Daddy.

Somebody really likes bees. Or hates them. I don't really know. but Bees.


The poem I want to look at today isn't about bees. Its about her Daddy.

I was trying to finish up these blogs before class, and read through quickly to find a poem to use and I started reading "Daddy." It intrigued me because I am a daddy's girl and I always will be. Judging from her other poems, I knew it wasn't exactly going to be a happy poem, but I didn't realize just how exhaustingly sad and depressing it was going to be. Yet, I'm so glad I read it.

I actually cried sitting here at Wake Forest Coffee Company. I don't know what to do with this poem. I don't know what to do with Plath. She is so full of emotion and so good at communicating it. The innocence of a child calling for her daddy paired with the awful destruction and sins of the Nazi's, with the early death of her father, with a picture of failed suicide, with a struggle for identity.

So much pain.

I think the word "Daddy" is what did it though. It- being the emotional destruction that came upon me while sipping coffee.
If she had used any other word, "father," or even "dad" I don't think I would have been as destroyed. But she calls him daddy- a term of endearment. a word that carries with it innocence and intimacy.

A term, I, a 23 year old married lady, still calls her daddy.

Do I have to compare it to another poem? My goodness, I can't take any more of the emotion for one day.

At the end of the poem... that stung too.
"daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through."


By sheer chance, I clicked on a link to the poems of Lisa Zaran who wrote "Talking to My Father Whose Ashes Sit in a Closet and Listen"

"Death is not the final word. 
Without ears, my father still listens, 
still shrugs his shoulders 
whenever I ask a question he doesn't want to answer. 

I stand at the closet door, my hand on the knob, 
my hip leaning against the frame and ask him 
what does he think about the war in Iraq 
and how does he feel about his oldest daughter 
getting married to a man she met on the Internet. 

Without eyes, my father still looks around. 
He sees what I am trying to do, sees that I 
have grown less passive with his passing, 
understands my need for answers only he can provide. 

I imagine him drawing a breath, sensing 
his lungs once again filling with air, his thoughts ballooning."

Ugh... Seriously. I can't even imagine living my life without my daddy.

Now, her poem, while talking about the death of her father, carries a tone that isn't quite as depressing as Plath's. Although her father is still dead she still talks to him and see him living, unlike Plath who just wants to be dead with her father.

While Plath uses scenes and themes of innocence juxtaposed with cruelty and evil to communicate a VERY expressive emotion, Zaran uses images and the senses to communicate her desire and love for her father,

I know this is an academic blog, but just because this made me remember and think of my daddy, I thought I'd share these:

Yowzers

Robert Lowell has a pretty good grasp on fallen humanity. In his poem. "To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage" he tells a brief story of a wife whose husband hires prostitutes and basically treats her like a piece of dirt. While reading this poem, I felt sad for the wife. I felt like I wanted to castrate the man. He doesn't deserve a wife. I wanted to free the woman, and the man (from needing prostitutes...)

It's quite a gruesome poem as it is. It is dangerous.

"cruising for prostitutes... along on the razors-edge"
"kill his wife...injustice... unjust..."
"gored.. stalls above me like an elephant"

This poem immediately made me think of the novel Jazz it was like it was written for the novel. It was the "soundtrack" of a loving wife whose husband cheated on her, killed (not her) but his lover and carried on in rage and confusion. Violet was left to keep herself alive. Keep her REAL self alive.

When I read this poem, I wanted to help her get out of that wretched "marriage" she was in. I wanted justice for her. The poem, "The Longing" by Nimah Nawwab wrote a beautiful poem about freedom. Her poem is a little more hopeful than Lowell's, but just like the voice in "To Speak of Woe," the speaker of Nawwab's poem's is practically voiceless.

"Freedom.
How her spirit
Haunts,
Hooks,
Entices us all!

Freedom,
Will the time come
For my ideas to roam
Across this vast land’s deserts,
Through the caverns of the Empty Quarter?


For my voice to be sent forth,
Crying out in the stillness of a quiet people,
A voice among the voiceless?

For my thoughts, that hurl around
In a never-ending spiral,
To settle
Mature, grow and flourish
In a barren wasteland of shackled minds?

