Jordan June: Feminism at it’s Finest

/ pamrentz

After analyzing several female poets in the anthology such as Andre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alice Moore Dunbar- Nelson, and Angeline Weld Grimke, I am amazed by the artistry within these fine women. Once I began reading June Jordan’s Poem About My Rights, I was captivated by the way she conveyed her pain on these pages. This was made for every black woman on this planet. There is a line for every woman of color that has suffered and feels disrespected, invisible, and meaningless. Jordan was born in New York City and attended Barnard College and the University of Chicago. After graduating, she went on to teach at several universities, including the University of California at Berkeley. Among her many awards and accolades, she received the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.

June utilizes repetition, laws, and historical events and correlates them to her rape. Initially analyzing the poem, it’s clear she is talking about physical rape, but as it precedes, she compares the rape to be of the mind, and the stealing of innocence, and the theft of the life she longs to live. The first stanza is simply about being alone. June wants the chance to walk alone and stargaze while she talks to God. However, every woman knows that walking alone at night is extremely dangerous. “Alone in the evening/ alone in the streets, alone not being the point/ the point being that I can’t do what I want to do with my own body because I am the wrong sec the wrong age the wrong skin.” The serenity that a nice walk by oneself brings is a privileged woman who doesn’t have. We are targets. She explains at the beginning of the stanza of all the precautions a woman must taker shall she decide to take that nightly walk alone, whether that be to her car, to her home, to her death. This brings me to the point of feminism.

Feminism is the advocacy for equal rights for women. However, a black woman and other minority women have a separate fight than a white woman. Though Jordan does state in the poem that all woman are targeted walking alone at night and that we were all “born the wrong gender,” she deciphers the inequalities we fight with white women and the ones we fight alone. Rape excludes no women based on race. We band together to advocate for laws to ensure our justice, and we defend our stories day in and day out explaining that it doesn’t matter if we dunked, or that we’re dating, or that we wore that skirt, or we led them on. It is not our fault that we are hunted. Jordan writes in the second stanza, “in France they say if the guy penetrates but does not ejaculate, then he did not rape me.” She goes on to different countries, laws, and policies that do not favor the female’s turmoil. Feminists around the world march, argue, defend, and stand up against everyone who sees us as secondary. But that does that include the problems that exclude white women and leave minority women to fend for themselves.

Toward the end of the poem, Jordan excludes white women and emphasizes the problems of her herself as a black woman. This is one of the most potent lines in the verse: “I am the history of rape, I am the history of the rejection of who I am, I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of myself.” Early she talks about how her parents wanted to correct her black features to make them fit Eurocentric standards. In the third stanza, she talks about the wrongful deaths by police officers and the C.I.A.. Though white women are still discriminated against, they will only face prejudice because they are a woman. They will never experience the injustices of being a woman and a minority.

The ending of the poem is empowering. June affirms that she is not wrong in anything that she is. She explains that nothing about this poem gives consent to dismiss her as a black woman or a woman period. “I have been the meaning of rape; I have been the problem everyone seeks to eliminate by forced penetration…but let this be unmistakable this poem s not consent.” She does not allow the historical evidence, the law, the despicable behavior of others, to deter her from becoming everything she is meant to amount to. This poem truly moved me, and I am grateful for June Jordan’s creativity.

