Of all types of writing, poetry is maybe the most concerned with language—how language points to expected and unexpected meanings, how language helps us listen to each other, and how language sometimes confuses us.

Language
and
Everyday Life

Think About
A Table

 If someone says the world table we might wonder if this person means:
  • Table, the noun for an object in our homes like our kitchen tables.
  • Table, the noun for graphs and charts—for the tables that organize this web page, for instance.
  • Table, the verb that means, "to postpone," as in: "The senate tabled its discussion of parking regulations until the next meeting."

But if we are thinking in poetic terms, we would try to balance as many of the above meanings of table—maybe even more meanings—and see how many of them (if any) fit the idea or picture or sound we are trying to communicate in the poem.

How Many Things
Can a Table Mean?

 

 

Politics
and
Everyday Life

 When we talk about politics, sometimes we only mean local and national elections. But as we discuss poetry and politics, try to think of politics in its largest sense. Try to think of politics as a way of describing everyday power relations—everyday encounters and conflicts that can be understood in terms of power dynamics (racial, sexual, gendered, economic-class-oriented, and nationalistic, to name several sorts of power dynamics).

 

Poets interested in language and public life write poems that usually emerge from two particular ideas:
  • The idea that political ideology and everyday experience overlap, and that both have a cause-and-effect relationship on one another.
  • The idea that language is the place where they overlap, and that language itself can produce political action.

Poetry and Language and Politics and Everyday Life

 

Try this Writing Assignment


Pick one of the following poems and respond to the following questions:

This is one of our class Response Essays (typed, 1-2 pages in length). It is due April 30, 2001.

Poetry and Cultural Conflict
  • Audre Lorde, "Coal"
  • Audre Lorde, "Hanging Fire"
  • Derek Walcott, "A Far Cry From Africa"
  • Rita Dove, "Parsley"
  • Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck"
  • Robert Lowell, "For the Union Dead"
  • Anthony Hecht, "The Book of Yolek"

Poetry and the Work of Knowing

  • Diane di Prima, from Loba
  • Allen Ginsberg, "Sunflower Sutra"

Poetry About Other Art Forms

Experimental Poetry

  • From 40,000-People-A-Day, Starve series

Poetry of Witness

Email Tony Trigilio

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Updated February 8, 2001