The Passion of Life

Ambroggio’s “We are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self” lends itself to translate the rhythmic enumeration of body parts in Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” by interpreting it to be a poem of passion; in this, both poets utilize the rhythic enumeration to show the passion of life itself.

Whitman’s poem lists body parts rapid fire in free verse, giving a continuous, fast rhythm throughout the entirety of the poem, with the lists naming numerous body parts before ending with a period, and then immediately picking back up again with more body parts. In this, Whitman creates a sense of passion– when read out loud, the rhythm of the poem gives a passionate, fast sound, and in combination with the diction choice such as “beauty of the waist” and “sexuality,” the poem exudes a passionate feeling; Whitman invokes love and sexual diction to further push the passionate tempo of the poem.

Ambroggio takes this a step further, continuing with Whitman’s style of free verse, giving larger phrases in lists, still without stops, with a fast tempo when read. As with Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” Ambroggio’s poem, when read out loud, reads very passionately and quickly, with the reader nearly running out of breath at the end of each list, with each list itself lending passionate words. Ambroggio lists human passion, from “dream of your creation[s]” to “loves equally,” to even numerous countries, which ultimately, insinuates national pride, or put simply, passion for one’s country. Ambroggio translates the fast rhythm as passion — human passion — the pure sound that the words take in combination with the fast rhythm when reading just exudes passion. Further, the utilization of euphonous words in succession like “wave among waves, shared worlds,” helps to read the poem even faster, without hard stops within the lines themselves, giving an even more passionate sound to the poem, as the words themselves are easy to say, thus making the poem flow smoother and quicker, and thus, more passionately.

Isaak Puth

A Trip to the Ocean

Sun falls over hills

Colder and colder we get

Bike paths branch outwards

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Small spikes line the ground

Bikes were not meant for this path

A new flat tire

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A large cold window

Pressing my face against it

A small barrier

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The same scenery

Concrete castles and car lots

I need to see water

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Light brings forth new scenes

Beyond the manmade tunnels

The ocean is there

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Birds watch the tide crash

Devils battle with lost souls

Angels just look on

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Resting against sand

Tide recedes another day

A new metaphor?

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Review:

The Haiku form was a type of poetry that I always found fascinating yet was unable to write anywhere close to decently. My default form of expression and writing tends to be more free verse, with long and detailed explanations and the formations of images that help me and the reader set the scene or tone of a poem. Haikus on the other hand, take those same gigantic prose blocks that I commonly write and condense them down to extremely small three-line poems, paring down language to the point where every syllable is accounted for. Because of this, while I found Haikus, a form that condenses so much imagery and metaphor into so little, an impressive yet daunting shift from my comfort zone that I chose to abstain from.

This all changed once I came into contact with the Haikus of the Japanese American citizens during their times spent in the internment camps that we read for class: The choice of words and images that they used in each of their poems were extremely creative and left vibrant imagery. In addition, their poems were left abstract enough that different readers could have different interpretations of what they were speaking about and what aspects of the internment camps were being described in each poem, which led to a lot of interesting discussion and commentary on people’s individual values and how that applies to how they interpret each poem. The most important aspect of the Haikus, however, was that all of them, despite being from different poems, came together within the anthology to tell a single story about life within the internment camps. It really opened my eyes for how small lines with few words can come together to tell a greater narrative that captivated me on how the Haiku form can be utilized.

This was the aspect that I wanted to bring to my adaptation more than anything else, so I chose to write multiple short Haikus that come together to form a larger story, a single journey that the speaker goes on between all of the separate small poems. Each poem can stand together on it’s own, but all of them have a new meaning when they are read together. Another aspect that I tried to interpret relates to the multiple forms of interpretation that can be found when reading these poems, where I kept metaphors vague but images strong, the rest is up to the reader to come up with how those images and metaphors relate to their life experiences and their ideas. Everyone will have slightly different views on what some images represent (such as the tide), but that is the beauty of creating small yet packed poems that the Haiku form allows for.