Will my spirit be set free—
To soar above the undulating palm fronds?
Will my essence and heart be unfettered,
Forever
Freed,
Of man-made Thou Shall Nots?"

Now, Nawwab's poem tends to use more emotion words to express her desires while Lowell uses more of just descriptions of scenes. Both are screaming to be heard and saved. Both want freedom.

It's hard to say which one is more effected. Both are evoked strong emotions and both made me want to scream out for them. But why would my voice be heard any louder than theirs.

It wouldn't be. 

I like this word "Redolence"

I had never heard this word before, "Redolence" I had to look it up. I like this word, very much so.

I read a poem by Michael Burch with the title, "Redolence" so I looked up the word.

There ya have it. 

So after I read the definition and read the poem I thought about William Carlos Williams' poem "The Great Figure" because it is sort of imagist. Williams simply describes with emotion a firetruck with sirens blaring moving through the streets of a dark city. But it was more than that. It brought back the feeling of me seeing a firetruck, and the anxiousness I feel. The poem made me see the truck #5 with all its glory moving through the town, attending to the person or family who called 9-1-1. I don't want to over examine the poem, but his simplicity is what makes this poem so effective. There is no b.s. There just is a great figure:

"Among the rain

and lights

I saw the figure 5

in gold

on a red

firetruck

moving

tense

unheeded

to gong clangs

siren howls

and wheels rumbling

through the dark city."

In relation to that is Burch's poem "Redolence." Except, Burch uses similar conventions of sight, but also adds the sense of smell (hints the name). His poem is beautiful:

"Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.

Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills,
all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares;
mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again
flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures
the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain.

And now the pact of night is made complete;
the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime
of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time,
the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet."

The sights, the smells. It's like I am there, standing with him and looking out and seeing everything. Now,  Burch uses a few more descriptive words than Williams does, which makes me think of it less an imagist poetry, however there is definitely a clear image and emotion created. I am at peace looking upon the violet hills, listening to cicadas and bullfrogs and watching the trees sway in the wind. I am at peace seeing night creatures dance. I am at peace in the fresh, cool, air, smelling the sweetness of the city. 

Peace vs. Anxious. but both desirous emotions that I loved feeling when reading. And created in a similar way- through simple imagery. I can almost smell the sweet city. 

Maybe I will, maybe I will go out upon the city in the evening and listen, and see, and smell. And maybe I will see a firetruck moving/tense/unheeded 

through the dark city.

Keeping us alive by throwing stones.

A poem within a poem, a poem about a poem, a poem of a poem that became a poem...

I don't even know anymore. Words, they just run.

But honestly, Muriel Rukeyser's poem "Poem White Page/ White Page Poem" seems like it is about what its like to put words of a poem on a white page.

"Poem    white page       white page      poem
something is streaming out of a body in waves
something is beginning from the fingertips
they are starting to declare for my whole life
all the despair and the making music
something like wave after wave
that breaks on a beach
something like bringing the entire life
to this moment
the small waves bringing themselves to white paper
something like light stands up and is alive."

The first time I read this poem, I didn't think much of it. To be honest, I had already picked this one for my blog because it was short. (Honesty is the best policy). But then I read the poem again and I began to take note of the power-words (as I will call them). Words that embody a sense of awe, power, or strength-- words like Wave, ocean, declare, "whole life", "entire life," "alive".  Once I saw those words, and I read it again, I read it again, and I read it again, each time with more vehemence. He made something so simple sounding, putting words on a page, sound like an epic. It IS difficult to share your life on page, but impossible to keep to yourself. I could only image what he went through, being a Jew in the second world war. It must have been brutal, terrible, evil, monstrous.... I could go on. But something about poetry keeps him alive, it keeps US alive.

In searching for something to compare and contrast, I found another Jewish poet who happened to write about poems. The title of his poem is, "Temporary Poem of My Time" by Yehuda Amichai. Both poems use repetition of phrases to increase the power and voice of the poem. Since both poets were Jews and drastically affected by the holocaust, I can only imagine that they desperately needed to have a voice--a loud, clear, powerful, voice. Amichia's poem used the imagery of a stone and of throwing those stones. Yet, at the end of the poem his last stanza moves from throwing stones to throwing "nothing"

"Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be."

