Sunday, July 20, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Why I hate poetry
I have always insisted on the fact that I hate poetry. There is just so much bad poetry out there. A lot of it falls into two categories: 1)masturbation for the poet. Look at how I use words in ways they aren't really meant to be used. Look at how adept I am at manipulating language. LOOK AT ME. 2)Tragically embarrasing journal entry poetry. "I'm so sad, I miss my mommy, the water is blue and the sky carries the birds away, like it carried away you" crap. Argh. When I read it my skin crawls with shame. It's just unbelievably uncomfortable.
In spite of that, there are poets who are important. They make history, they claim history, their words infuse themselves into our consciousness whether we know it or not. That is what I really want to write about. I want to give examples here of poetry that is important. Poetry that exemplifies how literature and history work together, and how that ultimately changes the world. In its own quiet, but none-the-less important way.
The first is the most obvious. It is with a sense of bitter irony that I call the next two poets American icons. These poets are a part of us now and they continue to affect the world of literature and therefor history. Here goes:
[by the way, this is copywrited material. Do yourself a favor and go buy some books today.]
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
On the one hand I think this poem should be the National Anthem. On the other hand I think to do that would be to incorporate something that doesn't belong to the nation. Regardless, this poem is the perfect example of poetry and history being related to each other (sometimes by blood even). Incidentally, I once saw Maya Angelou live, and she read this poem. I cried like a baby. This poem...ah, heavy sigh at what this poem does.
And Maya's predecessor:
Langston Hughes lit the world on fire. His poetry is on the one hand critical of the historical moment in which it was written, and on the other hand it is history itself. I often fantasize about drinking with Langston Hughes. I would hold his hand (if he would let me). If I was a good writer at all, I would love to embark on a series of poems written with the premise of Langston Hughes comes to visit the 21st century. At any rate, here's a sample of this man's brilliance:
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Langston Hughes
This next one is long, but it's really important so I have to include it. It is an amazing fusion of deeply personal, historical and clearly political. It is an anthem, and it is a seduction. Here ya' go:
"You Bring Out The Mexican In Me"
by Sandra Cisneros
You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila l�ágrimas on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I'd let go the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.
For you.
You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas, glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance with the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and serpent in me.
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian of the tongue in me.
The berrinchuda, bien-cabrona in me.
The Pandora's curiosity in me.
The pre-Columbian death and destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.
The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
You bring out the colonizer in me.
The holocaust of desire in me.
The Mexico City '85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtacc�huatl in me.
The tidal wave of recession in me.
The Agustí�n Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked other,
I am the memory that circles your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent you in two.
I want to defile you and raise hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk the air with crosses.
Me sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.
You bring out the Uled-Nayl in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch-in me.
The switchblade in the boot in me.
The Acapulco cliff diver in me.
The Flecha Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue fever in me.
The ¡Alarma! murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of you and think
it worth it. Brandish a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter and look at you,
languid in you light. Oh,
I am evil. I am the filth goddess Tlazolt�otl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The lust goddess without guilt.
The delicious debauchery. You bring out
the primordial exquisiteness in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin in me.
The original transgression in me.
Red ocher. Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Pi��n. Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and terrible,
Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.
Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Aarte. Amarrarte.
Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Let
me show you. Love the only way I know how.
I am going to go further back now. The Chinese poets, as far as I'm concerned, invented poetry. These poems are decptively simple, and translating these into English distorts that some. I'm specifically talking about the T'ang poets. These poems had several rules. First, the second and third couplets are parellel. This means that the actions in the third and forth lines match, and then the fifth and sixth lines match. That is near impossible to translate. Additonally there are rules of rhyme and intonation that simply can not be translated. What amazes me the most about this poetry is the implication through absence. For example if the poet writes that it is day and warm, this automatically means that there was a time and will be a time when it is night and cold. This makes the poem very subtle, and without knowing that the poet has reached into you and shaken you up-well you're feeling something that is not expressible. The first of these guys I will share is TU FU. His petry is considered to be the most historical of the T'ang dudes. well anyway, here:
Writes of what he feels, traveling by night
Slender grasses, breeze faint on the shore,
Here, the looming mast, the lone night boat.
