Equality, Alienation, and the American Dream

Poetry Socratic Seminars – Modern Poets

Packet #2

April 2014

1

A Brief Guide to Modernism

“The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War I period. ‘The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not, wrote T.S. Eliot, accord with ‘the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.’.. rejecting nineteenth-century optimism, [modernists] presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray.”

(University of Virginia’s Electronic Labyrinth)

The English novelist Virginia Woolf declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change "on or about December 1910." The statement testifies to the modern writer's fervent desire to break with the past, rejecting literary traditions that seemed outdated and diction that seemed too genteel (proper) to suit an era of technological breakthroughs and global violence.

"On or about 1910," just as the automobile and airplane were beginning to accelerate the pace of human life, and Einstein's ideas were transforming our perception of the universe, there was an explosion of innovation and creative energy that shook every field of artistic endeavor. Artists from all over the world converged on London, Paris, and other great cities of Europe to join in the ferment of new ideas and movements: Constructivism, Futurism, and Imagism were among the most influential banners under which the new artists grouped themselves. It was an era when major artists were fundamentally questioning and reinventing their art forms: Matisse and Picasso in painting, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein in literature, Isadora Duncan in dance, Igor Stravinsky in music, and Frank Lloyd Wright in architecture.

The excitement, however, came to a terrible climax in 1914 with the start of the First World War, which wiped out a generation of young men in Europe, catapulted Russia into a catastrophic revolution, and sowed the seeds for even worse fires in the decades to follow. By the war's end in 1918, the centuries-old European domination of the world had ended and the "American Century" had begun. For artists and many others in Europe, it was a time of profound disillusion with the values on which a whole civilization had been founded. But it was also a time when the avant-garde (new,

2

exciting) experiments that had preceded the war would, like the technological wonders of the airplane and the atom, inevitably establish a new indulgence, which we call modernism. Among the most instrumental of all artists in effecting this change were a handful of American poets.

Modernist PoetryModernist poetry often is difficult for students to analyze and understand.

A primary reason students feel a bit disoriented when reading a modernist poem is that the speaker himself is uncertain about his or her own ontological (Ontology - the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations bearings). Indeed, the speaker of modernist poems characteristically wrestles with the fundamental question of “self,” often feeling fragmented and alienated from the world around him. In other words, a coherent speaker with a clear sense of himself/herself is hard to find in modernist poetry, often leaving students confused and “lost.”

Such ontological feelings of fragmentation and alienation, which often led to a more pessimistic and bleak outlook on life as manifested in representative modernist poems such as T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” were prompted by fundamental and far-reaching historical, social, cultural, and economic changes in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The rise of cities; profound technological changes in transportation, architecture, and engineering; a rising population that engendered crowds and chaos in public spaces; and a growing sense of mass markets often made individuals feel less individual and more alienated, fragmented, and at a loss in their daily worlds. World War I (WWI), moreover, contributed to a more modern local and world view.

Pre-Modern World (e.g., Romantic, Victorian Periods)

Modern World (early 20th century)

Ordered ChaosMeaningful FutileOptimistic PessimisticStable UnstableFaith Loss of FaithMorality/Values Collapse of Morality/ValuesClear Sense of Identity Confused Sense of Identity and Place in World

3

Major influences:o Inventions/technological breakthroughso Rise of the cityo Quickened pace of transportationo Factory lifeo World War I

Modern Poetry Theme #1: Exploration

Poets:e.e. CummingsCarl Sandburg

4

Li-Young Lee

(#1) [in Just-]e.e. Cummings

in Just-spring          when the world is mud-luscious the littlelame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill comerunning from marbles andpiracies and it'sspring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queerold balloonman whistlesfar          and             weeand bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it'sspringand

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistlesfarandwee

5

(#2) ChicagoCarl SandburgHog Butcher for the World,   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,   Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;   Stormy, husky, brawling,   City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,   Bareheaded,   Shoveling,   Wrecking,   Planning,   Building, breaking, rebuilding,Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,                   Laughing!Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

