Conformity? THIS. IS. MADNESS!

Conformity? THIS. IS. MADNESS!

                Conformity is an issue that is confronted by every member in our society every day of their lives. It’s something that is unavoidable, and is very negative as it weakens us as individuals and breeds hatred and discrimination. In their poems, both Dickinson and Villanueva show disgust for conformity at the cost of individual freedom. This viewpoint mirrors my own, and affirms my distaste for conformity. While they both go down very different paths to get their points across, their opinions merge along with my own in the end.

                Dickinson is very direct in her poem. She uses the line “Assent—and you are sane—“(Dickinson 6) to mock society by saying that all it requires to be sane is submitting to the will of majority. She follows it up with “Demur—you’re straightway dangerous / And handled with a Chain” (7-8) which continues her mocking tone by questioning why if someone disagrees, acts differently or refuses to conform to the group, they’ll be kept locked away from normal members of the community, just for being different. She points out with “To a discerning Eye— / Much Sense—the starkest Madness— / ‘Tis the Majority” (2-4) that any observer who looks objectively can see the madness in this “submit or be pushed away” style of society that we have.
I make no claims of having the most discerning eye, but I see it the same way. It doesn’t matter who I am as a person. I can be the nicest guy in the world, but I’m still going to be judged instantly by who I’m friends with, what I’m wearing, how my hair is cut, if I have my glasses on, if I remembered to shave that morning and who knows what else. If I pass the initial test and am considered normal enough to talk to, I’ll be judged again by my diction. If at any point I fail any of these tests, I’m labeled abnormal. Why? Because society says that I should have contacts and not glasses? That my arms are supposed to be bigger than they are? It is this very process that Dickinson mocks in “Much madness is the divinest sense.” It happens every day, and by and large, we accept it. I know I do it. You have purple hair. Why are you talking to me? Though, thankfully I’ve learned to put the initial thought aside, and get to know what a lovely individualist miss purple hair is—and be glad that I did.

Villanueva uses an example much more extreme than purple hair. She takes a classmate who’s a cross dresser to show the beauty of individuality. She says “Was I moved in the face of / such courage (man/woman / woman/man). . .” (Villanueva 6-8) to show how moving it is to see someone who doesn’t care to conform, how empowering it is to see someone who doesn’t care what others think, if only we all had that courage. She uses the imagery of the rose to symbolize exactly how beautiful individuality is.
To me, Villanueva’s poem brings up memories of my first best friend and my first kiddy peck-of-the-lips kiss. I was in fourth grade, and grew up living next store to a lovely girl who was a year younger than I was. We hung out all the time, since when I was probably two years old, maybe even sooner than that, but long before I can remember regardless. She was black. Who cares? Apparently, there are tons of people that care. And they care a lot. I was called every name under the sun, my other friends’ parents wouldn’t let me over their houses, It was like I was the spawn of the devil.
The three of us agree. Conformity is evil. Conformity is pointless. Conformity is a mutual agreement to all act insane. Through Villanueva’s examples, through Dickinson’s blunt mockery of the system, through my own personal experiences, we all agree that the wanting to be accepted leads to a society that punishes those who don’t care to be accepted.

Loveless Lovemaking

Lovemaking can be one of the most electrifying feelings shared between two people, yet not include an ounce of emotion at all. Sharon Olds’ “Sex Without Love” suggests that despite sex being such a passionate act, it may in fact not include any love at all between the two partners. Olds’ addresses this matter on a very personal and blunt level to the reader. She questions how some people could have such a fire with each other and be so physical yet never have any true deep or emotional feelings for the other partner. Olds’ almost seems to show admiration for how these people can be alone and not depend on one another, yet makes the reader feel cold and empty from the loneliness of each partner. Perhaps it is just a purely physical act for each person, or maybe it is the result of deep-rooted abandonment issues. For such a beautiful thing, making love can be very impersonal for some people.

