Make up blog

This week we had an interesting survey on multicultural poetry and we had authors coming from many different countries, bringing their differences, belief and hopes to the US. It was interesting when you were talking about the “constraint” which “forces” immigrants to learn English to be able to communicate with others and have a better life. Sometimes, I think, this is not the case. I can easily imagine Chinese or Mexican immigrants in big cities who cannot speak English, simply because they are surrounded by other Chinese or Mexican people, they have their own newspapers, TV channels, and even schools. This way they do not have to assimilate, to learn English and they are not forced to lose one part of their selves. Of course, this is the result of the second part of the 20th century which made the US (and the world as well) more multicultural, in the past immigrants really had to assimilate (just think of Polish or German immigrants who became real Americans in the course of one generation). And this is what Lorna Dee Cervantes is talking about in her poem entitled “Refugee Ship”. Although born in California, she is like an outsider; her family is not part of the dominant English-speaking Anglo-Saxon society. She is forced to learn English, and unlike her grandmother, she is going to assimilate into the dominant culture. Her grandmother still reads the Bible- religion is a very important part of the lives of Mexican Americans. She has to notice that, although she speaks English, her appearance is different from that of the other English speakers: “bronzed skin, black hair”. In other words, she is a typical Mexican (a “Chicana”- with all the discrimination and disadvantages of this origin); everyone can notice that from a mile. She feels a captive on a refugee ship maybe because of her low-class Mexican origin, her mother tongue or her “barrio” in which her family lives. The fact that the last line is written in Spanish just strengthens her bilingual origins and her inability (or impossibility) to decide between the two competing cultures. The poetry of Li-Young Lee has of course, similar features. In his poetry, we can even witness his struggle with the English language, like in the poem entitled “Persimmons”. I can easily imagine that struggle, not because I am not a native speaker of English, but because Asian people are coming from a really different world. Their languages (even their names) are very different from English, they grew up reading Eastern philosophers, their languages are not full of Latin (or Greek) borrowings, and this makes their language learning process much more difficult. This is recorded in “Persimmons”, the struggle with the new language, with the new culture (just think of Mrs. Walker who brought an unripe persimmon to class calling it “Chinese apple”, he knew the difference but could not say it). Towards the end of the poem we can see the importance of art; maybe that could help the father survive his first times in the US and brought back the nostalgic days spent in his native country.

The poetry of Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg

I have a few thoughts about “Dog” written by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We may say that in this poem the dog stands for the author, as he passes through the streets of San Francisco and sees “things” that are bigger and smaller than he is and “things” that smells like he smells. This triple division is interesting, just like the recurring phrase, “The dog trots freely in the street”, which is like a refrain in the poem. We can easily imagine this freely trotting dog as he sees the city landmarks like Chinatown, the Meat Market, the Romeo Ravioli Factory and Coit’s Tower. Besides the usual cityscape (drunks in doorways, fish, ants, puddles, cats, cigars, babies) he can see many other, obviously more interesting, things as well. Just like policemen. Here we can see the poet’s opinion about policemen, he does not hate them, “He merely has no use for them”. After this allusion comes another, even more interesting one, referring to the atmosphere of the 50s in America, to the “Un-American Committee”, persecuting suspicious Communists in the country. Strangely, the dog is not afraid of the Committee (and of its leader, Congressman Doyle). This could show us the opinion of the poet as well; the counterculture supports revolutions and does not afraid of the power of the leaders. However, this dog is said to be “sad” and “serious” at the same time. These two adjectives may show us that the revolutionists are sad because of the bad conditions they have to live in, and they are serious as well in their decisions and revolutions. He is free and has his own life to live and his own fleas to eat (i.e. his own issues and problems) and “He will not be muzzled”, so he will not be silenced by the government or some “stronger” people. The most provocative part is coming up: “Congressman Doyle is just another/ fire hydrant/ to him”, i.e. he is not interested in him, and in his decisions or orders, he is just urinating him. I liked the pun with the homophonous words “tale” and “tail”, they just spiced the poem up. The next lines must be making fun of politics; I do not think the poet was interested in these things: the dog is democratic and “engaged in real free enterprise”.
My other choice is the famous “A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg. The evocation of Walt Whitman in a California supermarket is very surprising, what would he do in a modern store full of people, where “whole families shopping at night!”? Federico García Lorca seems to be out of place as well, but we should know the only thing linking these three poets: they were all homosexual; I think this is the reason why Ginsberg puts them together. Whitman is said to be lonely and childless, he is eying the grocery boys- one more allusion to homosexuality. Then Ginsberg addresses Whitman, they should decide where to go, their journey is said to be an “odyssey”. Besides this classical allusion, we have one more in the closing lines, speaking about Charon and the Lethe.

Modeling Poem #3

66. Write a poem made up entirely of excuses

Funny excuses for being late for work

Do you know how long it takes to give a dollar to every Santa you see?
I had to show the new worker something.
Your watch must be fast.
I wasn’t late. I just failed to be on time.
Want to talk about it over a bite to eat?
I fell asleep in the shower.
I ran into a parade.
I was too busy sleeping to be on time.
I had a top level meeting with George Bush.
Could you please repeat the question?
I saw Elvis.
I had to catch a Pokemon.
I couldn’t find my clothes.
(Source: http://www.toddolivas.com/blog/48-Funny-Excuses-For-Being-Late-For-Work.asp,m, last visited Sun, November 16, 2008)

