Many comments that mirror my own have been made here about Hughes' work, his place in African American history and poetry, and on the language he used (deliberate or not). So in an attempt not to repeat, I want to look at one other element that has not been discussed – aesthetics.
As I listened to him share The Weary Blues I found it interesting that he paused in different places that were not indicated by line breaks or commas or any other signifier that we have come to equate with a pause for the reading voice. I realize that I am placing an aesthetic that was not of concern in his time onto this historically brilliant work, but that is my point – why do we trouble ourselves with aesthetics now? Have we decided that traditional aesthetics can no longer serve some arbitrary importance that we (modern/contemporary/aspiring poets) have placed on how our poetry looks on the page? Do we really think that how we place text on the page will somehow guide the reader to read it the way we want them to read it? How DO we want them to read our poetry? Does it matter? Is it content/context that matters more or is it the performance of the poetry – the actual reading it out loud?
Obviously, these rhetorical questions are simply me searching my own purpose for “doing what I do” on the page. This first assignment has moved me to reflect on my choices to write some poems that rely on the aesthetics to move the piece forward and some pieces that seem to beg me to stick with more traditional forms. I have no answers to these questions and don’t expect anyone else to define the importance for me, but I am ridiculously hopeful that we can discuss and my eyes/mind/poetic heart can open and learn and question and create.
I also found it interesting that I’ve read Hughes’ work many, many, many times and never experienced it quite the way I did this time. I love that!!
peacelovelight
Kiala
one of the ways of looking at these mechanical methodologies is suggest that a different rhythm is attached to different poets or poetries. i have a story about this that i will tell in class.
ReplyDeletee
The version of the poem "Dream Deferred" that I've read before was memorable because of its layout on the page. The first ten lines were written like a list of does it do this or that (with, of course, each question evoking powerful images), but the last line "Or does it explode?" was separated and italicized. The impact of that separation and the difference in font gave that line, and the poem, an urgency that added considerable meaning to the reading of the poem. You get anguish and threat just from the way that line is positioned on the page. I think your questions about the designs of poems are really important in our understanding of what poems say.
ReplyDeleteThese are questions we all have for ourselves, how is it that something steps off the page?
ReplyDeleteI like your points because they take our varied discussion in a different direction.
"Do we really think that how we place text on the page will somehow guide the reader to read it the way we want them to read it? How DO we want them to read our poetry? Does it matter? Is it content/context that matters more or is it the performance of the poetry – the actual reading it out loud?"
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about this - and at first I wanted to say that placement / aesthetics do not make the difference for me when reading a selected work, but then I realized that although I am not a poet, I do consider myself a writer, and as I write, I fill my work with pieces of grammar and flare, that when read according to the "code" gives a certain inflection and tone. Those pieces of grammar, in my view, serve, in many ways, as aesthetics...
placing emphasis and emotion within a text that may not otherwise be meaningful. Very interesting point.
ReplyDelete(last sentence of my post deleted during the copy / paste efforts!)
i wonder if poetry that emphasizes placement on the page (in relation to rules for reading?) is a different form than the Hughes examples. were there lock boxes to break out of first, before the page could be considered? are there examples older than Hughes' poetry that take this "aesthetics" into account?
ReplyDeletefantastic vein of thought - bring it up in class!