Sentimentality

Although sentimentality is considered a pitfall and danger for poets, I also believe sentiment and emotional connection between author & audience, author & work, and also work & audience is crucial. Without words, images, and ideals that trigger emotional appeal, you cannot truly call it poetry. I know that is a bold claim, but poetry is art...and art is the connecting cord between people and thier hearts. Then, through expression and sharing, that cord connects us all. However, too much is too much. If the piece is so deep and covered with underlying meanings throughout, it is too hard to verify the meaning behind the poem. "Momentos, 1", by W. D. Snodgrass, is so moving and sentimental. There is so much truth in each word. This is one of those poems or poets that soaked there work in sentiment and emotion. Yet, we still want to read it! I could relate to the story being re-told. I have not been married or divorced, hopefully I will never be divorced, but I have definetely loved and lost. I have had friends or relationships that were amazing and then took a hard turn causing some sort or trouble. Most of the time, we worked it out. But sometimes you never work things out. Even in those situations, though, we still will always remember that special someone or best friend. There will always be a moment or mental photo to recall that shines with happiness and respect. I also think that Anne Sexton's poem, "The Truth the Dead Know", uses sentiment in the correct way. Of course she is expressing her emotions and feelings toward her parents dieing. I felt a small connection to this work. Line 4, "I am tired of being brave", rang so true in my ears and mind. My sister died when I was 15 and it devastated my family. Fortunately, we are a strong family that has always lived with faith in God and trusted that Jesus grace will always carry us through even the hardest times. My parents have pastored a church for the last 22 years running, so when my sister passed we were very much in the public eye. Not only did we have to find comfort and peace in our own lives, we had a congregations of almost 3000 people looking to us for the same. So I can easily say there were times when I was tired; tired of being brave, tired of being strong, tired of being tired. But, we did make it through with joy and trust in our Heavenly Father. Thank God for heaven where I know my sister is today. I wish Anne Sexton could have had this same outlook. Maybe her life would have not ended so tragicly. I write through my sentiment about similar topics as these poets have. I think it is powerful, but it can be overdone. You just have to use good judgment and good poetic technique.

The Beats vs. New York School Poets

I enjoyed our reading this week very much. The works were intersting and unique. I like the variety shown form each poet. Even within their own works, you could see some variation and stylistic differences. These poets were riskier and bolder than those before them. I particularly liked John Ashbery and Gary Snyder. From their collection of works, I chose to talk about and focus on Ashbery's, "The Painter", and Snyder's, "Above Pate Valley". Both of these poems have a narrative tone to them. "Painter" is about a man or person while "Valley" is more about a journey or an imaginative event. I am an artist that has recently become very interested in painting. I love the line from Ashbery's poem that said, "As if, forgetting itself, the portrait had expressed itslef without a brush" (17-18). That line is the most powerful line in my opinion. It resonated w/me as an artist. I also like the references to nature he used. Snyder's piece was full of strong, concrete images that help to create a picture in my mind. I love writing w/concrete images. Site and sound words are most useful in my opinion. I loved line 8, "Gree meadow watered by the snow", and lines 26-27, "Pick, singlejack, and sack of dynamite." Here, Snyder used consonace and site imagery. In my opinion, for contemporary poetry that so often has to be defined and understood, concrete images like this are the way to go. This way, the reader can engage.

free verse

Free verse is primarily poetry that does not rhyme. Although there might be lines or lyrics that do rhyme phonetically, it is not the purpose of the poem to have a rhyme scheme. They are not perfect rhymes, so to speak, instead these poems are sometimes fragmented expressions of thought. Tide together by line breaks, rhythm, and beat they make a poem. The structure of these poems s more laid back and has much more liberty than a rigorous sonnet or haiku for example. Yet, in light of these differences, free verse is still a powerful movement of poetry. The works we studied this week seem to be polar opposites of some of our previous readings. No ABAB or ABBA rhyming that is so comfortable to read. Free verse does still use its surroundings, the art of everyday life, to create something tremendous. For instane, Elizabeth Bishops piece, “Filling Station”, is about a dirty gas station that the speaker undoubtedly examined very closely. Bishop has many concrete images in her piece (“dirty, oil-soaked monkey suit”, “greasy sons”, “big dim doily”, “big hirsute begonia”…) She even has a few referneces to nature there. She talks about poignant colors and sights that overwhelmed her while looking onto the station. This is similar to the accounts some Romantic poets made about different places they loved. Whether it was an abby, a garden, or a shore, they expressed what they saw in their poetry. Although a filling station may not seem as important as some of the fancier poetry we read earlier in the semester, Bishop’s piece as a resounding ending. The last stanza sums everything up to say that we all are loved, each part of us and our world is important. She accomplished with this poem what ever poet strives to do. Bishop saw something normal and mundane and got a revelation. Then she shared that revelation with the world by writing it down as poetry.