Innocent Incident

/ osiaslinney 
E. E. Cummings's use of Free Verse in his poem "in Just-" is used to support the audience in understanding like nature, life is an on-going occurrence. To understand the structure of the poem, one must first understand why the author would use a purposeful structure as such. Similar to life, the poem has no structure and follows no rule. Words are far apart, however, they are also close together. Conceivably the structure of "in Just-" is an antithesis and the author is introducing the cliche of "read between the lines". There are no promises to the poem, one is even unable to foreshadow how the poem may end. I will be analyzing why this may be.
Cummings opens with the title "in Just- spring" to emphasize the beginning of the new season. He then introduces a balloonman by the name of "luscious" who appears on repeated occurrences throughout the poem. Cummings labels the balloonman "lame" and "queer", nonetheless, when he whistles, children leave what they are doing to enjoy innocent springtime activities. Using his knowledge in Greek literature he obtained from his undergrad at Harvard, he labels the character as "goat-footed", an embodiment of Pan, the Greek god of the pastoral realm, we no longer see the children appear. The only two words which appear to be capitalized are "Just" and "Man". This is reasonable because, with both of these words, the passing of time is represented. "Just" represents the birth of a new season and "Man" introduces the aging of the "balloonMan" who in the beginning is referenced as "balloonman". Cummings separates and entwines words often throughout the poem, nonetheless, the author never separates "balloonman". This is because the audience must realize the purpose of the compound word. The balloonman possibly is a balloonman his whole life and the only difference between the past and the present is his age. Furthermore, after the balloonman has aged, the story ends; possibly to present the loss of innocence in the poem. The theme of nature is innocent within itself, notwithstanding, it is also ironic as nature is pleasant until it is not; similar to the balloonman.
Similar to Cummings, Countee Cullen, who also attended Harvard University, has experience with the loss of innocence in his poem "Incident". The New York native who visits Baltimore has an unpleasant experience with racism. While riding the public bus, Cullen whose heart and head are "filled with glee" encounters a young white boy from the city who appears to be his age. As a sign of welcoming, young Cullen smiles at the boy and soon realizes that he is not welcomed. The white boy who appears equal in size affirms to Cullen they are separate. Although they share the same gender and age group, the social construct of race has set them apart. After spending half a year in the city, the short moment of racial oppression is all that accompanies the mind of young Cullen. Because Cullen is born in 1903 and he is eight years old in the "Incident", this event happened in the beginning times of the Great Northward Migration when blacks traveled north to escape the horrendous racism of the south. Although the institution of slavery may have ended in the north before the south, the different vernaculars of racism failed to seize along with it. Racism still occurred in little to none economic opportunity, leaving African-Americans financially inferior to whites. Nonetheless, the incident conceivably abetted Cullen to apprehend the institutionalized racism of the north and led his innocence to become double-consciousness that later aided in his contribution to the Harlem Renaissance.

Melvin B. Tolson: Dark Symphony

/ ashandacox

Acknowledged for his multifaceted, creative poetry, Melvin B. Tolson was considered to be one of America’s leading Black poets. As a poet, Tolson was influenced by both modernism and the language and experiences of African Americans. Tolson was deeply influenced by his studies of the Harlem Renaissance. Tolson was a debate coach at the historically black Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, there he led a team of college students that pioneered interracial college debates against white institutions in the segregated South. Under Tolson’s direction, Wiley’s speech and debate team upheld a ten-year winning streak between 1929 to 1939. As some may know, this was depicted in the 2007 biopic The Great Debaters, starring Denzel Washington as Tolson and produced by Oprah Winfrey. After his successful coaching and teaching career at Wiley College, Tolson then accepted a position at Langston University. That same year, Tolson was appointed the Poet Laureate of Liberia, which inspired his second book of poetry. Tolson attracted increased attention with one of his most notable works Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, a poem which commemorates the African nation’s centennial. 

Aside from Tolson working within the modernist tradition to explore African-American issues, his concern with poetic form and his enduring optimism is what set him apart from many of his contemporaries. Though he wrote after the Harlem Renaissance, Tolson adhered to its ideals and he was hopeful for a better economic and political future for African-Americans. Critics say that Tolson has developed “a vision of Africa past, present, and future” with “prodigious eclecticism” and “force of language and rhythm”. This sentiment speaks volume to the great influenced he had on twentieth-century poetry and why his work remains relevant. 

