It's true! Yes, some are better than others. Some want to be and perhaps are not as good as they'd like to be (present company included) Some, on the other hand reject the notion altogether.
My youngest daughter breathes a sigh of relief when she sees her English curriculum suggests only a "light" touch of poetry this year. Still, she will tell you that she once wrote a poem that was so "damn pimp!" This poem was basically a biographical account of a adult person from previous school days. I don't recall the verse itself, but I can tell you it was not flattering of the subject. Nor was it intended to be.
The events of 9-11 brought out hoards of poetry. People who rarely expressed themselves in ink did so with poems. The floodgates opened. I suppose this was good for the people themselves. A sort of therapeutic release. I do believe Poetry can be that at times. Sometimes it has filled such a role for me.
A good friend of mine sent me a 9-11 poem and asked for comment. I read it several times as I usually do before I will comment on a poem. It was not a "bad" poem. It had structural factors that seemed to work well. It had a sort of meter that was palatable. If it were not for the subject matter I suppose I would have given it high marks. I confessed however, that I was perhaps not the best person to judge such work. I told him I have seen and read so many 9-11 poems that I have in fact become almost numb to the genre itself. I tried of course to be tactful. He said that he understood and acknowledged that I have willingly responded to his work in the past and respected my honesty on the matter.
I myself have only written one 9-11 poem. I don't even recall what I did with it. I really didn't care for it and would likely disown it if someone found it and asked if it were mine.
Katrina too has brought forth a ton of written verse. I have a draft of one that is not finished. It simply has not been calling my name to rewrite. In thinking about all this, I have realized that both 9-11 and Katrina are not totally absent from my writing. Both have influenced my work to some degree and likely will continue to. They cause me to think about many abstractions in such a way as to fine tune what words such as hate or loss or love mean. To see poverty in a different light. To clarify in my mind what rich is. Or security. Or hope and despair. I think it is the deepening of feelings that often brings poetry to the surface in individuals. Even those who are the last to consider themselves poets.
The San Francisco Chronicle yesterday had a piece written by staff writer Jim Doyle that called attention to hundreds of heartfelt poems carved into the walls by detainees at Angel Island. People who were kept at the Immigration Station during a time when the United States policy was to limit the number of Asian immigrants into this country.
Between 1910 and 1940 several hundred thousand immigrants were processed by immigration officials at Angel Island. Their processing however was not just a matter of verifying their credential and stamping some card as they passed through. Many of these people where detained behind bars. Sometimes the detentions were for up to two years.
In the 1970's the barracks that housed detainees were slated for demolition. The re-discovery of the poems written upon the walls stopped it. Today, there is a preservation effort underway to salvage this bit of history that contains the voices of immigrants who expressed a wide range of emotion from hope to fear and despair.
This restoration is the least that can be done to honor the passions of a people who wanted to come to America and their first experiences in the country must have challenged every notion they had about their future. Just like those displaced from Katrina - and trying to imagine the future now that they have lost everything. It is the poems written on their faces that say the most.
2 comments:
I'm thrilled to hear about the attempt to save the walls at Angel Island and their poems. Wonderful!
When 911 happened, I swore I would never write a poem about it, feeling as I did that it was too awful to be encompassed by words, even as powerful as they are. My conviction held firm until I read this in a P&W call for submissions: "Seeking poems about meager love, driving,
western states, smoking, and bar bands. Seldom publishes poetry
about poetry, 9/11, or Celine Dion." The irony of the juxtaposition of subjects that were wanted and not wanted was too much to pass up, and a poem was written after all, using this blurb beneath the title.
Couldn't help myself, you know. :)
Cindy- there is nothing like telling a poet what he or she cannot write to get the ink flowing.
It is interesting though that I have encountered a number of other poets who kind of reached the same point I was on 9-11. I think a lot of verse that was written came from people who are not as inclined as some of us are to poetry. It's like their emotion had to flow somewhere - it just had to escape. The pen was their only remedy of the moment.
I can relate that to things that drive me to journal about them. An excellent way to flush out emotion. But it is not always the stuff good poetry is made of. Just depends on a lot of other factors.
I figure one day - a lot of the stuff in my journal may find its way into verse. But sometimes those emotions have to set and cure a bit. Mature, ripen, whatever.
I too am very excited to hear about the Angel Island poems. I think there is a powerful role for such a voice to speak to the generations of Asian Americans who have come here since then. In addition, I think this is something that the rest of us can benefit from as well given the antagonistic climate that exists concerning immigrants. Sometimes we forget our own ancestors and the fact that many of them came here out of hope and desperation. Looking for opportunity.
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