People come in many colors, shapes, and sizes. They have adapted to radically different climates, unique political situations, and clashing worldviews. Therefore, it is always startling when some incident comes along and reveals that we are not so different after all. And ever since the first man realized he could connect with a stranger on a deeply human level with words, humans have had poetry. Poetry is a dynamic and fluid art form created deliberately to receive a special kind of attention and evoke thoughts and feelings in its audience. Poetry speaks to a part of us ruled not by logic, but by our fears, desires, empathy, and hearts. Poetry lives and breathes, and without an attentive audience, it would die.
Nearly every person who takes the time to form a definition of poetry will come to a different conclusion, which is not so much discouraging as it is terribly exciting. Poet Lyn Hejinian wrote in her introduction to The Best American Poetry 2004, “the fact that there are no answers is one source of the vitality of the art form” (Hejinian, 9). Poetry evades definition because the only piece of it that is tangible is the written word, and this visible aspect is a miniscule part of the product. The product is a feeling, a conversation, and a better understanding of the human condition. Poetry is difficult to define because it is vast, dynamic, and ever-changing.
I feel that defining poetry is similar to defining beauty. I recently sat through a classmate’s Sociology presentation that outlined how the idea of beauty is socially constructed and affects society in unexpected ways. A woman today may be called a “classic beauty,” but the criteria for beauty is modified drastically from era to era. Despite personal preferences, the members of every society collectively agree upon what is "beautiful," and it is a fact that those beautiful people will receive a certain kind of attention that often gives them privilege. Beautiful people are more likely to receive second chances, be given jobs, and be considered kind and sociable. In this same way, poetry asks us to pay it a certain kind of attention and to give it the benefit of the doubt if we don’t understand it the first, second, or hundredth time we read it. If it is successful, its audience will fall under its spell and give it the attention it craves.
I choose to give poetry my attention when it evokes in me a feeling that I can’t name, but also can not shake. T.S. Eliot wrote that “genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” Several times throughout this course I have heard a poem speak to me before I knew what it is saying. One of my first encounters with this phenomenon was while reading Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland.” In a forum post about the poem I wrote, “It is strange to me that I can be moved so poignantly by a poem that I don’t even understand.” This was still weeks before I learned the term Eliot himself coined the “objective correlative,” in which the poet uses an image to evoke an emotion without naming it. He successfully caused me to feel the heaviness of death in “The Wasteland” through his descriptions of fleeting seasons, “dull roots,” and “dead land.” It created in me the initial pull that made me want to spend more time with the poem.
As with beauty, we hope that poetry’s lure is not only skin deep. If people are going to spend time in contemplation over a splatter of words across a page, the words must tell them something important. This is what Yusef Komunyakaa argued as he wrote an introduction to The Best American Poetry 2003. He expressed concern about the way some poets mask their messages “through a language that deliberately confuses and blurs meaning” (Komunyakaa, 13). He believes that poetry should be written in response to events and feelings, and asks the question, “To what extent can language be distorted before it loses meaning, before it erases itself” (Komunyakaa, 17)?
Komunyakaa was a poet featured in the anthology Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, which featured the work of 145 poets responding to conflict in various parts of the world throughout the twentieth-century. Many of the poets in the collection wrote under severe tyranny and repression. Sometimes they encoded their poetry with secret meanings to avoid execution or jail, but many were extremely brave by expressing their anger at powerful regimes as well as their sadness at the deaths of innocent people. Komunyakaa praises the poets because poetry should bring conflicts to the surface and refuse people the luxury of forgetting.
One poet featured in Against Forgetting was Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian-born poet, playwright, and author who responded with poetry to apartheid in his home country. One of his poems, “Massacre, October ’66,” subtly documents the genocide that claimed the lives of 10,000 people. Soyinka spent years of his life in solitary confinement because of his outspokenness about the conflict he was witnessing, but even in a tiny, dank cell, he found means to pen his feelings. By writing, Soyinka has brought light to a conflict that drastically altered and even ended the lives of millions of individuals. He successfully fulfils the job description of a poet that author Salman Rushdie describes is “to name the un-nameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep” (Rushdie).
Another poet I encountered who, through his art, connects readers with a population frequently kept silent is Mark Doty. Doty is a popular American poet who has received attention for his often autobiographical and anecdotal poetry. A theme that shines through Doty’s work is that of love in all its forms. Doty often writes about gay issues because he feels that the gay experience is misrepresented or completely erased in current culture (Contemporary Poets). I enjoyed reading his book Turtle, Swan this semester because he seamlessly blended stories and sentiment that made me feel connected to him and simultaneously gave me a window into a life very different from my own in which parents were not a constant guiding presence and AIDS was a devastating reality. Because I am human, I can relate to my fellow human’s anxieties and dreams, even if we come from very different circumstances.
One thing that does not define poetry is its form. Poetry takes countless shapes- from Hejinian’s thick, blocky stanzas in My Life, to G.C. Waldrep’s sporadically indented stanzas with words floating mid-page in Disclamor, to the classic, lyric-like stanzas of Emily Dickinson. Form is a tool that poets use to call attention to their poetry and manipulate their audience’s eyes and minds, but it is impossible to say that because words are arranged in a certain way, they are or are not a poem. Even a novel, I have decided, should not be refused the right to be called poetry. I have read books that speak directly to my heart, that connect me to another place and time, and that still live and breathe inside of me years later, and I would challenge anybody who would try to tell me they are not poetry.
Any mention of the novel My Antonia by Willa Cather, which I read two years ago, causes my heart to skip a beat because I was so affected by her descriptions of the Nebraska prairie and the people who lived there. Who could deny the beauty and truth of the words, “There was only—spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere; in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind—rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known it was spring” (Cather, 790)? This book has become a part of me.
Indeed, poetry is alive. It requires love and it loves company. If a poem is left cramped inside a book without air, it will die. We know that the poetry we read today is, in fact, poetry because it has survived. If we stop reading it, it will cease to be. All poetry that exists has earned and retained our attention, opened our eyes and our hearts to what is unique and universal, wonderful and discouraging, frightening and exhilarating about our world. All it asks of us in return is to feel, to respond, and to keep reading.
Works Cited
Cather, Willa. Early Novels and Stories. New York, N.Y: Literary Classics of the United States, 1987. Print.
“Mark (A.) Doty.” Contemporary Poets. Gale, 2001. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.
Hejinian, Lyn. Introduction. Lyn Hejinian and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry .2004. Scribner, 2004. 9-14. Print.
Komunyakaa, Yusef. Introduction. Yusef Komunyakaa and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2003. New York: Scribner, 2003. 11-21. Print.
Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. New York, NY: Viking, 1989. Print.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wole Soyinka: An Author and Advocate
Here I invite you to explore with me the life of poet, playright, and novelist Wole Soyinka, and how he responded to apartheid in Nigeria with POETRY! (I've done most of the work for you, and compiled it into a medium-sized paper.)
Wole Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934 in Isara, Nigeria. His father, Ayo, was a headmaster at St. Peter’s Primary School in Ake Abeokuta. Tribal elders directed Ake, the village that Soyinka grew up in. He was exposed as a child to tribal gods and folklore, and was even consecrated by his grandfather to the god Ogun, ruler of metal, roads, and creative and destructive essence. At the same time, his mother was a devout Christian (Contemporary Authors). A child with strong curiosity and sensibility, Soyinka began studying at his father’s school and ascended the ranks until he completed his bachelor’s degree with a major in English at the University of Leeds in England (Postcolonial African Writers African Writers).
Soyinka had begun his writing career by submitting poems and short stories to various magazines. While at Leeds, however, he came to love Shakespeare, Japanese Noh drama, and a wide range of other genres of theater. He continued to experience and enjoy the theater at the Royal Court, where he was a play reader, actor, and writer in the writer’s’ experimental workshops (Postcolonial African Writers African Writers).