Injustice and Anger.

Langston Hughes' poetry is phenomenal on multiple levels. His poetry paints pictures, shows us what is going on. His poetry makes us think and wonder where America went wrong. His poetry makes us cry, get angry and ponder his perspective. Langston Hughes communicates loud and clear in a masterful authoritative voice. He is the voice of protest, of rallying together for change.

I cried.
I got angry at white people
I got frustrated with Hughes
I wanted to punch a racist in the face and tell them to grow the hell up.

But really, the emotions evoked were fierce.

One of the poems that made me the angriest was Ku Klux

They took me out
to some lonesome place.
They said, "Do you believe
In the great white race?"

I said, "Mister,
to tell you the truth
I'd believe in anything
If you'd just turn me loose."
                             
                           ---What we do when we fear for our lives... The things we would compromise.---

The white man said, "Boy,
Can it be
You're a-standin' there
A-ssassin' me?"

They hit me in the head
And knocked me down.
And then they kicked me
On the ground.

                         ---AHH! I am so mad right now. Get off your high freaking horse. If you feel like
                            you're better than black people because of your race, why must you feel the need
                            to purge them. You must be threatened by the truth...

A klanman said, "Nigger,
Look me in the face--
And tell me you believe in
The great white race."

Clearly, my emotion is obvious.. but how does he evoke this?
He uses rhyme and rhythm, like this kind of event is just part of the pattern- it's normal, accepted.
He uses something as insignificant and non-threanening as a question "Do you believe in the great white race?" and shows the sheer INJUSTICE that the Hughes endured because he didn't answer directly "yes."

So let me get this straight? Because he didn't answer a question with the exact answer you wanted, you violently beat him up...

You mangy dogs. You scum of the earth...

Hughes uses the simplicity of a question juxtaposed with the violent beating to show the injustice, the unwarranted violence against African-Americans. And the insignificant pattern of rhyme to make it seem normal.

Brian Turner wrote a poem "What Every Soldier Should Know" that evokes a similar feeling of anger, of fierce emotion. Like Hughes' poem that communicates a pattern of sad reality, Turner's poem communicates a similar pattern. Both realities dangerous to the ones inside them. Both realities communicated as though they are normal. Both realities communicate sheer injustice.

"Small children will play with you
old men with their talk, women who offer chai--

and any of them
may dance over your body tomorrow."

On War and Peace.

Once again, racism rears its ugly head. 

It was SO HARD to read Claude McKay. Not because his poetry was unconventional or confusing, nor did he use hard to understand metaphors. No, his poetry was hard to read because of the content, because I didn't want to have the emotions I had while reading his poetry. I didn't want to look at history in the face. But I did. I wish so much that Claude McKay was alive right now. I wish that he could see how far we've come as a Country, I wish he was here to encourage us to go even further. His poetry, especially "The Lynching" really got to me. Just to think about the violence that black people endured, and read it described in such a way as to provoke a violent emotion, it does something. It's terrifying. 

Then I read Maya Angelou's poetry. She's not ignorant to what happened, she's well aware of her ancestor's history. However, she is more removed from slavery than McKay is. She has the ability to see the hope despite the crushing weight of opposition, of wrongdoing. Her poetry, most of it, is more hopeful. In her poem "Million Man March" Angelou calls up an army. This army is meant to defend their heritage, but not by taking revenge on the white's who oppressed them. Rather, she commands:

"Let us come together and cleanse our souls,

Clap hands, let's leave the preening

And stop impostering our own history.

Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge,

Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation"

McKay's poem "If We Must Die" is also a call to arms. The tone of the two poems is entirely different, but both calling their people into action. Now the context of each of these poets is different as well, and I must take that into consideration. Angelou, though her context still has racism and its consequences around, is nothing like the time of the Civil Rights Movement. That being said, the facts remain. McKay knew he was going to die by defending his people, "So that our precious blood may not be shed in vain." He's riding into battle with a known fate: death. It is almost hopeless. 

