The first poem I read was entitled "For Freckle Faced Gerald" by Etheridge Knight. The poem was raw; with language as well as imagery. It was written in free verse, which seems to be somewhat ironic especially when you consider the fact the author was a prison inmate. It tells the story of two young inmates; Rufus who is tough and hard and doesn't seem to make it past his 21st birthday (although this is a bit unclear from the poem, that is the impression I get), the other is Gerald, a freckle faced 16 year old who is sentenced to prison and is truly so innocent he has no idea what he is in store for. One of my favorite lines is "sixteen years hadn't even done a good job on his voice". This is letting the reader know he is so young, and so naive that his voice hadn't even finished changing yet, that it still had the glow of youth to it. I surprised me how much beauty I found in a poem this raw-that truth and beauty can be found in any situation you find yourself in, and that poetry is a means to express that beauty. Although I don't know for sure, I would assume that Etheridge Knight didn't begin writing poetry until after he was incarcerated and that is was something that kept him sane during his time in prison.
The second poem was "Dear Mr. Merrill" by Moira Egan. This was a poem that followed a more classic rhyming structure but surprisingly I didn't like it near as much as the first poem. It speaks of the author's love of a marble statue because of its beauty and perfection and her comparison to being in love with an actual student of hers, although she is careful to point out that nothing physical ever happened between them. It speaks of her daydreams and fantasies--first with the statue and secondly with the student. I did like her imagery at the end of the poem, however. She discusses how the strong beauty of Hermes needs to be encased in marble to protect people from it's strength. She says "wildest things require strongest cages" and compares the steel bars that enclose a panther with the bitter rind that encloses the pomegranate seeds (pomegranates were seen in ancient times as being the food of the underworld). She ends with "love held tight in a sonnet" with is a line I really enjoyed, having attempted to write a sonnet or two myself. A sonnet has a very difficult rhyming and rhythm structure and since most sonnets tend to be about love, the fact that the strong dangerous emotion is held tight within a difficult poem made me chuckle a bit.
For my third poem I chose "Autobiography" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
He is the same author who wrote the poem about the Chagall painting we read in class. I really liked this poem. It was long-very long-but as an autobiography of someone born in 1919, it had a lot to encompass within its verse. The length and breadth of the poem is also a hallmark of the Beat Generation of writers and Ferlinghetti belongs to that group. Not only did I like the structure of the poem, more like a list of statements that someone was making that still sounded rhythmic and poetic, I liked all of the literary references he lumped into his poem. He discusses the classical American literary character of Tom Sawyer, mentions the Greek god Icarus who lost his wax wings when he got too egotistical and flew to close to the sun, he speaks of Thoreau's Walden pond, Wolfe's Homeward Angel, and says something about sheaves of grass, which make me think of Whitman. He discusses every part of his life, but there are also references in there that have to be a product of his imagination because I don't think logistically he would have been able to be in all of the places he mentions. My favorite line of the poem is "watching the world walk by in its curious shoes". That line just smacks of the incredible imagery of someone watching his life 'flash before his eyes' and how he is marveling at all he has seen. I'm glad I picked this poem.
For my last poem, I went with a classic. Shakespeare. Can't do wrong there I thought, so I read his "It was a Lover and His Lass." Truthfully, although I am definitely a Shakespeare fan, I was not impressed. The entire poem seemed like something a schoolchild could write. Lame sounding rhymes, a sing-songy 'hey ho nonino' and a very simple structure. It was nothing special to me. Although I agree with the universally held opinion that Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the English language, judging by this poem alone, I would say he cheated to get that title.
No comments:
Post a Comment