While Soyinka was studying in Europe, tensions were high in his homeland. During the nineteenth century, Britain had set up several colonial structures in Nigeria. These areas were only beginning to merge when, in 1960, Nigeria gained its independence. In Britain’s attempts to protect the interests of the multiple regions, it created intense rivalry between them, as they each sought to control Nigeria’s political center (Civil War). A coup d’état occurred on January 15, 1966 by a group that hoped to save the country from falling apart, but it was interpreted as a subterfuge to take over the country. General Ironsi, head of state, was then displaced in a countercoup on July 29. A new head of state was installed named Yakubu Gowon (Nigeria). Gowon and his followers believed that a tribe called the Igbo were responsible for the initial takeover of power and were a threat to the well-being of the country. With this belief, those involved in the countercoup went on to commit a horrific extermination of Igbo people throughout the northern region of Nigeria. In a mere two months, over 10,000 Igbo had been killed while thousands more were injured or dispossessed. Another 1.5 million people within the borders of Nigeria were refugees (Nigeria).
Even in the time following the massacre, Igbo people were discriminated against and refused compensation for their loses. The only way they could be safe, they decided, was to remain in the eastern region, overseen by Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu who was an Igbo himself. They would not recognize Gowon as head of state (Nigeria). Furthermore, the possibility of secession from the rest of the nation appeared attractive because of a discovery of oil centered in the eastern region (Civil War). A meeting was organized between Gowon and Ojukwu to iron out their differences, but cooperation did not last long. The agreements established at the meeting concerning the salaries of displaced people and who would serve as commander in chief came into dispute, and the conflicts quickly elevated again. On May 26, 1967, Ojukwu assembled several political organizations and declared the eastern region an independent sovereign state called the Republic of Biafra. The same day, the federal authority split Nigeria into twelve states. Lt. Col. Gowon assumed sweeping powers over all of the states and issued Decree No. 14 which banned political activities and implemented press censorship (Nigeria).
Soyinka had returned from Europe to Nigeria in 1959, while the country was only beginning to break apart. For much of his life, Soyinka had been influenced by Western values, lifestyle, and art (Postcolonial African Writers). Upon returning, he became involved in the preparations for independence by the country, but he was able to look at the situation with the eyes of an outsider. He was opposed to the corruption and the Nigerian civilian government takeovers. His contribution to the cause was writing a series of plays on corrupt power. In these plays he blended references to Yoruba traditions with European art and philosophy (Contemporary Novelists). This characteristic made him a unique voice in both literature and cultural politics.
One of Soyinka’s earlier poems, found in his collection Idanre & Other Poems, is entitled “Massacre, October ’66.” The poem clearly responds to the genocide that claimed the lives of 10,000 Igbo people. The title reads almost as if it preceded a research paper, but the poet’s language takes on a much more symbolic trajectory. He employs images of autumn, “dying leaves” and “brain of thousands pressed asleep to pig fodder” to illustrate the overwhelming devastation of the genocide. Without knowledge of the event, the reader of the poem would not be able to pinpoint exactly what the poet refers to, and in fact Soyinka has been criticized for being overly allusive in his writing (Contemporary Novelists).
Soyinka fiercely opposed the federal government’s violent treatment of the Igbo people as they tried to legitimize their new state (Contemporary Authors). Though Emeka Ojukwu had declared the Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967, “the federal government declared the action null” (Postcolonial African Writers). They attacked Biafra from two sides with an enormous supply of weaponry, and Biafra completely lacked the materials to fight back. They were pushed toward the coast where a sea blockade, internal division, and very little support from the rest of the world stopped them. Not only could they not fight, but the people of Biafra had no food. Due to starvation and war, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people died daily at the beginning of the war, and nearly 10,000 daily by the end. By April 1969, the population of Biafra had shrunk to a third of its original size (Postcolonial African Writers).
Audiences immediately took notice of Soyinka’s strong opinions against the treatment of the Biafra people, so it became international news when he was first arrested in 1965. He was accused of forcing a radio announcer to report incorrect election results at gunpoint, though his accusers never had any evidence of this. He was released after three months, but was arrested again in 1967 following a trip to Biafra to establish a peace commission. This time the police filed no official charge, but accused him of helping the Biafran people buy fighter jets (Contemporary Authors). The detention lasted for two years and for much of it, Soyinka was held in solitary confinement. Though he had no pens or notebooks in his tiny cell, he was able to find a creative outlet. He used materials such as toilet paper, cigarette packets, and homemade “soy-ink” to write several works that reflected his state of mind and the dreadful conditions he experienced. One of these pieces is A Shuttle in the Crypt, a book of poems (Postcolonial African Writers).
In the preface of A Shuttle in the Crypt Soyinka explains that the shuttle is a caged animal, a “restless bolt of energy,” that he identified with while in prison as a way to battle the dangers of isolation. The collection, he writes, “is a map of the course trodden by the mind, not a record of the actual struggle against a vegetable existence…” (Soyinka).
One of the poems found in A Shuttle in the Crypt is “A cobweb’s touch in the dark.” In this poem, the poet has an experience with a cobweb that causes him to think about the ancestral web. The poem contains five short stanzas, made up of three to four lines each that serve to explore feelings stirred in the poet by the web. By touching the web, he feels the “dark vapours of the earth exhaling. A thread of the web causes him to think of “things gone by, a brush of time.” In the end, however, “It slips,” and the moment is over (Shuttle in the Crypt). This poem is a clear example of how exactly Soyinka overcame his time in solitary confinement. Though he was stuck in a small cell with little external stimulation, he went inside himself and indulged his tendency to wonder and create (Abou-bakr). Like a shuttle, he was restless within his cage, but rather than being concerned only with physical freedom, he successfully transcended his captivity through mental exploits that covered time and space.
On January 11, 1970, Emeka Ojukwu, who had led the people of Biafra for three years, fled to Cote d’Ivoire. The attempt to exist as a separate entity had failed. The Igbo people were then, and are today discriminated against and were not reinstated in their previous jobs (Nigeria). After being released from confinement at the end of the war, Soyinka was forced into exile several times over the course of nearly thirty years. In 1994, a leader by the name of Ibrahim Babangida assumed power. Under this leadership Soyinka was charged with treason for his criticism of the military regime, and given a death sentence in his home of Nigeria (Contemporary Authors). He has written and taught in an array of settings, from head of the English Department at Lagos University to the overseas fellow in Churchill College at Cambridge University, to professorship and lectureship assignment in universities in Britain and the United Sates. He currently teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is the President's Marymount Institute Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California(Postcolonial African Writers).
In the Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1986, Thomas Hayes wrote about Soyinka that “His drama and fiction have challenged the West to broaden its aesthetic and accept African standards of art and literature. His personal and political life have challenged Africa to embrace the truly democratic values of the African tribe and reject the tyranny of power practiced on the continent by its colonizers and by many of its modern rulers” (Contemporary Authors). Soyinka is predominantly known for his novels and plays, but across all of his writing he advocated for democracy and justice (Femi). His understanding of the African conflicts and Western language and culture gave him the ability to make a devastating issue real for readers around the world.
Works Cited
Abou-bakr, Randa. "The Political Prisoner as Antihero: The Prison Poetry of Wole Soyinka and 'Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm." Comparative Literature Studies 46.2 (2009): 261-86. Print.
"Civil War: Postcolonial African Writers Africa." Encyclopedia of African History. London: Routledge, 2004. Credo Reference. Web. 24 March 2011.
Killam, Douglas, and Rowe, Ruth. The Companion to African Literatures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Print.
