Hayes

            In Terrance Hayes book of poetry Lighthead, he has many poems that are scatterbrained, just lines of thoughts and poems that have deep meanings. Throughout his book, he displays many themes such as language, race, anguish. But the theme I’ve noticed most often is sexuality. He has an interesting way of always finding a place to insert something about sexual intercourse in his poems. Looking at the two poems, “Lighthead’s Guide to the Galaxy” and “Whatever Happened to the Fine Young Cannibals?”, I have seen the sexual theme.

            The first poem I looked at for the theme of sexuality was “Lighthead’s Guide to the Galaxy”. This is the first poem in the book. Within the first seven lines he comes right out with his feelings on sex. “I believe everything is a metaphor for sex.” This line like sets you up for the rest of the book, if this is what he believes then you can tell he’s always going to talk about it; he found it important to deliver that line before the readers got into the book. Throughout the book, Hayes has a few poems that are titled with “Lighthead”. In his second version of “Lighthead’s Guide to the Galaxy”, “Lighthead’s Guide to Addiction”, he is talking about random addictions and then throws in the line, “I often wake up horny. If you are addicted to masturbation, seek company”. I think it’s interesting how explicit he sometimes is with words relating to sexual intercourse. The word ‘masturbation’ just doesn’t seem like a word that is normally just thrown out there in poetry, at least I’ve never noticed. It’s not really a beautiful word; it’s a word that makes some people uncomfortable. I would’ve thought he’d find a different word for it, but then again that is part of his theme of sexuality.

            The second poem I looked at for Hayes’s theme of sexuality was “Whatever Happened to the Fine Young Cannibals?”. This was a poem that was basically just a stream of random thoughts. “Even when the bed is damp, the bed sheets dizzy with lovemaking, I won’t brush my teeth”. Now there’s not a huge sense of sexuality in this poem but I chose it because I think it’s interesting how he chooses to use the word ‘lovemaking’ rather than sex (except in the first poem) or some other term. Most people, let alone men, still call it lovemaking. At first I assumed he only used ‘lovemaking’ when referring to personal experiences with his wife, but he uses it every time. He uses it in “Lighthead’s Guide to the Galaxy”, “lovemaking mimics the act of departure, moonlight drips from the leaves”.

            In both of the poems I have talked about, and many others in his book, Hayes makes sexual references.  Although he uses such blunt sexual undertones, he still differentiates between the physical need to get laid and the emotional act of lovemaking.  Hayes’ poems may at first seem unusual due to their frank sexuality, but really just explore both the emotional and physical aspects of sex. 








The Accident
I remember today like yesterday,
Pouring drinks with my friends

It was going to be a good day.

The click of pongs on plastic cups,

A blur of music and laughter surrounds the air.

The bitter taste of wine fresh on my tongue.

Then the phone rings, 

It’s my father.

As the words come out of his mouth,

My face turns pale and my heart sinks.

“Your grandpa’s been in an accident.”

I fall to the ground.

In-Class Essay #1

 In W. H. Auden’s excerpt “Poetry as Memorable Speech”, Auden says “Of the many definitions of poetry, the simplest is still the best: ‘memorable speech’’. What he is saying is that good poetry is poetry that people remember, the kind that speak to you. I would have to say I agree with Auden to an extent because sometimes a poem could just not be memorable to me personally, which doesn’t mean it is a bad poem and everyone agrees. One poet who is an example of someone who doesn’t always have the most interesting poems in my opinion is Philip Larkin. In his poem, “An Arundel Tomb” he writes about this tomb stone he sees of a couple holding hands that everyone comes to admire because they think they’re this big symbol of eternal love, but Larkin writes that it was not their intention to be remembered this way. The poem as a whole, I don’t find very memorable until you get to the end. Larkin ends “An Arundel Tomb” with “The stone fidelity they hardly meant have come to be their final blazon, and to prove our almost – instinct almost – true: What will survive of us is love”. I think this line is beautiful and so true, I’ve always heard the saying that love can survive anything but it’s not true, it’s almost – true, I love the way he puts it.  Like we talked in class, that’s just a very memorable way to end his poem, bringing truth to the old saying, everyone wants to believe that love will survive anything but it’s not always true which is what he’s leaving us with; love really doesn’t always survive.

I think the tone of this poem is sort of gleeful – mournful because he’s talking about these statues who are in love still and everyone admires their tomb but then ends with saying that they had no intention of wanting to be remembered as this couple in love, they didn’t want this to be their final message. I think it turns to the more mournful part in the final stanza beginning with “Time has transfigured them into untruth”, I feel like this is when the tone changes because its saying over time they’ve been turned into a lie. That their love did not survive eternity.

