Of Politics, & Art

Of Politics, & Art

 --for Allen

Here, on the farthest point of the peninsula
The winter storm
Off the Atlantic shook the schoolhouse.
Mrs. Whitimore, dying
Of tuberculosis, said it would be after dark
Before the snowplow and bus would reach us.

She read to us from Melville.

How in an almost calamitous moment
Of sea hunting
Some men in an open boat suddenly found themselves
At the still and protected center
Of a great herd of whales
Where all the females floated on their sides
While their young nursed there. The cold frightened whalers
Just stared into what they allowed
Was the ecstatic lapidary pond of a nursing cow's
One visible eyeball.
And they were at peace with themselves.

Today I listened to a woman say
That Melville might
Be taught in the next decade. Another woman asked, “And why not?”
The first responded, “Because there are
No women in his one novel.”

And Mrs. Whitimore was now reading from the Psalms.
Coughing into her handkerchief. Snow above the windows.
There was a blue light on her face, breasts and arms.
Sometimes a whole civilization can be dying
Peacefully in one young woman, in a small heated room
With thirty children
Rapt, confident and listening to the pure

God rendering voice of a storm.

I believe this poem reflects the views of the narrator reminiscing his childhood. He remembers his teacher, who was dying for tuberculosis, reading his class stories, particularly Moby Dick.  The narrator sees the cycle of life happening with his teacher dying and her teaching the next generation. The title of the poem suggests the combat between politics and art.  That one day future generations will not know art because it has been taken over by politics.  The narrator gives an example of Moby Dick and how it may become an unknown story because there are no women in this story.  The narrator becomes saddened by the idea that children will miss out on some of the greatest works of art because of politics.  I feel that the author has made this poem a warning.  If we let politics get in the way of art, we are depriving future generations from its beauty.  He suggests that depriving them of art opposing political views can destroy the world, like a winter storm. 

I feel the author is trying to make you imagine a scene of children listening to their school teacher, in amazement by the story she is telling.  But, changes the tone of the poem when he switches gears into sadness that we may one day live in the unknown of art ruined by politics.  I think this poem could be considered an elegy to non-politcal art, not a particular person. Like I said earlier, it could one day be nonexistent.  As the teacher is dying, so is the art.  I believe this poem might also be taken as a narrative.  It is telling a story within a story, but more importantly, it is telling a story of a beautiful art fading in our existents.  

There are a few assonances in this poem. Examples are, store, snow, moment, before, open, boat... The O sound is repeated a lot throughout the poem.  Another example of this is at the end of the poem: light, civilization, in, listening... The author does a good job of using assonance throughout his poem. 

James Dickey

James Dickey 

on February 2, 1923, James Dickey was born in Buckhead, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. He started liking poetry because of his father, who would read him famous speeches.  He enlisted to the airforce and in his spare time he would read work by Conrad Aikin.  He had a taste for apocalyptic poems.  He had many jobs as a writer, but wasn't first published until 1960, Into The Stone, And Other Poems. 
Dickey's poem tend to address humanity and violence by presenting the instincts of humans and animals as opposing to the false safety of civilization.

The Firebombing

Home-owners unite.

All Families lie togther, though some are burned alive.
The others try to feel
For them. Some can, it is often said.

Starve and take off

Twenty years in the suburbs, and the palm trees willingly leap
Into the flashlights,
And there is beneath them also
A booted crackling of snailshells and coral-sticks.
There are cowl flaps and the tilt cross of propellers,

Then shovel-marked clouds’ far sides against the moon,
The enemy filling up the hills
With ceremonial graves. At my somewhere among these,

Snap, a bulb is tricked on in the cockpit
And some technical-minded stranger with my hands
Is sitting in a glass treasure-hole of blue light,
Having potential fire under the undeodorized arms
Of his wings, on thin bomb shackles,
The “tear-drop-shaped” 300-gallon drop-tanks

I believe that this poem is talking about his times as a pilot in the Air force.  He is describing people dying, bombs, and  graves.  At first I thought it might be a peaceful poem, but it goes into more and more detail about what he is exactly talking about.  I think he may have had some really hard times while in war, and this was one way to let those emotions go and let the world know how he felt.
It is poems like these that show Dickey's strong visual and descriptive poetry and poetic style deviated from other great writers. "His poetry is confessional, largely apolitical, and directly focused on the interactions of people with the natural as well as the technologically transformed modern world" (Rupperburg).

Ruppersburg, Hugh. "New Georgia Encyclopedia: James Dickey (1923-1997)." New Georgia Encyclopedia: James Dickey (1923-1997). University of Georgia, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.

immortality

Couplet- is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter. (Wikipedia) 

Immortality

BY LEIGH STEIN

At the gym, they told me I would not die,

I would only get sexier, and I believed them.

I spent my nights wondering if this was going to turn

into something long-term, if this was what is meant by casual,

or if this was just my annual catastrophic disappointment

because if it wasn’t, then I would have to brace

myself. I took my medication and looked at pictures

of people who were not in love with me. I deleted

their names from my cache, said hello to my cat

over the phone, took more medication. Days

passed. I learned it’s hard to measure your own increasing

sexiness. I enlisted bystanders. I passed mirrors

and pretended they were not mirrors, but clean

windows, and I was not myself, I was

a clean stranger. Some days I was sure

she wanted to come home with me, and

I had to let her down easy, through the window,

like a priest. Once I’d been unleashed

from thoughts of my own death I was free

to be loved in the way I always knew I’d deserved:

reciprocally, in Fiji, our bodies lithe and bronzed

like gods, but at the same time I felt like a vampire,

and none of my friends could relate. They were jealous

of my book deal, my time spent at the ashram

while they were here, suffering another winter,

their unsexiness a flourescent sign that blinks all night.

