The Contemporary Poem

I’ll think I’ll talk all little on one of the poems that really stuck out out to me in David Herd’s Through. On page 44 in the section “Syntax,” the poem “X.” really pushed me into a head space preoccupied with the concept of space.

While the poem itself is intelligible as a whole, I read it more as a series of couplets, tercets, and a single quatrain woven together to form two stanzas. The separations don’t have many visual markers as punctuation (like many of the poems in “Syntax”) as the focus is more on the arrangement and relationship of ideas rather than forces that, even unintentionally, divide. We’re left to sift through the syntax.

Some of my favorite portions of the poem are:

“I leave the following message

  It is not ok”

These two line start the poem. The mix of formal urgency and a low, everyday response establishes the poem’s logic that can flow in and out of contexts in the single flourish of a line break. My reading of the couplet implies a colon after “message,” but it could be that “not ok” describes the message rather than comprising the message. The ambiguity and subsequent over reliance on the syntax lets the complexity play.

“Dear Jurisdiction –

  Your conduct

  Has become

  Deplorable”

This one’s a letter (it even follows a reference to waxwing birds in the line prior that are named after their resemblance to wax seals on old letters). The use of “Jurisdiction” as the pronoun to which the letter is addressed reinforces the formality discussed earlier, but also supplants a small absurdity in addressing an authority in such curt, politically charged means. On that note the diction (which is the root word of “jurisdiction” meaning “law” and “saying,” which I highly doubt is unintentional), “deplorable” as a word has taken up such radically different connotations following the 2016 US presidential elections that the irony of the four lines, while formally, come across as funny and mocking. Also, the notion of a jurisdiction as an area of which the power of law is exerted is so central to the idea of space identified earlier.

“Here

  Like houses

  Shall comprise an area”

This one is my favorite. The tercet, mentally and on the page, just takes up so much space at the very end of the poem that it just can’t be ignored. But “Here,” standalone, carries so much weight and fully occupies the space it establishes in the tercet, stanza, poem, and higher concept of places, spaces, and areas as something physical. And it plays so well off of dear jurisdiction from earlier, the other stanza-ender.

“X.” occupies and justifies the space it takes up on the page, in our minds, and in the world. Either despite or in tandem with the charged diction in terms of high and low, etymology, or politics, it doesn’t take a direct stance and teeters so carefully on the spaces of outrage and the mockery of outrage.

 

Just a quick note: the poem also references a writer (and professor of poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver) named Steve Collis who, from severely limited research, also uses language and poetry to address socio-political issues. He probably writes in the same vein as Herd if Herd’s speaker holds him in the same regards as he does his associates, the waxwings. I think I’ll look into him more.

Also, the conversation with between this poem and the other “X.” poem on page 31 and 32 is quite something.

Thanks for reading.

Recently in my Anthropology 100 class we’ve been learning about the concept of cultural capital. A brief definition of cultural capital is that it is the knowledge, habits, and tastes learned from parents and family that individuals can use to gain access to scarce and valuable resources of society, such as a social organization, important position (such as a Supreme Court Judge) and other social arenas. In many cases, the “culture” in cultural capital is the culture of old, wealthy, white, Western, cis, heterosexual men. This theory was developed by Pierre Bourdieu, an intellectual who came from a French farming town and felt looked down upon by the Parisian elite, who made fun of him for his rural accent. He realized that in order to be respected and gain access to those Parisian intellectual circles, he had to change his accent to match the Parisian’s, and his theory of cultural capital came from that experience. Bourdieu migrated to Paris from Denguin, and his struggle with language after his journey is similar to Herd’s speaker in “Through”, who wrestles with the ambivalence of both governmental, informational texts and aesthetic texts. Their struggle with language links them together.

Continue reading “Cultural Capital and David Herd’s “Through””

I believe that writing about something you’re familiar with is equally hard as it is easy. When I want to write about something I am very familiar with, it can sometimes be easier for me because I can probably reference things about it that others can’t or wouldn’t have thought of. For example, for writing exercise 7, we had to write about something we are informed about so I wrote about my body which I obviously have the most knowledge about and experience with than anyone else could. But at the same time, writing about something I’m so familiar with makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I’m trying to capture something that will never be accurately described. At least with something I’m not as familiar with, I know that I won’t get it all completely right so I give myself more freedom. But with topics I’m more familiar with and informed on, I feel more pressure to be very accurate about every thing I say.

Last week in class for my tangible item, I brought in a scissor. I felt that this item represented the tension throughout David Herd’s collection of poems in Through.