Sky Miller

Imperfect Perfection

Imperfect perfection of the human race

That writes the poem of this world we read

Those zits of crimson on your face

The vestige part that none shall need

The mind that twists the world beheld

The voice of hundred gravelstones of earth

So different from the song of sky beheld

The helpless baby fresh from birth

The bumps across the road of life itself

The eyes of man that cannot fight

Beyond the limits of the self

Through the inky blackness of the night

And yet, the time have on earth to shine

Is as fine a time as though divine

I decided to write an imitation of Shakespeare’s “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” This was my interpretation of how modern day poet might express the same ideas and sentiments as Shakespeare. The title is essentially the condensed main idea of Shakespeare’s original piece, that something can be of great beauty and value in spite of its flaws. I too describe various imperfections of human bodies and beings, as well as of the human experience. Most are self-explanatory. Line 2 refers to how these imperfections define the world we live in. Line 4 refers to vestigial body parts we have, but serve no purpose. Line 7 is a reference to how people who who sing really well are often described as having “the voice of an angel.” Line 9 refers to the idea that many things we see are in the eye of the beholder. I chose to follow the traditional Shakespearean sonnet form with the standard rhyming scheme and the Volta in line 12 noting that there is nothing quite like life even though it has all these problems. I wanted to pay homage to the man who made this form famous and is who is mostly closely associated with it. Finally, I chose to write more generally about life and humanity rather than about a single person the way Shakespeare did in order to apply the themes of his work to a wider context.

Evan He

The Struggles of a Deprived Person

Poetry is a tool used to reflect upon life struggles. One of the famous types of poetry where life struggles were reflected upon is haiku. Haiku poetry is a Japanese style of writing, involving the idea using 3 lines creating 17 syllabuses. Expressing the poet’s emotions through the use of imagery.  One of the poets that expressed his emotions about the cruel nature of how they were treated by American’s during world war II, is Neiji Ozawa. Imagery is seen through his poem, “Sensing permanent separation, as you left me in extreme heat, on gravel road,” as homesickness is being described with permanent separation. Also, the extreme heat signifies for the summer season and the struggle that the Japanese people are going through. In addition, the traditional symbol for gravel road is loneliness. This further elaborates on the struggle the poet is going through. The personal experiences that Neiji Ozawa went through encouraged him to write this poem. In conclusion, the imagery used in Neiji Ozawa’s poem capture the daily life struggles of Neiji Ozawa.

A Little of Us In Everyone

During our discussion on Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” I realize it is more than just  a ‘long poem.’ Walt Whitman vividly goes into depth on describing every individual. After reflecting on the poem, he describes both ‘men’ and ‘women’ equal. There is no discrimination of either or. Each line/stanza possesses a big impactful purpose on the audience. It allows the audience realize that life is just a cacophony. However, behind that cacophony, is something beautiful and unique, whether we fully understand it or not. I believe Whitman purposes to question ourselves yet how we view the world.

Luis Alberto’s Ambroggio’s “We Are All Whitman #2: Song/of/to My/Your/Self” possesses the importance of every individual and how all are unique, similar to Whitman. Ambroggio highlights the different cultural backgrounds, the skin color and how everyone is the same yet different. It was a struggle to read as well. Rather than specifically focusing on the human body. Teaches the audience that there’s a little of the soul in every human being. The soul is in every materialistic item, and the way we perceive that item travels to others.

What I really enjoy about the videos is how it demonstrates that each language is beautiful. That really putting emotion can change how we interpret it.

Evelyn Hernandez

Where The Leaves Go

Daniel Amaro

Time is forever,

Slow and crawling and endless,

We do not have that pleasure.

We flow for years and then we stop.  

 

Life takes us anywhere

Our experiences are our own,

So perhaps, in a way

We are all like leaves.

 

Drifting on the sands of time,

Lives like the leaves on an old tree.

Born in spring, bloom in summer,

Then autumn comes and life becomes your own,

Then winter comes to stop it all.

 

What will we find at the end?

Will there be a light?

