I read poetry, too : re(Muse)ings

Feb

19

I read poetry, too

Filed Under poetry 

I am irritable today with no reason; the subway’s cavern yawns wide and empty; heels clip clop on concrete; grading weighs my backpack.

To soothe my mind I take out a book of poems. Rumors are that poetry is a dying art (other than music). Reports state that no one reads it. Maybe so. Of course, I have the same students whose eyes widen and glaze when confronted with a poem as anyone else and I have teacher friends who avoid teaching it.

None of this matters today, however. Today, I need escape. Today, I find Langsgton Hughes . . . a writer whose bitterness, imagery, underlying hope for mankind has spoke to me for years. Today is no different.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

I could analyze the effectiveness of the one word lines, the dialect of Hughes with Whitman, the effectiveness of repetition. This don’t call to me when I open a book and need my own world.

How brilliant was Hughes! He didn’t copy Whitman’s format. He predicted a future that seems obvious now. He so clearly explained a pain, helped me feel societal shame, and yet reminded me of America’s beauty: in him, me, reflexively to the Whitmans and that WE TOO SING, and can sing the world.

. . . . . . . . . . . So how is that for a little inspiration?

Comments

3 Responses to “I read poetry, too”

  1. gracel09 on March 6th, 2008 5:21 am

    I enjoy reading poetry too (although I do not read poetry regularly). But I like to read poems with a lighter, more careless tone such as those of Shel Silverstein, my favorite poet of all time! =)

  2. hannac09 on March 7th, 2008 9:44 am

    im loving your writing style

  3. rhonda Johnson on March 12th, 2008 11:16 am

    It’s true, many see poetry as being a bit archaic. It’s rarely the genre I reach for when I’m craving something to read. And yet…I have a former student who continually challenges me in this area by sending me poetry that somehow I can’t resist. The last book was a collection titled Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver. Who knew sh was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award. It is a book I find myself turning to again and again for comfort, glimpses of joy, and a sense of someone deeply connecting with my experiences in this crazy world. The very first poem is the cover title:
    “Hello, sun in my face.
    Hello, you who make the morning
    and spread it over the field
    and into the faces of the tulips
    and the nodding morning glories,
    and into the windows of, even, the
    miserable and the crotchety–

    best preacher that ever was,
    dear star, that just happens
    to be where you are in the universe
    to keep us from ever-darkness,
    to ease us with warm touching,
    to hold us in the great hands of light–
    good morning, good morning, good morning.

    Watch, now, how I start the day
    in happiness, in kindness.”

    There’s ever increasing hope for poetry in my world.

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