Is This What You Wanted to be, Alone Standing by Yourself? Is This All You Wanted to be or Was That a Cry For Help?

     As an avid reader I like straightforward sentences that make logical sense and flow along line after line until they have said something coherent. Gertrude Stein is my enemy. Standing out is an important thing for any artist; to blend in with the masses is to be quickly forgotten. Stein certainly knew this and so we have her, very unique and different, jumbled mess of words. Her poetry is awkward looking on the page and when read it makes no sense. Arguably the sentences in her poetry are not sentences at all as the Writing Center at Pasadena College says: "To be grammatically complete, a sentence must have a subject, verb, and present a complete thought" [1]. There are no sentences in her poetry that fulfill that definition. And not only does her poetry make no sense, it is so close to making sense that I feel as if I have failed somehow. Reading Tender Buttons is like reading a complicated essay in academic jargon; I feel like I should understand what it is saying but it looks like a bunch of gibberish to me. Reading "Patriarchal Poetry" left me feeling like I needed to kick something and reading the bio in Anthology of American Poetry (page 54-55) did nothing to help me understand why Stein repeats "to be" thirty-nine times in twelve lines.

     This repetitiveness is also not limited to Stein's poetry; it extends to the titles of the poetry in each section of Tender Buttons. The Section Food contains four poems in a row titled "Chicken", three titled "Orange" followed by "Oranges" and "Orange In", and following those are two poems titled "Salad Dressing And An Artichoke." Everything in me wants that to mean something but my brain can make no sense of it. The section Food is also the only section to have a list of what at first glance seems to be the titles of all the poems in that section and at second is slightly different. Does this make the entire section one, large, jumbled up poem? Perhaps it is meant to be read all together with the titles actually just being bold, interrupting lines. All I know is that I am thoroughly confused and this book has left me mentally exhausted.

(Title from this song.)

I Can Only Do So Much and Of Course It's Never Enough

                Recently questions of sexuality and how women should or should not be treated has been a constant buzz in the background of everyday life. Third wave feminism is here in America, as we speak, and although they get a lot of hate and criticism they are dealing with a problem that we, as a society, have been dealing with since Biblical times. How should we treat women? What does it mean for them to dress modestly and who gets to tell them what they can or cannot wear? What about jobs? What is an appropriate job for a woman and what isn't? How should men treat women? Should chivalry die and stay dead or should it come back with a vengeance? Are all women vain and stupid? All these questions have been and are being addressed continually throughout history in many different forms and forums. This includes poetry as Margaret Atwood and Hilda Doolittle show us.

                Both Atwood and H.D. address this issue in different ways using Helen of Troy. Helen of Troy, the wife of King Menelaus, daughter of Zeus and Queen Leda, the face that launched a thousand ships and sparked a war that lasted over 10 years, is a woman who can be used to answer the questions mentioned above.[1][2] For Atwood she represents the potential power women have over men through their sexuality. However, H.D. presents her as an unfeeling statue-like person whose beauty is worthless in light of her unfeeling heart. When H.D. addresses Helen in her poem "Helen" she uses words like still, smiles, and stand; words that indicate little to no movement. Helen is described as having a wan and white face, hands, and smile, cold feet, and slender knees. Her beauty is clearly described but instead of being praised for these attributes she is hated for them. These adverbs paired, with the description of Helen given, makes Helen sound like a statue. A feeling of resentment is left after reading this poem, a lingering feeling of bitterness for having lost so many lives over a pretty face.

                Atwood approaches Helen differently. For her Helen of Troy is a symbol of power. Her poem "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing" is a struggle with the idea of sexuality. Should a woman show off and use her body as a weapon or hide it away? What jobs are fitting for a woman? The poem is split into three parts. The first part addresses the physical differences between the narrator's job and a respectable one. While the narrator seems secure in her chosen work the women around her chastise her choice. Atwood uses enjambment to show the narrators distaste for the type of jobs the other women tell her she should do. At the end of the first section the narrator admits that she is being exploited yet she seems fine with this as she claims to have a choice in how. This awareness of being used is clearer in the second part of the poem yet there is a certain power that comes with it. The narrator knows that she has power over these animals that come to watch her dance and she feeds off of that power. This is another incentive for her choice. However about halfway through the second part there is a sense of silent resentment just as in H.D.'s poem. Just as Greece hates Helen for her beauty the narrator seems to resent her own beauty. As Arundhati Roy says "some things come with their own punishments." With her power comes the realization that all the men she comes in contact with are pigs and wolves, the women snob her choice, and it is only in the third part that the narrator seems to have a confidant in the reader. She ends the poem full of confidence daring anyone to say she isn't a goddess. Both of these poems deal with beauty in different parts; H.D. treats it as an empty thing to be despised, beauty without heart, while Atwood presents it as a raw and real power that can fill a woman with confidence.

(Title is a quote from this song.)

You're a Slave to Money Then You Die

            It is a terrifying thing to read a poem by an anti-Semitic, fascist man and immediately think of one of the most celebrated men in American history. Imagine my utter confusion and alarm when, at the end of "Canto XLV," I could only think of the "I Have a Dream" speech. Why in the world would these two poems, one filled with a longing for peace and the other a seething hatred for money lending, ever be compared? Though the message of this famous speech and this diatribe are different the literary techniques used in both are the reason they struck so similar in my mind.

