I much prefer the dark, moody wit of Larkin. In fact, I prefer the dark, moody wit of most anyone, granted they do it right. I believe this side of his personality saves him from being too religious and transcendent for me. Poets seem to think that they must all be looking up for a greater meaning to life and the things around them. Sometimes there is no greater meaning, sometimes things just are.
I love the way that Larkin is able to balance this duality in his work, because along with the aforementioned comments, I do think that some loftier ideas hold merit in a poetical setting, and at times are required, but they should not take over the piece. Great art is created through one's self, by connecting the self to the larger framework of the human condition (which includes matters of the mind, body, and soul) and interpreting that connection and experience in a beautiful way for others to experience as well.
Larkin succeeds in this endeavor. And by saying I prefer the dark, moody wit is not saying I hate the other, but rather, I feel as though this plight is more important and necessary. Without it, he would seem unreachable, airy, and unrelatable. With it, he seems human, but the other is still necessary. Otherwise, what would he have to contrast when he says "Death is no different whined at than withstood." from Aubade, if he didn't first introduce the terrifying fact of death. He first contemplates what death means, going through the religious and scientific aspects, the unknowing foreverness of it, and then dismisses all of this by essentially saying, "Well, it's going to happen anyways, to everyone, so might as well go one with my day." "Work has to be done." he says near the end of the poem.
This presentation of contemplating bigger than yourself concepts, only to push them away for matters of the here and now. The first was death vs. my life now, but Larkin also concerns himself with other issues such as love vs. how marriages really are, represented in his poem "Talking in Bed" (one of my favorites). The romantic side of him thinks that "talking in bed ought to be easiest", but the realistic side of him knows that this is not so. The transcendentalist side of him symbolically likens the turbulent state of their marriage to "the wind's incomplete unrest", but then he dismisses this notion with a simple "None of this cares for us." The last few lines represent his voice best, his "if it's this then it can't be the other" (even though he manages to simultaneously invoke feeling for both sides), by stating "It becomes still more difficult to find/ Words at once true and kind,/ Or not untrue and not unkind."
Brilliant.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
O'Hara's "Fantasy"
I have to say that, besides Ginsberg, O'Hara has been one of my favorite poets we have read thus far this semester. That's why I found it fitting that the poem I liked most from O'Hara was dedicated to the health of Allen Ginsberg- "Fantasy."
The thing I love about this poem is the nonsensical tone of it. The title implies a fantasy, which usually means the wish of something fantastical, but this is more idle, irrelevant musings. "The main thing is to tell a story." he says in a line near the middle of the poem. Is it? What story then is O'Hara telling us now?
I believe he is telling us several. He jumps from one line to the next, seemingly with no apparant transition or reasoning. But read it again. As much as it is stream of consciousness, it is almost possible to wade through the stream, to see just along the bend and discover where you are heading, while still being able to look behind you and admire how long you've come.
O'Hara ends his collection, "Lunch Poems", with this poem, which is fitting if you follow the analogy I just laid out for you. He is essentially describing the whole process with which he creates his art. Musings, leading to real world observations (Musical thoughts interrupted by a window slamming on his hand), leading to wonderful interjected lines of no merit, yet they stand alone as quotable gems that strengthen to poem as a whole ("What dreams, what incredible/ fantasies of snow farts will this all lead to?"), leading to a dismissal of the poem as a whole ("I/ don't know, I have stopped thinking like a sled dog."), leading to his point- the whole point of his art- the story, leading to an explanation (finally! one may think) of why he waits so long to get to the point ("Imagine/ throwing away the avalanche/ so early in the movie."). There would be no suspense, no point in reading further, if you knew right away that so-and-so died and this is a tribute to them. He might as well write eulogies for the paper.
No, this is about O'Hara's connection to the world, and if that is able to turn into a universal emotional reaction, so be it. But O'Hara concerns his art with his life, and the lives of those around him, and how those lives affect his. He is an observational poet, but it is these observations, and the way that he presents them, that are so wonderful. These are what make him an artist, "Just free, that's all..."