Femi, Euba. “Wole Soyinka.” Postcolonial African Writers African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print
"Nigeria: Biafran Secession and Civil War, 1967-1970." Encyclopedia of African History. London: Routledge, 2004. Credo Reference. Web. 24 March 2011.
Postcolonial African Writers African Writers : a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press. 1998. Print.
Soyinka, Wole. A Shuttle in the Crypt. Hill and Wang, 1972.
"SOYINKA, Wole." An African Biographical Dictionary. Amenia: Grey House Publishing, 2006. Credo Reference. Web. 26 March 2011.
Soyinka, Wole. Early Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998.
"Wole Soyinka." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
"Wole Soyinka." Contemporary Novelists. Gale, 2001. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
Wole Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934 in Isara, Nigeria. His father, Ayo, was a headmaster at St. Peter’s Primary School in Ake Abeokuta. Tribal elders directed Ake, the village that Soyinka grew up in. He was exposed as a child to tribal gods and folklore, and was even consecrated by his grandfather to the god Ogun, ruler of metal, roads, and creative and destructive essence. At the same time, his mother was a devout Christian (Contemporary Authors). A child with strong curiosity and sensibility, Soyinka began studying at his father’s school and ascended the ranks until he completed his bachelor’s degree with a major in English at the University of Leeds in England (Postcolonial African Writers African Writers).
Soyinka had begun his writing career by submitting poems and short stories to various magazines. While at Leeds, however, he came to love Shakespeare, Japanese Noh drama, and a wide range of other genres of theater. He continued to experience and enjoy the theater at the Royal Court, where he was a play reader, actor, and writer in the writer’s’ experimental workshops (Postcolonial African Writers African Writers).
While Soyinka was studying in Europe, tensions were high in his homeland. During the nineteenth century, Britain had set up several colonial structures in Nigeria. These areas were only beginning to merge when, in 1960, Nigeria gained its independence. In Britain’s attempts to protect the interests of the multiple regions, it created intense rivalry between them, as they each sought to control Nigeria’s political center (Civil War). A coup d’état occurred on January 15, 1966 by a group that hoped to save the country from falling apart, but it was interpreted as a subterfuge to take over the country. General Ironsi, head of state, was then displaced in a countercoup on July 29. A new head of state was installed named Yakubu Gowon (Nigeria). Gowon and his followers believed that a tribe called the Igbo were responsible for the initial takeover of power and were a threat to the well-being of the country. With this belief, those involved in the countercoup went on to commit a horrific extermination of Igbo people throughout the northern region of Nigeria. In a mere two months, over 10,000 Igbo had been killed while thousands more were injured or dispossessed. Another 1.5 million people within the borders of Nigeria were refugees (Nigeria).
Even in the time following the massacre, Igbo people were discriminated against and refused compensation for their loses. The only way they could be safe, they decided, was to remain in the eastern region, overseen by Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu who was an Igbo himself. They would not recognize Gowon as head of state (Nigeria). Furthermore, the possibility of secession from the rest of the nation appeared attractive because of a discovery of oil centered in the eastern region (Civil War). A meeting was organized between Gowon and Ojukwu to iron out their differences, but cooperation did not last long. The agreements established at the meeting concerning the salaries of displaced people and who would serve as commander in chief came into dispute, and the conflicts quickly elevated again. On May 26, 1967, Ojukwu assembled several political organizations and declared the eastern region an independent sovereign state called the Republic of Biafra. The same day, the federal authority split Nigeria into twelve states. Lt. Col. Gowon assumed sweeping powers over all of the states and issued Decree No. 14 which banned political activities and implemented press censorship (Nigeria).
Soyinka had returned from Europe to Nigeria in 1959, while the country was only beginning to break apart. For much of his life, Soyinka had been influenced by Western values, lifestyle, and art (Postcolonial African Writers). Upon returning, he became involved in the preparations for independence by the country, but he was able to look at the situation with the eyes of an outsider. He was opposed to the corruption and the Nigerian civilian government takeovers. His contribution to the cause was writing a series of plays on corrupt power. In these plays he blended references to Yoruba traditions with European art and philosophy (Contemporary Novelists). This characteristic made him a unique voice in both literature and cultural politics.
One of Soyinka’s earlier poems, found in his collection Idanre & Other Poems, is entitled “Massacre, October ’66.” The poem clearly responds to the genocide that claimed the lives of 10,000 Igbo people. The title reads almost as if it preceded a research paper, but the poet’s language takes on a much more symbolic trajectory. He employs images of autumn, “dying leaves” and “brain of thousands pressed asleep to pig fodder” to illustrate the overwhelming devastation of the genocide. Without knowledge of the event, the reader of the poem would not be able to pinpoint exactly what the poet refers to, and in fact Soyinka has been criticized for being overly allusive in his writing (Contemporary Novelists).
Soyinka fiercely opposed the federal government’s violent treatment of the Igbo people as they tried to legitimize their new state (Contemporary Authors). Though Emeka Ojukwu had declared the Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967, “the federal government declared the action null” (Postcolonial African Writers). They attacked Biafra from two sides with an enormous supply of weaponry, and Biafra completely lacked the materials to fight back. They were pushed toward the coast where a sea blockade, internal division, and very little support from the rest of the world stopped them. Not only could they not fight, but the people of Biafra had no food. Due to starvation and war, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people died daily at the beginning of the war, and nearly 10,000 daily by the end. By April 1969, the population of Biafra had shrunk to a third of its original size (Postcolonial African Writers).
Audiences immediately took notice of Soyinka’s strong opinions against the treatment of the Biafra people, so it became international news when he was first arrested in 1965. He was accused of forcing a radio announcer to report incorrect election results at gunpoint, though his accusers never had any evidence of this. He was released after three months, but was arrested again in 1967 following a trip to Biafra to establish a peace commission. This time the police filed no official charge, but accused him of helping the Biafran people buy fighter jets (Contemporary Authors). The detention lasted for two years and for much of it, Soyinka was held in solitary confinement. Though he had no pens or notebooks in his tiny cell, he was able to find a creative outlet. He used materials such as toilet paper, cigarette packets, and homemade “soy-ink” to write several works that reflected his state of mind and the dreadful conditions he experienced. One of these pieces is A Shuttle in the Crypt, a book of poems (Postcolonial African Writers).
In the preface of A Shuttle in the Crypt Soyinka explains that the shuttle is a caged animal, a “restless bolt of energy,” that he identified with while in prison as a way to battle the dangers of isolation. The collection, he writes, “is a map of the course trodden by the mind, not a record of the actual struggle against a vegetable existence…” (Soyinka).
One of the poems found in A Shuttle in the Crypt is “A cobweb’s touch in the dark.” In this poem, the poet has an experience with a cobweb that causes him to think about the ancestral web. The poem contains five short stanzas, made up of three to four lines each that serve to explore feelings stirred in the poet by the web. By touching the web, he feels the “dark vapours of the earth exhaling. A thread of the web causes him to think of “things gone by, a brush of time.” In the end, however, “It slips,” and the moment is over (Shuttle in the Crypt). This poem is a clear example of how exactly Soyinka overcame his time in solitary confinement. Though he was stuck in a small cell with little external stimulation, he went inside himself and indulged his tendency to wonder and create (Abou-bakr). Like a shuttle, he was restless within his cage, but rather than being concerned only with physical freedom, he successfully transcended his captivity through mental exploits that covered time and space.
