Blog 3

I wonder what the older generations of college graduates thought about those generations that come later. Is any kind of common ground even available? Are the ties that bind those of education, or might something else be the common factor? Sometimes I believe that they only thing we have in common with those other graduates could be the social times spent drinking. I can’t imagine going to college and writing a paper, but instead of doing the paper on your personnel computer you have to go to the library and rent or borrow a type writer. I can’t relate to that, I can’t relate to the research methods they would have had to use. No electronic journals, no helpful websites that show how exactly to write a paper in APA or MLA style. Really the only thing that we have in common is the personnel freedom and responsibilities, that come with drinking copious amounts of alcohol in social settings (aka the local bar). For the longest time college has been one of the main ways that a young person (of either gender) is able to go out experiencing life on their own for the first time and what do they normally do for the first month? Well in my personnel experience that first month is spent walking around town trying to figure out the best place to drink, and trying to find a upperclassman to get you a steady supply of booze. Not that school or homework is not a priority for incoming freshman, its just that not everyone has the same priorities anymore.
A big problem with college anymore is that most kids coming straight out of high-school really don’t consider all the other options available to them. They have been told by school guidance counselors, and by their parents, pretty much everybody has been telling these kids that the only way to succeed anymore is if you have some kind of college education. While that is fine for some people it definitely is not always the best idea for the majority of the kids coming to college. Back in the day if you had a undergraduate degree in a field you pretty much had a guarantee that you would be able to find a successful job. Now people need to up the ante a little bit; its all “masters, masters, masters.” Its like a undergraduate is the equivalent of the old high school degrees, and a masters nowadays is the equivalent of a undergraduate degree. Instead of going to USD for four years and amounting a sizable student loan debt, I could have attended some kind of general trade school, maybe welding, or electrician, or some other kind of blue collar work. Instead I have been sitting in classes, learning and memorizing things that I probably won’t have any kind of real use for in five years anyway. It seems like the fact that you got the degree is enough, almost like it lets your future employer know that you are trainable and able to do the work for the job that you hire on to.
I wonder what the college experience will be like for the generation after mine. Computers that synch automatically with your brain? Degrees that are not worth the paper they are written on? Or maybe a change in the mentality surrounding the drinking culture of a college town. My bet is that the sky falls, the aliens come down, or the government kills everyone. So why worry?

Blog 2

As I read more and more poetry that was written in the confessional style i am struck by how well the authors are able to reflect actual thoughts and feelings that could be reflected by the people reading the poems. The taboo and often shocking topics blew the collective minds of the Americans who for the first time could read a poem and not have to conjure up dreary and dated images of Greek mythology; instead they could bring to mind the cheery thoughts of abortion, suicide, depression and other personnel dramas that until this time had not been much covered in American poetry. While Robert Lowell was a extremely influential originator of this version he was by no means the only figure writing in this style.

Several women also contributed to the field. Plath and Sexton are both exemplary examples of this. Both wrote poems dealing with issues related to women. Topics ranging from masturbation to menstruation are covered in the poetry. I am of the opinion that this form of poetry could also be somewhat considered a form of written psychological help. Often people use this form of poetry to write and reflect on everyday occurrences or even to help focus on a life trauma. It is a healthy practice to think critically about those issues that give a person the most stress. Unfortunately the confessional poets have a bad habit of committing suicide. This could be due to the rather manic state of mind that these poets wrote under. Extreme bouts of euphoria coupled with debilitating depression commonly happened to these writers.

Iron Man is a movie that I recommend viewing to anyone reading this blog. While being widely unrealistic it still provides that much needed entertainment factor. I wonder what the poets of the confessional style would say to Tony Starks antics. Like when he makes his original Iron Man suit. In the movie the director shows his building of the suit in several stages. However most of the time he is shown using old school metal working tools. Then this weird doctor opens up his chest in order to implant a device to keep metal shards from reaching his heart and killing him. Tony somehow turns this into a device to “power” his body with more energy. Using his vast scientific knowledge Mr. Stark is somehow able to make his first suit and then use the suit to escape from and then destroy the holding facility.

Another movie I watched tonight is a superhero movie as well. Except this superhero movie involves a giant green man who you would not like when he is angry. If you guessed The Hulk then you have guessed correctly. This is the Edward Norton version of the movie, not the piece of crap CGI movie they made back in 2005. The Hulk is always a pretty cool hero though, always warning the bad guys to back off before unleashing the awesome fury of the green mean machine. All in all it has been another great Sunday night/Monday morning, good football, good movies, and now a finished blog entry.

Blog 1 09/14/2008

Blog 1 (09/14/2008)

As we learn more and more about the Middle generation poets I am struck at the change I see in the writing styles employed. The previous generation of writers, the New Critics, employed a wholly different style of writing then what was to be found in the Middle Generation poets. Allusions to Greek poetry and myths, the use of formal language, as well as the use of exact rhyme are all descriptors of the New Critic writing style. The Middle Generation of poets instead focused the poetry on topic that hit much closer to home. These poets would often write as if they where the speaker of the poem.  Taboo subjects of that era like depression or love affairs, or even mental illness often became the focus of the poetry. The Robert Lowell is a Middle Generation poet that we have covered who could be considered one of the originators of this particular style of poetry.

Lowell’s work was not always of this style he originally was a student of the famous new critic John Crowe Ransom. Luckily for us Lowell felt constrained by the rigid New Critic style. One of his poems that he did write in this style was presented to class. This poem entitled “The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket (Part II)” was in my opinion extremely well written. This poem is not nearly as classical as the New Critic poetry of the time. I particularly enjoy the word choice employed throughout the poem with all the references back to the sea.  Lowell didn’t show the rest of the traits of the middle generation until his classic book of poetry “Life Studies” in which he developed a more personnel speaker. One that was as if the person speaking was the actual author of the poem; with this tone in mind he would write about deeply personnel or even taboo subjects.  These poems and the poets who write them are considered to be of the “confessional” strain of middle generation poets.

In class on Friday we worked in groups looking at several of Lowell’s poems. The poem that my group was given is “Fall 1961” from his collection For the Union Dead which he has admitted as a ”volume of poetry written within, from , and about depression.”  What struck me with this poem is the use of color that is employed by Lowell to help set the stage. “of the orange, bland, ambassadorial face of the moon on the grandfather clock.” Color is used again when Lowell describes the orange and black orioles nest. As a group we decided that the nest was a metaphor for the safety that can be found in the simple act of waiting for something to happen. In this case it was the days spent waiting for nuclear war to explode over the Cuban missile crisis. Another line that I think strikes anyone who reads this poem references back to “We are like a lot of wild spiders crying together, but without tears.” Such powerful words that I believe he borrowed from his daughter or some such thing. Now I wasn’t positive on the meaning behind wild spiders that cry but without tears but it certainly sounded cool.