Constantly Risking Absurdity
METACOGNITION- Part 1 Poetry Explication
The poem surnamed "Constantly Risking Absurdity", by Lawrence Ferlinghetti seems to be displaying a thematic message, which globally encompasses the concept of artists undertaking actions that innately present a certain degree of risk. Such is effectuated in the unremitting search for improvement and self-perfection despite the notion that one's complete fulfilment and realization is not entirely guaranteed. This predominant aspect is intertwined with various literary elements each successfully erecting a tense and suspenseful mood juxtaposed with a vigorously flamboyant atmosphere.
Form
Upon primary investigation, the literary piece "Constantly Risking Absurdity", displays an irregular array of elements regarding its structural parameters of form in order to insightfully depict the multiple challenges that the artists confront in their efforts to ameliorate their works of art. From the very beginning, the readers are immersed into the omnipresent tense atmosphere reflective of their challenges that diverges in to two elements: the reading manner which is premeditated by the poem's form; and the personal association to tense environments analogous to those in the poem on a subconscious level of thought. The generic reading manner of the poem is primarily controlled by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s use of spacing as seen in lines 1-2 “[c]onstantly risking absurdity […] and death” antecedent by a large gap, “climbs on a rime” (7) and “above a sea of faces” (10), which itself is emplaced within ample spacing. Such line breaks evoke accumulative feelings of anticipation as the spreads of poem, which depict “danger”, are accompanied by spaces in between the lines, wh...
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...nts of space mirrors the substantial and unpredictable spacing within the poem. To finalize this painting explication several important colours have been employed for their symbolic purposes. The complex of the colours dark blue, black, red, and light yellow have each a connotation which is primarily associated to light v.s darkness. Light yellow, represents hope, enlightenment, knowledge- aspects artists long for and dark blue- representing peace, calmness and stability- elements that have been abandoned by artists in their search for self fulfillment. The final element is red which ties in with the colour black where black represents failure, death and the dual nature of the red pigment in this case is the reflection of sacrifice and passion- acts that artists are forced to effectuate in their absurd search for beauty, perfection, and self fulfilment.
The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ...
Wayne, transforms this painting into a three dimensional abstract piece of art. The focal point of the painting are the figures that look like letters and numbers that are in the front of the piece of art. This is where your eyes expend more time, also sometimes forgiving the background. The way the artist is trying to present this piece is showing happiness, excitement, and dreams. Happiness because he transmits with the bright colours. After probably 15 minutes on front of the painting I can feel that the artist tries to show his happiness, but in serene calm. The excitement that he presents with the letters, numbers and figures is a signal that he feels anxious about what the future is going to bring. Also in the way that the colors in the background are present he is showing that no matter how dark our day can be always will be light to
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
The Achievement Gap in America has separated and divided America's youth into more or less, two different cultures of socioeconomic placement. The first being the predominantly Caucasian students at American elementary schools, high schools, and colleges that excel greatly in their education. Most of the time earning them middle to upper class jobs in the economy, the aforementioned group contrasts significantly with its opposite culture of American youth. The second culture, the population that is mostly made up of the minority races, takes it's place in the American education system as the population of students who are less interested in getting a decent education and taking advantage of the resources that are offered, for various underlying reasons. This in turn manufactures less people of this type of culture to be readily available for higher paying jobs, and often times unemployable for a job at all. The Achievement Gap in America is influenced by many cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic factors that separate lower and higher achieving students based on these factors, and leave a high amount of unemployed Americans as a result, if not incarcerated or deceased.
...disparities between the two ethnic communities that can be traced back to the legacy of slavery and other forms of oppression that blacks have suffered.” Supporters of this view felt that educational achievement correlates more strongly with economic status than with any other single variable. Since the majority of the black community lags behind whites in income and wealth, the educational inequalities are caused by the economic inequalities. They believe that once the inequalities disappear, the educational disparities will as well. Many argue that this is not a viable argument. They point to other minority groups such as Asians, some of whom are financially worse off than blacks, and they excel in school . They felt that because the civil rights legislation removed all roadblocks back in the 60’s and 70’s something else must be contributing to the large gap.
The central tension of fleeting versus eternal is vital to One Art, as it assists in using the villanelle’s structure and visual imagery of the poem. This is to illustrate that like this poem, most poetry contains many meanings that can be interpreted in many different ways.
A villanelle is a very structured poem; its use creates a mask for the writer to hide behind and conform to expected constraint. “One Art” loosely follows the structure of a villanelle, keeping with the correct number of lines per stanza, but straying from the expected rhyme scheme and repetition. The use of a rigid structure confines people, forcing their ideas to be regulated. This expectation is the antithesis of individuality. Deviation from this regimentation sets people up for disappointment, “I wonder what made me think you were different,” said both Twyla and Roberta as daggering insults thrown at one another (Morrison, 256). The structure allows Bishop to seem successful in maintaining control and her composure throughout the poem “One Art,” until the last stanza when she strays from typical structure by adding the word ‘too’ in line one of the refrain and writing that loss “may look like (Write it!) like disaster” (Bishop, 18-19). Using the villanelle’s format, Bishop has to end the poem with “disaster.” Struggling with the hindrance prescribed by the framework, “(Write it!)” suggests an urgency to just finish and conform. Even though the villanelle prescribes that the refrain ends the poem, Bis...