On January 11, 1970, Emeka Ojukwu, who had led the people of Biafra for three years, fled to Cote d’Ivoire. The attempt to exist as a separate entity had failed. The Igbo people were then, and are today discriminated against and were not reinstated in their previous jobs (Nigeria). After being released from confinement at the end of the war, Soyinka was forced into exile several times over the course of nearly thirty years. In 1994, a leader by the name of Ibrahim Babangida assumed power. Under this leadership Soyinka was charged with treason for his criticism of the military regime, and given a death sentence in his home of Nigeria (Contemporary Authors). He has written and taught in an array of settings, from head of the English Department at Lagos University to the overseas fellow in Churchill College at Cambridge University, to professorship and lectureship assignment in universities in Britain and the United Sates. He currently teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is the President's Marymount Institute Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California(Postcolonial African Writers).
In the Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1986, Thomas Hayes wrote about Soyinka that “His drama and fiction have challenged the West to broaden its aesthetic and accept African standards of art and literature. His personal and political life have challenged Africa to embrace the truly democratic values of the African tribe and reject the tyranny of power practiced on the continent by its colonizers and by many of its modern rulers” (Contemporary Authors). Soyinka is predominantly known for his novels and plays, but across all of his writing he advocated for democracy and justice (Femi). His understanding of the African conflicts and Western language and culture gave him the ability to make a devastating issue real for readers around the world.
Works Cited
Abou-bakr, Randa. "The Political Prisoner as Antihero: The Prison Poetry of Wole Soyinka and 'Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm." Comparative Literature Studies 46.2 (2009): 261-86. Print.
"Civil War: Postcolonial African Writers Africa." Encyclopedia of African History. London: Routledge, 2004. Credo Reference. Web. 24 March 2011.
Killam, Douglas, and Rowe, Ruth. The Companion to African Literatures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Print.
Femi, Euba. “Wole Soyinka.” Postcolonial African Writers African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print
"Nigeria: Biafran Secession and Civil War, 1967-1970." Encyclopedia of African History. London: Routledge, 2004. Credo Reference. Web. 24 March 2011.
Postcolonial African Writers African Writers : a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press. 1998. Print.
Soyinka, Wole. A Shuttle in the Crypt. Hill and Wang, 1972.
"SOYINKA, Wole." An African Biographical Dictionary. Amenia: Grey House Publishing, 2006. Credo Reference. Web. 26 March 2011.
Soyinka, Wole. Early Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998.
"Wole Soyinka." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
"Wole Soyinka." Contemporary Novelists. Gale, 2001. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
Poetry Inspired by the Mennonite Experience
After reading the compelling and poignant poems in A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry, I have written three poems of my own that in one way or another tie into my own experience growing up in the Mennonite faith. Enjoy!
--------------------------------
What I Learned from My High School Choir Director
after a poem by Julia Kasdorf
I learned from my high school choir director how to laugh
early in the morning when I’d rather be in bed, how not to be
the “flotsam and jetsam” that holds everybody else down. I learned
that when a teacher can reveal his heart, his joys and concerns,
to his class, that class becomes a family. I learned that a choir
is greater than the sum of its parts, that if you all sing in a racquetball court
and listen carefully, tones ring out that nobody is uttering.
I learned how powerful it feels to be young, full of dreams and
potential as you dance into a retirement home chapel.
I learned never to judge a song until I’ve sung it a hundred times
with people I love. I learned what it feels like to know a song for years
but not understand it until one day, without a warning, your heart
lunges into your throat and your eyes get hot and wet as you
look across a congregation and choke out the words,
“Know that the God who sent His son to die that you might live
will never leave you lost and alone in his beloved world.”
I learned that when bombs explode in subways, when a boy
comes to school without a mother, when a community loses a teacher
and friend, the only thing you can do
that makes any sense at all
is join together
and sing.
------------------------------------
Chicken Coop
I stick an old milk jug under the faucet,
hear a satisfying squeak as I twist the tap.
It takes all of my strength to battle the weight
of a stream spilling into the bottom.
This is my favorite part of the day:
time to feed the hens.
I step out into the frosty morning.
The chicken coop is the only piece
of “farm” left in our farmhouse.
We keep chickens simply because we can
but I like to believe that I am a true farm girl
who has to work if I’m going to eat.
I pry open the crooked door, inhale that unmistakable
musky odor of wet straw and bird poop.
Past the ancient rusty restraining funnel that was used
to massacre chickens daily, three hens greet me eagerly.
The biggest struts right up to my outstretched hand.
Strangely, that beak that appears sharp as a pitchfork only tickles.
Another hen runs for cover to miss the pellets I scatter with my small iron scoop.
She is half-naked; Cinderella given only rags and abused by two evil stepsisters.
I, too, would be ashamed to be seen like that.
When the chickens have been fed and watered,
I steady myself on the rail of a feed trough,
and peer into the each of the ten nesting boxes.
Aha! I glimpse a white treasure shrouded in shadows.
I grab for the egg.
Mine. I turn it over in my chubby palm.
No one can admire an egg like a seven-year-old.
It’s perfectly smooth, aside from a few miniscule and endearing warts,
but not a blemish against its pallid armor.
Holding it, I marvel at the novelty
of this something that was nothing yesterday.
Neither Dad, nor Santa, nor the Easter Bunny
planted it for me to discover.
But now it is mine,
to do whatever I want with.
feed to the cat, crack into a frying pan,
adorn with a face, play house.
God has the best ideas.
-----------------------------------
Sweetest Hours
We sing proudly, as though
we are the only little girls in the world
who can sing in three-part harmony.
The crowd is not a lively bunch,
but we know better than to take it hard—
they’re so old that clapping probably hurts.
Pop sits among them, eyes closed.
He’s heard this one before.
Perhaps he’s remembering the way his father’s
deep voice lay down the bass line on Sunday mornings.
Perhaps Pop whistled the tune while riding his great
John Deere over fertile fields on his way to a well-deserved dinner.
Watching him, the serene look on his face tells me
that he’s probably back there right now.
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care…
Years later, the three of us stand at the foot of a bed,
looking down at a body withered to almost nothing,
barely an outline beneath the thin yellow sheet.
Four of us together in one room,
the same blood pumping through our veins.
No one has a thing to say.
So once again, but this time not because
we are proud or even a little bit sure of ourselves,
we let our innocent voices blend.
In seasons of distress and grief,
my soul has often found relief.
And I learn right there that miracles do occur.
Because up from the covers floats a ghostly white hand,
and it dances in four to the lilt of our song.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”
--------------------------------
What I Learned from My High School Choir Director
after a poem by Julia Kasdorf
I learned from my high school choir director how to laugh
early in the morning when I’d rather be in bed, how not to be
the “flotsam and jetsam” that holds everybody else down. I learned
that when a teacher can reveal his heart, his joys and concerns,
to his class, that class becomes a family. I learned that a choir
is greater than the sum of its parts, that if you all sing in a racquetball court
and listen carefully, tones ring out that nobody is uttering.
I learned how powerful it feels to be young, full of dreams and
potential as you dance into a retirement home chapel.
I learned never to judge a song until I’ve sung it a hundred times
with people I love. I learned what it feels like to know a song for years
but not understand it until one day, without a warning, your heart
lunges into your throat and your eyes get hot and wet as you
look across a congregation and choke out the words,
“Know that the God who sent His son to die that you might live
will never leave you lost and alone in his beloved world.”
I learned that when bombs explode in subways, when a boy
comes to school without a mother, when a community loses a teacher
and friend, the only thing you can do
that makes any sense at all
is join together
and sing.
------------------------------------
Chicken Coop
I stick an old milk jug under the faucet,
hear a satisfying squeak as I twist the tap.
It takes all of my strength to battle the weight
of a stream spilling into the bottom.
This is my favorite part of the day:
time to feed the hens.
I step out into the frosty morning.
The chicken coop is the only piece
of “farm” left in our farmhouse.
We keep chickens simply because we can
but I like to believe that I am a true farm girl
who has to work if I’m going to eat.
