Ghost Poet

One of my favorite recent music discoveries is Ghost Poet. He is a rapper, but the music he samples is far more soul, funk and techno than most of the samples of American rappers. He initially caught my attention because of his name, and I mistakenly thought he was just a poet. And then I fell in love with the name of his album, Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam. I also really love his songs "Gone" and "Love Confusion."

Chrystos's "Shame On!"

Found this great poem today called "Shame On!" by Chrystos. Chrystos is an amazing poet, always political. I love the slam feeling of this poem, especially the clever play on words with shaman and shame.

Adopt a Word

Poets and other writers are generally word nerds, which is to say that we have our favorite words that we love to us.  For poets, the word is often just as much about sound as it is about its definition, and obscure is only sometimes better.  Save the Word is trying to encourage people to adopt words.  According to them, ninety percent of our communication uses only 7,000 words. 

Go out there and adopt a word.  Looking at what they have available right now, it looks like some of the more fun words include drollic (pertaining to puppet shows), riviation (fishing), and avunculize (to act as an uncle).   

The Anxiety of Influence

I was reading an article called Nancy Armstrong's "What feminism did to novel studies" and one of the things it mentioned early on in the article was something called the "anxiety of influence."  As always when I hear something that I don't know about, I go out in search of answers.

It also seems that, based on a lot of the modern poetry I read, that a lot of people are influenced by Wallace Stevens.  I actually like Stevens a lot, but a lot of critics have complained over the years that he was "willfully difficult."  I think there is some truth to it, but it's always struck me as a good thing, because then you have to work to understand his poems.  You have to read them more than twice.  Most of the other good poets I read now are like this, some to a greater degree than others.  And I like this.  I was tickled to discover the article summarizing Harold Bloom's theory mentioned Stevens, because he's the first person I thought of when I read the basic definition of the anxiety of influence. 
One of my professors once mentioned that some people are more into theory than others.  I am into theory, though I like to see it applied to works of literature, especially the kind I am familiar with, because then I have a much easier time seeing what theorists mean when they assert a particular claim.  Seeing them apply an idea demonstrates they have thought the idea out and illustrates for readers how they should similarly apply the idea.  

To this end, I then wanted to do a little research into Gilbert and Gubar's feminist response to Bloom's idea.  According to Armstrong's article, Bloom had imagined literature as a product of the oedipal struggles between father and son.  Gilbert and Gubar, naturally, imagined how women fit into theory, since women have been producing literature too.  Gilbert and Gubar decided that women's literature was always struggling with the male tradition of literature: they can't outright rebel from it but instead must demonstrate they can work within it. 
One of the many complaints I've heard of women's literature over the years is that it never does anything new or daring.  Maybe it's because we are forced into a defensive position, much like when dealing with something like the gaze.  We're never able to just create art for the sake of creating art for ourselves or the way we want it.  We have to create art that will earn the respect of our male colleagues.
I'm hoping, as women fight to have a better place within society, that these problems will (and hopefully already have) dissipated.   

I am also wondering if there is a way to complicate Gubar and Gilbert's response in some way involving something like race or sexuality.  I think it would be easy to say that many people of color have also felt the need to earn their male (and also white) colleagues respect by working within the traditional rules of art.  For example, I took a class a couple of years ago on the African diaspora, and the majority of things we read were written in a traditional novel or essay form.  I'm wondering if those mediums were chosen not because they were necessarily the best mediums to communicate the message in or the because they were the creator's first choice, but because they were the forms that white men would respond best to.  Sometimes we watched things that were avant garde in form, and some of my fellow students reactions were masked by their dislike of a medium they were unfamiliar with, covering up how uncomfortable the messages of the piece were. 
I took a class on African history, and we read an essay by an African author who complained about how white American and European authors dominated the educational lives of Africans.  When some of these Africans decided to be writers, they felt forced to write not in their own native languages but in their oppressor's language, just to have their ideas heard.  It seems like, at least in this case, authors of color weren't creating the art they wanted to, they were were creating it based on the traditions and rules of the dominant power, similar to what Gilbert and Gubar talk about. 

Poetry and Death go Together like Peanut Butter and Jelly

The Poetry Foundation has this great article up on their website called "Ghost Hunting with the Dead Poets Society of America" by Kathleen Rooney.  Midway through the article, she mentions that all poets, whether living or not, are already dead, since their art is a dead one.  It's true, but I had never thought of it that way.  She goes on to say that "Poetry and death go together like peanut butter and jelly," which has got to be one of the funniest and bizarre lines about poetry I've ever heard.  (But in a good way.)  
I get the feeling that Ms. Rooney has had a hard time with live poets, because when she says "Dead poets typically won’t humiliate you for liking them, won’t betray your affection by overproducing second-rate work, or espousing unsavory political beliefs, or publishing something cheap and clever in the New Yorker" there's a tone there that sounds a little too much like someone trying to not talk about a breakup with the love of their life.  Though, to be fair, I'm the same way.  This past fall, The Red Cedar Review got the lovely Steve Healey as our faculty adviser.  As he is a poet and I was the Poetry Editor, he went to be to see if he could get someone to write us a poem.  (Someone famous, hopefully.)  He asked me who I liked.  I told him truthfully that a lot of the poets I liked best were dead.  Healey, I suspect, appreciated the honesty.  

