Robert Creely- "America"

America

America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.

Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world

you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.

People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.

Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back

what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you to be. 

Robert Creeley

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/america/

Picture of Robert Creely 

(http://peaceandwarpoetics.wikispaces.com/Robert+Creeley)

Robert Creely is a member of the Black Mountain movement of poetry. The only real criteria of this movement is that the poets were all taught at Black Mountain College in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Also, poems of this period have an focus of process over product. Creely's poem "America" follows along with these requirements; he criticizes the process of the United States government. Lines like "America, you ode for reality" and " People are your own word, you invented that locus and term" show the dislike of America. There are several tones throughout the poem; it is criticizing, demanding, and a little sarcastic. It especially related to the Black Mountain movement because the speaker disapproves of the process of the American government, but not necessarily the product. I believe that he still thinks America is a great country that does lots of great things, but there are fundamental errors within the government that need to be resolved.  

Howl - Allen Ginsberg

The poet I chose was Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) who was part of the Postmodern movement in poetry. His most famous poem, "Howl", I would shave included but it is far too long so you can find the link here.

Postmodernism developed in the second half of the 20th century and shared many of the same concerns and motivations of the modernists. However, they often took these principles to a much different end. Many postmodern poems often feature parody, irony, and narrative instability which inform the tone. Allusions to popular culture are just as likely to be made as allusions to classics. Traditional concepts and forms are often ignored and questioned. There is no unifying theme in the movement, ideas spread across a vast spectrum. And the surface is often more interesting to postmodern artists than any ideas of depth.

Smaller sub-movements within the same time period as the postmodern movement exist but are often in conflict with the postmodern groups. One such group was the Beatniks, of which Ginsberg was part. The Beats were a post-WWII phenomenon and their specific brand of poetry focused more son hallucinogenic, visionary, anti-establishment art. They often del a deep connection to nature and their tone could be anything from satirical to angry, as well as tender and meditative. Another aspect of such poetry was the fact that politics directly informed many of these poets, either through specific references to gov. members or to issues of importance.

"Howl" is a great example of postmodern poetry because of the very fact that the US government considered this work of poetry obscene and believed that it should be kept out of public hands. Another reason as to why this poem falls under the postmodern label (although many 'postmodern' poets fervently rejected that label) is because of the topics it covers. These topics include madness, sex, drugs, politics, war, religion, and so on (making it clear as to why the gov. wanted this poem out of public eyes.) Among those topics, a strong emphasis is placed on madness. Ginsberg describes madness in such a way that it seems to be an elevated hallucinogenic state with terrifying visions. Further, it is Ginsberg's form that also enhance that theme. Howl discomposed of three sections (each focusing on a different topic)  and 112 lines, however his actual sentences form more of prose paragraphs than actual sentences. Thus, this tendency to create run-on sentences that resembles strings of thoughts also demonstrates just how postmodern this poem is. Sporadically placed about are images of dreams and madness and the destruction of "the best minds" of [his] generation -- all of which amounts to the postmodern practice of having no real center in poetry.

John Dryden

John Dryden

1631-1700

Marriage a-la-Mode

Why should a foolish marriage vow,

         Which long ago was made,

Oblige us to each other now

         When passion is decay'd?

We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could,

         Till our love was lov'd out in us both:

But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:

         'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

If I have pleasures for a friend,

         And farther love in store,

What wrong has he whose joys did end,

         And who could give no more?

'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,

         Or that I should bar him of another:

For all we can gain is to give our selves pain,

         When neither can hinder the other.

 

John Dryden is considered one of the greatest poets and playwrights of the 17th century. As a poet he is most famous for his satirical poems, however his poem Marriage a-la-Mode fits under both categories of Augustan poetry, satire and politics. First, the title, "Marriage a-la-Mode," is satirical because we mostly use the phrase "a-la-mode" to mean without sides, or by itself when ordering a meal, however he uses it in reference to a marriage. The poem in it's entirety addresses a political and religious debate, that of marriage and divorce and why people stay together when they do not love each other.

Jesus and Pilate

Jesus was taken before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate to be judged. The people accused Jesus of calling himself the Son of God and called for his execution. Pilate interrogated Jesus, but Jesus did not respond to his questions. Jesus told Pilate he was the king of the Jews and that he had come to testify to the truth, to which Pilate responded “what is truth?” He sent Jesus to be judged by Herod, but Herod found no fault with him, so he sent Jesus back. Conflicted, Pilate asked the people what he should do with Jesus, as he had found he’d done nothing wrong. The people asked that Jesus be crucified. Pilate did not want to do this, and asked the people if they would not have him release Jesus instead of Barabbas, a murderer whom the people had asked to be released. Pilate intended to have Jesus flogged then released, but the people continued to shout, “crucify him.” Three times Pilate asked the people if crucifixion was truly what they wanted, and all three times they answered yes, so Pilate delivered Jesus to be flogged then crucified.

 

When I hear the word “judgment,” I think of the ways people judge each other by their exterior, often unfairly. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself that sometimes it seems that there’s no way any of us can escape from judgment. It’s no wonder the phrase “don’t judge me” is as ubiquitous as it is. It seems almost instinctive to human beings to put labels on people based on how they talk, how they dress, what they do for a living, etc. We take what we see on the surface to make quick generalizations about people to save the brainpower we might need to see people from a wider perspective. For example, we’re quick to judge people who might not seem as academically-oriented as us, but rarely do we stop to think about what a person’s life might be like at home or otherwise that they can’t always put academics first. We’re trained, in the true American spirit of capitalism, to judge people for not working jobs we consider respectable and high-paying. Fortunately I think with some reflection we can begin to see people for who they really are at their core rather than pass judgment on them based on external qualities.

