Chelsa Lauderdale
First Year Writer’s Studio
11/4/10
Response 6 Postmodern American Poetry
Postmodern American Poetry is filled with poets who vary greatly from the classic poetry that one is used to reading. For example, the poetry of Ginsburg is very different from your classical Shakespeare, not just in structure but the whole underlying theme and context, and there’s just something about the postmodern poetry movement that just seems to differ from everything else. The reason Postmodernism seems so greatly varying from other things is possibly due to the fact that postmodern poets don’t care about sticking to any particular rules or guidelines in regards to structure, content, etc. They take pieces of all different types of poetic movements and invent some of their own to create something that is entirely new and different from things that have been seen before in the history of poetry. In that respect, Allen Ginsberg is a fantastic example, as he is classified as a postmodern poet and yet he draws heavy inspiration from beat poetry and also uses a sort of Shakespearean pattern though his themes are so modern.
Ginsberg also believes heavily that rhythm is very important and that the actual speaking voice should come before the words on the page. This means that he wants the poem to seem more auditory even when it’s written down on paper. It is very easy to see this philosophy in his poem, “America”. Having listened to the poem read aloud by Ginsberg himself, it was very easy to imagine his voice as I read the words on the page, however it would have been easy to do so even having not heard the recording. The words and the way the poem is structured is easy to read and captivating while still delivering a message through the sporadic structure of the piece. Through this piece, Ginsberg is telling us that the morals of America are basically dead. Ginsberg says in the piece, “America when will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes?” The juxtaposition of which creates a sort of tension as if saying that the morals of American society is completely filled with all of these sort of double-negatives that counteract each other. He also shows society in a light that it does not particularly want to be shown in but is the absolute truth when he says, “My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublished private literature that jetplanes 1400 miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions.” This defines what American civilization has becomes; somewhat less civilized.
Charles Bukowski’s poem, “crucifix in a deathhand” is very similar to Ginsberg’s poem “America” in that it is structurally similar, and it also a social commentary. Both poems are written in a sort of ranting style where every line flows together in an effortless sort of way but that seems to stretch on for a very long time. The difference is that Bukowski’s poem has only a few ending punctuations throughout the entire piece, making it sound very much like a run-on sentence. The social commentary that Bukowski is making in his piece is also very different from Ginsberg’s. He saying that though we are just on this Earth for a short while, we use it and we use it all up. “And you know how these look, they do look good as if you could eat them all light a cigar and smoke away the bad world.” We’re killing the world that we inhabit just as we’re killing ourselves. Bukowski also says though that “death like suicide is something voluntary”, not meaning that we chose to die, but that we chose to give up living.
Two of Bukowski’s other pieces, “startled into life like fire” and “the mockingbird” also make a sort of interpreted social commentary. In the first poem, he talks of his admiration for a cat and sort of personifies the cat. In doing that it makes it easier to interpret the second poem “the mockingbird”. The mockingbird in the poem “the mockingbird” antagonizes the cat until finally the cat gets its revenge and doesn’t let the bird go, even when he begs for mercy. If we were to consider the cat as a person as in the first poem, this could mean that the cat is a metaphor for humans or humanity and how we destroy the things that appose or antagonize us for our own satisfaction.
Some good stuff in here, Chelsa. I really think your choice of comparing Ginsberg and Bukowski is a good one. Can you think of other ways that the two poets are different? Do you think one is more optimistic than the other? More pessimistic? How do you know that?
ReplyDeleteCareful when making statements about literary heritage--questions of origin and lineage are always a place that will spark some heated (and somewhat useless) controversy. For example, in this case, Ginsberg doesn't draw inspiration from beat poetry, he IS beat poetry (as well as falling under the larger umbrella term "postmodern"). He also doesn't draw so much from Shakespearean verse, and more from Romantic and American Transcendentalism.
But, you see what I mean? These terms don't really mean all that much besides describing a collection of similar techniques and concerns. The important thing is not the terms, but the other stuff. So I'd be much more interested in what kind of typical "Beat" techniques he uses, or what lines in his work are reminiscent of, say, Whitman, and why?
Now, when you get into the discussion of Bukowski and Ginsberg's similarities, you say "Both poems are written in a sort of ranting style where every line flows together in an effortless sort of way but that seems to stretch on for a very long time. The difference is that Bukowski’s poem has only a few ending punctuations throughout the entire piece, making it sound very much like a run-on sentence." This is much more what I'm looking for. So why do you think each author chose this particular technique for their poem. Remember when Olson says that form is an extension of content. So where does this form lead us?
Overall, you're on the right track Chelsa. Don't worry so much about the "correct" meaning in these poems. Focus more on what they're doing and how they're doing it.
good=8
eric