            Olds’ opens her poem with the main question of the poem, “How do they do it, the ones who make love / without love?” (line 1-2). This question sets the tone for the whole poem, the dual-views of awe and pity for the lovers. Olds’ follows up with expressing just how stunning the act of sex can be because lovers are “beautiful as dancers, / gliding over each other like ice-skaters / over the ice” (2-3). She is giving the reader an image to relate with of how beautiful and elegant the act lovemaking is, just so they begin to understand. However, this message could also be used as symbolism for something negative. Sex without love has the possibility of being “cold and impersonal” and nothing is much better than ice to use as a symbol for that (Leilani 1). There is also the chance that the lovemaking could be just a performance, just how ice-skaters perform on the ice, it may all just be an act for physical pleasure. In these lines, Olds seems to show the positives and negatives of lovemaking. Olds’ follows through with “fingers hooked / inside each other’s bodies” to show just how close the two partners are during sex both physically and spiritually (4-5). Olds’ sets all of this up to give the reader a good image of how pleasurable lovemaking can be between two lovers. So how could each partner possibly not love the other person or be alone in life?

            Olds’ first major hint of this is when she compares the partners to “children at birth whose mothers are going / to give them away” (7-8). Looking very closely at this line, the reader can get a feeling that there may be abandonment issues in each lover’s past. It is very possible that they were abandoned as a child by their mother which could explain the result of not being able to love another person so easily, even after making love to them. Olds’ then asks the second question of the poem:

                        How do they come to the

                        come to the come to the God come to the

                        still waters, and not love

                        the one who came there with them, light

                        rising slowly as steam off their joined

                        skin? (8-13)

This question is very interesting in the poem. I find that the author repeats the words “come to the” as a way of symbolizing the climax of the lovemaking between the partners. She says “come to the God” possibly because people may say His name throughout the act, especially nearing the ending. Olds’ then uses the image of still waters to represent the moments after the climax, the moment when it is most peaceful and quiet, yet so blissful. She questions however, how each person could go through all of that pleasure, yet not love the person that helped them achieve it, as they lay there, their bodies cooling down.

            After this question is posed in the poem, Olds’ proceeds to describe these types of people, instead of describing their act of sex, “These are the true religious, / the purists, the pros” (13-14). She seems to be using the term “purists” to show that the partners believe they are causing the pleasure themselves without the help of the other person, “They do not / mistake the lover for their own pleasure,” (16-17). This line reinforces the point that they do not want or need the other partner, and the sex was only for pleasure.

            Olds’ begins to describe the people in a rather awe-filled tone, while at the same time using certain words and metaphors that make the reader feel the loneliness that the loveless lovers might have, “they are like great runners, they know they are alone / with the road surface, the cold, the wind, / the fit of their shoes,” (18-20). A runner is usually alone, and knows it, as Olds’ points out. The road surface, cold, and wind, are all words that make the readers feel empty and alone, like the lovers. There is nothing in their world but themselves, and “the fit of their shoes” represents that they will not have room for anybody else in their lives. In a way though, the runner running along the road with the cold, wind, and fit of their shoes could very easily be construed as a very comfortable or refreshing feeling. It all really depends on what kind of person the reader is, whether they prefer to be alone, or prefer to be in love.

            There could be many different reasons why the lovers have sex with without love, whether it is the abandonment issues, for pleasure, or even physical health. When Olds’ states that “their over-all cardio- / vascular health” is a factor, I believe it could be one of the possible reasons the lover does the act of sex without having to be in love, same as a runner runs (20-21). Olds’ continues afterwards to say that everything she listed are “just factors; like the partner / in the bed” which is very bluntly and openly saying that the sex was just an act, a performance for whatever purpose the loveless lover had. Olds’ decides to end the poem with the truth of the matter, “which is the / single body alone in the universe / against its own best time” (22-24). She is describing just how alone the person is, despite having made love to another person. Using the words “single” and “universe” helps the reader to understand just how alone that person is in their own world. The phrase “against its own best time” is a reference back to the metaphor of the runner, it is used to show that the person will not be racing against anyone else’s times in a race, that they are completely alone and facing themselves.

            Olds’ ends the poem bluntly and harshly but she gets her main point of the title across. She seems to almost give respect for the loveless lovers, or even be envious of how they can commit so physically yet not emotionally. Ultimately, however, Olds’ makes the reader realize that they are completely and utterly alone and will not love the other person no matter what kind of connection, even one as strong as sex, has taken place between the two of them.