Tolson’s poem, “Dark Symphony”, is arguably one of his best works and many can feel a connection to it. The poem offers more to readers than just discussion about being a modernist poem or a poem about racial inequality. In the poem, Tolson is celebrating the accomplishments of the African race throughout history and continuing into the modern era in a melodic way. Each section in the poem is broken up in the same way that symphonic music is displayed, beginning with Allegro Moderato which translates to “quick but not overly fast” and ending with part 6, Tempo di Marcia which means “a marching tempo”. In order to thoroughly understand the poem, it is important to know the musical terms of the poem. Specifically, it is important to understand the implication in this poem being that each title gives readers a set pace and mindset for each part of the symphony. 

Another aspect that is significant is the way in which the poem is structured and its length. The poem is actually longer because it expresses a lot of history and the way that it is written is both formal and informal in way that is musically accurate. Furthermore, in the poem Tolson questions white Americans and how he believes white culture continuously tries to forget that slavery happened at all. Beginning at part 4 of the poem Tolson articulates his concept of a “New Negro”, in part 4 is says, “The New Negro strides upon the continent/ In the seven-league boots…/ The New Negro…”. From those lines, I gathered that Tolson is describing someone who should be admired or looked at as the equal. Tolson then continues by describing the accomplishments of the New Negro and the Old Negro. The poem ends with the New Negro and how they will shape the world in the future.  When reading this poem, it is important to break down each part and look at each section of the Symphony in order to fully grasp Tolson concept. 

Gwendolyn Brooks: A Song in the Front Yard

/ pamrentz

The amazing Gwendolyn Brooks’ career is an anomaly to the literature world, considering she was a black woman in the early 1900s. Her success in the poetry world beat all the odds among minorities and women. Brooks is a Topeka, Kansas native who attended junior college and worked for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Chicago. Even though she only went to community college, Gwendolyn went on to teach poetry at five credible universities and colleges around the country. In Rita’s introduction of the analogy, she expresses the hardships and obstacles the women in this field faced for the chance to speak their truth. The Mother and A Song in the Front Yard are two phenomenal pieces that convey a story that only a woman can tell. To unpack all the allusions, the symbolism and metaphors in her poems just must put yourself in the shoes of a woman.

The theme of the poem THe Mother is about a woman who had an abortion and is feeling the emotional connection to the baby and mourning the life that she never allowed it to have. The title is telling of the entire poem. She still refers to the woman as a mother even though she has decided not to have the child. The first two lines of the poem are heart wrenching and memorable. “Abortions will never let you forget. You remember the children you got, but you did not get.” It is a physical and mental attachment that changes a women’s life, regardless of the abortion, was vital. “You will never neglect or beat.” Irrespective of the controversy about the options to give children up for adoption or abort it, Brooks pays homage to all the parents that were granted children but neglected their kids or to all the kids who were abused and even killed in foster homes.

A Song in the Front Yard is a remarkable piece about a young girl who is bored of her privileged, perfect life and wants to see how life is like for the less fortunate kids. While finding sources that have analyzed this poem, it is evident that white people looking at this poem can not comprehend it the way I believe Gwendolyn wanted it to be portrayed. The girl in the poem is to be white. White kids not only appropriate culture and attempt to partake in acts they believe are “black,” but when it comes to being stereotyped, denied opportunities, and wrongfully arrested and even murdered, they will never want a piece of that cake. This is the story of a girl who wants to be black until being black is not fun. Brooks does not mention the awful reality that the “charity kids” in the poem live, but the girl’s mother says, “Johnnie Mae will grow up to be a bad woman. That George’ll be taken to jail soon or late”. These lines are pivotal to properly comprehend that even though the girl is naïve now, her mother is teaching her to believe that they are better than the kids who play in the alley. “A girl gets sick of a rose” means she can get tired of the luxury, the easy life, and finds interest in a world completely different from hers. The front yard symbolizes the privilege of ignorance. Not only the ignorance of the little girl but in the mother as well. This poem takes place during a time of racial segregation in which minorities are forced into neighborhoods that are unkept, government-funded, and deprived because of gentrification, discrimination, and economic inequality in available jobs for African Americans. Not to mention, the mother will probably never fathom living in a place where those kids live. But she is sure that her daughter should not mingle with those kids and is confident of their fate even though she unaware of the racial disparity that separates the opportunities they have and the opportunities her daughter has.

