poetry guide

a collection of modern poems that I enjoy and explanations for why I enjoy them.

[ 1. INTRODUCTION ]

people say that poetry is all about meter, rhythm, and word choice. however, i think that poetry is about how words feel when they are forced to be compact and forced to mean something. modernist poetry is a great example of this, because it boils down poetry to the evocation of feelings and psychological tendencies. many modernist poets focused on how the words look and sound together, and abandoned traditional sentence structure or things that "make sense."

[ 2. MODERNISM ]

DESCRIPTION: cerca 1890 to 1950. modernism took poetry and ditched the fancy flowery stuff of Romanticism and Victorian era poetry; no more odes to nightingales in 2000 eloquent words. modernism wasn't necessarily a specific style, but a wide wide array of poets that all shared this goal: rejecting traditional poetry and refusing to conform to those literary standards of the preceding generations. some examples of these radical changes were abandoning verse, rhythm, and rhyme, or a combination of those, or sometimes just one. for instance, some poets chose to write in fragments of sentences, others wrote to fit a certain tone or style, and many opted to convey "texture" in their poetry and capture the feeling of life (much like Faulkner with his details on mundane parts of life; giving almost a 360 view of every aspect of living and every moment's feeling and existing)

WHY IT STARTED: this phenomenon of abandoning the traditional forms of the arts also happened in the visual art world, starting with Impressionism (see Claude Monet) and eventually devolving into Abstract Expressionism (see Mark Rothko). these paintings were obviously very different from hailed painters like Da Vinci and Rembrandt. the core reasons for this cultural shift were the same in poetry as in painting, and I will try to capture the reasons in a concise way.

1) the industrial revolution. technology was thrown into the world, jobs were created, cities exploded with people, trains became widespread, factories, fast, big, shiny, fast, fast. people changed their ways of living substantially; modernized their lifestyles, if you will. in other words, fast. what did that mean for poetry? well, poets with the traditional forms of poetry, focusing on idyllic rural landscapes, the birds on the trees, the woe and weariness of life, all that posh stuff, all that stuff didn't fit in with this NEW stuff. the noise and soot of the cities simply didn't match up with Victorian meadows and their slow paced ways of life. writers wanted to incorpoate this feeling of novelty, this crazy and rapid change, the new fast life, the harsh life, the fragmented life, the textured life.

2) the rise of photography and the unnecessity for realism. the arts were often used to capture real life back in the day. however, as photography began to pick up pace in the late nineteenth century, artists realized that spending hours on work that captured real life didn't matter as much. artists stopped trying to paint photorealistic scenes and instead opted to capture abstract feelings, moods, impressions, etc. for instance, look at any impressionist painting; there's a reason that this is often described as the pinnacle of the transition to modernism. in poetry, this translated to capturing those same things, along with even more simplified facets of literature, such as the mechanics of language itself.

3) the french revolution and the desire to abandon the 'paris salon.' this is a big long one but to simplify, in Europe (the center of the art world that we know) arts seriously had a hierarchy back in the day. the paris salon was like the do or die for painters; it was state run by the french government (royal), and it decided which artists became famous or failed (which got money). the hierarchy favored academic/historical paintings, portraits, landscapes, and still life painting. this was because the arts were used for hundreds of years as a tool of the upper classes. for instance, portrait painting was high in the hierarchy, because kings wanted their family portraits and all that stuff. they also liked all of that nice stuff like landscapes and Classical paintings (the historical paintings, usually of like Christian stuff and Greek tales and stuff, think The Death of Socrates or Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacque Louis David). paintings focused on the upper class royalties, the pompous beauty of life (such as the Rococo movement painting below). that was until... THE FRENCH REVOLUTION!!!! they overthrew the monarchy, bye bye king, and the people took control kind of. well we won't get into that because it's complicated. the important thing is: society had a realization that royalty freakin sucked. the growing middle class desired paintings that they could actually RELATE to. thus rose the movement that is often described as the true start to at least philosophical modernism: realism. realism, instead of showing these fairytale paintings about Greek dudes from five million years ago or floating women in frilly dresses, focused on everyday life, such as workers and common street scenes. some important names in this era of painting were Gustave Courbet and Eugene Delacroix. this translated to poetry, since old hierarchical rules about rhythm, meter, and structure felt outdated; poets broke rules and wrote in everyday vernacular language, sharp and jagged textures, and innovative syntax to abandon the old norms of fancy upper class soft pleasure poetry exclusively for those who had the money and leisure time to read poetry as a status symbol.

4) world war I. many believed that this tragic war was the end of human decency: the brutal violence of the war marked the end of honesty, heroism, and honor itself. poets felt that traditional language did not feel the absolute grief and bleak destruction brought to the world by the war; mass death and industrial slaughter could never be captured by the ways of before. society itself lost truth in political, religious, and moral truths from the past, and instead needed new cultural innovations to hold on to life and to capture what they were feeling. world war I led to mass abstraction in the arts and in literature.