Angelou's poem has a much different effect. She is giving more of a pep talk before the war, she is hopeful that if she changes their perspective, they "will rise" that they will understand why they should be hopeful. The end of her poem describes this feeling: "The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain We are a going-on people who will rise again." They will forever remember these oppressive acts of violence, but they will not let those things define them. They will rise. 

If only McKay could see how his people have risen out of slavery, out of constant violent oppression.

Spring into the beauty of a hopeless world.

What a perfect Spring Day to read H.D!

Here is a poem dedicated to H.D (Dr. Seuss Style)

A Joyful occasion

By Deanna Ver Schneider

I could read H.D in a hammock on a beach

or in the mountains

on a peak

By the fountains

raining spring water,

In my house

where no one could bother

me. Oh my, thank you H.D.

For bringing back joy

to me in Poetry.

Now, I am not exactly suggesting that H.D's poetry is joyful, but rather that it brings joy to me because I thoroughly enjoy reading it. Maybe because I'm a cynical old hag, or possibly because it is a breath of fresh air coming out of T.S Eliot and Pound (who btw, are great but mind-numbing).

Today I want to start with the poem This is Not an Experiment by Pablo Saborío.

His poetry is quite depressing with conflicting imagery and feelings of tension. While I don't know that I would say this is imagist poetry, Saborio uses images, very abstract images, to get his emotion across. He uses images that conflict, "This is a shadow shedding its bone in a camouflage of change." Shadows don't have bones to shed... 

He also uses images that simply don't make a lick of sense, "This is a sister opening a drawer to hide a wonderful thing"

Throughout the poem, I am left hanging, hanging on to what should be coming next, an explanation. What wonderful thing? What perception?... I didn't realize I was hanging until the end of the poem when he draws a picture of someone hanging off of a cliff, ending almost hopelessly. 

"But above all,

this is another handclinging to the edgebefore the fall."

It was then, that it all made sense. 

H.D's poem, "Eurydice" was a picture of hopelessness for me. But, if there is such a thing, a beautiful hopelessness. With the myth of Eurydice  and Orpheus as a back drop (also a sign of good poetry according to Eliot), the poem struck some emotional cords. She is clearly angry and unforgiving to the one who looked back, to the man who put her back in her misery after promising to rescue her. The man who, because he couldn't help himself, sent her back to hell. Yeah, I'd be pissed off too. And H.D creates a world for her readers-- A black, lost, ruthless world that she is forever condemned to because of the arrogance of her lover. "How RUDE!" is an understatement. 

Her images, unlike Saborio's, make logical sense (for the most part). She communicates her emotions through the language, and emphasizes it through the images. Saborio uses conflicting images to communicate his emotions. 

"before I am lost, hell must open like a red rose for the dead to pass." 

How can someone make hopelessness sound so beautiful?

Con Senses

I really do enjoy T.S Eliot. He is such a brilliant man. As I read his poetry though, I felt sorrowful, but not depressed (like I did at times with Frost). No, Eliot's poetry affects multiple emotions. In his poem "The Hollow Men" Eliot uses senses, mostly dominantly, sight. Near the beginning of the poem, he inserts almost abruptly, "Shape without form, shade without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion;" What? How can you have shape without form or shades without color, or gesture without motion? Contradictions? Possibly.

eyes
eyes
eyes
voices
singing
images
lips
eyes
eyes
speech
sightless
eyes
Falls the Shadow
Falls the Shadow
Falls the Shadow
This is the way the World Ends
Bang
Whimper

Throughout the poem, the word "eyes" is referenced 6 times, with other allusions to sight and other senses addressed. Yet, at the end of the poem, Eliot presents three circumstances where "Falls the Shadow" meaning, theses are areas you can't SEE, you can't necessarily feel, you can't touch. To be honest, I don't know exactly what to do with this, but I feel like there is significance in this. Why would he want his reader to see and hear throughout the beginning of the poem and contrast it with the opposite? I'm not sure. As much as I enjoy his poetry, it is still quite ambiguous to me, a little bit over my head, where sometimes I feel an emotion, or significant thought and other times, such as here, I don't know what to think. Maybe I'm over-thinking.

