have been pondering the struggle of defining literature as "good" and "bad," or more appropriately "high" and "low." Though my focus will be primarily on prose, I suppose the same struggles exist in the realm of poetry - perhaps even more so. Poetry often seems so personal that to judge or critique is deemed inappropriate. Of course, this is not the case - bad poetry certainly does exist and should be weeded out... or kept in a person's private journal.

I suppose then my problem is with the seperation of high and low. It seems that many post-modern poets have bought into the stereotype of the tortured artist, and so has the academic reader. If it's not sad, tragic, dark, convuluted, disturbing, rebellious, or angry, then not only is it bad poetry, but it is low poetry. Anything joyous or humorous or simplistic is relegated to the pages of the latest "Chicken Soup for the Soul." I don't really think that this is right.

I'll muse some more on this subject another time.

Hello readers. This is my first post. My name is Amy. I am an English major with a writing minor who will be graduating next December, at which time I hope to get married and land a fantastic job at a publishing company. We shall see...

This blog is for my class "Does Poetry Matter." I believe it does, definitely. Of course, this doesn't mean I have to like it all! Some of my favorite poetry comes in the form of song lyrics. I love when writers are clever with their words and phrases.

More to come soon!