I pry open the crooked door, inhale that unmistakable
musky odor of wet straw and bird poop.
Past the ancient rusty restraining funnel that was used
to massacre chickens daily, three hens greet me eagerly.
The biggest struts right up to my outstretched hand.
Strangely, that beak that appears sharp as a pitchfork only tickles.
Another hen runs for cover to miss the pellets I scatter with my small iron scoop.
She is half-naked; Cinderella given only rags and abused by two evil stepsisters.
I, too, would be ashamed to be seen like that.
When the chickens have been fed and watered,
I steady myself on the rail of a feed trough,
and peer into the each of the ten nesting boxes.
Aha! I glimpse a white treasure shrouded in shadows.
I grab for the egg.
Mine. I turn it over in my chubby palm.
No one can admire an egg like a seven-year-old.
It’s perfectly smooth, aside from a few miniscule and endearing warts,
but not a blemish against its pallid armor.
Holding it, I marvel at the novelty
of this something that was nothing yesterday.
Neither Dad, nor Santa, nor the Easter Bunny
planted it for me to discover.
But now it is mine,
to do whatever I want with.
feed to the cat, crack into a frying pan,
adorn with a face, play house.
God has the best ideas.
-----------------------------------
Sweetest Hours
We sing proudly, as though
we are the only little girls in the world
who can sing in three-part harmony.
The crowd is not a lively bunch,
but we know better than to take it hard—
they’re so old that clapping probably hurts.
Pop sits among them, eyes closed.
He’s heard this one before.
Perhaps he’s remembering the way his father’s
deep voice lay down the bass line on Sunday mornings.
Perhaps Pop whistled the tune while riding his great
John Deere over fertile fields on his way to a well-deserved dinner.
Watching him, the serene look on his face tells me
that he’s probably back there right now.
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care…
Years later, the three of us stand at the foot of a bed,
looking down at a body withered to almost nothing,
barely an outline beneath the thin yellow sheet.
Four of us together in one room,
the same blood pumping through our veins.
No one has a thing to say.
So once again, but this time not because
we are proud or even a little bit sure of ourselves,
we let our innocent voices blend.
In seasons of distress and grief,
my soul has often found relief.
And I learn right there that miracles do occur.
Because up from the covers floats a ghostly white hand,
and it dances in four to the lilt of our song.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”
I'm Loving "My Life"
My time in Poetry class is up, but fortunately we had an opportunity to cram in one final book, "My Life" by Lyn Hejinian. I hadn't any idea how I was going to make sense of this book, because it's written unlike any poem I've ever seen. It is 165 pages long and made up of 44 poems, or 44 stanzas of one long poem, depending on how you read it. Furthermore, each stanza is 44 sentences long.
Hejinian had an interesting idea with her formatting, but it is the content of her poetry that made me genuinely love reading "My Life." Hejinian has pulled together people, experiences, feelings, vignettes, and questions from her life and pieced them together to make a messy but genuine portrait of life, her life.
Hejinian's autography was such a fulfilling read, more than most biographies, because instead of touching on the areas of life that everybody thinks need to be addressed (such as where she grew up, what her professions were, who she married) she writes about the smallest details that make her unique and also like everybody else. I was shocked by how many images I felt were taken directly from my own life, or questions that I have felt myself asking as well:
“In the kitchen on the left is the drawer for refolded brown extra-strength doubled paper bags marked with the name of the supermarket in red”(85).
"A beautiful concert or an unusual autumn sunset makes me feel restless if I'm by myself, wanting someone with whom to share it" (40).
"Supper was a different meal from dinner" (30).
"Thinking back to my childhood, I remember others more clearly than myself, but when I think on more recent times, I begin to dominate my memories" (92).
The list goes on and on. I found myself constantly underlining phrases that struck an emotional chord with me. I felt myself wanting to tell somebody what I was reading, so we could share in these small truths that make us human. "My Life" is a book I see myself coming back to many times throughout my own life, and I believe each time it will hold more meaning. It's strange to think that this book is now a part of me, just as the people that Lyn Hejinian has known, the poems she has heard, and the tiny red rocking horse that somehow has earned a place in her memory are all a part of her.
Hejinian had an interesting idea with her formatting, but it is the content of her poetry that made me genuinely love reading "My Life." Hejinian has pulled together people, experiences, feelings, vignettes, and questions from her life and pieced them together to make a messy but genuine portrait of life, her life.
Hejinian's autography was such a fulfilling read, more than most biographies, because instead of touching on the areas of life that everybody thinks need to be addressed (such as where she grew up, what her professions were, who she married) she writes about the smallest details that make her unique and also like everybody else. I was shocked by how many images I felt were taken directly from my own life, or questions that I have felt myself asking as well:
“In the kitchen on the left is the drawer for refolded brown extra-strength doubled paper bags marked with the name of the supermarket in red”(85).
"A beautiful concert or an unusual autumn sunset makes me feel restless if I'm by myself, wanting someone with whom to share it" (40).
"Supper was a different meal from dinner" (30).
"Thinking back to my childhood, I remember others more clearly than myself, but when I think on more recent times, I begin to dominate my memories" (92).
The list goes on and on. I found myself constantly underlining phrases that struck an emotional chord with me. I felt myself wanting to tell somebody what I was reading, so we could share in these small truths that make us human. "My Life" is a book I see myself coming back to many times throughout my own life, and I believe each time it will hold more meaning. It's strange to think that this book is now a part of me, just as the people that Lyn Hejinian has known, the poems she has heard, and the tiny red rocking horse that somehow has earned a place in her memory are all a part of her.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sonar Comes from Airbags
Last week I learned about N+7 poems, which hijack poems that have already been written and replace each noun with the seventh noun following it in the dictionary. For example, "wood" becomes "word" and "sigh" becomes "sigmoidoscope"(which, for future reference, is an instrument inserted in people's rectums to look around and inspect, diagnose, etc!). N+7 poems can serve all sorts of purposes by allowing the reader to extract new meaning from an old text or helping a poet to get something interesting and maybe inspiring on paper. I took a couple of stabs at N+7 poetry, having no idea what would happen. What I wanted was to have a product that read plausibly... but what happened was this:
Two Robbers
- An N+7 Poem inspired by Robert Frost's The Road Less Taken
Two robbers diverged in a yellow word,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one travois, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the underling.
Then took the otolith, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better clamor,
Because it was grassy and wanted weasel;
Though as for that the Passiontide there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morphallaxis equally lay
In leans no stereograph had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the fishbowl for another DBA!
Yet knowing how weakforce leads to weakforce
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigmoidoscope
Somewhere agencies and agencies hence:
Two robbers diverged in a word, and I—
I took the onlooker less traveled by,
And that has made all the diffraction.
-------------------
That was fun enough, but then I wondered if the N+7 approach might have an opposite effect on some poetry. Maybe instead of making a serious work of art silly, it could cause a silly children's poem to sound more adult and abstract. If this is possible, my experiment did not lead me to this conclusion. I chose a short poem by Dr. Seuss, and here are the before and after shots:
Original:
I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
N+7:
I have heard there are trousers of more than one kinfolk.
Sonar comes from airbags and sonar comes from Belladonna.
But I’ve brought a big bather. I’m all ready you see.
Now my trousers are going to have trousers with me!
---------------------------
I would recommend trying out an N+7 poem. It might not lead you to any significant life truths, but if you are like me, you will enjoy having your concerned friend at the library ask you why you are chuckling over a dictionary.
Two Robbers
- An N+7 Poem inspired by Robert Frost's The Road Less Taken
Two robbers diverged in a yellow word,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one travois, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the underling.
