ENGL 2003: Introduction to Poetry

The color of thought has introduced us to the role emotion plays in poetry. Our minds and body react to poetry bringing forward a wide range of emotion.  The chapter discusses how it’s possible to have predispositions to certain emotion. The term the author used to describe such a phenomen is Archetypal image. A term for those images that affect us in a more powerful way than any other experience; some example of these can be birth of an infant, death, love and guilt. These emotions move us because of their importance throughout history. Perhaps within poetry itself we can experience those emotions. Although we are yet unable to describe emotion, we know what it does feel like and how those feelings influences our lives.

The shift in literature in the late 1800s had developed a new outlook on what people would find to be beautiful. It would appear to be desirable to people to observe someone who has worked hard or endured a hardships for glory or greater good. One could say that this is well promoted in Walt Whitman’s Beauty.

“…Not the soldiers trim in handsome uniforms marching off to sprightly music with measured step but the remnant returning thinned out…”

This speaks to me as a before & after arrangement. The soldier is trained, nicely trimmed, and in an untouched, perfect uniform. Afterwards is a war-torn soldier who has been “thinned out” of his original self, leaving his remaining image.

“…Not the beautiful flag with stainless white, spangled with silver & gold but the old rag just adhering to the staff, in tatters–the remnant of many battle-fields…”

The repetition of “remnant” reminds me of this unique concept of beauty. It is a distinction referring to the beauty of what remains. Normally, in a time of war, disparity, &/or other sorts of suffering, something that remains can be looked at as ugly or mangled visually. Yet, it is when the thing that remains is upholding its good essence after such abuse, that we see it to be beautiful. Even when it’s something that is so subtle that it is ignored by the general public, that thing, place, or idea can be admired and appreciated by one or few; not for reasons that are intentionally/artificially composed to create a specific picture/image/reasoning, but for what time and effort the object has been put through, what had events naturally formed around it [or formed it], what it stands for in essence.

Anti-poetry
unconventional ways of describing things in poetry

Sonnets
— often love poems
— last two lines often line — couplet
— the turn

Conceit

In this chapter, it talks about how poet uses “antipoems” to describe what the poem is about. A famous poet who uses “antipoems” is Shakespeare.

Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

This sonnet compares the speaker’s lover to a number of other beauties but never in the lover’s favor. Her eyes are “nothing like the sun,” her lips are less red than coral; compared to white snow, her breasts are dun-colored, and her hairs are like black wires on her head.  The speaker also say he has seen roses separated by color into red and white, but he sees no such roses in his mistress’s cheeks; and he says the breath that “reeks” from his mistress is less delightful than perfume. But he admits that, though he loves her voice, music “hath a far more pleasing sound,” and that, though he has never seen a goddess, his mistress unlike goddesses, walks on the ground. But at the end, the speaker say that any love in which false comparisons were invoked to describe the loved one’s beauty.

Anti-poetry is an art movement that attempts to break away from the normal conventions of poetry. When talking about poetry one usually thinks of a work of writing that’s short, sweet, romantic, etc. Anti-poetry’s are far from that. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is a perfect example of anti-poetry. This is the kind of poem that I don’t think any woman would want dedicated to her. The first quatrain states “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.” The poet does think his mistress has bright eyes, her lips are not like coral, and her hair is as ugly as wires. Poetry is usually used to lure in someone into liking you not the opposite.

Time and time again I’ve heard comments like ‘such an image is so lovely, it’s poetry’. Every time such a phrase has made its way to my everyday life I wondered, does that mean poetry is solely pleasant? During some reading, I was introduced to ‘Anti-poetry’. It’s basically poetry that doesn’t pinpoint only happy go lucky rays of sunshine emotions. My favorite poet, William Shakespeare, wrote a poem called Winter which is a stellar example of anti-poetry. Instead of writing metaphors and similes of how fluffy snow is and the cool breeze, he writes about freezing milk and raw red noses. The poem is unique because it’s a different take on a subject, I’m sure, tons of poets write about. His adjective aren’t the kind laced with enthusiasm and cheer, there are more so gritty and more realistic.  It brings more authenticity to the poem and gives it more meaning to the reader. He doesn’t focus on solely the negative but straddles the medium. Just as Walt Whitman in his piece called Beauty. Walt does comparisons between the young and fruitful and the worn. Yet he consistently chooses the worn subject. He finds beauty in the experience objects and people such the father, mother of many children and the rag adhering to the staff. I feel as if he’s finding beauty in what tends to others and does the dirty jobs.
When it comes to poetry, often times everything flyers sugarcoated and what isn’t gets overlooked. Depicting reality without using solely adjectives that portray happy emotions  is more realistic to the reader, though depicting reality while using negative adjective does not give the reader a realistic image of the subject. To be a great poet, I personally feel, it’s imperative to master the skill. No great poet is remembered for painting a picture too bright or too dark to believe, well I sure don’t remember them.