Herd touches up upon various topics in Through such as  politics, intimacy, tension, and human language itself. I found this collection of poems to be rather gripping because it demanded to be read. Each and every word used had a purpose and told it’s story well. There was a heavy attribute of focus which lead to the reader listening to all the concepts this collection had to offer. The poems were all written in free verse which gave them the feel of being light weight, organic, and truthful. This collection is modern and thought provoking. Although this collection feels unforced, there is this tension between the reader and the poems because it forces its reader to engage within the poems on the page. The poems call on you to look harder at the world, whilst also saying that your view is only ever occluded.

David Herd’s Through is not only a well-written, cohesive collection of poems; it’s a story about how syntax, about “who leaves the language” (11), about appellants who are “rarely white” (12), who are “spirited away. Barely rendered present in the first place” (13). Through is a story about immigration rights in England, a rendering that causes anger and frustration, a desire for change.

Continue reading “A note on “Law” in Through”

Time is movement. It is a passage of space and momentum and feeling and importance. Chronologically speaking, this is most vital conversion in human existence (in my opinion), because we can learn SO MUCH from history. That is why, to diagnose Through, I chose my watch.

I wear my watch everyday (on the inside, as it should be), and I looked at it as I was reading this poetry by Herd. I thought about the word ‘suspend’ that Herd uses, extensively. To temporarily suspend time and sequence is such a graceful interruption. Similar to old shows like Saved By The Bell when Zach Morris can pause the scene, and speak to us: this suspension is vital to the plot, and audience’s interpretation. I have a stopwatch on my watch, and I can, too, suspend time for my own time-keeping abilities and desires. But, this idea of suspension, specifically in this book and title, is ironic.

To me, this book is about ‘moving through’ things. Of course there are deeper meanings within the smaller poems, but broadly if I could summarize ALL the poems into one word — it would be on very similar to the word through (thank God that’s the title…). Perhaps a word like movement, fluid, exist — any one that suggests momentum, but a slow one. This book encompasses many themes, and all have to do with change. Whether that be within politics, people, the environment, or personal goals, this poetry is about opening doors, and walking through them. The most important movement in this book is time: the change in politics, speakers, and important faces and voices. Or just the time throughout the day, and the changing of that concept, is imperative as well. From the images of birds to sunsets, it is chronological statement of day in and day out, and of political state of affairs.

My watch represents this fluidity, or lack thereof in terms of suspension of time. This is directly related to the political environment, the faces involved, and the personal journey between doors. The concept of moving through something, is based on time. The old saying that is often said to those grieving is: “time heals all wounds” — now,  we will not get into this cliche, but the idea of time healing  wounds isn’t what I care about. What I am interested in is the idea of eventually, time resolving hurt. It is funny though, how history repeats itself. Maybe we are wearing the cast, just to soon break the same bone again…

Without entering any political climate territory, reading Through with this lens of time has helped me to understand the book as one segment, continuously. Reading the book in this way helped me to see the movement of the pieces, together and fluidly, yet separate and suspended, as well.

I suggest reading this book of poems perhaps on a timer, or a metronome, and use this to feel the way the rhythm feels to time, and the way the concepts and content do as well.

 

Julia xoxo

 

From my reading of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, and from our reading and discussion of Through in class, I’ve been thinking about spaces. Anzaldúa notes that a “borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition” (3). I think the concepts in Through relate well to borders, but I’ve been trying to consider transitory spaces or events from my own life.

One transitory event that my mind immediately jumps to is graduation. Specifically from high school, because I’ve already done that, but also graduating from college as an undergrad, since that will be happening this May. It’s interesting to me how, as a society, we’ve constructed major moments of transition. Graduation is one, but so are moments like being able to test for your driver’s license, or being able to vote, or drink alcohol. Looking at alcohol specifically, and how in the U.S. the legal drinking age has changed from eighteen, to nineteen, to the current age of twenty-one, it’s obvious that these moments are constructed by external forces. We all eventually reach those moments.

When I think of moving through, I think of moving on, or maybe passed. For Anzaldúa, and the people living in borderlands, their culture is constantly being moved through, and even passed. These zones are basically blind spots to everyone that simply moves through them. Acknowledging that, and looking at transitory experiences from my own life, I think it’s important to not look passed those moments. It’s important to not only see what’s on either side. This is a confusing concept, and I’m still trying to fully conceptualize my thoughts on it, but I think I know that it’s important, either way.

After reading poems that mentioned Cy Twombly and Giorgio Amgabam in relation to each other, for this week’s tangible object, I decided to research Cy Twombly and Giorgio Amgabam to look into how they relate to David Herd’s poetry in Through.

