Sentimentality

Robert Lowell does a good job at provoking emotion without sentimentality. In his poem, “water,” he is describing a memory of a past experience. When reading this poem I noticed that Lowell did not use and adjectives to describe his personal feelings. Instead he created a feeling of despair by writing about a time that cannon be returned to. In line 13 he writes, “Remember? We sat on this slab of rock.” This seems to imply that he is remember times past. Also, in line 29 he writes, “We wished our two souls might return like gulls.” This implies that he is missing someone that is no longer in his life. This creates emotion in the reader while at the same time steering clear of sentimentality, and allows the reader to feel his or her own emotions. Galway Kinnell’s “First song” was also a good example of poetry that avoided sentimentalism. I think that Kinnell accomplishes this by describing someone else’s feeling, although it could have actually been a personal experience. In this piece the descriptions of the sounds of nature create a feeling of peace and contentment without saying it directly. Although the word “joy” was used many times I do not think that created a feeling of sentimentality. Perhaps is more emotions were directly stated it might have come off as a more sentimental. Both of these poems are successful at conveying emotions without coming across as sentimental. This allows the reader to better interpret the writing and experience their own feelings about it.

Beats and NY School

Gregory Corso’s “Marriage” and Kenneth Koch’s “To My Twenties” are two poems that caught my attention with their similarities. While Corso’s work was from the Beats generation and Koch’s from the New York School, they brought about similar emotions when reading. “Marriage” made me think about what will come in the future. My initial reaction was a feeling of uncertainty. I do not know what is in store for me down the road and marriage in particular is something that I have not attempted just yet. This poem also poses many questions that I might not have thought about until I was planning on actually getting married such as, “what will it be like after 10 or 20 years of being married?” By the end of the poem I concluded that I can only imagine these things and I decided that I will just have to find out in the future. “To My Twenties” was very similar in that is made me contemplate a personal time period, more specifically the present. My initial reaction when reading this poem was a feeling of helplessness. In the poem Koch writes as if he wishes he could go back in time to relive the carefree and joyful part of his life. The feeling of helplessness was replaced with a sense of appreciation by the end of the poem. This was due to the fact that unlike Koch, I am still in my twenties. I have never thought of my twenties as being the best time of my life or life to come until reading this piece. I am now hoping that my perspective will continue to evolve so that maybe every decade of my life will be the one that people wish they could go back to. While these poems have many unique qualities they are both pieces that inspired me to consider the future, as well as enjoy the present.

Free Verse

Free verse poetry has very few concrete rhyme schemes and has a less proper format than other forms of poetry. The meter often changes as well as the rhyme scheme. Free verse poems are still very effective because they are often able to accomplish the same thing as a traditionally formed piece of poetry. The use of strict rhyme schemes is not necessary to accomplish what the author might be set out to do. The poems of this week are in fact, just as poetic as traditionally formed poetry in that they convey a relevant message to the reader. A successfully written poem should bring out emotion and provoke thought. The poets of this week seem to accomplish this. The poem “Boy with his hair cut short” is a good example of this. This poem conjures up past memories and really ties the reader into the story. The poem also provokes thought in the readers mind through the description of an even that most of us have experienced but not necessarily in the same way. The realization of the readers own unique experience also leaves him or her with something to remember/think about long after the poem has been read. This poem also gives the story of someone else’s experience with a different level of consideration than the reader might have ever consciously imagined. A poem is a great means of conveyance for poets to put his or her thoughts into writing and I do not think that a strict metrical scale or a concrete rhyme scheme is particularly necessary to successfully do this.