Poetry thrills me. I think that literature can often speak more about a person's ideology and culture than a non-fiction account of the material, and the poetry readings for this weekend did not leave me disappointed. I was moved by the works, particularly those by Barbara Ras, Alicia Ostriker, and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim. The contrast between the views expressed draws upon the idea of cultural identity, and how it shapes a person's perception of the culture as a whole.
"A Wife Explains Why She Likes Country," reveals a completely different view of the promise of America than "Learning to Love America." In the former, the speaker has a love for the simple pleasures of American life, despite circumstances that some might consider to be poor or crude. The poem is a defense for the working American for whom the stereotypical "American Dream" may not have been realized. On the other hand, "Learning to Love America" is a poem of hope, the frontier before disappointment. The speaker is trying to accept the newness of life in America, and must look towards the future and the possibilities that await her newborn son. She cannot yet call America her home, but is convincing herself that the struggles of her new life and child will help her to define her life as American. Finally, there is Barbara Ras' poem, which narrates not a personal saga, but rather the history of the nation. The picture painted is rather darker than those of the preceeding poems, using animalistic diction to describe a ruthless settling an creation of America. It describes the destruction of forests and animals, an apathy for life yet an insistene of superiority. It reflects upon our presence in the world, and the harm we can cause to others through our own development of industry and persuit of happiness.
Together these three poems show three vastly different conceptions of America. Yet none are incorrect. Each contains elements of the truth, and is an affirmation of Cullen's musings on the American Dream: it is entirely dependent upon an individual's social situation and historical perspective. Culture, like poetry itself, is subjective, and in many ways that is what makes it so interesting, so powerful, and so beautiful.
I love poetry too! I read somewhere that literature is the right words on the page but poetry is the right words in the right order. Having to make lots of little decisions about what goes into a poem, what it looks like and how it sounds make a poem a really deliberate art form. I loved reading poems for class because it's a nice break from all the longer nonfiction reading we've been doing. The last part about culture being subjective is really interesting because I never thought about culture in that way before. None of our interpretations are incorrect, they're just different.
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