The thing I love about this poem is the nonsensical tone of it. The title implies a fantasy, which usually means the wish of something fantastical, but this is more idle, irrelevant musings. "The main thing is to tell a story." he says in a line near the middle of the poem. Is it? What story then is O'Hara telling us now?
I believe he is telling us several. He jumps from one line to the next, seemingly with no apparant transition or reasoning. But read it again. As much as it is stream of consciousness, it is almost possible to wade through the stream, to see just along the bend and discover where you are heading, while still being able to look behind you and admire how long you've come.
O'Hara ends his collection, "Lunch Poems", with this poem, which is fitting if you follow the analogy I just laid out for you. He is essentially describing the whole process with which he creates his art. Musings, leading to real world observations (Musical thoughts interrupted by a window slamming on his hand), leading to wonderful interjected lines of no merit, yet they stand alone as quotable gems that strengthen to poem as a whole ("What dreams, what incredible/ fantasies of snow farts will this all lead to?"), leading to a dismissal of the poem as a whole ("I/ don't know, I have stopped thinking like a sled dog."), leading to his point- the whole point of his art- the story, leading to an explanation (finally! one may think) of why he waits so long to get to the point ("Imagine/ throwing away the avalanche/ so early in the movie."). There would be no suspense, no point in reading further, if you knew right away that so-and-so died and this is a tribute to them. He might as well write eulogies for the paper.
No, this is about O'Hara's connection to the world, and if that is able to turn into a universal emotional reaction, so be it. But O'Hara concerns his art with his life, and the lives of those around him, and how those lives affect his. He is an observational poet, but it is these observations, and the way that he presents them, that are so wonderful. These are what make him an artist, "Just free, that's all..."
Larry Rivers "Double Portrait of Berdie" (1955)
When searching through the selected artists, I was struck by Larry Rivers' style. It is at once realistic and impressionistic, emotional and cold, observational and intimate. I chose this painting in particular, which embodies all of those things and more, for how it could influence someone of the New York school of poets and their specific style and mindset.
The woman is depicted in two places at the same time. She is here and there, yet still contained in the single scene of the bedroom. This implies the passage of time, however not a great passage has occurred. The lighting in the bedroom has remained the same, and she is still unclothed. This reminds me of the works of O'Hara, his "take a walk with me, experience this small moment with me" type of writing. Here, we are experiencing this brief moment in the life of Berdie, within her room, within her time. She is inviting the viewer in (by the eye contact on the left), and is, in the same moment, contemplative (by looking out of presumably a window on the right). This encompasses the NY school of thought that poetry can capture a personal moment, share that moment with someone else through art, and in turn become a universal experience of life.
Everything is art. That floral bedspread is just as much a piece of art as Berdie. Art is everything. There should be no distinguishing between one thing being more important, or artistic, than anything else. In that sense, Larry Rivers has treated everything in the room equally. It is all subject to both bouts of extreme realism, and smudged impressions of what was, or ought to be. It is fleeting, and you have to capture what you can when you can, and hope that what you were able to is enough to convey your message. This painting's message seems to be a mirror image of the raw beauty and realistic, kinetic observation of the human condition that was seen in the poetry of this time.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sylvia Plath's "Wintering"
All of these "bee poems" gave me quite a headache upon first reading. And not just for the in-depth interpretation; the simple surface reading caused confusion, and I found myself re-reading passages again and again to try to understand where Plath's mind was at, or rather where she wanted mine to be at when I read these works.
The second and third readings of the poems made life a little easier. I began to look past the superficial interpretation and metaphors and try to understand more deeply what Plath was actually writing about. In her poem "Wintering", which is about the process of wintering a hive (i.e. making it ready for winter) started to unfold before me as an analogy for her dying marriage and family.