Amiri Baraka: Overcoming Mental Illness

/ pamrentz

          

For the amount of scrutiny and discrimination casts upon black men during the lifetime of Amiri Baraka, I am astonished by the way he captivated the anguish and frustration of not only being a minority but suffering from depression. He was born as LeRoi Everett in Newark, New Jersey. Everett attended Rutgers, Howard, and Columbia universities, and served in the U.S. Air Force. The composition of Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, An Agony, As Now, and Black Art are three of his most elegant pieces in which he expresses his vulnerability about the struggles of mental illnesses.

Baraka worked as an editor, a playwright, a theatre director, and publisher. Before diving into Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, I would like to acknowledge that in almost all his poems, his first line is so captivating. It sets him apart from other writers and leaves a lasting effect on the reader for the remainder of the piece. In this poem, he talks about how everyday life is like while dealing with depression. The theme is hope. One of the hardest battles people who suffer from depression fight is searching for a reason to get out of bed. Or the confidence that today is going to be better than yesterday, and ultimately hoping that this illness with not consume them. The first two lines of the poem read as: “Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way. The ground opens up and envelops me”. The poet is exhausted from everyday life. The smallest tasks take the most out of him. Everything is consuming.

The second stanza talks about how he looks to the night sky and stars for a sign or guidance. He even mentions that when the stars are not there, he counts their empty spots. Which could either mean he is just so desperate for hope that he will plead even when the thing the poet asking to is absent, or Baraka has lost someone close to him which has sent him into a depression and “the absence of the stars” is the void of whoever he lost. “Nobody sings anymore.” He explains how the whole world has lost hope in their initial dreams and desires. In the last stanza, he walks into his daughter’s room, where she’s kneeling and praying in her hands. This is his realization that perhaps not all the hope in the world is gone. In which all the hope adults have lost is within children or their inner child.

An Agony, As Now, is a marvelous piece about a man who has been consumed by his depression, lives his life as a secondary character. He wears a metal mask that only has slits in the eyes where he watches his life unfold from the shadows. He must breathe the foul stench of what his world has become an even sees the horrid women he confides in to cover his actual problems. Flesh and metal are continuously brought up throughout the poem. His flesh is the only thing holding him together, yet it makes him weak. “Flesh” is a metaphor for all that makes him vulnerable and weak, which equates to all those bottled up emotions that he can not channel from the body of who he does not know. The metal is cold and hinders his ability to feel human touch and warmth. Baraka artistically explains how depression prevents one from not only expressing emotions but feeling emotions altogether. Mt final point about the poem is about his longing. He longs to escape his “enclosure.” Though he knows not how to feel, he knows what he wants to explore. “But it has no feeling. As the metal is hot, it is not, given to love.” To properly understand this line, we must revisit the first line of the poem, which reads as: ” I am inside someone who hates me.” Amiri believes that somewhere inside of himself, he still loves the person that he truly is. Without the depressive state is has been trapped in holding him back, he would be able to unwrap the love he desperately needs. Even in 2020, the black community still struggles to validate mental illness and combat negative feedback to those who search for relief from their struggles. Amiri Baraka is beyond a poet. He is a real activist for a conversation that so many people need to be having.

          