In the poem VI, “As one might say/ This first day of spring/ Now it is backed by sunlight/ Itself/ Against the crosswires/ Like Cy Twombly.” pg. 40 Herd first mentions Cy Twombly. After reading this, I later discovered that Cy Twombly was an artist who worked across multiple decades. One of the most distinctive elements of his biography was that his painting style had changed after the 1950s, which could be due to Twombly’s involvement in war during that time and how he worked as a cryptologist. After this experience, his paintings were described as a regression of his past paintings. From the terms “Crosswires” and “backed like sunlight” I assumed that Herd could be a referencing Twombly’s post-1950s paintings, many of which featured lines that could resemble crosswires.

While we can assume that Herd is using Twombly’s artwork to further expand on bleak imagery, there is another poem that places Twombly’s artwork within the context of Agamben. In the poem, VIII Herd writes, “Like Twombly articulated by Agamben/ Designated/ Falling beauty” (pg. 42).

First, we must look at who Giorgio Agamben is. Through research, I found that he is an Italian philosopher that believed that throughout time, there have been instances of governments degrading the status of people into “bare bodies” as opposed to individuals. Agamben calls this living in a state of exception, in which a nation’s authorities justify the degradation of human bodies in order to do what’s best for public safety. Amgbam considers an example of a state of exception to be the treatment of people in the Holocaust, where the nation’s authorities allowed people to be degraded to numbers.

I imagine that Agamben would comment on Twombly’s work that the paintings aren’t just bleak, but that they reflect a regression of art. By relating Twombly’s art with these poems, the narrator’s environment could be seen as a regression of what’s considered normal in life. This can go further to describe the environment of the syntax section as a whole, that in an environment that looks at syntax so closely, there may be a regression of words and their meaning. This idea of regression can be alluded to in the poem through the term, “Falling Beauty.”

I was impressed with how Herd incorporated context in his writing and that these references allowed him to build more on ideas without the expansion of an explanation. I’m curious if Herd expects readers to understand the references about Agamben and Twombly or if those references simply exist to enrich the world of the poem.

Thank you for reading this, enjoy your day!
-Danielle

I’m just gonna pose a question and give my answer since I can’t think of any good segues.

On what medium do you write poems?

All the talk on form, paper receipt rolls in class, and my compulsions to eavesdrop on conversations in workshop (we’re all writers here; we all do it) just had me thinking. Paper and computer screens take up two very different forms. Paper is tactile and takes up physical space, while digital words don’t. Granted, poems can be typed and printed out and will always clear at legible (probably). I think I’m more concerned with the process by which poems take up their first iterations, their first forms, though.  Does it start out handwritten or typed up? Does that change how we write the poem? Does it change the end product?

Personally, I prefer writing things on loose-leaf, but typing is just quicker, easier to change, and easier to adjust things as I go. I find writing poems using my hand brings me to a more content focused part of my brain as the words just flow out, but I cross things out, add carrots, draw arrows, and mess the whole thing up until it gets messy. My handwriting doesn’t do it any favors either—I do this thing where my lowercase “h”s flatten out so they look like “L”s on the page, which I’ve noticed for a few years now but I can’t seem to shake it.

The transition to typeset is an important step if I do begin in pencil, maybe even more than the initial writing. The poem actually becomes something, it finds a concrete shape I can play with rather than just draw pictures declaring my intention to play with the shape on college rule.  I try my best to convey formal choices, but conveying and applying are two different things. On paper, it’s an idea; on screen, it’s a poem.

It may be a relatively simple question I’m asking, but I think the genesis of a poem’s form can have lasting impact on how it matures. So, how do you write poems?

Thanks for reading.

After work-shopping my first poem, I decided I wanted to do something different with my second poem. Largely I’ve found myself writing poems about relationships, and love, I suppose, but there’s so many ways to see one topic.

With my first poem, I wanted to capture a memory, and in doing so, capture how it feels to be kind of stuck in the past. I think as a writer I’ve become accustomed to trying to fill in the gaps of my life, the areas I can’t understand or rationalize, by writing them anew in my head. This is sort of dangerous, though, and often it makes me feel like I’m trapped in those re-writings.

My first poem tried to deal with that idea. I wanted to show how memories can be addictive; they become more enticing than real life if you let them. But I also wanted to show that they’re hollow. In my second poem, I found myself still writing about relationships, but I didn’t want to write about the same thing.

I tried to focus more on indulging in vices. In the case of that poem, the relationship was more about the speaker and pain, than the speaker and the “Dear” of the poem.

Going forward, thinking about crafting a portfolio, it seems pretty likely that much of my poetry this semester will be about relationships, memories, dreams, and my relationship to all of those things. But, I don’t want one poem to bleed into the next, I don’t want them to be replications of each other. That sounds boring. So moving forward, I’m going to really focus on making sure each poem has a unique identity, even if the subject matter feels somewhat consistent throughout my portfolio.

Have any of you thought about your portfolio yet? Do you see yourself working/returning to similar ideas in each of your poems?