The poem begins with, "This is the easy time, there is nothing doing." This starts off the poem (and from now on, I will be using the metaphor of wintering a hive to actually refer to Plath's marriage/family) with the idea that she has excepted that her marriage is dying, that he has cheated on her, that this is something she needs to put away and forget for a while. It's the "easy time", the time of acceptance. She has gotten what she can out of the marriage and accepts that it will be no more. "The midwife's extractor" to extract "my honey." Those are the good time of her marriage with Hughes, and no she must assign them to the basement, the back of her mind.
"Wintering in a dark without window/At the heart of the house" literally refers to the cellar, but in this interpretation are the dark depths of her memories, her mind. "The last tenant's rancid jam/And the bottles of empty glitters--" could refer to other lost loves, or hopes, or dreams that have wasted away. Although I said this was a poem of acceptance, it is not without her usual currents of depression. Think of acceptance as another way of saying "giving up."
The room she has "never been in", the room she "could never breathe in" indicates her suspicions of her mind. She knows that she has problems, and every once in a while the light from a faint torch may illuminate things, but she would rather put it "out of sight and out of mind." The only time she acknowledges the dark corners of her psyche is through her poetry, which is often difficult to navigate through, and would need much more than a torch to light the way.
The "black asininity" is probably a direct reference to Hughes, and his "asinine" affair which brought her world down around her. "Decay" of the marriage, but "possession" of responsibilities. She knows that even though she wants to just give up and die, "It is they who own me" refers to her children, and she knows that she owes them something. That her husband failed and she must try, even though they are the last thing that she wants to confront.
They are "ignorant" of what is going on around her, to her. The "bees", as in all the bee poems, refer to her children. "This is the time of hanging on for the bees..." At the time this poem was written, shortly after the affair was found out, the children were very young. She likens them to bees, that don't necessarily know their owner or who fees them (and she they- "So slow I hardly know them"), they just "File like soldiers/To the syrup tin." She knows that she is depriving them of motherly affection ("the honey I've taken"), and instead whittles down her responsibilities to her children in this wintering of her life by simply making sure they are fed. "Tate and Lyle keeps them going," which refers to a generic food brand popular at this time. They live on this, instead of their mother's "flowers."
The next stanza was a bit harder to interpret. This could be referring to the idea of "angry bees buzzing in your head" and not allowing you to think. "Mind against all that white." It's as if she's confused, and can't think straight about her future, and instead would like to "blank out" her mind and almost ignore it. (Meissen apparently refers to porcelain, which just emphasizes the purity of the white snow, the appeal of it.)
"On warm days/They can only carry their dead." The dead ideals? When you finally clear out your mind and get rid of the unnecessary? "The bees are all women... They have got rid of the men." She is now essentially swearing off men because of Hughes, which she refers to them all as "blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors." The women are the intelligent, the strong, the ones who suffer through the wintering and survive. But is it survival? Or is it giving up? Is it the numbness of the hurt which caused you to be "too dumb to think."?
The hive is now the mind, body, and soul... the family. Will it survive? Will she survive this wintering in order to "enter another year?" She's not sure... but "the bees are flying./They taste the spring." In this sense these bees could either be her children, too young to know the ordeals of the past, and able to and willing to face the future, or her thoughts... her thoughts could finally be resurfacing from the cold dark depths and looking towards a new beginning.
The second and third readings of the poems made life a little easier. I began to look past the superficial interpretation and metaphors and try to understand more deeply what Plath was actually writing about. In her poem "Wintering", which is about the process of wintering a hive (i.e. making it ready for winter) started to unfold before me as an analogy for her dying marriage and family.
The poem begins with, "This is the easy time, there is nothing doing." This starts off the poem (and from now on, I will be using the metaphor of wintering a hive to actually refer to Plath's marriage/family) with the idea that she has excepted that her marriage is dying, that he has cheated on her, that this is something she needs to put away and forget for a while. It's the "easy time", the time of acceptance. She has gotten what she can out of the marriage and accepts that it will be no more. "The midwife's extractor" to extract "my honey." Those are the good time of her marriage with Hughes, and no she must assign them to the basement, the back of her mind.