Ezra Pound & Wallace Stevens

/ ashandacox

Wallace Stevens was an American modernist poet, he was a “late bloomer” amongst other poet of the modernism era. Stevens was born and raised in Pennsylvania, he attended the New York Law School, and spent the majority of his life working at an insurance company as an executive. Stevens began his poetry career with one of his most notable works, Harmonium, which was published in 1923. Stevens was also a philosopher of aesthetics which critics believe heavily influenced his unique writing style. He mastered the art of inputting unusual yet extraordinary vocabulary in creating his poems. Though, Stevens is known as a “difficult poet” because his work encompasses extreme thematic and mechanical complexity in his work. Additionally, he is known as a provocative and abstract thinker, and this reputation continued even after his death. After Stevens left his career as a lawyer, he began to tap into his writing. He rose to fame for his most notable work, Collected Poems. Stevens the won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955, along with the Bollingen Prize and the National Book Award. Before this, Stevens traveled to Casa Marina Hotel located in the Key West, Florida. There his thirst for writing increased and that when he came to publish Ideas of the Order book. He also met Robert Frost during his time in Key West in the year of 1935. Moreover, Stevens admitted other poets such as Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, and Carlos Williams. Stevens’s work explores interactions with reality and what a man can make of reality. An article from The New Yorker states that during the time in which Stevens began to write, he would compose poems on piece of paper as he walked to his office then his secretary would type them. It is rumored that some of these poems were used in “Harmonium”, his first book comprised of 85 poems.

Moreover, Ezra Pound is another poet that advanced the modern movement in English and American literature. He attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York where he earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Pound studied literature and languages in college and during 1908 Pound moved to Europe, where he wrote and published many successful books of poetry. Pound authored well over seventy books and promoted many other famous poets such as T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway. Pound also was a well-established journalist. He held pro-Fascist broadcasts in Italy during World War II and was arrested and jailed until 1958. Much of Pound’s success was gained overseas, he produced three books, “Personae, “Exultations”, and “The Spirit of Romance”. In addition to the books, he also wrote several critiques and reviews for publications agencies such as the Egoist, Poetry, and New Age. Pound also assisted with writing “Imagism”, which created a movement for a new literary direction in poetry. Essentially, Imagism was a push towards a direct course with language, with would shed the sentiment that had practically shaped Romantic and Victorian poetry. Precision and economy was something that was of high valued for Pound and the other advocates of the movement, which included F.S. Flint, William Carlos Williams, Amy Lowell, Richard Aldington, and Hilda Doolittle. With its focus on the “thing” as the “thing,” Imagism reflected the changes happening in other art forms, most notably the Cubists and painting. Pound introduced the world to rising poets such as Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence, and he also was T.S. Eliot’s editor. In fact, Pound edited Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, which is considered to be on the greatest works created during the modernist era. Ultimately, Pound is considered to most responsible for defining and stimulating a modernist aesthetic in poetry. 

Alice Moore Dunbar and Angelina Weld Grimke

/ pamrentz

            Though it’d a man’s world, women have climbed the totem poll of life bit by bit through the centuries. Even in the realm of creative writing, our favorite female poets are constricted by societal standards which is obvious on these pages. Analyzing the work of Alice Moore Dunbar and Angelina Weld Grimke, led me to the various similarities and critical differences that tell an underlying story behind the poems from both writers.

            Dunbar was a Louisiana native born in the mid 1870’s. During her prime, her poems were featured in magazines and anthologies while she was an active newspaper editor and political activists. I Sit and Sew is the only open in the anthropology written by Alice, but it is telling of her true character. She wastes no time in getting to the point of the poem. In the first line she says, “I sit and sew- a useless task it seems”. She insinuates not only are that women are left to complete meaningless labor but that women themselves are meaningless in the eyes of the patriarchy. She had different plans for her life. Her aspirations did not include needles and string. My favorite two lines of the poem are “Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death, Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath”. The symbolism and metaphoric structure of the piece genuinely conveys struggles of a woman during the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. As you read the poem, she becomes more and more passionate and enraged about her circumstances until the final line which reads: “God, must I sit and sew?” The frustration one Dunbar speaks volumes for central atmosphere filled with misogyny.