Then took the otolith, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better clamor,
Because it was grassy and wanted weasel;
Though as for that the Passiontide there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morphallaxis equally lay
In leans no stereograph had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the fishbowl for another DBA!
Yet knowing how weakforce leads to weakforce
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigmoidoscope
Somewhere agencies and agencies hence:
Two robbers diverged in a word, and I—
I took the onlooker less traveled by,
And that has made all the diffraction.
-------------------
That was fun enough, but then I wondered if the N+7 approach might have an opposite effect on some poetry. Maybe instead of making a serious work of art silly, it could cause a silly children's poem to sound more adult and abstract. If this is possible, my experiment did not lead me to this conclusion. I chose a short poem by Dr. Seuss, and here are the before and after shots:
Original:
I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
N+7:
I have heard there are trousers of more than one kinfolk.
Sonar comes from airbags and sonar comes from Belladonna.
But I’ve brought a big bather. I’m all ready you see.
Now my trousers are going to have trousers with me!
---------------------------
I would recommend trying out an N+7 poem. It might not lead you to any significant life truths, but if you are like me, you will enjoy having your concerned friend at the library ask you why you are chuckling over a dictionary.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Mark Doty: Summed Up
Turtle, Swan (1987) is the title of the first collection of poems published by Mark Doty, an American poet who in recent years has garnered international fame for his free verse poetry and memoirs. Doty’s poetry includes a variety of lyrical and narrative verse, but whatever style he employs, he expresses his own thoughts in the context of broader American life in a way that readers have enjoyed and related to. Throughout his career as a writer, Doty experienced intense loss and sadness, and his work reflects these hard times. Turtle, Swan was written relatively early in Doty’s life; therefore it is more focused on his early youth and his life as a gay man. Later works were to become darker as they expressed his personal suffering, but Turtle, Swan paints an image of Mark Doty, a true artist, coming of age in America.
Doty was born on August 10, 1953 in Maryville, Tennessee. As his father was an army engineer, Doty’s childhood was marked by frequent moves between Tennessee, Arizona, California, and Florida. He spent his early years devouring the many books around his home, and he possessed “a great deep longing for something unsayable, and questions that couldn't be answered” (Contemporary Authors).
Doty describes a tumultuous childhood, a lack of permanence, and family members struggling with their own problems in his poem “Horses,” which was published in his first collection of poetry, Turtle, Swan. The poem opens with the image of nights “blue and star-regular as church.” The narrator remembers as a boy sitting on a rope swing outside of a house his family is living in for a brief time, watching a group of ponies next door and feeling that his existence is not so different from their “rambling lives.” The poet describes a string of houses occupied for short periods of time, a mother who drinks and who’s anguish shows through her paintings, and a father who says to him “You be her husband.” As an adult, the poet sees pictures of himself as a child and is pained by how old the face staring back at him appears. The eyes have a look of guilt. The poet is sad for the little boy who was forced to grow up too quickly in a home that did little to nurture him.
This poem is most likely taken directly from Doty’s childhood and his reflections on his past. He remembers moving between thirteen different homes by the time he reached high school. His mother was an alcoholic, and his father was “too deeply involved in dealing with my mother's illness to pay too much attention” [to Doty] (Contemporary Authors).
Largely attributable to his fears of being a gay man in the 1970s, and because home had become physically and emotionally dangerous, Doty was married at 18 to Ruth Doty, a poet twenty years his senior (Contemporary Authors). The union lasted nine years. The two divorced after Doty graduated from Drake University in 1978 (Olson).
Doty received his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont in 1980 (Goddard). During this time he fell in love with Wally Roberts and the two lived together for twelve years. It was during this time that Doty wrote the poems in Turtle, Swan. The title poem of this collection exemplifies how the poet seamlessly weaves together anecdotes, his feelings and fears, and current issues in American life.
The beginning of the poem recounts two occasions on which weather conditions or chance caused first a swan, and then a turtle to cross the path of the poet and his partner on their way home from work. Doty makes beautiful use of metaphors and similes throughout his poem, and particularly in reference to the turtle and the swan. The swan, for example, was “white architecture/ rippling like a pond’s rain-pocked skin” while the turtle lumbered “head up like a missionary moving certainly/ into the country of his hopes.” These metaphors, providing specific images that magnify the small but beautiful qualities of the creatures, become more layered as the poet relates his deep adoration for his lover by comparing his beauty and strength to that of the turtle and the swan.
The first line of “Turtle, Swan” reads, “Because the road to our house/ is a back road.” For the next several stanzas, the poet uses language of “I” and “we” in telling of how he and his lover encounter obstacles in their lives such as the turtle and the swan that hinder their journey home. When the aggressive snapping turtle takes a chunk out of his lover’s shoe but leaves him otherwise unharmed, the poet is as relieved as if it is he who has escaped a trip to the emergency room. At the end of the day, the two of them head for the same home, talking together about what they experienced.
The poem is divided into a few anecdotes. The first section describes the walks that the poet and his partner take. The second half of the poem shifts to another narrative, a situation in which the poet is apart from his partner at a movie theater, unable to find him. He mistakes his partner’s coat for a person, reading his fears of losing his partner into the scene. In this section, the poet fears he is no longer part of a unit, and this causes him to feel vulnerable and afraid that some day he will be alone.
Doty’s greatest fear at the time that he wrote “Turtle, Swan” was that his lover, Wally Roberts, would die from AIDS. The poem was written during the late 80s, when the AIDS epidemic was becoming a painful reality for more and more gay men in the United States. In 1989, two years following the publication of Turtle, Swan, Wally Roberts was tested positive for HIV. Doty’s fears were realized. Following this discovery, the tone of Doty’s work became darker. His next books of poems, Bethlehem in Broad Daylight (1991) and My Alexandria (1993) both reflected his suffering, and were widely acclaimed. After the release of My Alexandria, Doty became the first American to win the T.S. Eliot Prize for best book of poetry published in the United Kingdom. In an interview, Doty described My Alexandria as “a real change… I was casting about for what would come next. And what came next for me was looking around at the present and adult life” (Poetry Foundation).
Roberts died from AIDS in 1994. The loss was so difficult for Doty to deal with that he found himself unable to write for a period of time (Contemporary Poets). It is significant that he used the image of being lost in a dark movie theater, unable to find his companion, to describe his premonition of losing his partner. He was terrified of being alone, and suggested through his poem that it would be like being in a dark place, unable to find the right way to proceed.
“Turtle, Swan” was not the only poem in Doty’s first collection that breached the subject of death. “Sideshow” focuses on the poet’s memory of a trip to the circus. Inside a tent he finds a miscellany of animals with extra or irregular limbs. Standing in the corner, the poet catches the gaze of a dead stuffed horse, near a sign that reads “WORLD’S SMALLEST HORSE, B. 1976, D 1980.” A crude painting shows the horse galloping over an impossibly green meadow, but the poet realizes that it most likely never galloped anywhere on its pathetically small legs.
The narrator relates to the horse: dead, deformed, and filled with taxidermy chemicals and cotton. The line “his mouth sewn up into that crooked/ but somehow forgiving smile” is reminiscent of what someone may see looking down at the painted, rearranged face of a loved one in a coffin. The poet further suggests a funeral as he points out the way in which the carnival glorified this sad, probably isolated creature by putting him on display and painting words on a sign. Often at funerals, praises for the recently deceased are thrown around liberally. Sometimes these praises are well deserved, sometimes they are long overdue, but sometimes the desire for comfort distorts the memory of those left on Earth. Fiction takes the place of true memories, and ordinary, flawed individuals become legends as the “world’s smallest horse” becomes a legend in this poem.
