Despite the protests of engineering advisor, my chemistry professor and summer employer, and pretty much everyone else I know from the ENGR college, I enrolled in creative writing class this semester. Taking a look at our books (not to mention how hard the teacher is stressing 'literary fiction') is starting to give me reason to believe they might be right. I'd hoped to gain knowledge of writing beyond self-taught tricks, but... well.
The following are a couple of excerpts from our book of poetry. It should be noted that the book of poetry declares that it is "highly respected" and the poems contained have "frank vitality and spiritual resonance" that "convey(s) the ongoing struggle to create a literature unique and peculiarly American." If this is American poetry, I'm moving. Or at least disowning my country.
The Mortician's Twelve Year Old Son (AI)
Lady, when you were alive
I'd see you in the streets,
the long green dress with the velvet flower
sewn dead center between your breasts
so tightly I could never get a look inside.
Now the gas lamps half-light the table,
washing the sheet that covers you with shadows.
A few strands of your dyed red hair
hang nearly to he floor,
as if all your blood had run there to hide.
I lift the sheet, rub the mole on your cheek
and it comes off black and oily on my hand.
I bend over your breast and sing,
love, sister, is just a kiss away.
I cover each nipple with my mouth.
Tonight, just a kiss away.
I Know A Man (Robert Creeley)
As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, - John, I
sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,
drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going
Mock Orange (Louise Gluck)
It is not the moon, I tell you
it is these flowers
lighting the yard.
I hate them.
I hate them as I hate sex,
the man's mouth
sealing my mouth, the man's
paralyzing body -
and the cry that always escapes,
the low, humiliating
premise of union -
In my mind tonight
I hear the question and pursuing answer
fused in one sound
that mounts and mounts and then
is split into the old selves,
the tired antagonisms. Do you see?
We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.
How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?
Why Can't I Leave You? (Ai again)
You stand behind the old black mare,
dressed as always in that red shirt,
stained from sweat, the crying of armpits,
that will not stop for anything,
stroking her rump, while the barley goes unplanted.
I pick up my suitcase and set it down,
as I try to leave you again.
I smooth the hair back from your forehead.
I think with your laziness and the drought too,
you'll be needing my help more than ever.
You take my hands, I nod
and go to the house to unpack,
having found another reason to stay.
I undress, then put on my white lace slip
for you to take off, because you like that
and when you come in, you pull down the straps
and I unbutton your shirt.
I know we can't give each other any more
or any less than what we have.
There is safety in that, so much
that I can never get past the packing,
the begging you to please, if I can't make you happy,
come close between my thighs
and let me laugh for you from my second mouth.
Dead Hand (W. S. Merwin)
Temptations still nest in it like basilisks.
Hang it up till the rings fall.
Poems not included in my brief selection:The Pope's PenisI have got to stop loving you so I have killed my black goatThe Shower (Which is honestly about a woman checking for breast cancer in the shower)
Maple SyrupGirl Friend Poem #3 (Actual title)
And MANY more!Honestly, this is poetry today? Where is Ozymandias, Invictus, The Light Brigade, Xanadu? Or, for that matter, where is a consistent rhyming scheme or identifiable verse? I think I'm going to go quite mad. More than half the 'poems' in this anthology seem to be ways of referencing sex in ways of hitherto undiscovered awkwardness.
Am I missing something important, or is this what it is to write good poetry?