-NicaMarie

People have created a society where ideas become habits that are hard to let go. The thoughts you create in your mind are only real if you believe it so. If one believes that something should only be “one” certain way and that person convinces others that he is right, then it becomes hard to prove that person otherwise. This relates very much with literature and writing. People assume the habit of believing that one book is better then the other or a piece of writing is more meaningful then the other. This makes it hard for changes to occur that can create  a better foundation for the original idea.

The writing of poetry is a great example of a habit many literature fans find hard to let go of. They believe that a poem can only be written with a certain amount of verses and should only have a certain amount of lines. This limits the capabilities of true creative writing, but what truly is “writing” when it’s all based on your own perception and the thoughts you develop. The term that is used to define the “rebel” quality of going against the standard ideology of how poetry should be written is called “anti-poetry”. Writers who don’t agree with the standard “rules” of poetry may step outside of the boundaries and create what they believe is a “poem”. Many well known people like Elizabeth Bishop, William Shakespeare, and Walt Whitman wrote their own interpretations of what a “poem” can be and introduced a new way of thinking that broke many of the old traditions.

Walt Whitman introduced his own idea of “anti-poetry” and wrote the poem “Beauty”. The structure of the poem was built in a way that was new to the reader’s eyes. The poem never separated the lines in sets like traditional poems but continued. And for every three lines, the fourth one would lean more to the right to signify the unimportant quality of the phrase. The poem, Beauty, showed what people thought “beauty” was and later revealed the true beautiful quality that hid behind the unreal perceived reality. An example of that is when Walt wrote, “Not the vaunted scenery of the tourist, picturesque…but the plain landscape, the bleak sea shore, or the barren plain”. This can be seen as Whitman trying to attack the values of adapted traditional culture, but I don’t believe the message was to create a negative reaction. Walt revealing that there was something more behind the names and differences of every country showed that he only wanted others to see the beauty that he saw behind the simple formations of dirt, plants, and the shapes the sea would make as the water waved hello to those in it’s view.

Would Whitman’s poem have revealed such beauty if it were written in traditional form? I don’t believe it would have. The true quality of writing and a person’s thoughts can only be fully seen if they are allowed to express them in their own way. Sometimes going against the “grain” is better then eating it.

This Sonnet written by William Shakespeare compares his lover to other beauties in life.  For example, he states her lips are less red than coral, if snow was white her breast are dun, her eyes are nothing like the sun and her breath reeks; it is less delightful than ones perfumes. The usual love poems are soft, sweet and kind. This poem discusses the unfavorable characteristics of his lover. I notice in the poem he compares her characteristics to different components in nature. Comparing her eyes to the sun and comparing snow to her breast are some examples. Even though he notices and describes the unfavorable faults in his lover; she does not need to smell like flowers or shine like the sun to be beautiful. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” is a phrase that can describe the feelings in this poem. Everyone has  different definitions to the meaning of beauty.

In the poem Winter by William Shakespeare, one is able to identify  anti-poetry tools being utilized. Anti-poetry is an attempt to divert from the “ordinary” styles of poetry. This includes diverting from the expected “happy or beautiful” poems that readers tend to expect from poets. In the poem “Winter”, Shakespeare presented winter in a realistic point of view. Although some of the lines did in fact possess some sort of beauty, the majority of the poem portrayed winter in a manner that many are familiar with. For example, the poem began with the phrase “When icicles hang by the wall.” When someone is asked to describe winter, especially in a poetic sense, he/she might mention icicles, snowmen, sheets of snow that cover the city, and the beauty of snow falling from the sky. However, in the poem Winter Shakespeare mentioned aspects that might be overlooked. For example, in the second stanza Shakespeare wrote, ” When all aloud the wind doth blow; And coughing drowns the parson’s saw; And birds sit brooding in the snow; And Marison’s nose looks red and raw.” In this stanza, the reality of the wind blowing and how the chilly weather affects both the animals and people are described.

I believe anti-poetry is a poetic tool that should be used more often. It provides the reader with a sense of reality; in a way providing the poem with a kiss of originality and beauty. When a reader reviews a poem with anti-poetry they are faced with familiar aspects of life because the poet did not try to hide reality with fantasy. In the book Western Wind, the authors stated, “The poet who sees only those details that flatter our fondest hopes has one eye closed to reality.”