I don't really know where to start. The selection of poems we read this week were so many things to me. Absolutely beautiful, disturbing (at times), hard to decipher (at times), and very heavy. The first thing that jumped out with these readings was the form. Many of these poets make such interesting form choices and use the page in such different ways.
I'll start with Lisa Asagi's first three pieces, April 14, April 15 and April 22. These poems are in block paragraph form, with heavy punctuation. Then her next poem, Soundtrack For Home Movie No. 3, is in a slightly more traditional form with space in between stanzas. But even her stanzas in this poem vary from single line stanzas to four liners. I wonder what persuaded her to make certain form choices. The block paragraphs give an effect of claustrophobic panic/anxiety. It's a brick wall of words that come at you without any space to withdraw. I just kept going, kept reading, trying to figure out what was going on. Was she writing about losing her house? Was it by force or is she just moving on? I still don't quite know what those first three poems are about but one of the lines really hit me: "And I am wondering if there is really a thing called stop." This is such an intriguing question that I have never thought of. But it's been on my mind ever since reading the poem. What does stop mean? Does it ever happen? What are the indicators that something has truly stopped?
Moving on to Tina Chang, she also does some very interesting things with the forms of her poetry. She uses listing and numbering in "Curriculum" and "Journal of the Diabetic Father". Curriculum reads like a list of instructions or directions towards something. The fourth stanza listed as "contempt" really struck me.
4: Contempt
The heart is something daily slain.
The man is happy who goes off
to war, kills fields full of children,
becomes a hero. He returns, axing
the thin white flowers of his walls.
Then offers himself to his family,
quietly, an earful of bullets.
This feels like such a strong and truthful portrait of what can happen to a soldier, and specifically to a soldier's heart upon returning home from war. The the first and the last two lines of this piece are so painfully beautiful and jarring, emotional even.
This week we are focusing on "what is place". In "The Wind Shifts", Adela Najarro is so masterful in rooting her poems in place and the environmental space around her. Her poem "San Francisco" is so spot on!! I was visualizing the streets and neighborhoods of the city as I read her lines. Poetry is a powerful thing though because two poets can sit and soak up the exact same places, see the same sights, her the same sounds...but can create two entirely different poems, capturing such different memories...yet, both pieces could describe the single place so perfectly. That's the power of words, mixed with the power of individual memory.
This doesn't have anything to do with the topic, I just wanna say that I absolutely LOVE Eduardo C. Corral. I feel his words in the pit of my stomach, at my fingertips and in the base of my spine. Especially his poem on my favorite artist, Frida Kahlo. LOVE! Ok, that's all :)
Chanel, totally agree with you on Navarro's 'SF" poem. I'm glad someone else has the same enthusiasm as me! I think how Navarro deals with place is different and utterly striking. Why do you think Navarro left that impression on us? Was it the use of strong imagery?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNavarro names names, that's what works. She combines generations and cultures in ways that are natural, say in the Mission. Corral does that too. (Chanel, I had the same response to him -- cried a little and see his interview here:http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ae/articles/2011/11/07/20111107poetry-opened-doors-wide-eduardo-corral.html?nclick_check=1
ReplyDeleteit brings us even closer to him.
Form is all over the place in these poems. I had to read most of them aloud. Brewster was not interested
Yessssss on Tina Chang! She hit me HARD. "Curriculum" was brilliant, and sunk me into its pages. I can't believe that "Contempt" stanza either. Throughout, she really took us from the high priestess' room, to the bedroom of a troubled professor, to the lands of war, TO THE FUTURE. She imagined a place and time for letting go and building faith, the only thing one can do in a world in ruins (not just the church). These ruins are most likely due to the perilous decisions of colonialism: forced religion, war, depletion of the earth and its resources for the power of few, etc. Even though time progresses, she demonstrates that the emotional place of the soul is still troubled and uncertain.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to align, for a minute, this last stanza with a quote I found from Maria Melendez:
"The next century will see the flowering of a form already well into its development—the extinction elegy. Poetry will have to mourn species, whole communities of plants and other beings, and remembered places lost—both human-built and otherwise. But the poetries will live, and further generations may have to muster a post-elegaic tone, as they take stock of what persists and lives anew."
Technically, 2075 isn't the next century, but it what happens between now and then is definitely going to weigh in on the poems written by our children's children...