Female Poets Presentation

Tonight was my big presentation on female poets of the 19th century. I feel fairly good about it. I was a little nervous, and I stammered a bit, but mostly, the presentation went well. I think everyone was impressed by it. Carolyn Loeb, who is this awesome art historian, showed up and took notes and asked questions and made me feel like I'm really an emerging scholar. I felt very adult and proud of myself.
Someone asked me what I liked best about this project, and I feel, without a doubt, that I'm happy I discovered Frances E.W. Harper. The more time I spend with her, the more I learn. I would be more than happy to keep writing about her work, because she's an important, mostly forgotten voice in American literature. She's a wonderful, gifted writer and deserves to be up there with Whitman, Twain, Poe, Austen, Dickens, and Dickinson.

Even More Upcoming Events

If the last two posts I had about upcoming events weren't enough, there are also two events going on Friday.

April 16 Master Poetry Class with Catherine Bowman 11 am-1 pm 110 Morrill Hall
Catherine Bowman is a poet and Ruth Lilly Professor at Indiana University. She has published several poetry books, including 1-800-HOT-RIBS and Rock Farm, and has won numerous awards, including the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. Her work has appeared in various anthologies and magazines, including Best American Poetry, River Styx, The Los Angeles Times, An Exhilaration of Forms, Ploughshares, Conjunctions and TriQuarterly. To RSVP, email Robin Silbergleid at silberg1@msu.edu. Please bring a sample of your creative writing to work on.

April 16 Catherine Bowman Poetry Reading 3 pm 213 Morrill Hall
Again, the same poet will be reading her work. I really love her poem "I Want to Be Your Shoebox." There's something really child-like about the poem, but it's exactly how I feel about certain boys in my life.

More Upcoming Events

As promised, I have another set of upcoming events that are happening in and around MSU.

April 14 The Poem as Vehicle 3 pm Snyder Hall Common Area
Christine Rhein, who is reading next week, will be giving a talk about the poem as a vehicle. Ms. Rhein will be talking about the elements that work together to make an effective poem and show the audience the kind of trial and error that goes on it creating poems, making it easier for the audience to engineer poems.

April 14 Nineteenth-Century Women Crusaders and Poets 7 pm C204 Snyder Hall
This is the presentation that I keep mentioning here on the blog. I'm going to be talking about some activist women poets who wrote about politics. I'll be focusing on Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Ann Plato, Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, Sarah Louisa Forten and Francis E.W. Harper. I'll be discussing their poetry and the racism and sexism that they both fight and accidentally defend.

April 22 Red Cedar Review Issue Release Party 7:30 pm Scene Metrospace
The Red Cedar Review, the nationally-known literary magazine here at MSU, will be celebrating the release of it's next issue. Everyone is welcome to come by to hear some of the author's of the new issue read.

April 29 Poetry Chalking in front of Phillips
The Center for Poetry often has poetry chalkings in the Spring. Basically, you can just bring yourself and the Center will give you a poem and chalk to decorate the sidewalk with. (You're allowed to bring your own poems, if you'd like, but you're not required.) I've always had a great time at these kinds of events, especially if it's a beautiful day.

Like before, all these events are free and open to the public, so make sure you stop by for some of them.

Upcoming Poetry Readings for April

In the next couple of weeks, there are going to be a ton of things creative writing related going on around MSU. Everyone should definitely check some of this out, because it looks like it's going to be tons of fun. I'm planning on going to some, but probably not all, of these events, just because I have lots of schoolwork that I'm supposed to be doing.

April 6 Steve Healey 7 pm RCAH Theatre
Dr. Healey was one of my professors last semester, and I can guarantee that he is one of the nicest and mellow people around. He was a wonderful professor, and I'm really sad I'm not in his class anymore. I'm excited to hear his poetry because everyone tells me that his book Earthling is amazing.

April 13 Christine Rhein 7 pm RCAH Theatre
I've read two of her poems (both about the second World War). I'm partial to prose poems and poems based on family history, so I'm looking forward to hearing her.

April 20 Ruelaine Stokes 7 pm RCAH Theatre
I've interacted with Ms. Stokes a few times around campus, mostly during Center for Poetry events. She's a great technical writer and I hear she's also a good teacher.

April 23 Diane Wakoski and Jerome Rothenberg 4:30 pm MSU Library
I've seen Ms. Wakowski give poetry readings and lectures, and both were tons of fun. One of my favorite things to hear about is her interactions with other poets, so I'm interested in seeing her read with Mr. Rothenberg. It's hard for me to pick out a favorite Wakoski poem, but I love "Blue Monday." It's a perfect break-up poem.

All of these events are free and open to the public, so even if you're not currently a Spartan, you can hear these poets read. There are some other events going on this month that are poetry or creative writing related, and once I get a chance, I'll try to post some information. Hope to see you around.