            Also in Auden’s “Poetry as Memorable Speech” he says, “Everything that we remember no matter how trivial...are equally the subject of poetry”. In Larkin’s poem “An Arundel Tomb” he takes these two pieces of stone and turns it into a poem about whether or not love with survive. As I mentioned, Larkin writes that this couple had not intended for their tomb to be this symbol of love, but how does Larkin know that? He writes all about it, but who knows whether he is right or not, no one can speak to the couple. Which I think makes the poem even more memorable because he is literally just looking at this couple’s tomb stone and just imagining that this is really how they feel. He took a simple statue showing a couple in love that everyone admired and turned it into a lie.

            When I started out writing this assignment I did not think “An Arundel Tomb” was a very memorable poem but now that I’ve talked about it so much, I don’t think I’ll ever forget this poem. I especially will never forget the message he leaves us with, that’s what makes it a good poem. So I would have to say I agree with Auden,  the simplest definition for a good poem is memorable.

Assignment #3

In Robert Frost’s “The Figure a Poem Makes” he says, “if it is a wild tune it is a Poem”. (I also noticed this was a discussion question we did not get to go over) What I took from Frost calling poems “wild tunes” was that sometimes poems don’t always make sense or they use a lot of metaphors to try to make it all sound more beautiful or they talk about random things going on around them that you sometimes wonder, “why in the world are they talking about this?”. Which I think can cause confusion or make the poem seem kind of “wild”.  I had never thought about poems being wild. I usually never understand the deeper meanings in some poems so I thought they were crazy, but I never thought that actual poets agree that their poems are wild and they say crazy things that don’t always make sense. In T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” he talks about a yellow frog that’s rubbing it’s back on a window pane, he skips around and talks about how he’s balding. I realize some of the descriptions are to set the mood, but I think they go along with being a wild tune.

My Nights with Archie

Option A

I remember when bedtime was one

Of my favorite times. Every night

It was off to Riverdale for me, I was not alone.

Archie Comics was my secret delight.

Oh the things Archie did just to get a date.

That Veronica was such a snob.

Reggie always went after Archie’s mate.

Poor Jughead, he was certainly no heartthrob.

Then there was Betty, how could he never

Choose her? She was obviously the best.

Team Archie and Betty forever.

Blog #2

  I chose to compare Isaac Rosenberg’s poem “Break of Day in the Trenches” to W.B. Yeats’s “Easter, 1916” because it was also written in 1916. With the obvious difference of the sides of the war they were on, and that Yeats was writing about Ireland’s rebellion against the British and Rosenberg was fighting the Germans. In  Rosenberg’s “Break of Day in the Trenches” was written while he was actually in a trench during war and his poem focuses solely on himself as the main soldier, only mentioning a few others. Rosenberg also writes only about the war and what is happening as he’s writing it, but in Yeat’s poem he speaks of the war but also of a general who married the love of his life and how he despised him. In “Easter, 1916”, Yeat’s repeats the line “A terrible beauty is born” three times. I understand how something can be beautiful yet terrible at the same time during war. War is a terrible thing, thousands of lives are always lost, which is the terrible part of it but when it’s all over your country is a better place, which is the beautiful part of it. The Iraq and Afghanistan war has been a terrible thing, but look at what a has been accomplished, our country helped them no longer be under control by a horrible dictator like Saddam and we prevented further terrorist attacks on our country by finding Osama Bin Laden.
                                       
An Afghan Christmas Day


                                        When I was one-and-twenty(downbeat)

When I was one-and-twenty,

My heart was broken for the first time.

I failed to listen to Housman’s wise words,

“Give crowns and pounds and guineas

But not your heart away”

How dumb of me to think you as

The exception. The memories we had

I will never forget, but you, you’re

What I want to forget.

When I was one-and-twenty (upbeat)

When I was one-and-twenty

I gained some new homes for sure,

Jbar, C-side, Crystal, Redbrick.

They’re so much fun, I never bore.

Absolute, Kettle One, Three Olive,

You all will be the death of me.

When I was one-and-twenty,

I may have spent too much time at the bars.

I hope my grades aren’t too low,

My parents will kill me before I write my memoir.

A new email, they’re here. Oh no.

When I was one-and-twenty (mixture)

When I was one-and-twenty

I was broken hearted,

But I refused to stay down.

As I had also just gained access

And was finally legal.

I didn’t need you anymore,

I had my new bar friends.

So what if they knew not my name,

So what if we only talk intoxicated.

They’ll never hurt me the way you did

When I was one-and-twenty.