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.