Stars hang down on the breadth of the plain,
The moon gushes in the great river's current.
My name shall not be known from my writing;
Sick, growing old, I must yield up my post.
Wind-tossed, fluttering — what is my likeness?
In Heaven and Earth, a single gull of the sands.
This is translated by Stephen Owen who has written some great introductions into the world of the T'ang poets. This particular poem rocks my world. You can see through Tu Fu's eyes, and if you do that, the world around the poet becomes increasingly blurry. The continual temporal and spatial movement is astounding. Read it a couple of times,it will get under your skin.
The last poem I'm going to share is by Li Po. He didn't follow the rules of the T'ang poetry. He was a total deviant. And I love him for that. This particular poem is my all time favorite poem of all poems ever written ever ever ever. I don't need to say why because the poem itself sums up everything I've just said about the importance of history and literature:
Bringing in the Wine
See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a thousand of pieces of silver, all of them come back!
Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,
And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!
... To the old master, Tsen,
And the young scholar, Tan-chiu,
Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!
Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!
What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?
Let me br forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.
... Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection
Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.
Why say, my host, that your money is gone?
Go and buy wine and we'll drink it together!
My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,
Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,
And we'll drown away the woes of ten thousand generation!
Li Po
On the off chance that I have indeed inspired you to go out today and buy some books, I will say this. Arthur Waley is by far the best translator of the T'ang poets. Ezra Pound did some good translations (he was a colleague of sorts to Arthur Waley), but because of his penchant for the Nazi's and his otherwise insanity, it is with caution that I recomend his translations. Also, if the Chinese stuff interests you, a novel from the Ming dynasty called Monkey is an amazing book. Also get the Arthur Waley translation. Although he didn't translate the entire book, his version is still the best one.
Finally, I just want to say again how much these poets and specifically the poems in this blog, embody what poetry should be, what it can be, and why we need to re-examine poetry which as I said has become increasingly bad.
I have always insisted on the fact that I hate poetry. There is just so much bad poetry out there. A lot of it falls into two categories: 1)masturbation for the poet. Look at how I use words in ways they aren't really meant to be used. Look at how adept I am at manipulating language. LOOK AT ME. 2)Tragically embarrasing journal entry poetry. "I'm so sad, I miss my mommy, the water is blue and the sky carries the birds away, like it carried away you" crap. Argh. When I read it my skin crawls with shame. It's just unbelievably uncomfortable.
In spite of that, there are poets who are important. They make history, they claim history, their words infuse themselves into our consciousness whether we know it or not. That is what I really want to write about. I want to give examples here of poetry that is important. Poetry that exemplifies how literature and history work together, and how that ultimately changes the world. In its own quiet, but none-the-less important way.
The first is the most obvious. It is with a sense of bitter irony that I call the next two poets American icons. These poets are a part of us now and they continue to affect the world of literature and therefor history. Here goes:
[by the way, this is copywrited material. Do yourself a favor and go buy some books today.]
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
On the one hand I think this poem should be the National Anthem. On the other hand I think to do that would be to incorporate something that doesn't belong to the nation. Regardless, this poem is the perfect example of poetry and history being related to each other (sometimes by blood even). Incidentally, I once saw Maya Angelou live, and she read this poem. I cried like a baby. This poem...ah, heavy sigh at what this poem does.
And Maya's predecessor:
Langston Hughes lit the world on fire. His poetry is on the one hand critical of the historical moment in which it was written, and on the other hand it is history itself. I often fantasize about drinking with Langston Hughes. I would hold his hand (if he would let me). If I was a good writer at all, I would love to embark on a series of poems written with the premise of Langston Hughes comes to visit the 21st century. At any rate, here's a sample of this man's brilliance:
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Langston Hughes
This next one is long, but it's really important so I have to include it. It is an amazing fusion of deeply personal, historical and clearly political. It is an anthem, and it is a seduction. Here ya' go:
"You Bring Out The Mexican In Me"
by Sandra Cisneros
You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila l�ágrimas on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I'd let go the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.
