Unconscious Resistance In Poetry

“’ But this is merely a negative definition of the value of education’” (23-24). Mark Halliday wrote “The Value of Education” from a first person standpoint. The introduction and the use of “I” demonstrates the poem is about the speaker. Likewise, the speaker uses imagery, self-recognition, and his own personal thoughts throughout the poem. He goes on throughout the poem stating external confrontations he is not doing because he is in the library receiving an education and reading books. With this in mind, the speaker goes on to convey images in your head to show a realization of things he could be doing if he were not in the library getting an education.

Have you ever felt like you were born to do something? Since I was born I felt like I was born to play baseball, but after that I would love to be a broadcaster. That is why I have chosen to analyze “The Broadcaster’s Poem” by Alden Nowlan. Analyzing a poem is not an easy thing to accomplish for me. As I very rarely analyze anything I read, but you should try everything once.

|Spend about 1 hour on this section. Think carefully about the poems before you write your answer. |

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

Take a minute to imagine “Men looking like they had been/attacked repeatedly by a succession /of wild animals,” “never/ ending blasted field of corpses,” and “throats half gone, /eyes bleeding, raw meat heaped/ in piles.” These are the vividly, grotesque images Edward Mayes describes to readers in his poem, “University of Iowa Hospital, 1976.” Before even reading the poem, the title gave me a preconceived idea of what the poem might be about. “University of Iowa Hospital, 1976” describes what an extreme version of what I expected the poem to be about. The images I

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

is a powerful vessel in which, the poet can express their adversity. Adversity is a difficult or unpleasant situation, and there are many poems that represent this theme but the 2 poems that I will be speaking about today are; 'Caged Bird' by Maya Angelou and 'The Rose that grew from Concrete' by Tupac Shakur. Caged bird is a poem about two birds in vastly different situations whilst 'The rose that grew from concrete' is about persistence in the face of adversity. Maya Angelou was an American poet who was certainly a very inspirational figure. She had a difficult childhood and encountered many of life's challenges.

o, Searing flames piercing through my whole ego, Leading blames appearing whenever she shows, Cheating claims punching through the dirt below, Seeking aims listening to gangster street flows,

Another poet that one can argue fits into this subsection of thought is Juliana Spahr, whose various collections such as Nuclear, Responses, and this connection of everyone with lungs are illustrative of the methods and means of modern women writers, and the unwavering enquiry of knowledge that all those I have mentioned exhibit. Within this connection of everyone with lungs Spahr utilises scientific language, and methods to further a thematic notion of the errors in exceptionalist thinking, that is the belief that something, someone or event, is exceptional in some manner. This collection focuses on the events of “9/11 as cellular rupture” and the arguably unique ability of poetry to reflect on the external within its frame to reach a catharsis and epistemic understanding of the conditions of modernity. In this use of scientific language and her reliance on scientific knowledge and explanations to confer meaning she arguably falls into a position of consilience.

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”

This essay examines the effects that poetry has on society, both socially and politically. Poetry has been around for centuries, and it is a common misconception that it serves no purpose. One critic in particular, W.H Auden claimed, “poetry makes nothing happen”. However poetry awakens the reader’s eyes and gives an insight to the society in which we live in today, and which has been before us. As evident in Ezra Pound’s work, as he explored the use of imagism to critique modernism and twentieth century, forcing the readers to think more about society as a whole. The purpose of this essay is to show that poetry does make something happen and can have instrumental effects on society, whether it is a poet critiquing society, or simply providing another interpretation. Poetry is a code than needs to be cracked, it is a riddle that makes the reader bring out their true creativity, which is why I disagree with W.H Auden in saying, “poetry makes nothing happen.”

Each individual’s environment impacts them in some way or another. It is the manner in which someone handles their given situation that determines the outcome. People who are born into deprived environments, or end up in one, have two options. They can either allow themselves to be controlled by it, or they can be the ones who exert the control. There are many examples of incarcerated people attempting to take control over their environment. Seemingly small gestures and acts can be someone’s only way of showing they too get a say in their surroundings. In the poems, “I breathe the wintry morning breeze,” from Incarceration Nation, and “Over Two Years Ago,” in Disguised as a Poem, the authors find ways to cope with their incarcerated environment by exerting control over it. Some may not view poetry as a viable way to control one’s environment, however to these prisoners it was their only feeling of escape.

Co-option is I argue most clearly defined by Veronica Forrest-Thomson’s Poetic Artifice. A text, that pushed back against critics of the previous generation and endeavoured early on to integrate structuralist thought with post structuralist. This integration between structuralism and post-structuralism can be seen as an attempt to get at the importance of poetry. In an attempt to stress and illuminate poetry’s unique ability to be “transformative of both language and the world.” Forrest-Thomson in Poetic Artifice demands an intense focus on “all the rhythmic, phonetic, verbal and logical devices which makes poetry different from prose” to best consider this ‘transformative’ nature. It is in this distinguishing of poetry from prose, and the highly formalist manner and “structuralist distrust of language’s transparency” in which she follows that one can also see a similar differencing between the broader spectrum of literature with the sciences. There is no need in Forrest-Thomson's work for differing areas to be inclusive of one another, to the point of loss of individuality, because of a homogenizing of methodology and epistemic reasoning. Throughout both Poetic Artifice and her thesis Poetry as Knowledge: The Use of Science by Twentieth Century Poets, Forest-Thomson can be seen to put forward a new structure, in which separation is crucial for any kind of interrelation between the two fields of knowledge. She follows a similar stance as that of Kelly

Some of the poems and essays I have read during this class were relatable to me. Being away from college, I have struggled with not being at home. I have become a different person when I am at school, but when I am home, I feel like I am my normal self again. Some of these authors of the poems and essays that I have read throughout this class has struggled with being somewhere where they don’t belong and that they are someone else when they are not home. Unlike the other poems and essays we have read throughout the course. I enjoyed reading the ones about “home” because I actually understood what they are going through and that I can relate. Some of these poems and essays include “Going Home” by Maurice Kenny, Postcard from Kashmir”, by Agha Shahid Ali, “Returning” by Elias Miguel Munoz and “Hometown” by Luis Cabalquinto. All of these poems deal with duality.