Similar to “Turtle, Swan,” Doty begins his poem with a description of an animal. In fact, he makes no mention of a “me” until the final line of his poem. The reader of the poem is drawn into the horse’s life, commiserating with it, but at the end, the reader is invited to consider that the horse has something to teach the reader. The lesson is to accept life as it is, rather than cling to the dream of what it might have been. As in “Turtle, Swan” the poet draws from a brief personal experience and continues to describe his own contemplations of death.
Doty’s poems in Turtle, Swan make few to no assertions about the answers to life. He dwells in doubts and questions. A phrase that is repeated over in his poem “Turtle, Swan” is, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know what happened to the swan;/ I don’t know if the stain on the street/ was our turtle.” Doty’s questions and doubts are extremely powerful because they do not offer any kind of comfort to the reader. Instead of offering answers, he presents his darkest, most intimate worries, and in doing so he names the doubts his readers may also struggle with. Doty’s poetry is oriented towards creating a sympathetic resonance with the reader.
Mark Doty currently has eleven volumes of published poetry, the most recent of which is Theories and Apparitions (2008). He has received numerous prestigious awards including The Whiting Writer’s Award, The National Book Critic’s Circle Award, and The National Poetry Series publication. His passion for writing on themes of gay relationships and humanity has continued to develop as his work has increased in popularity. Doty’s ability write about homosexual love in universal terms has made it possible for readers from various orientations to broaden their understanding of love, and this has made him a thoughtful but powerful voice in literature.
Works Cited
Hawkins, Brenda. "Goddard Alum Mark Doty Wins 2008 National Book Award." Goddard College. Goddard College. Web. 05 Feb. 2011.
“Mark (A.) Doty.” Contemporary Poets. Gale, 2001. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.
"Mark A. Doty." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.
"Mark Doty." The Poetry Foundation : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry. Poetry Foundation, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
Olson, Tory. “Drake alumnus Mark Doty honored with National Book Award for poetry.” Drake University. Feb. 2011. Web. Nov. 2008.
Doty was born on August 10, 1953 in Maryville, Tennessee. As his father was an army engineer, Doty’s childhood was marked by frequent moves between Tennessee, Arizona, California, and Florida. He spent his early years devouring the many books around his home, and he possessed “a great deep longing for something unsayable, and questions that couldn't be answered” (Contemporary Authors).
Doty describes a tumultuous childhood, a lack of permanence, and family members struggling with their own problems in his poem “Horses,” which was published in his first collection of poetry, Turtle, Swan. The poem opens with the image of nights “blue and star-regular as church.” The narrator remembers as a boy sitting on a rope swing outside of a house his family is living in for a brief time, watching a group of ponies next door and feeling that his existence is not so different from their “rambling lives.” The poet describes a string of houses occupied for short periods of time, a mother who drinks and who’s anguish shows through her paintings, and a father who says to him “You be her husband.” As an adult, the poet sees pictures of himself as a child and is pained by how old the face staring back at him appears. The eyes have a look of guilt. The poet is sad for the little boy who was forced to grow up too quickly in a home that did little to nurture him.
This poem is most likely taken directly from Doty’s childhood and his reflections on his past. He remembers moving between thirteen different homes by the time he reached high school. His mother was an alcoholic, and his father was “too deeply involved in dealing with my mother's illness to pay too much attention” [to Doty] (Contemporary Authors).
Largely attributable to his fears of being a gay man in the 1970s, and because home had become physically and emotionally dangerous, Doty was married at 18 to Ruth Doty, a poet twenty years his senior (Contemporary Authors). The union lasted nine years. The two divorced after Doty graduated from Drake University in 1978 (Olson).
Doty received his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont in 1980 (Goddard). During this time he fell in love with Wally Roberts and the two lived together for twelve years. It was during this time that Doty wrote the poems in Turtle, Swan. The title poem of this collection exemplifies how the poet seamlessly weaves together anecdotes, his feelings and fears, and current issues in American life.
The beginning of the poem recounts two occasions on which weather conditions or chance caused first a swan, and then a turtle to cross the path of the poet and his partner on their way home from work. Doty makes beautiful use of metaphors and similes throughout his poem, and particularly in reference to the turtle and the swan. The swan, for example, was “white architecture/ rippling like a pond’s rain-pocked skin” while the turtle lumbered “head up like a missionary moving certainly/ into the country of his hopes.” These metaphors, providing specific images that magnify the small but beautiful qualities of the creatures, become more layered as the poet relates his deep adoration for his lover by comparing his beauty and strength to that of the turtle and the swan.
The first line of “Turtle, Swan” reads, “Because the road to our house/ is a back road.” For the next several stanzas, the poet uses language of “I” and “we” in telling of how he and his lover encounter obstacles in their lives such as the turtle and the swan that hinder their journey home. When the aggressive snapping turtle takes a chunk out of his lover’s shoe but leaves him otherwise unharmed, the poet is as relieved as if it is he who has escaped a trip to the emergency room. At the end of the day, the two of them head for the same home, talking together about what they experienced.
The poem is divided into a few anecdotes. The first section describes the walks that the poet and his partner take. The second half of the poem shifts to another narrative, a situation in which the poet is apart from his partner at a movie theater, unable to find him. He mistakes his partner’s coat for a person, reading his fears of losing his partner into the scene. In this section, the poet fears he is no longer part of a unit, and this causes him to feel vulnerable and afraid that some day he will be alone.
Doty’s greatest fear at the time that he wrote “Turtle, Swan” was that his lover, Wally Roberts, would die from AIDS. The poem was written during the late 80s, when the AIDS epidemic was becoming a painful reality for more and more gay men in the United States. In 1989, two years following the publication of Turtle, Swan, Wally Roberts was tested positive for HIV. Doty’s fears were realized. Following this discovery, the tone of Doty’s work became darker. His next books of poems, Bethlehem in Broad Daylight (1991) and My Alexandria (1993) both reflected his suffering, and were widely acclaimed. After the release of My Alexandria, Doty became the first American to win the T.S. Eliot Prize for best book of poetry published in the United Kingdom. In an interview, Doty described My Alexandria as “a real change… I was casting about for what would come next. And what came next for me was looking around at the present and adult life” (Poetry Foundation).
Roberts died from AIDS in 1994. The loss was so difficult for Doty to deal with that he found himself unable to write for a period of time (Contemporary Poets). It is significant that he used the image of being lost in a dark movie theater, unable to find his companion, to describe his premonition of losing his partner. He was terrified of being alone, and suggested through his poem that it would be like being in a dark place, unable to find the right way to proceed.
“Turtle, Swan” was not the only poem in Doty’s first collection that breached the subject of death. “Sideshow” focuses on the poet’s memory of a trip to the circus. Inside a tent he finds a miscellany of animals with extra or irregular limbs. Standing in the corner, the poet catches the gaze of a dead stuffed horse, near a sign that reads “WORLD’S SMALLEST HORSE, B. 1976, D 1980.” A crude painting shows the horse galloping over an impossibly green meadow, but the poet realizes that it most likely never galloped anywhere on its pathetically small legs.
The narrator relates to the horse: dead, deformed, and filled with taxidermy chemicals and cotton. The line “his mouth sewn up into that crooked/ but somehow forgiving smile” is reminiscent of what someone may see looking down at the painted, rearranged face of a loved one in a coffin. The poet further suggests a funeral as he points out the way in which the carnival glorified this sad, probably isolated creature by putting him on display and painting words on a sign. Often at funerals, praises for the recently deceased are thrown around liberally. Sometimes these praises are well deserved, sometimes they are long overdue, but sometimes the desire for comfort distorts the memory of those left on Earth. Fiction takes the place of true memories, and ordinary, flawed individuals become legends as the “world’s smallest horse” becomes a legend in this poem.