            The fight for woman equality is a prevalent one, however, the struggles of all woman are not universal. Nobody in American history has caught hell like the black woman. Angelina Weld Grimke was a mullato woman from Boston, who also lived during the same time period as Alice Moore Dunbar. Her father was a distinguished author who specialized in activism for racial equality. She was blessed to graduate from Wellesley College and go on to publish her works in African American magazines and anthologies. Angelina even wrote a play which premiered in Washington DC and moved to New York City. Her poem Fragment is a captivating piece that tells only a ‘fragment’ of how exhausting being a black woman can be. The repetition of particular words in the poem are for two reasons. One being that the lives of black women can become not only repetitive, but they also mirror each other in a number of ways. The second reason being that black woman must be twice as good to receive half the opportunities as white women. “I am living in the cellars and in every crowded place”. African American women are not noticed. Visibly invisible to the average person regarding wealth, jobs, men, education, and opportunities. However, they are still living. They are still walking among us doing all of the above yet not receiving the recognition they deserve. My favorite two lines in the poem are: “I am the laughing woman who’s forgotten how to weep. I am the laughing woman who’s afraid to go to sleep”. These are last two lines of the poem and these are this the only time she refers to herself as a woman and not a black woman. Black woman will always face the problems that white woman face but white woman will not face the same problems black woman face. Grimke says she has forgotten how to weep. Many times, when African American woman express their emotions they are seen as overly sensitive or too aggressive. Which is a stereotype to diminish the feelings of black women and disregard their experience. The last line she says she is afraid to go to sleep. Day in and day out black women are directly and indirectly being poisoned by America. From being forced into food deserts do to gentrification, to medical racism, they are never offered the opportunity to freely chase their dreams without the constant reminder of death lingering in the back of their mind.

Life of Edna St. Vincent

/ aviawideman

Rita Dove specifically chooses these writers to be featured in her book because of the impact that they left on society. Each of these authors influenced American Literature one way or another. Not only having a great impact on Literature, but the time period as well. Showcasing an accurate description of life during the time period in which these authors were alive and active

Edna St Vincent Millary was an American poet and playwright  born in Rockland, Maine February 22, 1892. Edna’s parents divorced at the age of 8, and she was raised by her mother along with her younger sisters. In Millary’s family education and culture were valued as so Millary spoke six different languages along with studying the piano and theatre. Originally, Edna St Vincent Millary desire was to pursue a career as a pianist, however her music teacher discouraged her and Millary decided to be a writer. From 1906 to 1910, her works appeared in children magazine, St. Nicholas, and one of her prize poems was reprinted in a 1907 issue of Current Opinion. At the age 20, Millary entered one of her most popular works, Renascence, into a competition, in which it received no prize but was recognized when she released The Lyric year in november of 1912. Caroline B. Dow, a school director who heard Millay poetry and her music, encouraged that Millay should go to college. Millary went on to take several courses at Barnard College in spring of 1913, after that she went on to attend Vassar.

Edna St. Vincent Millary released many great works and in the year of 1923 she married Eugen Jan Boissevain in July. Although he was not familiar with the literary world, he still devoted his life to ensuring the success of his talented wife as well as full responsibility for nursing her to health. During the 1920’s Millary went on many reading tours arranged by her husband. Edna St. Vincent Millary was influenced by Robert Frost, acquainted with Ezra Pound as well, she went on to write many great sonnets. Sonnets who were inspired by her lover George Dillon, who was also an American poet, whom she was having an affair with. Inspired also by William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Walter Scott, George Eliot, and Henrik Ibsen.

It is important to understand Edna St. VIncent Millary’s life because, not only eass her work very inspiring, her life helped bring about what of, what I consider to be, the most intriguing literary works, The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The famous affair of Gatsby and Daisy is modeled by Millary and Dillon’s love affair. Like the character Tom in the novel, Millary’s Husband Boissevain also knew about the affair between the two lovers and as the story ends, The two never separated because of the mistresses. F. Scott Fitzgerald not only used her love affair to inspire Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, the extravagance of her lifestyle was also used to inspire Gatsby’s reputation. Millary got caught up in the court case of two men accused of murder, as does Gatsby connection in the mob makes his character look suspecious, Edna is also credited for the famous parties because as Gatsby does in the novel. 

Edna St. Vincent Millary not only heavily influenced American Literature, she also made her footprint during the times that they were wriitng and publishing. She shedded light on important issues in society which is why Rita Dove choose to put them in her poetry book. The writing styles are unique, but the works are deeper than ju

Wallace Stevens & Ezra Pound

/ Aubree S.