H.D.

Helen

All Greece hates   

the still eyes in the white face,   

the lustre as of olives   

where she stands,   

and the white hands.   

All Greece reviles   

the wan face when she smiles,   

hating it deeper still   

when it grows wan and white,   

remembering past enchantments   

and past ills.   

Greece sees unmoved,   

God’s daughter, born of love,   

the beauty of cool feet   

and slenderest knees,   

could love indeed the maid,   

only if she were laid,   

white ash amid funereal cypresses.

 

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), “Helen” from Collected Poems 1912-1944. Copyright © 1982 by The Estate of Hilda Doolittle. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175877#poem


All of Hilda Doolittle's poetry gets at the heart of Modernism. In fact, she and Ezra Pound founded a new strand of Modernism known as the Imagist movement. A reaction against Gregorian Romanticism, the first line of the Imagist manifesto, "To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word," sought out the economy of the word. The ideas of the Imagest movement added to the elements of Modernism in H.D.'s poetry. A champion of women's rights and lover of mythology, H.D. wrote often of Helen of Troy. Although this poem is written in the perspective of the Greeks, a longer poem by H.D., Helen of Egypt,  is written in Helen's own perspective. She tackles two of the modernist traits in this poem by taking on allusions, to the Greeks and the woman who started the Trojan War, as well as the idea of seeing the world in as many ways as possible. It is evident after reading the poem that the Greeks feel no love for "the face that launched a thousand ships", however as it explains to us that hate, the reader, feel for her. She is hated by her own country, only to be loved if she is dead, despite any remorse she may feel. The language is spare, as is the meter, as H.D. stays true to her imagist form.

A picture of H.D.

"To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word." - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5658#sthash.JXqkHpJc.dpuf

"To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word." - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5658#sthash.JXqkHpJc.dpuf

Marianne Moore

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and

school-books'; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
'literalists of
the imagination'--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them', shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry. 

Marianne Moore

I couldn't get the document to pull up on mine so I just researched it myself. Modernist poetry was mostly in Europe and North America and was basically just a break away from traditional poetry. This poem has basically no set structure. It doesn't have any type of rhyme scheme or set rhythm. Each of the stanzas are basically shaped the same but that's about it. It also seems to just be a flow of consciousness not really being separated by sentence or thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Moore

William Wordsworth--Lucy

Lucy by William Wordsworth I.

 

Strange fits of passion have I known:

And I will dare to tell,

But in the lover's ear alone,

What once to me befell.

 

When she I loved look'd every day

Fresh as a rose in June,

I to her cottage bent my way,

Beneath an evening moon.

 

Upon the moon I fix'd my eye,

All over the wide lea;

With quickening pace my horse drew nigh

Those paths so dear to me.

 

And now we reach'd the orchard-plot;

And, as we climb'd the hill,

The sinking moon to Lucy's cot

Came near and nearer still.

 

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,

Kind Nature's gentlest boon!

And all the while my eyes I kept

On the descending moon.

 

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof

He raised, and never stopp'd:

When down behind the cottage roof,

At once, the bright moon dropp'd.

 

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a lover's head!

'O mercy!' to myself I cried,

'If Lucy should be dead!'

 

II.

 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

 

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

 

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh,

The difference to me!

 

III.

 

I travell'd among unknown men,

In lands beyond the sea;

Nor, England! did I know till then

What love I bore to thee.

 

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!

Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

 

Among the mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherish'd turn'd her wheel

Beside an English fire.

 

Thy mornings show'd, thy nights conceal'd,

The bowers where Lucy play'd;

And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes survey'd.

 

IV.

 

Three years she grew in sun and shower;

Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown;

This child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make

A lady of my own.

 

'Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse; and with me

The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,

Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

 

'She shall be sportive as the fawn

That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,

And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

 

'The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

 

'The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

 

'And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give

While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell.'

 

Thus Nature spake -- The work was done --

How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

 

V.

 

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seem'd a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

 

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

William Wordsworth's series of poems about Lucy, the girl whom he loved, most certainly qualify as poems representative of the Romantic era. The primary quality of this period was the perfection, the divinity, that could be found in the ordinary parts of life; the poets felt that they had transcended past the tedious normality of life. In this poem, Wordsworth writes lovingly and longingly about his Lucy, who evidently lived remotely enough that people rarely go to her and that "few could know when Lucy ceased to be." Through this, we understand her lack of grandeur, her simplicity, and it gives more meaning to his great love for her because he believes that she is extraordinary. Additionally, we are given much information regarding the rural environment in which she lived; Wordsworth wrote that he rode to her frequently and that "those paths [were] so dear" to him, most likely because he came to associate them with her much-loved company. The entire poem has a melancholic and awestruck tone to it, as if it was slightly painful to write of such a thing, and yet some form of closure at the same time. The sight of the extraordinary in the generally ordinary, along with the thorough description of the bucolic life, are signs that are most indicative of the Romantic era of poetry.