Similar to “Turtle, Swan,” Doty begins his poem with a description of an animal. In fact, he makes no mention of a “me” until the final line of his poem. The reader of the poem is drawn into the horse’s life, commiserating with it, but at the end, the reader is invited to consider that the horse has something to teach the reader. The lesson is to accept life as it is, rather than cling to the dream of what it might have been. As in “Turtle, Swan” the poet draws from a brief personal experience and continues to describe his own contemplations of death.
Doty’s poems in Turtle, Swan make few to no assertions about the answers to life. He dwells in doubts and questions. A phrase that is repeated over in his poem “Turtle, Swan” is, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know what happened to the swan;/ I don’t know if the stain on the street/ was our turtle.” Doty’s questions and doubts are extremely powerful because they do not offer any kind of comfort to the reader. Instead of offering answers, he presents his darkest, most intimate worries, and in doing so he names the doubts his readers may also struggle with. Doty’s poetry is oriented towards creating a sympathetic resonance with the reader.
Mark Doty currently has eleven volumes of published poetry, the most recent of which is Theories and Apparitions (2008). He has received numerous prestigious awards including The Whiting Writer’s Award, The National Book Critic’s Circle Award, and The National Poetry Series publication. His passion for writing on themes of gay relationships and humanity has continued to develop as his work has increased in popularity. Doty’s ability write about homosexual love in universal terms has made it possible for readers from various orientations to broaden their understanding of love, and this has made him a thoughtful but powerful voice in literature.
Works Cited
Hawkins, Brenda. "Goddard Alum Mark Doty Wins 2008 National Book Award." Goddard College. Goddard College. Web. 05 Feb. 2011.
“Mark (A.) Doty.” Contemporary Poets. Gale, 2001. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.
"Mark A. Doty." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.
"Mark Doty." The Poetry Foundation : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry. Poetry Foundation, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
Olson, Tory. “Drake alumnus Mark Doty honored with National Book Award for poetry.” Drake University. Feb. 2011. Web. Nov. 2008.
Waldrep Refuses to Say It Plain
What I think G.C. Waldrep does well is speak to the part of each of us buried so deep within ourselves that it doesn’t have to explain itself to anyone. I know that when I am by myself, maybe taking a walk, sitting on a log by the creek, even just doing my laundry by myself, I don’t have an organized, expressible thought process. That’s not to say I’m not thinking about important matters. It happens even when I’m chewing over a problem. But my brain doesn’t work like my mouth. My mouth is just a tool for summarizing all those inner ramblings with others. And sometimes it is a really ineffective tool because our thoughts simply can’t be made tangible.
I think poetry is great because it better conveys those fuzzy but poignant thoughts that we have. Waldrep’s poetry reads more like the way my mind works, even if I can’t summarize it in a paragraph or two.
In “Ode to the Hottentot Fig,” as in many of the other poems in Disclamor, Waldrep takes up a plaintive tone, as if he has so much to express but struggles to do so. He names hummingbirds, ants, seals, bees, a man playing the French horn. I get a weird sense with every mention that he is talking about himself, or rather, about everyone, like we are all interconnected and related. The ants he calls Calvinists, and there is the sentence about the seals that reads, “Those that are too old or too sick to care vacation on the mainland like tourists.” I honestly don’t know what the seals have to do with me, but I do feel a connection.
I think within this poem is some kind of statement about America. I know it is America because of the reference to Battery Wallace. He considers fear such an integrated part of day-to-day American life that it is “my church key, my gluestick, my Ziploc bag.” I wonder what kind of fear he means. Is it the fear that moved people to build Battery Wallace? Or is it fear of Hell? Of failure? Of losing something that he takes for granted? I think fear motivates so much of what we do. We reach out to others because we never want to be cut off. We work hard because we worry about the repercussions of laziness. Whether we heal the world peace by peace or buy guns, it is because we fear violence.
I wonder why Waldrep feels he might be happier to live in a broken country. I sometimes have the same desire because something seems more genuine about a place where the clocks don’t run as smoothly. Ultimately, especially due to Waldrep’s opening and closing statements: “For sweetness read vertigo, for beauty say pallor… For abundance say luxate, for introduction read fall,” I sense a recognition of life’s inconsistencies and ambiguities. Whether Waldrep laments this or accepts it as an unavoidable truth, it’s a mystery to me.
I think poetry is great because it better conveys those fuzzy but poignant thoughts that we have. Waldrep’s poetry reads more like the way my mind works, even if I can’t summarize it in a paragraph or two.
In “Ode to the Hottentot Fig,” as in many of the other poems in Disclamor, Waldrep takes up a plaintive tone, as if he has so much to express but struggles to do so. He names hummingbirds, ants, seals, bees, a man playing the French horn. I get a weird sense with every mention that he is talking about himself, or rather, about everyone, like we are all interconnected and related. The ants he calls Calvinists, and there is the sentence about the seals that reads, “Those that are too old or too sick to care vacation on the mainland like tourists.” I honestly don’t know what the seals have to do with me, but I do feel a connection.
I think within this poem is some kind of statement about America. I know it is America because of the reference to Battery Wallace. He considers fear such an integrated part of day-to-day American life that it is “my church key, my gluestick, my Ziploc bag.” I wonder what kind of fear he means. Is it the fear that moved people to build Battery Wallace? Or is it fear of Hell? Of failure? Of losing something that he takes for granted? I think fear motivates so much of what we do. We reach out to others because we never want to be cut off. We work hard because we worry about the repercussions of laziness. Whether we heal the world peace by peace or buy guns, it is because we fear violence.
I wonder why Waldrep feels he might be happier to live in a broken country. I sometimes have the same desire because something seems more genuine about a place where the clocks don’t run as smoothly. Ultimately, especially due to Waldrep’s opening and closing statements: “For sweetness read vertigo, for beauty say pallor… For abundance say luxate, for introduction read fall,” I sense a recognition of life’s inconsistencies and ambiguities. Whether Waldrep laments this or accepts it as an unavoidable truth, it’s a mystery to me.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Battery O'Rorke
I most recently puzzled over a collection of poems by G.C. Waldrep, called Disclamor. It took quite a bit of puzzling to make any kind of sense of his nine “Battery” poems, which use nine military fortifications on the California coast as inspiration. One such poem, “Battery O’Rorke,” is arranged like the others, in a broken style of uneven stanzas containing lines that are indented to varying degrees. The poem laments the brevity of the feeling of security created by a big slab of cement along the coast. The opening line “What is written here fades quickly./ Faces drawn in chalk/ names,/ the idea/ of defense…” suggests this. The poet clearly feels that war is no long-term solution, that the positive feelings evoked by a battle won will fade with time.
The poet feels that war is one example of “what the body can be made to do” and it feels to me as if he doesn’t know how to express both the wonderful and horrendous things that humans are capable of, especially in the same poem. Throughout the poem, he grapples with the question of how to write about things that are simply too big. He is tackling a huge issue when he writes about war, but equally as difficult is the concept of an ocean. How does one even begin to address it all? The poet concludes by writing, “The beach ignores the power of words/ as words ignore the power of things./ O stranger.” And so he leaves us to wonder how all this stuff can somehow coexist in our big world.
The poet feels that war is one example of “what the body can be made to do” and it feels to me as if he doesn’t know how to express both the wonderful and horrendous things that humans are capable of, especially in the same poem. Throughout the poem, he grapples with the question of how to write about things that are simply too big. He is tackling a huge issue when he writes about war, but equally as difficult is the concept of an ocean. How does one even begin to address it all? The poet concludes by writing, “The beach ignores the power of words/ as words ignore the power of things./ O stranger.” And so he leaves us to wonder how all this stuff can somehow coexist in our big world.
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