In the introduction it gets into the importance of modernism dealing with the literary movement. Modernism was a movement in art that takes it away from its original form. Wallace Stevens one to go against the normal while being a late bloomer to writing he was a modernist poet who rather “the supreme fiction” which I took as he rather it flow like a stream of consciousness than the basic objective of reality. Wallace Stevens was born on October 2, 1879 in Reading,Pennsylvania. Stevens was educated at Harvard Law to later finish up at New York School of Law. Stevens Stevens worked as an insurance executive for most of his life at a company in Hartford, Connecticut. Wallace Stevens first publication and writing period was in 1923 with a collection of poems in Harmonium. Stevens was perfect during this time period he personally had a mine of his own.

Ezra Pound modern poet was born October 30, 1885 in Idaho. Pounds muse was Imagism so much in fact he help shape the work of other poets such as Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot and others. Pound worked in London during the early 20th century as foreign editor of several American literary magazines. In 1908 , Pounds first publication and book was A Lume Spento which opened up the doors for the Ezra Pound we know today .

Amy Lowell Patterns & Gertrude Stein Susan Asado

/ maiyagrace

Amy Lowell’s Patterns embodies the very essence of Imagist writing. Her language remains simple, descriptive and straight forward through the poem as she paints sullen images of a woman confined and mourning the loss of her fiance.

 

Amy Lowell is a canonical figure of modern American poetry. Her work spans decades, setting the standard for proto-feminist texts and Imagism. Over the years, she has published 650 poems, written a 1300-page biography on John Keats, edited an anthology on Imagist writers of the period, and translated a few East Asian haikus. Her non-metrical writing style, also known as free verse, encapsulates the natural rhythms of speech. Furthermore, her profession as an editor, lecturer, poet, performer, and mentor to Imagist poets such as Carl Sandburg landed her opportunities to contribute to her cause of enlightening American readers about trends in modern poetry. Born to an affluent New England family, she was exposed to education at a young age. She excelled in school during a time where women were prohibited from continuing their education once reaching a certain age. As a teenager, she began educating herself, and by 17, she had published her first poem in the Atlantic. From there, she embarked on her literary career, creating a collection of poems titled A Dome of Many Colored Glass, based on a volume by John Keats. In fact, John Keats heavily influenced her work. Later on, she would befriend Imagist poet Ezra Pound and become acquainted with novelist Henry James. Lowell left behind a legacy of work that remains as the hallmark for feminist text. 

 

 In the first stanza, the speaker is “walk[ing] down the patterned garden paths” gazing at the daffodils and “bright blue squills”, which blows freely in the wind. Then the scene switches to her walking down the garden paths restricted by the gown she wears, her “stiff, brocaded gown.” It seems that Lowell attempts to depict a dichotomy between freedom and restriction. Nature thus represents the unrestraint the speaker alludes to while her finely patterned gown, “jeweled fan and powdered hair” represents restriction. 

 

It is not uncanny that Lowell references fashion throughout this poem. Patterns was published in 1915, and during this time, the Great War was just beginning. From the 1890s until 1914, fashion trends in America harkened back to the Edwardian period in England where the elite flaunted s-curved corsets and extravagantly patterned gowns that accentuated their silhouette. Body ideals and new interests in emulating looks of the ruling class created a new type of woman. It also created a more self-aware, politically attuned and outspoken woman, one who spoke unapologetically about pervading issues in society during that time. Fashion, in a nutshell, reflected not only what appeared popular according to the ruling class but also the social norms and limitations placed on women. 