Love is a Waltz

Parents. Just thinking about them creates a waltz with nostalgia. Reminiscing about childhood memories, be it that family vacation to the far off land, dinner at six, Dad coming home from work, even that time spent in the bedroom after doing something stupid can easily invoke that warm fuzzy feeling inside. That is exactly the feeling that Roethke captures in his poem “My Papa’s Waltz.” In the poem, Roethke uses word choice, rhyme scheme and tone to emphasize the unconditional love felt for ones father.

Before getting into exactly how Roethke creates his waltz, it is first important to discuss the time in which it was written. “My Papa’s Waltz” is not a modern poem, it was instead written in the 1940’s. As such, the full understanding of this poem cannot be reached without first coming to terms with the fact that life was different back then. Mom stayed at home, raised the children and cleaned; while Dad was the bread winner. It was the father’s job to provide for the family, and the father in the poem clearly did as evident in lines nine and ten “The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle; “. Without this understanding of the timeframe in which the poem was written, some of what’s said can be easily misconstrued as child abuse or neglectful parenting. Lines one and two are a perfect example of this: “The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy;” as without the knowledge that in the early 1900’s it was very common, and not looked down upon, for a laborer to work all day then stop by the bar before heading home, it would appear that the father was neglectful when this is not the case.

Knowing the pretext makes the theme of the poem become much clearer. Rather than a lamentation of his father’s drinking problem, lines one and two take on a whole new meaning. It instead becomes the loving memory of a boy who races to see his father as soon as he walks in the door. This becomes even more apparent when word choice comes into play. Words like “romp”, “cling”, “waltz”, and even the use of “papa” rather than father or dad, all imply a happy time. There are some negative words such as “death”, “scrape”, “beat” however in the way that they’re used, they’re not negative at all. For example, “But I hung on like death.” (Line 3) shows a son holding his father really closely, never wanting to let go. Later in the poem the “scrape” is caused by a belt buckle (Line 12) which again shows a really tight hug. In line thirteen, “You beat time on my head” doesn’t mean the father is beating the son, but rather tapping to the beat of the music. Now, Roethke did use these words for a reason. The alternating good and bad connotations create a real waltz like tone, and they also show how the father isn’t perfect but the son loves him anyway—unconditionally.

The tone of the poem is also very important in determining the theme as Roethke uses many tools to affect the flow and feel of the poem. First, he uses an ABAB rhyme scheme, which creates a verbal sway, a back and forth, like a waltz. He mixes in different rhyme patterns to add to this effect, rather than just using all one syllable rhymes (breath/death, for example) he also uses two syllable rhymes (dizzy/easy). Combine those with the alternating good and bad connotations mentioned before, and the poem reads like a happy waltz. If the poem was about anything other than happy childhood memories, then the tone would have been much different. It would have sounded harsh, or mellow, not happy. Certainly not waltz like.

                Just like in the father, there are some imperfections in the waltz-like tone.  For one, Roethke uses mostly six syllable lines, but occasionally, a line will have seven syllables. A great example of this is in line twelve “My right ear scraped a buckle.”, another example is in line two “Could make a small boy dizzy;” and interestingly both of these lines contain some of the more negative words of the poem. This is no mistake, because that pattern continues with line ten, a line that contains battered. Roethke does this on purpose; he does it to show that while nothing is perfect it doesn’t matter when it’s family. This is proven by the fact that while the pattern of six syllable lines is broken, it doesn’t have any bearing on the overall happy waltz-like tone of the poem just as while there are some bad times or negative words, they don’t have any real bearing on how unconditional a child’s love is.

Everyone loves their parents, even if they’re not perfect. Roethke would definitely agree with this statement, as evident by his poem “My Papa’s Waltz”. Be it through his use of alternating good and bad connotations, his ABAB waltz like rhyme scheme, his use of the slight mistakes in his poems layout, or just the happy tone, Roethke makes it perfectly clear how he feels about a parent child relationship.

Affection is a Waltz

Things were very different in the early-to-mid-1900s. The family dynamic of the time was much different than the family dynamic of today. Virtually every family at that time was a single income family—the father was the bread winner, while the mother stayed at home to raise the children. This very traditional lifestyle made inter-family relationships unlike what they are today. In My Papa's Waltz, Roethke uses an ABAB rhyme scheme combined with alternating good and bad connotations to create a tone that exemplifies a father-son relationship in the earlier half the 1900s.