An elegance in word choice that evokes a vivid image. It would take a quite a bit of this essay to completely analyze this essay, so to break it down very briefly. It portrays a positive image of blackness as opposed to darkness and the color black normally being connected with evil, sorrow, and negativity. The poem as a whole connects blackness with positivity through its use of intricate, beautiful words and images.
The Achievement has been a reoccurring issue for many years within the education system. Achievement gaps refers to the academic performance within a set of students. The most vital indicators pertaining to the achievement gap is reviewing standardized tests, course selection, dropout rates, and college completion rates (Morris 227). This issue has been reoccurring because of the various attempts of reforms to close the gap. Some of the reforms to decrease the gap is “No child left behind act 2001”, recovery act, P-12 reform, and many more. It can be argued that these first reforms changed the education system to any extent. However it is evitable to find the most successful reform for the United States increase economically. Which is why this topic is important for North Carolina. The achievement gap is sustainably defined by the differences among not only racial groups but subgroups as well.
My first and immediate explanation for the poem was an address from one lover to a loved one, where distance became a factor in their relationship. The lover has it far worse than the desired partner and the solitude builds nothing but longing for this person at a time when his love is the greatest. He says " What have I to say to you when we shall meet?... I am alone" with my head knocked against the sky”. He further asks, “How can I tell if I shall ever love you again as I do now?” There is uncertainty because he is wondering over the next encounter with his loved one. He says, “I lie here thinking of you” and is compelling when he wants the loved one to see him in the 5th stanza and what love is doing to his state of mind. He is hopeless and expresses it by asking questions he is unsure of, conveying his troubled state. Williams enforces imagery along with sound effects to demonstrate the despair of the man in a realm that is almost dreamlike with purple skies,spoiled colors, and birds. Stating he is alone and that his head collides with the sky may underline the man’s confusion. He also uses imagery in the “stain of love as it eats into the leaves”, and saffron horned branches, vivid and easy-to-imagine images that captivate the reader. The line stating “a smooth purple sky” and this stain which is “spoiling the colours of the whole world” easily formulate a very distinct picture. Through consonance words like “eats” and “smears with saffron” become fiercer in the eyes of this lover as they cancel out a “smooth sky”.
One particularly useful cross-disciplinary element employed in concrete poetry is the use of space. The poetry of Emmett Williams, Seiichi Nikuni, and Ilse and Pierre Garnier in particular, make use of spatial relationships in their poetry. The use of space can be employed in place of traditional grammar and syntax to convey meaning in concrete poetry, particularly when the spatial position of one element is taken into consideration with other elements of the poem. Another element that may arise from these spatial relationships is a temporal aspect that all poetry employs, but which becomes uniquely meaningful in the context of the concrete poetry of the twentieth century. Without these relationships concrete poems may appear as crude distortions of words on a page, with no significant sense or meaning to communicate. Therefore, the temporal/spatial relationships between poetic elements become necessary tools which the reader needs in order to fully understand the linguistically driven meaning behind many concrete poems.
The enactment of standardizes testing given to students to measure their academic abilities and supposedly will close achievement gap only prove that the battle to the end achievement gap between racial groups is a failure. Buchanon elucidate statistics of the results from the national test under the “No Child Left Behind” program to infer that there is a huge gap between white students and black students (par. 19). On the same note, New Yorks state test scores reveals a large imbalance in academics between different racial groups (par. 16)
Rothstein, Richard. The Way We Were?: The Myths and Realities of America’s Student Achievement. [Online] Available http://www.tcf.org/publications/education/way.we.were/Foreword.html, May 1, 2000.
Ramazani, Jahan. Richard Ellmann, Robert O’Clair, ed. The Norton Anthology Of Modern And Contemporary Poetry. Vol 1 Modern Poetry. Third Edition. Norton. 2003.
Ferlinghetti clearly compares an acrobat to a poet to showcase that like acrobats, poets are special persons who perform rather life threatening tricks. The acrobats’ acts as a pedestal, to help readers better understand that poets take absurd risks, in order to ultimately capture the beauty of their work. The internal structure of this poem is a large contributing factor to helping readers see the unpredictable outcome of a poet’s life in comparison to an acrobat swinging of a trapeze. Equally important, Ferlinghetti clearly uses an allusion of Charlie Chaplin in contrast to a poet in order to emphasize that like all human, poets also doubt the risk that they are taking. Although it seems like poets are wise beings, they are not too far from regular people because they to feel misunderstood in society. As a whole, poetry is truly magnificent art form, which holds the inspiration of change in the world, captures truth and the pure beauty of the world, through its entrancing