 

Essentially, Lowell beautifully captures, in the second stanza, how uncomfortable the speaker feels in these luxurious garments. A concept quite bizarre considering women strived to dress finely.  Her “tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned heels” in her “plate of current fashion” appears as though the speaker shows great disdain for having to wear such clothing and that she has little knowledge about how to properly walk in heels. She is restricted from expressing her  “softness” because her garments literally and figuratively prohibit her from doing so. The speaker watches as the daffodils and squills “flutter in the breeze,” expressing themselves with such freedom which, again, juxtaposes the speaker’s feeling of confinement. It saddens her because not only is she thinking about her own position, but she is also mourning the loss of her lover. I would also contend that she is also mourning the loss of her selfhood. She expresses a deep disconnect from herself, and her garments thus represent the force creating that distance. She views the natural world as a world free to act authentically, in its own authorized pattern. 

 

By the fourth stanza, the speaker has become “the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,” which I would argue contrasts the idea of a woman’s femininity lying in what she wears, that her garments determine her softness and not her selfhood, her authenticity, her literal body. Unlike the third stanza, where she describes herself as not having “softness anywhere about me”, this softness that she alludes to, which I interpreted as flirtatiousness and playfulness, comes when she is naked. It is this nakedness that authorizes her fully immerse into her being while being in the presence of her fiance. He admires her raw beauty, unclothed and exposed rather than the clothes she wears. 

 

Towards the sixth stanza, the speaker receives a letter about her fiance who dies during combat. Her tone reflects melancholy as she “walked into the garden paths / in my stiff, correct brocade.” I found it interesting that she uses stiff and correct to describe her gown. To me, the words she chooses to represent an idea that society pressures women to act like modest, decent ladies. 

 

By the end of the poem, the stiffness returns. Her sullenness and mourning appear synonymous with rigidity and conform. In fact, the speaker makes a conscious effort to conform, to “go/ up and down / in my gown / . . . guarded from embrace.” She raises inevitable questions about the cycle of life. Why must people die? How must life go on without the warm embrace of a lover? Lowell thus leaves us pondering our own questions about what life teaches us and the inescapable cycle of life and death each human being must experience. 

Gertrude Stein

Stein’s language in her abstract poem Susie Asado reflects such musicality that the reader can actually hear the tapping of Susie’s shoes as she dances the flamenco. Stein’s writing resembles the fluidity and randomness of memory and the subconscious, which shows distinctly in this poem. 

Gertrude Stein is noted as a vanguard to modernism. Her obsession with psychology and how the inner workings of characters created attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions propelled her into a world of alternative art and poetry. Many may know her for throwing routine salons at her apartment on 27 rue de Fleurus or for inspiring writers such as Ernest Hemingway. However, Stein’s familial background adds to the depth she carries as a poet, author, and significant literary figure. 

 

Born in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, her family settled in Oakland, CA where she attended Radcliffe College. She became fascinated with psychology, particularly William James, whom she worked under. While attending Radcliff, she along with another student conducted research on the limitations of the conscious mind and the repetition of memory. She was also mentored by psychologist Hugo Munsterburg who described her as “the model of what a young scholar should be (Hoffman, 128).” She enrolled in John Hopkins Medical School but soon quit after failing a few courses. From there, she moved to Paris in 1930. Being in Paris, the epicenter of intellectual freedom inspired her to fully immerse herself in the literary scene. She became fully acquainted with a group of American and English expatriates who moved to Paris. Dubbed as the Lost Generation, these poets sought to tell their experience by toying with a cutting-edge, experimental style of writing. 

 

Cubist artists majorly influenced Stein’s writing. She rejected the conventional linear form of storytelling from the 19th century and decided to flirt with the idea of creating objects from a spatial, process-oriented approach. Susie Asado is her attempt at doing this. Stein invites the reader in calmly with alliteration, the repeating of the s sound in the first few lines creates an image of water slowly dripping from a full cup of tea, slowly and with such fluidity. It also creates movements similar to dance. 

 

Towards the second stanza, the speaker continues to play with sounds, using a “told tray sure” to echo the tapping of Susie Asado’s heels as she moves, swiftly and smoothly. 
I found it interesting that the poem lacks a conventional structure. It was typical of Stein to leave out a plot or dialogue in her poems. With Susie Asado, she forces readers to follow her storytelling method and think outside their style of thinking.