This poem is in a couplet formation because of each stanza consisting of two lines.  Of those two lines, they rhyme and have the same meter. These are the characteristics of couplet poem.  In the stanza "I had to let her down easy, through the window, like a priest. Once i'd been unleashed..." there is a more obvious rhyme than other stanzas.  Priest and unleashed are what rhyme in that stanza. 

This was a confusing poem for me.  I reread it lots of time to try to figure out what exactly is going on here.  From my perspective, I think she might be famous and has changed her look so she does not know who she is anymore.  It is a brilliant poem I think because we get to see the perspective of the woman after she changed into somethings she is not.  We see her pain and her craziness by how much she takes her pills. The thing that I am confused about is when she says "our bodies", is she still talking about this other woman or her friends. I think that there are many ways you could examine this poem and this was the way in which I pictured this poem.

"Couplet." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.

Dilemma

BY ANTHONY HECHT

“Dark and amusing he is, this handsome gallant,

           Of chamois-polished charm,

Athlete and dancer of uncommon talent—

           Is there cause for alarm

In his smooth demeanor, the proud tilt of his chin,

           This cavaliere servente, this Harlequin?

“Gentle and kindly this other, ardent but shy,

           With an intelligence

Who would not glory to be guided by—

           And would it not make sense

To trust in someone so devoted, so

           Worshipful as this tender, pale Pierrot?

“Since both of them delight, if I must choose

           I win a matchless mate,

But by that very winning choice I lose—

           I pause, I hesitate,

Putting decision off,” says Columbine,

“And while I hesitate, they both are mine.”

This poem really intrigued me because I have been in this situation.  Almost the exact situation.  I can relate to the author because I remember being very happy having two guys wanting to call me their own.  Of course, I had to choose one because it was somewhat cruel to leave them both miserable.  That is why I see this poem as being a bit cruel.  At the time, I did not see it as a mean thing, but the way the author ends the poem makes it sound like she has a lot of control over these boys.

The speaker of the poem is a girl who has two boyfriends and cannot choose between them. I think the girl in the poem should be characterized as a manipulative girl.  She is playing these boys and does not seem to care about their feelings. "And while I hesitate, they are both mine," is an example of how the speaker is one thinking about herself and not the poor boys.I can relate to her how it is nice having the attention of two guys, but I knew I had to choose because I knew how I would feel in that situation.  She seems like she will be taking her time while deciding.  I do not think that this is a narrative poem because it is not specifically telling a story, it is saying a girls thoughts.  A narrative poem would more be like her telling how she likes one boy than ran into another boy and starts liking the him, than they fight over her in a death match...

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop

February 8, 1911 - October 6, 1979

Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. She was an only child who's father died when she was just eight months old and her mother became ill and institutionalized in 1916.  She was a well respected American poet and short story teller. She was awarded many honors for her astounding compositions.When writing Bishop tried to stay away from her person life and concentrate mainly on her impression of the psychical world.  Her poems are seemingly true to life and reflect her wit and intelligence. 

ONE ART

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.



There were a few reasons why this poem stood out to me.  The main thing that stood out to me was her use and repetition of "the art of losing isn't hard to master." The repetition of this line reinforces the importance of it and the reader can gain a deeper understanding.  I believe this poem is meant to be about a woman trying to convince herself that losing something is not a big deal; it's so easy to master anyone can lose something. The things that the woman keeps losing increases in value, till at the end, when it seems she has even lost the ending.  If you compare everything she has lost, like a key to a lover, she makes it seem that the lose of every item "is no disaster".  Until the final line when it appears she is putting on a mask, trying to convince everyone, including herself, losing a lover is not a huge deal. She may have increased the value of things she has lost to show when the woman finally losses something very dear to her, it is nothing but another lose.  Elizabeth picks a topic that is relatable to everyone's lives.  Bishop is trying to suggest that some things are made to be lost, and therefore losing them may not be a big deal, when in reality it may be. 

The Girl

The Girl

The tree has entered my hands, 
The sap has ascended my arms, 
The tree has grown in my breast- 
Downward, 
The branches grow out of me, like arms. 

Tree you are, 
Moss you are, 
You are violets with wind above them. 
A child - so high - you are, 
And all this is folly to the world.

By: Ezra Pound


When I read this poem I thought that I could easily understand the message behind it.  The title helped especially. I believe that it is talking about a young child who is growing into a women. Ezra is comparing the women growing to a tree growing.  In a lot of ways they do grow the same.  When trees or women grow they attract more attention like the girl is when she starts to mature in this poem. My response to this poem would be one of agreeing.  A woman does hit a point where she matures and grows into a gracious lady. When I read this poem I felt relaxed and ease.  I pictured myself looking in a meadow maybe with a young girl growing.  

This tree somewhat reminds me of the poem. I say somewhat because I do not see them growing together when I read the poem, but I see them make the same changes of growing. A picture says a thousands words and some of those words might be relayed back to this poem.