I want to compare this poem to one by Deborah Ager. The title of the poem, "Alone" addresses her senses and uses them to paint a lonely picture. Rather than sight, she uses touch and smell.


Over the fence, the dead settle in
for a journey. Nine o'clock.
You are alone for the first time
today. Boys asleep. Husband out.

A beer bottle sweats in your hand,
and sea lavender clogs the air
with perfume. Think of yourself.
Your arms rest with nothing to do

after weeks spent attending to others.
Your thoughts turn to whether
butter will last the week, how much
longer the car can run on its partial tank of gas.


The last stanza in her poem is similar, though very different, to Eliot's. She turns to thoughts, untouchable and emotionless that contrast sharply with the stanza above. She is left alone with her thoughts. 

Eliot is left somewhere in the shadows. 

INTRUSION!

INTRUSION! Margaret Atwood is rudely intruding on my blog and I can't make her stop. If any tech-savy lads know how to get the unwanted words off my blog, please share your wisdom. I'm not too fond of the word "sh!t-kickers" being in the middle of an academic blog that has nothing to do with soccer or poop.

A Hobbit -ual Metaphor.

This basically describes how I felt the past two weeks concerning poetry.

Just think of yourself as Thorin and Azog as poetry.
Confident and courageous, only to be struck down and seemingly defeated.


Then, on other days I feel like Bilbo.
"YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME POETRY!"
But then I wave my sword aimlessly hoping for some good to come about it.

I hope you enjoyed the clip! Have a great break friends.

*All things are metaphors to LOTR/The Hobbit and are subject to severe dramatization.

Epic Proportions

Dude. Ezra Pound, chill out with all that anti-Semitism. You're making me a bit uncomfortable with all that degrading talk about Jews and women. You're quite the jerk ya know... Taylor Swift wrote a song about you (see above).

The great Ezra Pound was a little more than my little brain could handle all at once. I felt super dumb for not knowing all of the references and found it quite frustrating to have to stop and read three paragraphs of footnotes after every other line. But I was determined to enjoy Pound this week, to some extent at least. So I did a little research and found that I was not alone in my frustration with the Cantos. Even the famous poet William Carlos Williams had some concerns. In the New York Evening Post Literary Review he laments, "Pound has tried to communicate his poetry to us and failed. It is a tragedy, since he is our best poet" (www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ezra-pound).

We are not alone. But nevertheless, his poetry made it big, so there must be something awesome about it. Maybe its Epic. As in, the poem fits into the epic genre. But this epic, unlike others, is not shackled by any one place, generation, or person but is omniscient. (and maybe epic in the 21st century definition of the word too, but that's a bit more subjective.)

Pound pounds absolute power permanently into our permeable brain pattern. 

That was fun and has nothing to do with what follows... :) 

In Canto XLV Pound directly attacks the Jews and their use of usury. He compares and contrasts all of the good things that came about "not by usura" and depicts "usura" as a force that "blunteth the needle in the maid's hand/ and stoppeth the spinner's cunning." I can't help but be reminded of Shakespeare's comedy The Merchant of Venice whereby a Jew by the name of Shylock is known for his usury and bad character. Through this play, Shakespeare plays with the stigma that Jews are inferior and Christians are superior. He subtly suggests that maybe a deeper inspection of motives is needed to get a clearer picture of the differences-- that Christians aren't any better than Jews. Pound must have overlooked that part. Anyway, the way Pound contrasts what happens when usury is not used verses when it is used makes this poem stand out. Rather than just saying "when usury isn't involved we have Duccio, Pier della Francesca, etc" he contrasts the good things directly with the absence of usury-- "Not by usura St. Trophime/ not by usura Saint Hilaire."

Is/Not, a poem by Margaret Atwood takes a similar idea of comparison and contrast and applies it beautifully.