To fully understand My Papa’s Waltz, it’s important to remember that this poem wasn’t written today. It isn’t a modern poem. This is important because without reading it in the proper context, it may seem like a poem about child abuse. This simply isn’t the case. When read in the context of the time that it was written, it shows a much more loving family. Without knowing that it was very common of the time for a father to work all day, every day, and then go to the bar and have some whiskey before coming home, lines one and two “The whiskey on your breath / could make a small boy dizzy” could come across very negatively. The key component in identifying that the speaker in this poem enjoys the time he spends with his father is the tone.

Roethke writes this poem in a way that almost sounds like a verbal drunken-waltz when read aloud. He accomplishes this with a skillful use of an ABAB rhyme scheme, which creates a sense of verbal swaying, much like that of a waltz. Instead of using strictly one syllable rhymes, like breath/death and shirt/dirt, he adds some two syllable rhymes as well such as dizzy and easy, which really embodies the back and forth swaying of a waltz. The number of syllables in each line is another clear indicator of an imperfect waltz—almost every line has six syllables but there are a few with seven. These lines show the stumbling (or miss stepping) of the tipsy father.

Another significant way that Roethke creates the tipsy tone is through the use of words with good and bad connotations. There are many words in this poem that might push the reader towards a feeling of child abuse, such as “death,” “unfrown,” “beat” and “scraped” their positioning with words of good connotation neutralizes and overcomes the bad connotations that these words carry. Saying “But I hung on like death:” (line 3) implies that he doesn’t want to let go of his father while they romp around the kitchen. There are two other lines that have the same implications. “My right ear scraped a buckle” (Line 12) shows that the speaker is hanging on so tight, that his ear is up against his father’s belt buckle, a clear sign of affection. Roethke even ends the poem with another similar line “Still clinging to your shirt” (Line 16). Had there been any abuse or any implications that the speaker didn’t enjoy the time with his father, after all of that, he wouldn’t have been still clinging. Romp is another word with a good connotation. Romping, which is defined as to frolic or to play boisterously by Princeton, would never be used to describe something that wasn’t enjoyable.

The tone of My Papa’s Waltz paints a vivid picture of a son who enjoys spending every possible second with his father. Papa (which is a much more loving pronoun than say, father) comes home from late at night from work, a little drunk. The speaker can smell the whiskey on his breath, but doesn’t care. He instead gives his dad a big hug and they begin to romp or play around. Their waltzing knocks a few pans off the shelves, and the mother gives a frown, but does nothing to stop the playful dancing of father and son. The playing eventually ends and Papa brings the child to bed where the child doesn’t want to let go. Without the proper tone, this poem could have been easily taken is a much darker sense. Did he really beat the kid on the head, or was he keeping a drum beat? The reader knows that it was a playful encounter between a loving father and son because of the tone Roethke creates using the rhyme scheme and alternating connotations.

I exist.

Madden claims that “The brief quotes that open this section also give you some idea of the number of compelling ethical, political, and social arguments that are connected to faith and down” and at first I was doubtful. Upon reading the quotes; however, I was easily swayed. There are many powerful quotes in the beginning of the section on faith and spirituality; they are all truthful and eye-opening. The quote that helped me understand the readings in this section the most was definitely Edmund Burke’s quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Short and profound, Crane’s A Man Said to the Universe is a complex poem of few words. Its meaning is ambiguous, but when combined with Burke’s quote, it becomes quite influential. This poem personifies the cosmos, by giving the universe a condescending personality. When in response to man saying that he exists, the universe replies “However, the fact has no created in me a sense of obligation” which basically means that just plain existence isn’t enough. To be noticed man must do more than exist, he must exist for the good of all things, not just for the good of himself. Burke’s quote is an excellent summary of the main theme of this poem: if a good man only exists, and doesn’t attempt to do good, evil wins. The same general theme exists in both the quote and the poem. Simply being there on the sidelines is no way to live and no person deserves any credit for simply being there. By contrast unlike the quote, the poem doesn’t verbally state that something more than existence would warrant the attention of the universe, though based on the condescending tone that the universe uses with the man, it’s implied. The universe is kind of saying “Yeah? Well, try harder and I’ll care.”