A pinprick at the end of the dark?

Wait and see.

 

Review:

This poem is directly inspired by Hilda Doolittle’s Sea Rose, yet is also something of a homage, putting specific emphasis on emulating the free verse style and tranquil tone of the original poem, while simultaneously having the poem focus on something entirely different than the original.

This new poem is primarily inspired by life and death; more specifically, it is drawing a parallel between it and tree leaves during the seasons. Thus, spring has leaves being born, summer is where they grow, autumn is adulthood and the time for the leaves to begin their own lives, and winter is, of course, the time for death. I feel that the leaves and the seasons receive equal amounts of focus, though this often causes an issue in which the reader may wonder which of the two has the best parallels between life and death.

The similarities between Sea Rose and my poem are sparse and may even seem nonexistent at first glance, but they’re subtle; I retained the same free verse style that Sea Rose had: four paragraphs, three with four lines and one with five. Both poems also evoke the concept of “drifting”; placing focus on an object floating through the air and musing on its symbolism.

I attempted to emulate and pay reference to the feelings Sea Rose left readers with; the poem has a very soft, tranquil tone that lulls reader into a sense of comfort. I attempted to do the same for my poem, but rather than lull readers into comfort, I attempted to lull them into a sense of philosophical nostalgia.

On the other hand, I feel my poem is considerably less subtle than Sea Rosein terms of prose; words such as “end” and “stop” are quite prevalent throughout the work, and the ending verse specifically mentioned a “pinprick at the end of the dark” (Line 16), a common saying that has been widely associated with death. It is overall quite easy to interpret the meaning behind the poem, so perhaps some revision may suffice to make it a bit subtler.

The overall purpose I had with this poem is to evoke philosophical thought and consideration about our lives; I used the parallel with leaves—a common everyday object—to help represent how small we are as people in the overall long-term passage of time; we all die in the end, and our lives, no matter what we make of them, are like leaves drifting in the wind.

Despair

Vinnie Kim

There is a dark feeling that builds up in your stomach when you know you have to work for a long time. It’s a painful, heart wrenching ugh and it (I guarantee) will ruin your day. Although, for me it was only knowing I had to work an 8 hour shift or something but imagine knowing you were bound to work the same, exhausting job every single day for the rest of your life. That feeling of despair is clearly depicted in McKay’s poems, “Outcast” and “The Tired Worker.”

Both poems have very different tones to them. “Outcast” almost feels like the speaker is looking in the mirror, trying to motivate himself to go to work/keep on living day by day. “And I must walk the way of life a ghost.” He MUST go on living, no matter how hard it gets. Although he is worn down and has been abused, he still must go on living. The speaker explains that yes he is worn down, yes he is a victim to something that he cannot control, yes he is a slave in a free world, but he keeps on going. He sees his life as valuable and something worth working for, he sees life as something to be cherished. Yet, even though he cherishes his life like so, he knows deep down that he will never be free. “For I was born, far from my native clime, Under the white man’s menace, out of time.”

“The Tired Worker” is a more energetic poem. The speaker is almost giving a war speech to a group of people that are in hiding. “Peace, O my rebel heart! for soon the moon From out its misty veil comes aloft!” This is a really interesting quote because it makes it seem like the speaker is ready to strike. But alas, he is not waiting for the night to strike, he is waiting for the night to rest from a long day at work. The speaker is almost making it seem like let us work so that we can rest which seems pointless but that’s the point. The speaker knows how hard life is but there’s nothing to do about it in the speaker’s eyes. The speaker is offering motivation by glamorizing the rest that comes with the night.

Both poems depict workers struggling to find methods to try and cope with the heavy burden of working every day for the rest of their days. That sense of disparity must have been so heartbreaking and overwhelming for those that lived in these times. These poems offered me a sense of motivation to strive to be the best student I can be so I can succeed later in my life and not have to work back breaking jobs.

Was it Love?