Funny school excuses

My alarm clock didn't go off because it was upset with me. It felt that I was ignoring it and that I didn't give it the time of day.
My foot went asleep this morning. It refused to wake up. I ended up hopping on one foot to get to school.
My son is under a doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute (sic!) him.
Dear School: Excuses
Please ekscuse (sic!) John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33 (!).
Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.
Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.
Sally won't be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral.
My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the Marines.
I didn't come to school yesterday because I was feeling like I was going to be sick, but thankfully I wasn't!
Please excuse my daughter for being late. Her broom won't start so I had to send it back to Salem for repairs!
I'm sorry but my baby sitter flushed my homework down the toilet.
(Source: http://www.clown-ministry.com/Articles/funny-jokes/actual-school-excuse-notes.html, last visited Sun, November 16, 2008)

In this modeling poem I chose option 66, the “Excuses list”, so I wrote a poem made up entirely of excuses. There were so many options, it was very hard to decide which one to choose, I liked many of them, but I have to admit I am not really fond of experimental poetry. This is funny and entertaining in a way, but sometimes tiring and hard to follow. I know quite well the French OuLiPo movement; I have already participated in a workshop like that and heard a lot of “innovative” ideas about poetry, but I still prefer conventional forms and meters which is considered to be “high poetry” by people in general. Googlism is certainly funny, I have checked it out, but finally I chose the excuses. At first I wanted to write something “original” on my own, then I had to realize that it must have been very hard and almost impossible to do so, so I used Internet to help me find good excuses. Fortunately, some funny excuses popped up instead of the usual boring “Sorry, I can’t go here and there…” things. This seemed to be more interesting and inviting, so I just picked some of the funny excuses at random. I created two major kinds of excuses: excuses for being late from work and funny school excuses including some parent-written justifications which were even funnier than the “artificially” created ones as they contain parents’ mistakes. At first I was afraid of this Internet collage poetry, I felt that this is not “real” work or “real” poetry, but then I thought of Bruce Covey and his poetry and I had to establish that he did the same, and he was very entertaining. There is not a great difference between finding some interesting things on Google or Yahoo and compiling them to have a new work of art and finding some pre-written materials and putting them together to create poetry. As originality is not an expectation nowadays and Internet has greatly changed our world (and poetry as well) I think this is not a “crime” or plagiarism writing poems like mine. I indicated my sources, just in case you wanted go back and read more. Using this collage technique and the net, I think I greatly challenged notions of “mainstream”, traditional poetry. This kind of poem was hardly imaginable in the 19th century (or even in the first half of the 20th century). Not only because of the lack on Internet, but maybe because poets had a tendency to respect traditional forms and classical allusions, rhyme and meter. I know this seems to be a vague generalization, but I have not read this kind of poetry before the 20th century. I can imagine its earlier existence, but it must have been suppressed by mainstream poetry. I think it is always interesting to play around with language (until people are able to follow and enjoy it); the success of e.g. Queneau clearly shows it has its place among the classics in the canon. We should accept that art is constantly changing just like expectations; unified art does not exist anymore as it used to be earlier. Anyway, I have some favorite parent-written excuses, some are very funny, especially the ones where I put “sic!” between brackets.

Kenneth Koch's poetry

This week I chose Kenneth Koch to write a few lines about. I particularly liked his poem entitled “Geography”. This is a very inventive and interesting poem at the same time. It has eight stanzas, seven is dealing with different kinds of people from all around the world and the last one unites all of them and shows us (like a kind of a slideshow) what they are doing at the same time in different places of the world. Interestingly the first and the eight stanzas are the longest ones, giving the poem a framelike structure. In the first stanza we can get to know the fifteen-year-old Amba, from Africa (more exactly from the jungle of Congo). Here we have a beautiful synesthesia: “At morning Amba heard their pink music…”. Moreover, we have a lot of onomatopoeic words as well: “whether it be blue (thhhh) feathers” or “high trala to the nougat birds” or even “The moon (zzzzzz) shining down on Amba’s sweet mocked sleep”. I especially liked this last one as it expresses the sleep of the moon. The image of the sleeping moon can easily fit into the imagination of a fifteen-year-old boy. In the second stanza, we fly through the Ocean and go to Chicago to get to know Louis. He is a boy of seventeen and his life is not full of joy; he has to work as a milkman, probably to support his family or himself. Suddenly we turn to Frank, “a young outlaw”, who is “Crossing Louis’ path gently in the street”. Even the Holocaust is briefly mentioned with two onomatopoeic words (“whizz and burr”), quickly crossing Frank’s mind. We do not exactly know where the people in the third stanza are from, they have English names, but that does not reveal the country where they are. The characters in the fourth stanza must be from Antarctica, as they live in igloos and are spearing the whale. We have a beautiful simile as well: “the green crusty ice”. Ten Ko and Wan Kai in the fifth stanza must be from Korea or from Vietnam, they are working on the rice paddies. Here we have a synesthesia: “blue desire”. We do not know at all where Boon, Angebor and Maggia from the sixth stanza are from. Maybe they are from Africa, as the words “oona” and “zee’th” sound so African, but this must be misleading. The little prisoner in the seventh stanza lives in the desert, but we do not know much about him or his conditions. We do not know why he is incarcerated and who the mentioned lover is. The eighth stanza wonderfully unites the scattered, small “icons” from all around the world, everyone is here together. This is just like the end of a play: every actor and actress shows up once more before they go away. This way we have Amba once more together with a beautiful onomatopoeic word: “Amba arose. Thhhhhhh! went the birds, and clink clank went/ The leaves under the monkeys’ feet…”. We have Wan Kai, Ten Ko, Daisy, Louis, Roon, Maggia, Baba once more, like a great finale. However, the ending is not joyful; someone named Enna plunged into the gloomy lake while screaming. Her indentify remains a secret.