Crane is the youngest of fourteen children in his family. This obviously had a drastic effect on his view of the universe. Having to compete with his siblings for the attention of his parents is very similar to all of mankind competing amongst themselves for the attention of the universe. I can easily see a young child saying to their mother “Mom! I’m here! Look at me!” A mother of one would probably say something like “Yes, and you’re my special little darling,” whereas a mother of fourteen would be much too busy to give attention to her children simply because they’re there. However, if the child takes action and does something good or prevents evil from happening instead of watching, mommy is very likely to take notice—Just as the universe takes notice if a man does something good for everything.

The good versus evil theme runs deep in Crane’s poetry. In another poem, he writes “I stood upon a high place, /And saw, below, many devils /Running, leaping, /and carousing in sin. /One looked up, grinning, /And said, “Comrade! Brother!“” This poem in combination with A Man Said to the Universe, opens up a larger glimpse into Crane’s mind. In this poem, Crane is watching without evil without taking action, and the evil thanks him. Crane’s calling them “devils” shows that he isn’t one of them, and that he’s against the sin that they’re ‘carousing’ in, but by doing nothing, by just watching from his high, safe, place, the evil appreciates his not getting involved. This poem also ties in with Burke’s quote very easily—I’d wager that Burke and Crane would have been friends as they share an extremely similar view of life, the planet, and the universe.

Donald Vanouse of Georgetown University had this to say “Crane seems to encourage the reader to enrich and re-evaluate ideas about patterns of action and thought. Crane asks questions rather than providing answers.” Crane attempts to pull out the good in people by letting them know that their lack of action is very insignificant on the larger scale. Burke’s quote, by contrast offers an answer. It says that the actions of a good man will counteract evil. Burke supplies the answer to Crane’s questions.

Without the quotes at the beginning of this section, these writings would be much more difficult to understand. A Man Said to the Universe is a very open-ended poem. If I hadn’t looked at it through the lens supplied by Burke, my understanding of the poem would have been limited, at best. The compelling social issues confronted by Crane are much easier understood with the help of Burke.

Love is a grenade best covered in Chocolate

Love is an incredibly strange. If love were a bag, and life was the arm grabbing from it, sometimes life would receive a scrumptious chocolate, and sometimes it would receive a live hand grenade—but it would always go back for more. Margaret Atwood would certainly agree with this poorly constructed analogy as evident by her poem You Fit into Me. I agree with Atwood’s claim that love is both enduring and painful, both harsh and everlasting, because of my own experiences with the confusing, hurting, joyful topic.

You Fit into Me deals with the lasting effects that love has on a person over the course of a relationship. It starts out with “you fit into me like a hook into an eye” this is referring to a clasp on an article of clothing. Not only is it a perfect fit (like true lovers are) but it holds the clothing (or the lovers) together. The word eye is an allophone to the word “I” so it’s safe to assume that Atwood is referring to herself as the article of clothing, whom is being held together by the love she shares for that special someone. The placing of these romantic lines at the start of the poem isn’t coincidence. All relationships, all true loves, start with the feeling that the lovers were made specifically for one another. The poem then takes a drastic turn for the worst, by saying “a fish hook an open eye” which is incredibly interesting. At first glance it seems that Atwood is redefining the metaphor in the opening lines from romantic to tragic, but upon further inspection it’s evident that this isn’t the case. Instead Atwood, by use of this disturbing imagery, is making the point that love progresses. It goes from the giddy “we’re perfect for each other” feeling to a stronger feeling of being intertwined and interconnected and it does this through pain. Yes, getting a fish hook shoved through your eye would hurt, but ripping it out would hurt much more. If a relationship could endure the pain of shoving a fish hook through your eye, there is no stronger bind, however if it can’t, ripping it out would be like breaking up. Eventually the pain would go away—the scars wont—but it would be huge temporary increase in the pain. Again, Atwood is referring to herself. The poem seems as if she’s stuck in a bad relationship with someone she loves. She knows that ending the relationship, or ripping out the hook, would hurt a ton, but at the same time she isn’t sure if she likes the feeling of being caught in this bad relationship.