            Both King and Pound utilize repetition to invoke a sense of building tension in their works. King repeats several times in succession "I have a dream..." in his speech filling those four words with purpose and meaning after each repetition. Pound uses the word "usura" a total of twenty-one times in his poem and a series of repetitions. Although not in the strictest sense, lines 1, 2, 5, 10, 14, 18, 19, and, in all caps, line 23 repeat a drawn out anaphora: "with usura." Then follows four lines, 31 and 32 then 33 and 34, that are just a word away from being anaphora. Directly after an actual anaphore is presented in lines 35 and 36 starting "not by usura." This repetition and partial anaphora gives the poem a cadence and fluidity that takes the place of an actual voice. Repetition is not Pound's only tool however, he also uses enjambment; this 50 line poem has only 5 periods. The lack of punctuation along with the short lines in Pound's poem urges the reader on with a sense of hurried anticipation similar to that felt of King's audience. Just as King emphasizes his words with a raised voice, Pound emphasizes his with bold, uppercase letters standing out at the reader on lines 23 and 47. The words seem to jump out of the poem accusingly snarling the words "WITH USURA" "CONTRA NATURAM." Read together the message is clear; Pound thinks that usury is against nature.

            King and Pound also use allusions that would be relatable to their audience. In his speech King makes allusions to the constitution, Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Declaration of Independence weaving them into his speech to underline and strengthen his message.[1] King's speech becomes even more convincing through using these familiar and powerful documents as proofs of the need for racial harmony. In Pound's poem we are presented with examples of famous works, such as "La Calumnia," and people, such as Agostino di Duccio and Pietro Lombardo, who created without usury, showing that usury is unnecessary and backing his claims that usury dulls productivity and quality.

            There are two people that one would never want to compare or even place in the same category: Ezra Pound and Martin Luther King JR. Yet solid morals and soundness of mind are not requirements of a great speaker or poet. Just as God makes the sun to shine on both the righteous and the unrighteous it seems he also bestows talent on the evil and the blessed.[2]

(Title is a quote from this song.)

That's Me in the Corner, That's Me in the Spotlight

When I first encountered Walt Whitman it was in a warehouse among rows of crowded used books packed tightly in the shelves and stacked up in small towers scattered among the rows. The shelves were so close that if two people stood back to back they would have only half an inch between them. While I was searching the shelves for familiar authors Leaves of Grass peeked out at me among the books and, partly out of my sheer giddiness at finding a place that sells thousands of books for only a dollar each, I added it to the other 14 books I had picked out with a similar blithe attitude. Three weeks later I picked up Leaves of Grass and opened it to the first poem. Immediately disenchanted by the first few lines I placed the old, well-worn book back on my shelf, deciding in that moment that Whitman just wasn't for me.
This would be one of the worst decisions of my literary life. Yet now I stand with Ezra Pound, shuffling feet and lowered head, to say "I have detested you long enough" ("A Pact"). By the time I had reached the last poem of our textbook reading, I suddenly felt I must love him. The nuances in his vocabulary and the unapologetic frankness of his topics, accompanied by wit and vivid emotion, are executed so flawlessly I am almost ashamed to admit I ever disliked him and, while Pound may continue to hold onto his distaste, I freely let mine crash to the ground.
One of Whitman's shorter poems, "A Glimpse," was a major factor in my change of heart. Opening with the simple line, "A glimpse through an interstice caught," my first thought was 'what in the world is an interstice?' Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an interstice as a gap or break between closely spaced or normally continuous things, and with the use of this seemingly haughty and necessary word Whitman begins his craft. For, as the poem progresses, it is evident that while we look through this interstice we observe a sort of social interstice. Here is a bar-room filled with "workmen and drivers," the rougher sorts of people to be viewed as overtly masculine, and then there, "unremark'd seated in a corner," is our gentle speaker and his companion. Due to the content of Whitman's earlier poems it is safe to assume that our speaker is a man, though the speaker's gender is never stated in the poem. So then in line four, where Whitman pens a seamless return to the interactions of the rougher men as a contrast, the last words he uses are interesting. I almost feel as if I am reading too much into the context surrounding the poem and the double meaning of the word "oath" yet, if part of poetry is intentional vocabulary, it is worth delving into my theory.
After the first reading of this poem, the word "oath" appears to be solely referring to the strong, manly men occupying the bar-room, and the definition would then be "a rude or offensive word." Yet this word has a second meaning that could also reflect on our pair; a formal and serious promise. The second word at the end of line four is "smutty," meaning obscene or indecent. While this single definition may cause you to wonder if it has any double meaning at all, I ask you to look closer at the context in which it is written. Homosexual acts between men were punishable by death, imprisonment, or commitment to an asylum, at best, until the 1960's.[1][2] As this poem was published a hundred years before then it is clear that the quiet couple in our poem would not have been viewed with the same sullen or, more recently, congratulatory, and ultimately harmless, attitude we would view them with today. In the time period this poem was composed the relationship between the speaker and boy would seem an inappropriate and offensive affair and could potentially have them murdered or put in jail. In that time period people would claim that their formal and serious promise to stand side by side, hand in hand, as long as they are able, is an indecent joke. The word love would be a rude and offensive word from their lips to any who heard. It is through these unobtrusive and easily missed contrasts, showing a true mastery of language, that I fell in love with a poet I had first dismissed.

(Title is a quote from this song.)