6

(3#) PersimmonsLi-Young Lee

In sixth grade Mrs. Walkerslapped the back of my headand made me stand in the corner   for not knowing the difference   between persimmon and precision.   How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.   Sniff the bottoms. The sweet onewill be fragrant. How to eat:put the knife away, lay down newspaper.   Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.   Chew the skin, suck it,and swallow. Now, eatthe meat of the fruit,so sweet,all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.   In the yard, dewy and shiveringwith crickets, we lie naked,face-up, face-down.I teach her Chinese.Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten.   Naked:   I’ve forgotten.Ni, wo:   you and me.I part her legs,remember to tell hershe is beautiful as the moon.

Other wordsthat got me into trouble werefight and fright, wren and yarn.

7

Fight was what I did when I was frightened,   Fright was what I felt when I was fighting.   Wrens are small, plain birds,   yarn is what one knits with.Wrens are soft as yarn.My mother made birds out of yarn.   I loved to watch her tie the stuff;   a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class   and cut it upso everyone could tastea Chinese apple. Knowingit wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eatbut watched the other faces.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun   inside, something golden, glowing,   warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper,   forgotten and not yet ripe.I took them and set both on my bedroom windowsill,   where each morning a cardinalsang, The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding   he was going blind,my father sat up all one night   waiting for a song, a ghost.   I gave him the persimmons,   swelled, heavy as sadness,   and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lightingof my parents’ cellar, I rummage, looking   for something I lost.My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,   black cane between his knees,hand over hand, gripping the handle.He’s so happy that I’ve come home.I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.   All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find a box.Inside the box I find three scrolls.I sit beside him and untiethree paintings by my father:Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.

8

Two cats preening.Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,   asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,   the strength, the tenseprecision in the wrist.I painted them hundreds of times   eyes closed. These I painted blind.   Some things never leave a person:scent of the hair of one you love,   the texture of persimmons,in your palm, the ripe weight.

(#4) Since feeling is firste.e. Cummings

since feeling is first

since feeling is firstwho pays any attentionto the syntax of thingswill never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a foolwhile Spring is in the world

my blood approves,and kisses are better fatethan wisdomlady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry—the best gesture of my brain is less thanyour eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: thenlaugh, leaning back in my armsfor life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

9

Modern Poetry Theme #2: The Despair of Love

Poets:T.S. Eliot

George BoginW.H. Auden

(#1) The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockT.S. Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,The muttering retreatsOf restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

10

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo lead you to an overwhelming question ...Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,And seeing that it was a soft October night,Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be timeFor the yellow smoke that slides along the street,Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;There will be time, there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;There will be time to murder and create,And time for all the works and days of handsThat lift and drop a question on your plate;Time for you and time for me,And time yet for a hundred indecisions,And for a hundred visions and revisions,Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be timeTo wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”Time to turn back and descend the stair,With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)Do I dareDisturb the universe?In a minute there is timeFor decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:11

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;I know the voices dying with a dying fallBeneath the music from a farther room.               So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,Then how should I beginTo spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?               And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—Arms that are braceleted and white and bare(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)Is it perfume from a dressThat makes me so digress?Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.               And should I then presume?               And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streetsAnd watched the smoke that rises from the pipesOf lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!Smoothed by long fingers,Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,Would it have been worth while,To have bitten off the matter with a smile,To have squeezed the universe into a ball

12

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—If one, settling a pillow by her head               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;               That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,Would it have been worth while,After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—And this, and so much more?—It is impossible to say just what I mean!But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:Would it have been worth whileIf one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,And turning toward the window, should say:               “That is not it at all,               That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,Deferential, glad to be of use,Politic, cautious, and meticulous;Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown.

13

(#2) Nineteenby George Bogin

On the first day of Philosophy 148, a small girl walked in,freckled, solemn, cute, whom I liked right off.

Next time, our eyes met and she smiled a little.I was already in love.