Morgan from PoetryConnection has this to say: “I have found that when someone enters your life very quickly it can be surprising, painful and hard to adjust. When this person is removed from your life you have a one sided and scared view of love and the world. I must convey pity for those of who have felt such moments. “Morgan has hit the nail on the head, this is exactly the feeling that Atwood is trying to portray. My own experiences are similar to Morgan’s, and the situation that Atwood is portraying in this poem. I’m currently in the process of attempting to remove the fish hook from my eye as painlessly as possible, and while the hook is still there, it is very difficult to move on or meet new people in a meaningful way.

You Fit into Me is a very interesting poem that defines both the good and the bad of love in just four small lines. My experiences fall into line with Atwood’s views on the topic, and reading this poem really opens old wounds. I definitely agree with You Fit into Me’s claim that love is enjoyable and painful. Be it chocolate or hand grenade, I will continue to reach into the bag of love.

The Folly of Mankind

Mankind is foolish. Mankind is ignorant. Most importantly: mankind is forgetful and unlearning. Carl Sandburg shows this in his poem “Grass.” Through the personification of nature, Sandburg suggests that mankind is incapable of learning from mistakes they make, and thus are doomed to repeat the tragic events of history. Sandburg’s use of characterization, tone and chronological events paints a gloomy picture for the future of mankind.

The most important element in defining this theme is Sandburg’s strong use of characterization. He chooses the grass to narrate the poem in first person, and through word choice and repetition, the reader gains a respect for nature. Nature’s unemotional observation of the wars of man forces this respect. Even when faced with great tragedies like Austerlitz and Waterloo the grass only says “Shovel them under and let me work— / I am the grass; I cover all.” (Sandburg, Lines 2-3) By contrast, Sandburg portrays mankind to be ignorant of their own mistakes by saying “Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) The juxtaposition of the all knowing, all covering grass and the forgetful humans really makes it clear that the reader is meant to sympathize with nature’s plight.

Sandburg chooses to have nature take a very sarcastic and borderline condescending tone while narrating this poem. It seems that nature is becoming frustrated that men are unable to learn from the mistakes that they’ve made and instead just allow the grass to cover up the mistakes: band-aid after band-aid. Just picture the janitor who day after day needs to pick up all of the trash surrounding the trash can, that didn’t make it in the can even though it wasn’t full. “Oh sure, don’t put it in the can. I mean, why bother when there’s a janitor anyway, right?” Grass’s opinion on mankind is very similar. “So, even after all of the dead at Austerlitz and Waterloo, that I had to clean up after, you’re going to forget that and do it again at Gettysburg, and again at Ypres, and again at Verdun.” After all—“I am the grass. / Let me work.” (Sandburg 10-11)

The battles in this poem are listed in chronological order. This is very important. The poem wouldn’t have lost any of its impact if the battles weren’t listed chronologically; however, listing them chronologically brings the theme all together. This poem was written in 1918, just two years after the battle of Verdun. This poem is Sandburg’s way of saying to the world “have you already forgotten Austerlitz? Have you already forgotten Waterloo? Why are we doing this again, so soon?” the line “Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) is Sandburg’s way of calling out the rest of mankind. Asking how could you be so ignorant to history? He’s saying: if we let ourselves forget the battles of times past, we’re doomed to repeat them. When is the next Verdun?

The combination of characterization, tone, and historical events in this poem are expertly wrapped up into a theme that presents mankind with nature’s (and Sandburg’s) frustration with the folly of mankind. If humans continue to ignore history, continue to forget previous conflicts, continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes, then they are to be doomed to continuously make the same mistakes, which will result in many unnecessary deaths.

A River of Caring

So, uh, this one time, I had a bowl cut.

I picked other peoples flowers, because I was a jerk.

Then I saw you, with the stilts and the games,

You came over to me with some blue plums.

And life continued as normal, as it always does.

Just two of us, insignificant, and uncaring.

It wasn’t much later, we married under My Lord.

I was so bashful; never laughed.

I keep my head low, or towards the wall.

I never respond when you call to me.

By the next year, I was happy

I wanted to be part of you

Always, and forever, never ending

Why should I climb any higher?

