Culturally Relevant

A few times over the past 4-5 years, I've gone for trips over-seas to countries I never thought I'd travel to. I've always had an appreciation for traveling to different places around the world, and I love learning anything culturally different. I just never thought I'd have the opportunity to travel, or at least not until I was older and out of school. The interesting thing about my travels is that out of the 12 countries I've been to, I was only able to speak the language of 2 places, and I had to rely on translation for the other 10. I'd love to know everything about every culture and learn every language, but since I can't, I've gained a heavy appreciation for people who graft two different cultures together. Sylvia Plath and Hilda Morley both bring together two different cultures, benefiting anybody who comes across their poetry.

Hilda Morley, with her poem "Hanukkah", brings together my Christian, American culture with the Jewish culture in a way that I haven't experienced before. Here are the lines that caught my attention most:

One more on the seven-branched candlestick for

the seven days of the week,

But let it be seven in the sense of luck in dice,

seven of the stars in the constellations:

Orion, Aldebaran in the sky, 

lively over Jerusalem

By using these lines, Morley opens the eyes of an outsider to experience a culture in a way I normally wouldn't have seen. This reading brought me to a better understanding of a holiday I've known of all my life, but helped me to see it through fresh lenses. I love poetry like that. I love poetry that helps me learn something new as much as I love poetry that helps me relive a part of my past, and this poem by Morley helps me do that.

In the same way that Morley uses "Hanukkah" to enlighten my understanding of the Jewish culture, Plath uses her poem "Mother and Sphinx" to enlighten me to a part of Egyptian culture that I never knew of. Here are the lines that caught my attention most:

I know no king but my dark-eyed dear

That shall ride the Dream-Horse white;

But see! he wakes at my bosom here,

While the Dream-Horse frettingly lingers near

Grim is the face that looks into the night

Over the stretch of sands;

A sullen rock in a sea of white--

A ghostly shadow in a ghostly light,

This Egyptian folk-song, translated by Plath, opens my eyes in the same way as Morley's poem did, but for a different culture. I don't usually come across this type of stuff on my own, mostly because I spend more time on my heavy interests instead of pushing outside my boundaries. I love this poem for that very reason though. I wouldn't have normally read this poem if I didn't push myself outside of my comfort-zone for the sake of this blog, but I loved it. For that reason, I love poems and poets that can take two cultures and graft them together, so that people like me can see different cultures as culturally relevant.

Helpful poetry post of the week: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/247268

Past vs. Paaaaaast

As we've progressed through the semester, this question has surfaced many times; What is the Poetic Tradition? One part of the poetic tradition is to construct poetry that points to the past and pay tribute to the poets and poetry from centuries before, but then another question arises; How far back in history must you go to pay proper tribute? I don't think the answer to that question is quite as easy. Robert Lowell and Adam Kirsch point back to history, but they point back to multiple different time periods, which creates a much more diverse effect.

In Robert Lowell's "Children of Light", Robert refers back to the past by telling a tale about how the Pilgrims came over to America, specifically those that came from Holland, as shown in these lines:

Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones

And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones;

Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland,

Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night

But Lowell doesn't stop there and only point toward the Pilgrims. Lowell also points all the way back to Genesis, as shown in these lines:

And light is where the landless blood of Cain

Is burning, burning the unburied grain

Lowell takes the part of the poetic tradition, where a poet is supposed to dedicate their poetry to the past glory of poets and poetry, and mixes it with a more recent history of the audience he's writing to. Personally, I find this poetic style very...delightful, if I may, to read. I love reading poems that look back to history, and the mix of histories in this poem by Lowell is very refreshing for me.

As a comparison, Adam Kirsch writes a poem called "Farming Family, 1912" that resembles this very same style of looking to the past. Kirsch writes this poem based off a picture taken by August Sander of a farming family in 1912. Crazy, right? Anyway, Kirsch uses this poem to not only point back to the year 1912, but he uses some lines to describe the history of that family also. Kirsch also uses the picture to comment on human nature throughout history, through lines such as:

The cruelty of men when they're alone,

The women's tiredness and resignation,

Do not get multiplied as you'd expect,

When the extended families collect.

Kirsch comments on the history of the family by writing;

Proves that his father's beard is obsolete;

Denying one another, they complete

Their likeness to the contradictory

God who commanded us to multiply

So He could manifest, in every birth,

Another of His attributes on earth.

Part of keeping the poetic tradition is to use your poetry to point to the past glory of former poets, epics and poetry. Lowell and Kirsch approach this tradition in a style all their own, by not only pointing back to Biblical times, but also by pointing to a more recent history that matters more to their readers. Both Lowell and Kirsch point back to Genesis, and both point to a time in the past few centuries of American life. I personally like poetry that looks at the dichotomy between the past and the paaaaaaaaaast.


Helpful poetry reference of the week: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/239104