Wagner's poetry caught my eye because I found the most entertaining. Although they seemed overly constructed, they were still clever. I especially liked her poem "Coming and I did not Run Away". I liked how she started with real German words and then progressed rapidly to imitations of them. I also liked the use of self-awareness in the poems. I thought it worked well in "Among the Orders". Wagner comments on how whatever happens in a poem, it happens mainly because the poet wants to find out what would happen if two things are thrown together.
The one thing that bothered me about the poems were that they seemed very... constructed. I wish I had a better word for this, but I can't think of one. What I mean is, I get the sense in some of the lines that things are being thrown in there just because the poet knows they will catch attention, and she is deliberately trying to be "edgy". One example of this is the vulgarity. I don't have a problem with vulgarity in poems, but here it just seems unnecessary. Like the two homeless people could easily have been doing something besides "fucking". I think Wagner even comments on this herself in "Coming and I did not Run Away". After she randomly throws in the uterus, she even says "I saw the 'usual turn of phrase'/ coming and I did not run away/ I lay around". It sounds to me like she was writing a perfectly good poem, then some random line popped into her head and she just put it down, even though it had nothing to do with the poem. It just felt lazy to me.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Michael Magee - My Angie Dickinson (03/08/2010)
Whoa. This book is such a trip. Reading this book makes me feel like I'm in some sort of whirlwind, falling through the rabbit hole. There are all these objects and people that are known in normal life, but the phrases that link them together make no sense. It's like the Mad Hatter. Like the caterpillar smoking up. A little bit psychotic. Not that that's necessarily bad.
The book takes you down a path you think you know- poems built from stanzas, numbered and spaced with dashes like Emily Dickinson's work- but then hits you over the head with the amount of chaos that's happening. You read a poem, thinking you've recognized things (Margaret Thatcher & the Sphinx, for example) and will now be able to deconstruct it, only to realize you really have no clue what it's about. You're left with the feeling that Magee has taken a little bit of Dickinson and made it something wicked.
Take this excerpt from #102, for example:
Her wound apologizes —
In public — Like a Sailor —
Permeating the postwar years
“Like a” throbbing — Hangover —
At first glance, the it looks like a Dickinsonian verse. It's short, has several dashes, and has quick but lasting phrases that make it up. On second glance, the poem makes no sense. How does a wound apologize and what does that have to do with war or hangovers? At third glance, the poem is so naughty! Sailors (notoriously unmannered and brash) permeating something.... a woman's "wound" perhaps? Makes my mind go straight to the gutter.
Another thing that caught my eye was how in some poems, it seems like Magee is writing from a more feminine point of view. He really seems to be stepping into Dickinson's shoes here. For example:
#77
I’ll never sit on pleather again!
Miguel would never — — have dared pretend
It took a Real Cowboy to pull it — —
My innermost feelings — — Can Be — — like Mike — —
But if the Future is Matrix — — like — —
I can’t wait to do some “bullet”!
It doesn't seem especially manly to be worried about where one is going to sit or talk about one's "innermost feelings". Another example of this is #29:
I dressed, ran toward some nearby woods
with booklet and nice
something — “About” — the mourning dove’s —
low note’s Excuse —
Running into the woods with a booklet (perhaps a novel or a diary) and commenting on the birds seems like something a girl would do, like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or Anne of Green Gables. It is also reminiscent of Dickinson, in the way that she commented on nature and and wrote about things she noticed in her garden.
All in all, I'm not sure if this collection is an ode to Dickinson or just an opportunity to poke fun at her style. I think it might be a combination of both.
The book takes you down a path you think you know- poems built from stanzas, numbered and spaced with dashes like Emily Dickinson's work- but then hits you over the head with the amount of chaos that's happening. You read a poem, thinking you've recognized things (Margaret Thatcher & the Sphinx, for example) and will now be able to deconstruct it, only to realize you really have no clue what it's about. You're left with the feeling that Magee has taken a little bit of Dickinson and made it something wicked.
