The concepts of self and reality are running themes in recent eras of poetry, and these themes are all too often associated with ideas of meaninglessness. In Larry Levis’s, “Some Grass Along a Ditch Bank” (1985), the writer brings in these different themes as the narrator contemplates grass around a farm and its relationship with the world around it. The poem is set in the farm setting that is so common in the works of Levis, and the ideas he explores about grass can easily be transferred to, or symbolic of, the ideas that the poet may have shared concerning relationships between people. Despite these connections and the deeper meaning of the poem, however, critics read this and other poems as having primarily nihilistic themes. This and other of his poems have been read as being, “bravely and madly about all-living-and-all-dying” (Halliday 92). Death and life are themes in Levis’s poem and do appear in this one, but nihilism requires that the artist also explores a general lack of meaning. Instead, reading this particular poem while considering its relation to the self and relationships, demonstrates that Levis’s focus is more on the general concept of the isolate, meaning that he writes about the lack of the individual’s ability to come to establish understanding between people, rather than a complete lack of meaning in life. …show more content…
Seeking for the self and identity, entangled with a search for reality, are themes beyond nihilism that are also common to postmodern poets and those who followed after. The descriptions reflect the way that people endlessly attempt to reach out and understand one another, but often fail. They have meaning for themselves, but this meaning is unattainable to the other person. Each individual is isolated in their own understanding and can only make meaning for
Alan Shapiro is a poet whom uses the sorrowful tragedies that occurred in his lifetime and turns them into beautiful poems in which he greatly expresses through his poetry. Most of his poems symbolize either a type of sorrow or tragic death, and the expressions used throughout his poetry make it noticeable that Alan Shapiro endured a life of hardship and tragedy. While Shapiro was growing up he lost his brother and his sister in which the poem “Sleet” by Alan Shapiro beautifully encompasses his feeling of grief and sorrow due to the loss of his siblings.
Sociologists often employ intersectionality theory to describe and explain facets of human interactions. This particular methodology operates on the notion that sociologically defining characteristics, such as that of race, gender, and class, are not independent of one another but function simultaneously to determine our individual social experiences. This is evident in poetry as well. The combination of one poet’s work that expresses issues on class with another poet’s work that voices issues on race, and so forth, can be analyzed through a literary lens, and collectively embody the sociological intersectionality theory.
He describes how the sun “bakes” the earth, the grasshoppers “consume the parched grass,” and how the prairies are full of “endless desolation.” The word “bakes” exhibits nature’s hostility to its surrounding lands. The grasshoppers eating the “parched grass” convey how on top of the grass slowly starving and dying, it has to deal with the grasshoppers devouring it as well; which emphasizes nature’s unforgivable attitude towards the land. The words “endless desolation” reveal that the land is nothing but despair, and that it is full of endless agony and suffering. This bleak description expresses a miserable tone that deduces the reader’s mind to believe the landscape is barren and
In the poem Grass, the speaker is assumed to be the Grass, a character, or entity of sorts, brought on by the writer. Carl Sanburg uses interrogative adverbs in order to further display the Grass’s view on humanity. Additionally, Sanburg includes the use of proper and concrete nouns to emphasize the Grass’s stability and recall violent military battles. Continually, the imperative verbs shown throughout the poem give the Grass its ultimate air of superiority. In Carl Sanburg’s poem Grass, he skillfully uses interrogative adverbs, proper and concrete nouns, and imperative verbs in order to convey a sense of superiority in the Grass, a result of brute-like human behavior throughout history.
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
Kimberly Tsau, for example, follows De Quincey's lead in her analysis of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, suggesting that among the violence, apathy, and disjointedness of the poem is a call to face and learn from suffering. Her essay, "Hanging in a Jar," examines how Eliot collects a variety of "cultural memories," cutting and pasting them together to form a collection that is both terrifying and edifying.
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
Beyond all doubt, T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is one of the most excruciating works a reader may ever attempt. The reading is painful to the point of exhaustion for the poetry-lover as he scrutinizes the poem pericope by pericope. However, all this suffering (self-inflicted or otherwise) suggests that the author has likewise labored over the poem, emptying himself into his work--pericope by pericope. Suddenly, the reader understands that the poet intends to deliver a specific message, luring his audience to delve into the poem in search of it.
Since the dawn of time, human beings have been in a constant struggle to survive. Whether you are a man or women, black or white, rich or poor, the hardships of life have seemed to bind us together in a very cruel world. Many poets write about poverty, envy, and the outcome of war which are just a few of the many battles people fight everyday. Poems such as “Women Work”, “Richard Corey”, and “The Sad Children’s Story” define the different meanings of life.
This motif is carried forward in two more strands. First, grass is associated with impermanence and futility in a series of increasingly intense images of material things, beginning with the almost comic picture of "wallowing in the grass" at the Lower Station, more like...
The whole range of contemporary poetry projects the inner self of the poets. Their history, surroundings, culture, and inner self are revealed through a cluster of symbolic representation. They display their hones love for culture and heritage with comfortable strength on common themes, just as they explore “new horizon in contents”i, a...
Allen Ginsberg’s poem “A Supermarket in California” and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “Constantly Risking Absurdity” describe the struggle within to find beauty and self worth. Where Allen Ginsberg is lost in the market, desperately trying to find inspiration from Walt Whitman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti portrays the image of the poet frantically trying to balance on a high wire, risking not only absurdity, but also death. Both of these poems deal with their poet’s struggle to find meaning and their fears of failure. Where Ginsberg fears he will never find Whitman’s dream, Ferlinghetti fears falling off the high wire and being submitted to absurdity and death.
With World War II finally over and a chapter in history written, the next chapter is about to begin. The twentieth century brings with it a new literary movement called postmodern, where poetry is "breaking from modernism" and taking on a whole new style Within postmodern poetry emerge confessional poets whom remove the mask that has masked poetry from previous generations and their writings become autobiographical in nature detailing their life's most intense personal experiences, therefore becoming the focus of their work.
...ze anything other than the awful finality of despair. The sense of healing and salvation at the end of The Waste Land indicates that there is hope for meaning, even in fractured worlds and obfuscated poems. But it is up to each of us to discover it.
The everyday objects present in his poems provide the reader an alternative perspective of the world. Robert Frost uses all the elements of poetry to describe the darker side of nature. After analyzing the Poem Mending Wall and After Apple Picking it is clear that nature plays a dark and destructive role for Robert Frost. This dark side of Frost’s poetry could have been inspired from the hard life he lived.