A year later, you left.

You left for Ku-to-yen, to close to the whirlpool.

You’ve been gone for so long,

That even the monkeys cry.

It’s like you knew before you left.

The gate is s o different now, new moss has grown.

It’s too thick to clear!

Its autumn now, many leaves fall.

Butterflies everywhere and they’re yellow, because it’s August.

Just past the West garden;

Its painful to grow older.

If you ever come back,

I hope you’ll let me know before hand,

Because I will come for you

However far it may be.

As a writing exercise, it can be fun to rewrite poems that you feel deeply about. Personally, I hate "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" so here I am destroying it, while maintaining the general story.

Who and I?

In his poem, “The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T.S. Eliot opens with the line “Let us go then, you and I.” The meaning of this line dictates the meaning of the entire poem. It wasn’t until the third of fourth rereading of this poem that the true meaning of the line became clear. The poem is representative of an internal debate; the speaker in the poem acts as the ‘I,’ while also acting as the ‘you.’ It may sound confusing, but the device really allows for a great inner look into the psyche of the speaker.

Considering that both the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ represent the same person, they must represent different parts of Alfred’s psyche. Since ‘I’ is obviously the speaking psyche, it’s logical to conclude that ‘I’ is his inner self. Who he wants to be. That fact delegates the ‘you’ to who he really is on the outside. The evidence of this is really apparent in lines 41 and 44. The parentheses are indicative of the ‘you’ back talking the ‘I.’ The inner self is telling the body to go be outgoing, to go and do stuff, to get the chick, while the body debates this command, saying “(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”). The perspective of the ‘I’ changes as time passes in the poem. It changes from the outgoing, adventure seeking inner self, to finally recognizing that he’s too old. Line 125 is a perfect example. Eliot writes: “I do not think that they will sing to me,” not long after he had written “I grow old … I grow old …” This is probably because his outer body was actually correct, and his brain just had never caught up to his age.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an excellent back and forth debate between one aging man and his own psyche. T.S. Eliot masterfully weaves a tail to allow the reader to peer easily into this debate and gain an insight on what it is like to age.

Cohen on Williams, A Summary

In his article, “Stumbling into Crossfire: William Carlos Williams, Partisan Review, and the Left in the 1930s” Cohen examines Williams’ apparently awkward interactions with the political left. In the preface of the article, Cohen states that “William Carlos Williams had an almost uncanny knack for getting between warring factions and alienating power centers of the Left, particularly Partisan Review.” He goes on to cite three examples (two of which ended in humiliation for Williams) and explain some of the potential reasoning behind Williams’ actions.

In the second section of the article, Cohen explains exactly how Williams could be both a leftist, but at ends with the leftist movement at the same time. Williams was indeed a leftist, and his poems reflect this, but he was not a communist. He didn’t believe in communism nor did he believe that a communist revolution could take place in America. Also, it wasn’t until 1934 that Williams even believed that poetry could be political. Prior to this, he refused to write political poetry. Cohen quotes Williams as writing “[P]oetry is related to poetry, not to social statutes” in selected letters to Kay Boyle. It’s beginning to become abundantly clear how Williams can both agree and be at ends with the leftist movement in the early 1930s.

Cohen continues his article by explaining how as time passes, Williams does indeed become increasingly political with his poetry. He begins to write more about the working man, about servants, and about other hot-button issues among leftist circles. Then in 1936 Williams become at ends with popular leftism once again, by answering a questionnaire with an answer that rejects communism in America. He even writes “It is this same democracy of feeling which will defeat Marxism in America and all other attempts at regimentation of thought and action.” (QTD in Cohen 147) in some other letters. The printing of his disapproval of communism caused him much embarrassment.

By use of these examples, and a few others (most notably another showdown with the same group that published his anticommunism bit, Partisan Review), Cohen claims that the political battlefield leaves Williams “simply out of his depth in dealing with the labyrinthine politics of the Left.” (Cohen 153) but that argument isn’t entirely convincing. While Cohen does provide ample evidence to this claim, he neglects the possibility that Cohen was simply on the foreground attempting to mold the left to a communist free chain of thought, and thus offers no evidence of counter possibilities.