"Love is not a profession

genteel or otherwise

sex is not dentistry

the slick filling of aches and cavities

you are not my doctor

you are not my cure,

nobody has that

power, you are merely a fellow/traveller

Give up this medical concern,

buttoned, attentive,

permit yourself anger

and permit me mine

which needs neither

your approval nor your suprise

which does not need to be made legal

which is not against a disease

but against you,

which does not need to be understood

or washed or cauterized,

which needs instead

to be said and said.

Permit me the present tense"

While content vastly differs between the poems, the conduit by which they communicate has some similarities worth noting. Atwood even incorporates the use of absence in her poem by not saying what love/sex is, but only what is it not. Both could have said it differently, but chose to say it through comparison and contrast to make you think and feel the tension between the objects of the poem. A tension of Epic Proportions...

lame joke.

A typical restraint

Better late than never, right?

Paul Lawrence Dunbar is a poet who was only one generation removed from slavery. As his poetry often reflects, slavery affected his perspective and presuppositions despite it never directly touching him. Just by reading "We Wear the Mask," "When Malindy Sings," "Sympathy" and "The Haunted Oak" I felt a range of emotions. While "When Malindy Sings" was my favorite of the four, I am focusing on "Sympathy." The picture that is painted in our minds is one of a bird in cage, who can see his freedom, but can't quite get there. The bird "beats his wing till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling" (Dunbar 8-9). The restraint of the cage causes the bird agony, and the readers to sympathize. Most everyone has been restrained in one way or another and can understand what Dunbar is getting at. The repetition of the line "I know why the caged bird sings" adds to the brevity of the poem. And the contrast of freedom and a cage, of sadness and of joy, makes it easier for the reader to sympathize with the bird. The weight is heavy. The weight of knowing how much torture that slaves went through in order to just get a taste of freedom is relentless. It changes people. 

Restraints change people. And the people eventually change the restraints. Aaron Belz makes a more lighthearted poem about restraints, although he uses the word constraint. "You Can't Pick Your Friend's Nose" takes the idea of restraint and shows how people change them based on morals and nature. While Dunbar makes us feel like we are restrained, Belz helps us see the outside perspective of restraints and the causes of them. The lightheartedness continues throughout the poem, but at the end of  it, you are left asking a question about the bigger picture: "Why are they changing?" Belz playfully uses a common phrase "You can't pick your friends nose" to ask a deep question, the same way Dunbar uses the common idea of a caged bird to evoke a deep emotion --Sympathy. 

What. The. Blank

I was thoroughly enjoying Modern American Poetry. Despite my severely misunderstood idea of modern poetry and its use I started reading these poems with an open mind ready to learn. And I actually enjoyed poetry for the first time in a VERY long time.

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. And while I hope that my finite mind can one day appreciate the gravity of some poetry, I have to admit that I was incredibly frustrated, confused, and highly disappointed this week. And yet...

Gertrude Stein. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY?!

And yet, that's exactly what she wants her reader to feel, to question. In her poem "Patriarchal Poetry" Stein plays with the order of words and uses words that sound similar or have dual meanings in order to create a rhyme or alliteration. She wants people to be frustrated at her poetry, because she wants people to be frustrated with the common and accepted order of things and ask questions like "WHY?" Why do we accept the order of a sentence. Why do we accept the Patriarchal way of life?

Brilliant.

"For before let it before to be before spell to be before to be before to have to be to be for before to be tell to be to having held to be to for before to call to be for to be before to till until to be till before..."

Seriously. Come ON. Aren't you just frustrated and confused trying to read this? At first it was frustrating, then it was funny, then 10 pages in, it was SUPER frustrating. I would read a sentence of a paragraph and just say "No. No. NO." This, I believe, was her intended reaction.

