Poem of the Week - Song (by Allen Ginsberg)

This may be the last post I submit until my final two weeks of classes are over: Dead week (Pre-finals) and Finals week. I have many papers due and study... and these will be my last formal education papers in one or two years, while I study languages and the GRE in Mexico.

Saying this, a question arises in my head:

"If I'm Mexican, what am I doing studying English poetry?"

Well, this is very hard to answer. I don't know why it happened, I just know that it did. I know I'm speaking in very personal terms here, but hey! Poetry is personal, and without the human element, it's simply a computer's try at meaning, shooting words at random and not having soul or anything (Like talking to false computer dates who respond in broken English and say they are from Russia... no, this hasn't happened to me, I read it in an article in Scientific American Psychology).

Yes, I know I drifted...

So why am I studying English poetry? Well, I will make a confession in my blog.

I used to be a Physics major...

... *waits for the "That's such a change!!!" comments*

And I came to the United States mostly because my parents told me the education here is better than in Mexico. I didn't know what to choose or what to follow in my life. I just wanted to please my parents, but after two years of lying to myself, I woke up and changed my major from Physics to English... I honestly felt like I could breathe again... I was born again in my Junior year, Fall 2008.

I don't know why I came to poetry. I don't know why many things happen, actually. They just do. I've been looking for a Claddagh ring online, and suddenly the Claddagh ring came to me in a Stillwater tent, with a lady selling jewelry for both men and women (and my ring size being 7, I was trying to look for not-so-girly apparel).

I wrote poetry before I knew I was going to be a poet.

I spoke English fluently since I was a kid without knowing that I would spend 4 years and a half of my life in the United States. I seem that I don't look for anything, really, but the world seems to open on itself, and the universe arranges everything as it should be.

Maybe I'm being too self-centered, but that;s life, isn't it? We all have individual voices in our writings, and we either drift (like me) or get to the point in a second.

I have faith that I will come to the United States again, but my time is not now. I still need to learn how to drive, and I really want a year off from school.

Ah! I look back at how pretty my apparent stream of consciousness works. This is how I get to know myself, actually.

I want you to leave you guys with a poem that made me cry in a dream. I swear I was dreaming that I was reading it, and tears flowed out of my eyes into the real world... what a beautiful image! The memory can make us cry even when we don't want to.

It's called Song, and it was written by Allen Ginsberg. I just love the sounds and the feeling, and the truth behind it. I wish I could kiss the poem, make it mine, I'm not sure... (hopefully my partner won't be jealous of another man's writing). Here it is!

Song
by Allen Ginsberg


The weight of the world
     is love.
Under the burden
     of solitude,
under the burden
     of dissatisfaction

     the weight,
the weight we carry
     is love.

Who can deny?
     In dreams
it touches
     the body,
in thought
     constructs
a miracle,
     in imagination
anguishes
     till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
     burning with purity--
for the burden of life
     is love,

but we carry the weight
     wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
     at last,
must rest in the arms
     of love.

No rest
     without love,
no sleep
     without dreams
of love--
     be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
     or machines,
the final wish
     is love
--cannot be bitter,
     cannot deny,
cannot withhold
     if denied:

the weight is too heavy

     --must give
for no return
     as thought
is given
     in solitude
in all the excellence
     of its excess.

The warm bodies
     shine together
in the darkness,
     the hand moves
to the center
     of the flesh,
the skin trembles
     in happiness
and the soul comes
     joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
     that's what
I wanted,
     I always wanted,
I always wanted,
     to return
to the body
     where I was born.

                         San Jose, 1954

Poem of the Week - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

I know it's Tuesday, but I got sick this Thanksgiving weekend and didn't check my blog at all. I know... lame.

But anyhow, since I do not have much strength to actually write about poetry, I will then leave you guys with this week's poem, another one of my favorites from T.S. Eliot.

It's considered a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. What I remember about Modernism is very vague. In my Postmodern Literature class, we learned that Modernism was function over form (something like that, if you disagree please comment and I'll correct my post). This means that whatever piece of art that you create, has a perfect purpose. Buildings have to be functional, poems have to be functional, paintings have to be functional.

In my British Literature Class, Modernism was what I would call Postmodernism in my American college upbringing. Modernism in that class was like chaos (a very Postmodern idea that nothing has order anymore). I got really confused since I was taking both classes at the same time, and my final British paper was like my first Postmodernism paper... I talked all I could about Postmodernism and just took out the "Post" prefix, and got an A in my paper...

Now what is Modernism? I feel like I confused you all.

I will say Modernism focuses on "Function" over "Form," while Postmodernism criticizes this by saying that everything is relative (hopefully my professor won't cut my head off before I graduate in three weeks from today).

So... the poem...

This is not a blog for analyzing poetry. This is a blog for freedom of loving poetry. My love cannot be contained in a thorough analysis of this poem. The feelings I experience, however, are more human than the computerized idea of "rules" and the such. I feel peace, dread, dancing, dying, eating, hunger and satisfaction in this poem.