"Wintering in a dark without window/At the heart of the house" literally refers to the cellar, but in this interpretation are the dark depths of her memories, her mind. "The last tenant's rancid jam/And the bottles of empty glitters--" could refer to other lost loves, or hopes, or dreams that have wasted away. Although I said this was a poem of acceptance, it is not without her usual currents of depression. Think of acceptance as another way of saying "giving up."
The room she has "never been in", the room she "could never breathe in" indicates her suspicions of her mind. She knows that she has problems, and every once in a while the light from a faint torch may illuminate things, but she would rather put it "out of sight and out of mind." The only time she acknowledges the dark corners of her psyche is through her poetry, which is often difficult to navigate through, and would need much more than a torch to light the way.
The "black asininity" is probably a direct reference to Hughes, and his "asinine" affair which brought her world down around her. "Decay" of the marriage, but "possession" of responsibilities. She knows that even though she wants to just give up and die, "It is they who own me" refers to her children, and she knows that she owes them something. That her husband failed and she must try, even though they are the last thing that she wants to confront.
They are "ignorant" of what is going on around her, to her. The "bees", as in all the bee poems, refer to her children. "This is the time of hanging on for the bees..." At the time this poem was written, shortly after the affair was found out, the children were very young. She likens them to bees, that don't necessarily know their owner or who fees them (and she they- "So slow I hardly know them"), they just "File like soldiers/To the syrup tin." She knows that she is depriving them of motherly affection ("the honey I've taken"), and instead whittles down her responsibilities to her children in this wintering of her life by simply making sure they are fed. "Tate and Lyle keeps them going," which refers to a generic food brand popular at this time. They live on this, instead of their mother's "flowers."
The next stanza was a bit harder to interpret. This could be referring to the idea of "angry bees buzzing in your head" and not allowing you to think. "Mind against all that white." It's as if she's confused, and can't think straight about her future, and instead would like to "blank out" her mind and almost ignore it. (Meissen apparently refers to porcelain, which just emphasizes the purity of the white snow, the appeal of it.)
"On warm days/They can only carry their dead." The dead ideals? When you finally clear out your mind and get rid of the unnecessary? "The bees are all women... They have got rid of the men." She is now essentially swearing off men because of Hughes, which she refers to them all as "blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors." The women are the intelligent, the strong, the ones who suffer through the wintering and survive. But is it survival? Or is it giving up? Is it the numbness of the hurt which caused you to be "too dumb to think."?
The hive is now the mind, body, and soul... the family. Will it survive? Will she survive this wintering in order to "enter another year?" She's not sure... but "the bees are flying./They taste the spring." In this sense these bees could either be her children, too young to know the ordeals of the past, and able to and willing to face the future, or her thoughts... her thoughts could finally be resurfacing from the cold dark depths and looking towards a new beginning.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Howl
I'm going against the grain and try to decipher what Allen Ginsberg meant by "comic realism" in regards to his piece, "Howl." Nothing about the majority of the poem strikes me as necessarily funny, at least not "ha-ha funny" (there are a few lines). However, after finding an excerpt online from the 50th anniversary edition of "Howl" (excerpt here) I had more of an idea of what he was after. Ginsberg states that he changed the first line to read "hysterical" instead of the original "mystical" in order to set the tone of the piece from the beginning. The word hysterical to me conjures up an image of not funny, although it is a relative synonym, but rather, a crazed, f-it, let's enjoy the ride, actual hysteria that these "angel-headed hipsters" were experiencing. By introducing this word in the first line, Ginsberg invites the reader (or listener) to open his or her mind and accept the nonsensical, strangely but brilliantly worded, hyperbolic, oximoronic lines to follow.