Take this excerpt from #102, for example:
Her wound apologizes —
In public — Like a Sailor —
Permeating the postwar years
“Like a” throbbing — Hangover —
At first glance, the it looks like a Dickinsonian verse. It's short, has several dashes, and has quick but lasting phrases that make it up. On second glance, the poem makes no sense. How does a wound apologize and what does that have to do with war or hangovers? At third glance, the poem is so naughty! Sailors (notoriously unmannered and brash) permeating something.... a woman's "wound" perhaps? Makes my mind go straight to the gutter.
Another thing that caught my eye was how in some poems, it seems like Magee is writing from a more feminine point of view. He really seems to be stepping into Dickinson's shoes here. For example:
#77
I’ll never sit on pleather again!
Miguel would never — — have dared pretend
It took a Real Cowboy to pull it — —
My innermost feelings — — Can Be — — like Mike — —
But if the Future is Matrix — — like — —
I can’t wait to do some “bullet”!
It doesn't seem especially manly to be worried about where one is going to sit or talk about one's "innermost feelings". Another example of this is #29:
I dressed, ran toward some nearby woods
with booklet and nice
something — “About” — the mourning dove’s —
low note’s Excuse —
Running into the woods with a booklet (perhaps a novel or a diary) and commenting on the birds seems like something a girl would do, like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or Anne of Green Gables. It is also reminiscent of Dickinson, in the way that she commented on nature and and wrote about things she noticed in her garden.
All in all, I'm not sure if this collection is an ode to Dickinson or just an opportunity to poke fun at her style. I think it might be a combination of both.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
In the spirit of "Sleeping with the Dictionary"...
Alphabet Poem:
Ay, boy, calm down. Easy.
Free girls have it. Just, kind lovers
meaning no other passion. Quest rests south.
Tucked under various wardrobes – Xanadu!
Yours,
Zaaraa
Monday, March 1, 2010
Harryette Mullen - Sleeping with the Dictionary (03/01/2010)
The poems in "Sleeping With The Dictionary" came off as very witty and funny. It definitely seemed like Mullen enjoyed writing the poems, whether they be her long prose exposés or her nonsensical babbles. I enjoyed them too, as a reader, because they were a great break from the other books we read which were all very obviously trying to pass on serious messages.
One of the reasons I liked this book was because I enjoyed her exploration of language. One example of this is "Coo/Slur".
da red
yell ow
bro won t
an orange you
bay jaun
pure people
blew hue
a gree gree in
viol let
purepeople
be lack
why it
pee ink
It's such a simple thing. All she is doing is playing with the sounds in the names of colors. It's clever because she makes the reader want to read the poem again and again and recite it aloud.
Another poem that plays with language is "Mantra for a Classless Society, on Mr. Roget's Neighborhood". Mullen mixes "synonym-izing" and "alliter-izing" to create this poem. She manages to imbue meaning into it at the same time. It is this careful crafting that I admire and appreciate in Mullen's work. It reminds me of how every line 1984 is so particularly prepared to give the reader the over all sense of the situation just through the sound and hidden meanings in the words.
Finally, in talking about how Mullen plays with language, we of course have to mention her book's title and overall theme. I how she tried to explore every letter of the alphabet through her poems. I only wonder why she had more of some letters than others. I also wonder if she wrote all these poems with the intention of writing an alphabet book or if she had a bunch of these poems already and then just decided to fill in the gaps in the alphabet by writing more.
Other poems that I enjoyed are what I consider to be Mullen's little "jokes" in her book. One such poem is "O, 'Tis William". It reminds me of the classic "Who's on First?" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfmvkO5x6Ng), and I'm sure that she must have heard that and been inspired by it.
Another such poem is "Kamasutra Sutra". "Sutra" means rules, and Kama Sutra is the book containing the rules of love. Thus, I found it interesting that meaning of the poem's title is rules of the rule-book of love. Besides this, the poem itself is clever and funny.
Lastly, I liked how there are little bombs of unknown or unfamiliar words dropped all over the place in this book. They are not usually enough to seriously impede comprehension of the poem, but they are enough of a block to make a reader want to pick up a dictionary. It's almost as if Mullen is trying to get her readers to take the same journey she seems to have taken and really explore language for all its sounds and meanings and synonyms and whatever else is hidden inside it.
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