I always tried to arrive before she did so I could watch her coming through the doorway, each time loving her more.

She began to look at me, too, hoping for a word, I suppose,but when our eyes met mine would drop.

Once I heard her ask someone for a pencil.I passed mine back without turning or speaking.

Spring came and we saw each other on campusopen-throated, wordless, everywhere.

On the last day of exam week I was reading at the far endof the Philosophy Library. Not a soul there but the librarian.Dust in the sunbeams. End of college.

The door opened. It was my girl. I looked down.

In all that empty library she came to my side,to the very next chair. Sweet springtime love.Lovely last chance first love.

I could have taken her by the hand and walked the whole 60 blocksto the piers right onto a steamer to France or somewhere,but I said nothing and after a while got up and walked out into middle age.

14

(#3) Funeral BluesW.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Modern Poetry Theme #3 – Sadness & Death

15

Poets:Emily Dickinson

Robert FrostSylvia Plath

Paul Laurence Dunbar

(#1) It was not Death, for I stood upEmily Dickinson

It was not Death, for I stood up,And all the Dead, lie down -It was not Night, for all the BellsPut out their Tongues, for Noon.

It was not Frost, for on my FleshI felt Siroccos - crawl -Nor Fire - for just my marble feetCould keep a Chancel, cool -

And yet, it tasted, like them all,The Figures I have seenSet orderly, for BurialReminded me, of mine -

As if my life were shaven,And fitted to a frame,And could not breathe without a key,And ’twas like Midnight, some -

16

When everything that ticked - has stopped -And space stares - all around -Or Grisly frosts - first Autumn morns,Repeal the Beating Ground -

But most, like Chaos - Stopless - cool -Without a Chance, or spar -Or even a Report of Land -To justify - Despair.

(#2) ‘Out, Out—’Robert Frost

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yardAnd made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.And from there those that lifted eyes could countFive mountain ranges one behind the otherUnder the sunset far into Vermont.And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,As it ran light, or had to bear a load.And nothing happened: day was all but done.Call it a day, I wish they might have saidTo please the boy by giving him the half hourThat a boy counts so much when saved from work.His sister stood beside him in her apronTo tell them ‘Supper.’ At the word, the saw,As if to prove saws know what supper meant,Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—He must have given the hand. However it was,Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,As he swung toward them holding up the handHalf in appeal, but half as if to keepThe life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—Since he was old enough to know, big boyDoing a man’s work, though a child at heart—He saw all was spoiled. ‘Don’t let him cut my hand off—The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’So. But the hand was gone already.The doctor put him in the dark of ether.He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.No one believed. They listened to his heart.Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.No more to build on there. And they, since they

17

Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

(#3) MirrorSylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.What ever you see I swallow immediatelyJust as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.I am not cruel, only truthful---The eye of a little god, four-cornered.Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so longI think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.Faces and darkness separate us over and over.Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,Searching my reaches for what she really is.Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.I am important to her. She comes and goes.Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old womanRises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

(#4) The Haunted OakPaul Laurence Dunbar

Pray why are you so bare, so bare,   Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;And why, when I go through the shade you throw,   Runs a shudder over me?

My leaves were green as the best, I trow,   And sap ran free in my veins,But I say in the moonlight dim and weird   A guiltless victim's pains.

They'd charged him with the old, old crime,   And set him fast in jail:Oh, why does the dog howl all night long,   And why does the night wind wail?

He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath,   And he raised his hand to the sky;

18

But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear,   And the steady tread drew nigh.

Who is it rides by night, by night,   Over the moonlit road?And what is the spur that keeps the pace,   What is the galling goad?

And now they beat at the prison door,   "Ho, keeper, do not stay!We are friends of him whom you hold within,   And we fain would take him away

"From those who ride fast on our heels   With mind to do him wrong;They have no care for his innocence,   And the rope they bear is long."

They have fooled the jailer with lying words,   They have fooled the man with lies;The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,   And the great door open flies.