The poem that spoke to me when reading was in the poem “Ode 44” by HAFEZ, the love that was described was difficult to understand. The poem was interesting in the sense that I believed the first line in the poem started off with expressing his actions as being like a dream, “last night, as half asleep I dreaming lay” (line. 1). Throughout the poem refences between love and drinking was always being explained, “filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips warm as a dewy rose, sudden she slips” (lines 5-6). However, reading more into the poem I didn’t see love for the women rather distaste for falling into her seductions, the women was compared in several occasions as being like alcohol, “and drank whatever wine she poured for me wine of the tavern, or vintage it might be” (lines 12-13). The figurative language between “love” and alcohol (more of the action of being drunk) the poet used metonymy because his point of it was that being drunk is frowned upon just as being seduced by a woman. The woman is looked as just being an intoxication, something that shouldn’t be allowed, “a double traitor he to wine and love. Go to, thou puritan! The gods above ordained this wine for us, but not for thee” (lines 16-18). It’s not holy of the actions that has been occurring with giving into the woman and allowing oneself to reel into the intoxication. Just because they were created to be on earth doesn’t mean we have been allowed to bask in the creations that God has put on earth. The seductions in the poem are frowned upon and almost towards the ending of the poem it is revealed that all fall into the seductions no matter how much one tries not to, “you are not the only man who promised penitence and broke down after” (lines 22-23). The overall language of the poem not is suggesting the comparisons of woman to alcohol because it is frowned upon, it is something that is fun and thrilling in the moment but it doesn’t mean that the actions done are accepted and even the best of men who are dedicated in faith, also fall victim to the seductions.

Considering where the poet came from, I would say yes it would have been different on how I interpreted the language in the poem because where we live, and the customs we are used to is different for other people around the world. We all have different outlooks and experiences and that is how we interpret these poems, by understandings the poets world.

• Maria Mendiola

Rejection is Life!

By Mitaya La Pierre

Love and sex is universal. Within the context that we are referring to human beings. Some people experience it differently than others, some people experience it with other people, and some don’t experience it at all. But that is the beauty of it; its versatility, and what it means to each individual, whether it be for all or not. Because of this differentiation in view, we respond to it differently; and create works of art around those reactions. Odes 487, and 44 by Muslim poet Hafez and Like This by Iranian poet Rumi are proof of that interaction; show casing the drunkness, love, and intimacy that can be felt within the soul. In all of these poems, the poets use versions of personification–metaphors, and similes–to represent the traits or feelings love and sex can give them.

In Ode 487, a drunken man tries to sing to a woman to win her affections; but she rejects him. The memories of last night’s charade of alcohol, still appease him. With that in mind, he then goes out to drink more; when he heads to the tavern, he sees a beautiful tavern wench, and sings to get her attention. In lines 16-23 she dispels his advances, 

 “Said she, her arching eyebrows like a bow: 

‘Thou mark for all the shafts of evil tongues! 

Thou shalt not round my middle clasp me so, 

Like my good girdle – not for all thy songs! – 

So long as thou in all created things 

Seest but thyself the centre and the end. 

Go spread thy dainty nets for other wings – 

Too high the Anca’s nest for thee, my friend.’” 

In line 16 he uses the simile ‘-her eyebrows arc like a bow’, to insinuate a specific trait of the item that represented her stare. Of which case could be a likened to the fact that bows and arrows are weapons; showing her disgruntlement and rejection was bound to shoot him down much like an arrow and bow would. Line 18-19, she recites that he will not be getting any love from her that night ‘Thou shall not round my middle clasp me so, Like my good girdle__’, here she is also using a metaphor, that he can not touch her the way her wardrobe does; and that in this case, her girdle is ‘good’ because it does what it is suppose to do–unlike the man, not getting the hint, and trying to win her affections. The last lines of this stanza, line 22-23, she offers her final ‘blow’; “Go spread thy dainty nets for other wings–Too high the Anca’s nest for thee, my friend.” basically saying, ‘Go try your luck with other women, because I am way out of your league’ as in she is as high up and unreachable as an Anca’s nest. This may also be a play on the term ‘you’re barking up the wrong tree’; as in, she might be gay (hurray!). But I digress; in the story he then solemnly agrees, and has this little realization to himself, talking to himself in line 35, “Well, HAFEZ, Life’s a riddle–give it up: There is no answer to it but this cup.” After getting rejected he states “Well might as well drink, because Life is confusing and unsure like a riddle, so give up trying to solve it and do what makes sense to YOU instead.” Which in this case is a simile to the convulsion riddles share. Here he comes to the realization that rejection is apart of love; that one person may be feeling it and another not. And when you get rejected you feel as if it is a straight shot to the heart (back to line 16). In essence saying that ‘the cup’ are the things we know–and to understand that we may not ‘win’ at love; but that it is also the process of ‘love’ of which we can never win. Yet ardently play at.