5) new psychology breakthroughs. in other words, sigmund freud. basically, the interpretation of dreams was published, and society went crazy. this guy essentially said that hey guys, our conscious minds are only part of human behavior, and there are a lot of dimensions to the human brain, they're all really complex. he explored the messy, fragmented aspects of the inner human psyche. i'll put an online concise explanation of what freud theorized since i can't do it nearly as well:

The Topography of the Mind - Freud divided the human mind into three distinct layers of awareness: Consciousness: The small part of the mind you are actively aware of right now. Preconscious: Memories and facts you can easily pull into awareness when needed. Unconscious: The massive, hidden dynamic warehouse of repressed desires, fears, and trauma. // The Structural Model of Personality - To explain how these layers conflict, Freud introduced three psychic forces that fight for control: The Id: The primitive, blind, and chaotic engine driven by the pleasure principle. The Ego: The realistic, logical coordinator operating on the reality principle. The Superego: The strict internal moral compass built from societal and parental rules.

yeah, that's a lot. basically, this created a massive shift in cultural focus: artists and poets started heavily analyzing the self, and the psychological explorations within the arts. in poetry, this meant incorporating stream of consciousness writing, deconstructing language to show the inner workings of the brain, and trying to reveal those deep new ideas of the human mind and embracing the irrational, abstract aspects of how thinking works. you don't think in perfect sentences, and poets tried to capture that fragmentary sense of rushing thoughts.

in conclusion, poets abandoned the old to prioritize the new for a variety of reasons. that meant abandoning most traditional aspects of poetry and kind of just doin their own thing. this is why the modernist movement was so long, had so many sub movements, had so much variety in poets and styles, and was overall super diverse and interesting. i will FINALLY get to the good stuff, the actual poems, hand selected by yours truly.

note: just adding a note a while after writing this. i want to emphasize that there's a difference between modernist poetry specifically during this period before WWII compared to things that came after WWII. remember that art was something for society to cling onto after the extreme changes in life (revolution, industry, war); it was something used to rebuild things like feelings and love and the beauty of life which people thought were lost in the war, while still kind of abandoning the old ways that stood in for lies and trying to embrace the new aspects of society. post-WWII literature --- post holocaust, post atrocities, post atomic bombs --- was more focused on the absurdity of life and had a dark-humor type of tone on everything, completely going further into abstraction (like the Rothko painting) and deconstructing art in order to point out that art is simply a construct built by humans. post-WWII stuff focuses on the idea that existence is freakin pointless, just like The Stranger by Camus, that is a perfect example of post-wwii literature. modernism focused more on sincerity and earnesty and trying to capture sensory details and experiences, while post-wwii art was more self-aware and ironic and dark if that makes sense. these poems are more specifically pertaining to that modernist era that i just explained, but maybe we'll dip our toes into postwar stuff another time.

[ 3. POEMS ]

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven - William Butler Yeats - Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Epitaph by William Carlos Williams - An old willow with hollow branches slowly swayed his few high gright tendrils and sang: Love is a young green willow shimmering at the bare wood’s edge.

Oread by H.D. (hilda doolittle) - Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us, cover us with your pools of fir.

In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound - The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen - Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

(older 1870 poem for comparison to the 1920 Wilfred Owen poem) Sleeper in the Valley - Arthur Rimbaud (translated from French) It is a green hollow where a river sings Madly catching on the grasses Silver rags; where the sun shines from the proud mountain: It is a small valley which bubbles over with rays. A young soldier, his mouth open, his head bare, And the nape of his neck bathing in the cool blue watercress, Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under clouds, Pale on his green bed where the light rains down. His feet in the gladiolas, he sleeps. Smiling as A sick child would smile, he is taking a nap: Nature, cradle him warmly: he is cold. Odors do not make his nostrils quiver; He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast, Quieted. There are two red holes in his right side.

The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot - I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour. Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom Remember us—if at all—not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death’s dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind’s singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death’s dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer— Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man’s hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death’s other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death’s twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o’clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.

Susie Asado - Gertrude Stein - Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea. Susie Asado. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea. Susie Asado. Susie Asado which is a told tray sure. A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers. When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a silver seller. This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly. These are the wets these say the sets to leave a crown to Incy. Incy is short for incubus. A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble, the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and shove and render clean, render clean must. Drink pups. Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it shine and a bobolink has pins. It shows a nail. What is a nail. A nail is unison. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond - e.e. cummings - somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

l(a... (a leaf falls on loneliness) - e.e. cummings - l(a le af fa ll s) one l iness

Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney - All year the flax-dam festered in the heart Of the townland; green and heavy headed Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods. Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun. Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell. There were dragonflies, spotted butterflies, But best of all was the warm thick slobber Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied Specks to range on window sills at home, On shelves at school, and wait and watch until The fattening dots burst, into nimble Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. Then one hot day when fields were rank With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges To a coarse croaking that I had not heard Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus. Right down the dam gross bellied frogs were cocked On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped: The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting. I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

*** modernist poetry ***

[ 1. INTRODUCTION ]

[ 2. MODERNISM ]

[ 3. POEMS ]

* modernist poetry *