There is a dark humor present in "Howl." These are the "best minds" of Ginsberg's generation, yet they are drug addicted, homosexual (invited or not), hallucinating, starved, and not at all recognized or appreciated by the majority. Every one of them is in an often futile attempt to seek enlightenment, acceptance, love, yet constantly find themselves doing things that are contradictory to that effort. It's a sad "funny" little thing, that these people try so hard to be accepted by the ones they hate (universities, government, etc.), and their gifted minds are wasting away due to drugs, poverty, and starvation. The gritty realism presented in "Howl" emphasizes just how far out of reach these minds really are, yet how in touch Ginsberg, through "Howl", allows us to be with them. I love the quote in the provided excerpt by Gregory Corso that states, "If you have a choice of two things and can't decide, take both." "Howl" is an all-encompassing metaphor for how wonderful and terrible the life of these poets, artists, and the entire beat-generation actually was. They had it all, yet had nothing. They lived life to the fullest, yet lacked. They were a united force, yet suffered from loneliness and exile. They were brilliant, yet mad.
The ironic, and probably the funniest part of "Howl" to me, is that we, along with countless others, are studying and reading and dissecting this poem in an academic setting. The comic realism of the piece transcends the actual text through the obscenity trial that occurred and actually catapulted the popularity of such an under-appreciated section of the population at that time. Even though the stark realistic language of "Howl" represents actual events and persons, it is sometimes difficult to look at it in that light- as an account of true events that led to the creation of an iconic poem, which succeeds in being beautiful through the use of ugly and disturbing language.
To answer the question of how this so-called "humor" adds or detracts to the piece, I have to say it adds to it. Ginsberg is accepting that his generation is messed up, but even being as far in the gutter as they are, they still have something to give, something to add to society. There's an acceptance in the humor, that without it, it would read more as a plea for forgiveness or even a confession; but Ginsberg isn't sorry for his generation or for his involvement in it. This is his way of saying, "Yeah, we f-ed it up, but we learned along the way. And we are all in this together, no matter how alone we feel. We can learn something from this, or we don't. Either way, we can laugh about it later, because that's life."
There is a dark humor present in "Howl." These are the "best minds" of Ginsberg's generation, yet they are drug addicted, homosexual (invited or not), hallucinating, starved, and not at all recognized or appreciated by the majority. Every one of them is in an often futile attempt to seek enlightenment, acceptance, love, yet constantly find themselves doing things that are contradictory to that effort. It's a sad "funny" little thing, that these people try so hard to be accepted by the ones they hate (universities, government, etc.), and their gifted minds are wasting away due to drugs, poverty, and starvation. The gritty realism presented in "Howl" emphasizes just how far out of reach these minds really are, yet how in touch Ginsberg, through "Howl", allows us to be with them. I love the quote in the provided excerpt by Gregory Corso that states, "If you have a choice of two things and can't decide, take both." "Howl" is an all-encompassing metaphor for how wonderful and terrible the life of these poets, artists, and the entire beat-generation actually was. They had it all, yet had nothing. They lived life to the fullest, yet lacked. They were a united force, yet suffered from loneliness and exile. They were brilliant, yet mad.
The ironic, and probably the funniest part of "Howl" to me, is that we, along with countless others, are studying and reading and dissecting this poem in an academic setting. The comic realism of the piece transcends the actual text through the obscenity trial that occurred and actually catapulted the popularity of such an under-appreciated section of the population at that time. Even though the stark realistic language of "Howl" represents actual events and persons, it is sometimes difficult to look at it in that light- as an account of true events that led to the creation of an iconic poem, which succeeds in being beautiful through the use of ugly and disturbing language.
To answer the question of how this so-called "humor" adds or detracts to the piece, I have to say it adds to it. Ginsberg is accepting that his generation is messed up, but even being as far in the gutter as they are, they still have something to give, something to add to society. There's an acceptance in the humor, that without it, it would read more as a plea for forgiveness or even a confession; but Ginsberg isn't sorry for his generation or for his involvement in it. This is his way of saying, "Yeah, we f-ed it up, but we learned along the way. And we are all in this together, no matter how alone we feel. We can learn something from this, or we don't. Either way, we can laugh about it later, because that's life."
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