I believe this being written from a muslim perspective obviously gives the poem culture–but I do believe it also shows how alike we can be when it comes to the battles of love. We’re trying to ‘get it’ to some extent, but no matter in what language, or culture we fail at it in; our result is the same. If this man was not muslim, I believe the premise would be similar; but with out the cultural context, it wouldn’t provide the same feeling, say if it were done by an anglosaxon poet. Because wine, and philosophizing seem to be pertinent to the author, which brings the story to a new light. Where as if he were of different culture, the story would require new themes because of the different ways he’d try to attain said person’s affection; also depending on who we are and where we grow up. The fact he accepts that she is not interested and instead just decides to let it go, and not press her any further has huge social significance. Especially as an Islamic writer being known in America; there are a lot of fallacious, and woefully perpetuated stereotypes of the muslim community and the culture within itself. When he retells the story of trying to win a woman’s affection, there is a sense of humanity in it that isn’t displayed in typical news outlets: that we all feel the neglect of love and we all accept its trials and tribulations. He is human, he is so human that he forges himself from trying to figure out ‘life’ that is the riddle. Because of it, he decides to depend on one thing he does know; which is drinking and having a good time. There is something so wonderful and beautiful to be said about a person who understands that life is a mess, and if we worry about the things we can’t change, we ignore the stupendous things about it. And that is exactly what he does with the tavern woman.

  He knows she doesn’t want him, so he has another cup; and that with in itself is a product of love. Love for the life he lives, but also love for the life he can’t solve.

Elaboration

Daniel Amaro

As I read Luis Ambroggio’s “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self” and Walt Whitman’s “I Sing The Body Electric”, I couldn’t help but notice the rhythms of the two poems… or, more accurately, the lack of them. Both poems are written in the style of free verse; no meter, no rhythm, just a set disorganized words. But this doesn’t necessarily mean free verse is a bad thing; all it does is relieve poets of the limitations of most other styles of poetry, and allows them to do their own thing. Sometimes, this culminates in a work without rhyme or rhythm, but still as breathtakingly intense as these two poems.

 

Both poems give me the impression of a runner; out of breath and putting all his thoughts out there in a stream of consciousness that somehow comes together as a coherent narrative; freed from the lack of a rhythm, these two poems effectively demonstrate a fiery intensity that hammers their points home with the raw force of a train, leaving me stunned and anticipating harder hits… only for the poems to continue hitting even harder.

 

Whitman’s poem takes on a broad and spectacle-ridden approach to its content; in using increasingly-detailed lines such as “Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth jaws, and the jaw-hinges” (Line 16), it’s clear he has a bottomless amount of love for describing the physical body; something we know and can see and thus, a (somewhat) representation of Whitman’s bombastic intensity; it gives the impression of a droning sound that gets more and more piercing. Ambroggio’s poem, while much the same in terms of free verse style, takes it a step further; I feel it takes on a more spiritual level than Whitman’s physical level, going by the implications of lines such as “The dream of your creation, fatherland of many fatherlands”, making note of details we may not necessarily consider. I feel Ambroggio’s poem uses that same intensity to not only translate Whitman’s poem into a different perspective of one’s self but also elaborate on it.