The Funny Thing About Poetry

In my Poetry and Drama class, my professor asked us to read "Nantucket" by William Carlos Williams. The poem goes like this:

"NANTUCKET" by W.C. Williams

Flowers through the window

lavender and yellow

changed by white curtains-

Smell of cleanliness-

Sunshine of late afternoon-

On the glass tray.

a glass pitcher, the tumbler

turned down, by which

a key is lying-and the

immaculate white bed.

We then started suggesting possible interpretations of the poem, saying that the images in the poem represent possibilities, new beginnings, escape, refuge, etc. We spent two whole hours discussing what we thought the poem means. 

Later that day, my classmates and I were required to attend a master lecture on the importance of imagery and statement in poetry. There, in the class, the speaker recited a poem by W.C. Williams and said that Williams believed that poems shouldn't have deep images and that they should simply capture the visuals of an object or a moment in life. So many of his poems, like "Nantucket", were full of images which, to W.C. Williams, didn't represent anything. At this point, my professor, who was seated in front of us, turned around and smiled at us. 

That's the funny thing about poetry. Everyone thinks that poets always write about deep truths and heavy emotions and that poems are always full of symbols, so they always go crazy looking for a meaningful interpretation. What people forget about, the speaker said, is that sometimes the poet writes a poem simply because he or she feels like writing it.

The speaker, however, said that W.C. Williams poems don't have meaning just because he (the poet) didn't intend to put any in them. Meaning and interpretation in poetry, and in the rest of literature, depends on the reader because reading is a personal experience. So while the poem doesn't mean much to W.C. Williams, it can mean something to his readers. So remember that when you're reading poetry.

That was just a silly anecdote I wanted to share. With university being what it is, all of my anecdotes nowadays are school-based.

Until always,

Lemonjuicesodapop

"THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS" by W.B. Yeats

Here is another poem we discussed in Literature 14: Poetry and Drama. It's a beautiful poem by the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet William Butler Yeats when he was obsessed with occultism and Irish legends.

"THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS" by William Butler Yeats


I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut an peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
and moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hallow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

A Wednesday of Life Lessons

Hey, everyone!

I'm sorry for being M.I.A. again. I'll try my best to post at least once a week but with the Christmas break coming up though, I'm sure my professors will try to squeeze in as much work as possible. :(

Last Wednesday, two professors gave very inspiring and enlightening lectures about the same thing: living life.   The first of the two professors was my Literature 14: Poetry and Drama professor. He started the lesson by discussing the poem "When Spring Returns" by Fernando Pessoa. Here is a copy of the poem for those who have not read it yet:

"WHEN SPRING RETURNS" by Fernando Pessoa

When Spring returns
Perhaps I will no longer be in the world.
Today I wish I could think of Spring as a person
So that I could imagine her crying for me
When she sees that she's lost her only friend.
But Spring isn't even a thing;
It's a manner of speaking.
Not even the flowers or green leaves return.
There are new flowers, new green leaves.
There are new balmy days.
Nothing returns, nothing repeats, because everything is real.

A wonderful but sad poem, isn't it? My professor stated that the speaker is a morose and forlorn person who is probably dying from a terminal illness. His (the speaker) confrontation with mortality is a lonely and diminishing one. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker has a negative perception of spring. However, in the 6th and 7th line of the poem, the speaker has a poetic epiphany wherein spring, to him, is no longer a measure of time (a season) and is now a state of mind. by the end of the poem, the speaker's tone goes from lonely, hopeless, and sombre  to enlightened and accepting of his inexorable death.

My professor followed up this discussion on the speaker's change in his perception of spring by saying, "When we change our perspective, the world changes and renews itself in our eyes."* He then explained that when we focus on the "darker" side of our mortality, the beauty of life and the world is lost on us. He used this to segue into a discussion on about time and living in the present. He said that he wanted to avoid using the phrase "Carpe Diem" in order to avoid comparisons with Robin Williams's character in Dead Poet's Society. Instead, he said, "Time is not yesterday or tomorrow. Time is now. The only certainty we have is the here and the now."*

He explained that the past is uncertain because our feelings and perception of what happened to us in the past changes as we grow and mature. The future is uncertain because, even if we make plans, we are never fully certain of what will happen to us. The only certainty is now. 

Our professor ended the discussion by encouraging us to use the fact that we will die as a reason to live life to the fullest, rather than moan about it the way the speaker did in the first five lines of the poem.

The second professor to have a discussion along these lines was another member of the school's English department. This time, he used the video game series Assassin's Creed as the springboard of the discussion. Knowing that I am a fan of the video game, he asked me what one of the major themes of the series is. I replied by saying, "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

He wrote this down on the board and said that he would get back to that quote. He then started discussing absurdism, wherein life and human existence are thought of as empty and meaningless. My professor, however, said that "life is empty and meaningless not because it is sad and pointless. It is empty and meaningless because it's an empty slate that we can fill up."*

What we fill it up with, he explained, is what will give our lives meaning, but it is up to us if it will be good or bad. We are allowed to do want we want with our lives. This is where the quote from Assassin's Creed comes in. The creed is not calling us to be lawless and totally free, but to be wise.

I hope that I will always be able to remember what my professors said. These are things we are constantly reminded about but easily forget.

Well, here's to the gift of life!

Until always,

Lemonjuicesodapop