For you.
You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas, glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance with the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and serpent in me.
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian of the tongue in me.
The berrinchuda, bien-cabrona in me.
The Pandora's curiosity in me.
The pre-Columbian death and destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.
The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
You bring out the colonizer in me.
The holocaust of desire in me.
The Mexico City '85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtacc�huatl in me.
The tidal wave of recession in me.
The Agustí�n Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked other,
I am the memory that circles your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent you in two.
I want to defile you and raise hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk the air with crosses.
Me sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.
You bring out the Uled-Nayl in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch-in me.
The switchblade in the boot in me.
The Acapulco cliff diver in me.
The Flecha Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue fever in me.
The ¡Alarma! murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of you and think
it worth it. Brandish a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter and look at you,
languid in you light. Oh,
I am evil. I am the filth goddess Tlazolt�otl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The lust goddess without guilt.
The delicious debauchery. You bring out
the primordial exquisiteness in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin in me.
The original transgression in me.
Red ocher. Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Pi��n. Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and terrible,
Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.
Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Aarte. Amarrarte.
Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Let
me show you. Love the only way I know how.
I am going to go further back now. The Chinese poets, as far as I'm concerned, invented poetry. These poems are decptively simple, and translating these into English distorts that some. I'm specifically talking about the T'ang poets. These poems had several rules. First, the second and third couplets are parellel. This means that the actions in the third and forth lines match, and then the fifth and sixth lines match. That is near impossible to translate. Additonally there are rules of rhyme and intonation that simply can not be translated. What amazes me the most about this poetry is the implication through absence. For example if the poet writes that it is day and warm, this automatically means that there was a time and will be a time when it is night and cold. This makes the poem very subtle, and without knowing that the poet has reached into you and shaken you up-well you're feeling something that is not expressible. The first of these guys I will share is TU FU. His petry is considered to be the most historical of the T'ang dudes. well anyway, here:
Writes of what he feels, traveling by night
Slender grasses, breeze faint on the shore,
Here, the looming mast, the lone night boat.
Stars hang down on the breadth of the plain,
The moon gushes in the great river's current.
My name shall not be known from my writing;
Sick, growing old, I must yield up my post.
Wind-tossed, fluttering — what is my likeness?
In Heaven and Earth, a single gull of the sands.
This is translated by Stephen Owen who has written some great introductions into the world of the T'ang poets. This particular poem rocks my world. You can see through Tu Fu's eyes, and if you do that, the world around the poet becomes increasingly blurry. The continual temporal and spatial movement is astounding. Read it a couple of times,it will get under your skin.
The last poem I'm going to share is by Li Po. He didn't follow the rules of the T'ang poetry. He was a total deviant. And I love him for that. This particular poem is my all time favorite poem of all poems ever written ever ever ever. I don't need to say why because the poem itself sums up everything I've just said about the importance of history and literature:
Bringing in the Wine
See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean,never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.
... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a thousand of pieces of silver, all of them come back!
Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,
And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!
... To the old master, Tsen,
And the young scholar, Tan-chiu,
Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!
Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!
What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?
Let me br forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.
... Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection
Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.
Why say, my host, that your money is gone?
Go and buy wine and we'll drink it together!
My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,
Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,
And we'll drown away the woes of ten thousand generation!
Li Po
On the off chance that I have indeed inspired you to go out today and buy some books, I will say this. Arthur Waley is by far the best translator of the T'ang poets. Ezra Pound did some good translations (he was a colleague of sorts to Arthur Waley), but because of his penchant for the Nazi's and his otherwise insanity, it is with caution that I recomend his translations. Also, if the Chinese stuff interests you, a novel from the Ming dynasty called Monkey is an amazing book. Also get the Arthur Waley translation. Although he didn't translate the entire book, his version is still the best one.
Finally, I just want to say again how much these poets and specifically the poems in this blog, embody what poetry should be, what it can be, and why we need to re-examine poetry which as I said has become increasingly bad.
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