But what captures me the most is the phrase: "There will be time."

Isn't that such a nice thing to hear? There will be time. Time for what? Well, time for whatever you want to create or destroy, to live and die, to fulfill your dreams and fail and try again. To me it's a very positive poem, and I hope you guys like it too. I will write more about writing poetry this or maybe next week. Enjoy!

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T. S. Eliot

S`io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains.

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys.

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me.

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

        So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

        And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

        And should I then presume?

        And how should I begin?

                              .   .   .   .   .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

                              .   .   .   .   .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep. . . tired . . . or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: “ I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”--

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

        Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.

        That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--

And this, and so much more?--

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow, or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

        “That is not it at all,

        That is not what I meant, at all.”

                              .   .   .   .   .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall  wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Poem of the Week

Yes... I know I said "don't think about famous poets." But that's only while you're writing a poem of your own. When we're not writing poems, what should we do?

Well... I personally like to watch television or movies. Yes... this is a sin in the English Department in almost any university in America... but I do it anyway. Not because I'm trying to rebel against the established order, but because I like to relax and let others do my thinking for me for a while...

BUT...

This doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading poetry. I love to read something new. I love to find a poem that connects with me deeply. I want a poem to move me, change my life, make me think about the music of words. This is why I became a poet.

Since this is my first time writing a blog, I still don't know where to go from here. I kinda want to talk about other things besides poetry (hoping this won't be sacrilegious to poets in general). Besides, I believe life is poetry, and poetry comes from life. So... yay for interrelated terms!

Anyhow, I would like to start something called: Poem of the Week. A section that's gonna show some poems I like or admire from either old poets or contemporary ones.

Poem of the Week:

Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman.

This is Whitman's Magnum Opus, in my opinion. It's a very long poem that you really don't have to read unless you want to. However, it did make me feel like I was loved by the whole universe, and that I was no better or worse than any boss, parent, child, president or soldier.

I am only going to post my favorite part of his 52. Part 6, and here it is:

from Song of Myself
by Walt Whitman


6

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; 
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. 

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green 
stuff woven. 

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, 
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, 
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see 
and remark, and say Whose? 

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. 

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, 
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, 
Growing among black folks as among white, 
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I 
receive them the same. 

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. 

Tenderly will I use you curling grass, 
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, 
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, 
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out 
of their mothers' laps, 
And here you are the mothers' laps. 

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, 
Darker than the colorless beards of old men, 
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. 

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, 
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. 

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, 
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken 
soon out of their laps. 

What do you think has become of the young and old men? 
And what do you think has become of the women and children? 

They are alive and well somewhere, 
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, 
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the 
end to arrest it, 
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. 

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, 
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. 

How To Start Writing A Poem - Part 1

How hard can it be to write a poem? I mean, anybody can do it... right? From little five-year old Timmy in preschool to old Lady Du-Bois in the nursing home.

I've been writing poetry for six years, both in Spanish and English. Although at first I just wrote whatever popped into my head, I discovered that poetry had its rules, music, form... so many terms I began to learn and sometimes even mix together and forget. Although I have studied Creative Writing for two years, I am pretty much ignorant of many terms (although I do plan on going to graduate school in 1 or 2 years).

I am a beginner. I have not lived my whole life in poetry, but I'd like to begin and do it, in both a formal and fun way. That's why I began this blog.

Now, where to start? Maybe you'd like to read Poetry for Dummies, or maybe browse around Wikipedia about famous American Poets of the 19th century (Walt Whitman is my favorite poet, so I'm a little biased, hence the title of my blog).

But let's forget for a moment that there are famous poets. Forget anybody got published. Even forget about Whitman, Eliot, Dickinson, Ginsberg, Poe, and all others (sorry if I made you remember them). Forget about them.

Clear your head. What do you see? Grab a pen and some paper and start to write down what comes to your head. Maybe a memory that you have from a few days ago. Maybe something that makes you happy, or someone you just wanna strangle. This is called brainstorming. You don't need to follow any rules. You don't even need to show anybody what you got.

You can list things, emotions, images, anything that pops into your head. This is the beginning of all poems: feeling. I usually like to start with images because I am a very visual person. If you like sounds, write about them. Write anything.

Keep going...

Flow naturally...

And...

Now, stop!

Look at the paper and your ideas. Are there any connections? Does one image connect to another one? If so, you're halfway there.

This is how I write poetry. It may be different for you, but I like to just go with the flow. If I'm angry, I should write angrily. If I'm happy, I'll write happily. Never force yourself to write something you don't feel. This will make the poem a hypocrite. And we don't like hypocrites, do we?

This is just the beginning: Brainstorming. But for now, this is all we need to worry about. Clear your head and don't think of all those poets who changed lives, because they can overwhelm you. You are as important as they are. You have your voice too.

Like Whitman said: "I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." So let us sing our own voices, and change or perhaps maintain the world as we write.