Now they have taken him from the jail,   And hard and fast they ride,And the leader laughs low down in his throat,   As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,   And the doctor one of white,And the minister, with his oldest son,   Was curiously bedight.

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now?   'Tis but a little space,And the time will come when these shall dread   The mem'ry of your face.

I feel the rope against my bark,   And the weight of him in my grain,I feel in the throe of his final woe   The touch of my own last pain.

And never more shall leaves come forth   On the bough that bears the ban;I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead,   From the curse of a guiltless man.

And ever the judge rides by, rides by,19

   And goes to hunt the deer,And ever another rides his soul   In the guise of a mortal fear.

And ever the man he rides me hard,   And never a night stays he;For I feel his curse as a haunted bough,   On the trunk of a haunted tree.

Modern Poetry Theme #4 – Nature

Poets:Robert Frost

Emily DickinsonEzra PoundMary Oliver

20

(#1) BirchesRobert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and rightAcross the lines of straighter darker trees,I like to think some boy's been swinging them.But swinging doesn't bend them down to stayAs ice-storms do. Often you must have seen themLoaded with ice a sunny winter morningAfter a rain. They click upon themselvesAs the breeze rises, and turn many-coloredAs the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shellsShattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—Such heaps of broken glass to sweep awayYou'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,And they seem not to break; though once they are bowedSo low for long, they never right themselves:You may see their trunks arching in the woodsYears afterwards, trailing their leaves on the groundLike girls on hands and knees that throw their hairBefore them over their heads to dry in the sun.But I was going to say when Truth broke inWith all her matter-of-fact about the ice-stormI should prefer to have some boy bend themAs he went out and in to fetch the cows—Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,Whose only play was what he found himself,Summer or winter, and could play alone.One by one he subdued his father's treesBy riding them down over and over againUntil he took the stiffness out of them,And not one but hung limp, not one was leftFor him to conquer. He learned all there wasTo learn about not launching out too soonAnd so not carrying the tree awayClear to the ground. He always kept his poiseTo the top branches, climbing carefullyWith the same pains you use to fill a cupUp to the brim, and even above the brim.Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.So was I once myself a swinger of birches.And so I dream of going back to be.It's when I'm weary of considerations,

21

And life is too much like a pathless woodWhere your face burns and tickles with the cobwebsBroken across it, and one eye is weepingFrom a twig's having lashed across it open.I'd like to get away from earth awhileAnd then come back to it and begin over.May no fate willfully misunderstand meAnd half grant what I wish and snatch me awayNot to return. Earth's the right place for love:I don't know where it's likely to go better.I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,And climb black branches up a snow-white trunkToward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,But dipped its top and set me down again.That would be good both going and coming back.One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

(#2) The MountainEmily Dickinson

The mountain sat upon the plainIn his eternal chair,His observation omnifold,His inquest everywhere.

The seasons prayed around his knees,Like children round a sire:Grandfather of the days is he,Of dawn the ancestor.

(#3) The River-Merchant's Wife: A LetterEzra Pound While my hair was still cut straight across my foreheadI played about the front gate, pulling flowers.You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.And we went on living in the village of Chokan:Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.I never laughed, being bashful.Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

22

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,I desired my dust to be mingled with yoursForever and forever and forever.Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,And you have been gone five months.The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,Too deep to clear them away!The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.The paired butterflies are already yellow with AugustOver the grass in the West garden;They hurt me. I grow older.If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,Please let me know beforehand,And I will come out to meet you As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

By Rihaku

(#4) Morning GloriesMary Oliver

Blue and dark-blue    rose and deepest rose        

white and pink they

are everywhere in the diligent    cornfield rising and swaying        

in their reliable

finery in the little    fling of their bodies their        

gear and tackle

all caught up in the cornstalks.    The reaper's story is the story        

of endless work ofwork

careful and heavy but the    23

reaper cannot        separate them out there they

are in the story of his life    bright random useless        

year after year

taken with the serious tons    weeds without value        

humorous beautiful weeds.

24