The lack of sentence structure and coherence is seen also in Evie Shockley's poem "Canvas and Mirror" Rather than just quoting an excerpt, here is the poem in entirety:

 "self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks
      of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,
                  with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait
            with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,
      painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self-
            portrait with twins, with giggles, with sister at
                  last, with epistrophy, with crepescule with nellie,
with my favorite things. self-portrait with hard
head, with soft light, with raised eyebrow. self-
      portrait voo-doo, self-portrait hijinks, self-portrait
                  surprise. self-portrait with patience, with political
            protest, with poetry, with papers to grade. self-
      portrait as thaumaturgic lass, self-portrait as luna
            larva, self-portrait as your mama. self-portrait
                  with self at sixteen. self-portrait with shit-kickers,
with hip-huggers, with crimson silk, with wild
mushroom risotto and a glass of malbec. self-
      portrait with partial disclosure, self-portrait with
                  half-truths, self-portrait with demi-monde. self-
            portrait with a night at the beach, with a view
      overlooking the lake, with cancelled flight. self-
            portrait with a real future, with a slight chance of
                  sours, with glasses, with cream, with fries, with
a way with words, with a propositional phrase."

While Shockley's poem has a bit more coherence, there really isn't much more than in Stein's poem. And once again, I'm left quite frustrated and confused and thinking "What is this?" The chaotic structure, random pauses and words broken mid-pronunciation aid in the confusion and frustration, the same way Stein breaks up her words into small syllables and then repeats them 10,000 times in a different order. 

I would have probably challenged the status quo a little differently, okay, MUCH differently, but that's the beauty of diversity. 

self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks       of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,                   with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait             with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,       painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self-             portrait with twins, with giggles, with sister at                   last, with epistrophy, with crepescule with nellie, with my favorite things. self-portrait with hard head, with soft light, with raised eyebrow. self-       portrait voo-doo, self-portrait hijinks, self-portrait                   surprise. self-portrait with patience, with political             protest, with poetry, with papers to grade. self-       portrait as thaumaturgic lass, self-portrait as luna             larva, self-portrait as your mama. self-portrait                   with self at sixteen. self-portrait with shit-kickers, with hip-huggers, with crimson silk, with wild mushroom risotto and a glass of malbec. self-       portrait with partial disclosure, self-portrait with                   half-truths, self-portrait with demi-monde. self-             portrait with a night at the beach, with a view       overlooking the lake, with cancelled flight. self-             portrait with a real future, with a slight chance of                   sours, with glasses, with cream, with fries, with a way with words, with a propositional phrase. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22038#sthash.73zfqTnv.dpuf

self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks       of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,                   with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait             with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,       painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self-             portrait with twins, with giggles, with sister at                   last, with epistrophy, with crepescule with nellie, with my favorite things. self-portrait with hard head, with soft light, with raised eyebrow. self-       portrait voo-doo, self-portrait hijinks, self-portrait                   surprise. self-portrait with patience, with political             protest, with poetry, with papers to grade. self-       portrait as thaumaturgic lass, self-portrait as luna             larva, self-portrait as your mama. self-portrait                   with self at sixteen. self-portrait with shit-kickers, with hip-huggers, with crimson silk, with wild mushroom risotto and a glass of malbec. self-       portrait with partial disclosure, self-portrait with                   half-truths, self-portrait with demi-monde. self-             portrait with a night at the beach, with a view       overlooking the lake, with cancelled flight. self-             portrait with a real future, with a slight chance of                   sours, with glasses, with cream, with fries, with a way with words, with a propositional phrase. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22038#sthash.73zfqTnv.dpuf

self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks       of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,                   with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait             with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,       painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self-             portrait with twins, with giggles, with sister at                   last, with epistrophy, with crepescule with nellie, with my favorite things. self-portrait with hard head, with soft light, with raised eyebrow. self-       portrait voo-doo, self-portrait hijinks, self-portrait                   surprise. self-portrait with patience, with political             protest, with poetry, with papers to grade. self-       portrait as thaumaturgic lass, self-portrait as luna             larva, self-portrait as your mama. self-portrait                   with self at sixteen. self-portrait with shit-kickers, with hip-huggers, with crimson silk, with wild mushroom risotto and a glass of malbec. self-       portrait with partial disclosure, self-portrait with                   half-truths, self-portrait with demi-monde. self-             portrait with a night at the beach, with a view       overlooking the lake, with cancelled flight. self-             portrait with a real future, with a slight chance of                   sours, with glasses, with cream, with fries, with a way with words, with a propositional phrase. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22038#sthash.73zfqTnv.dpuf

self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks       of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,                   with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait             with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,       painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self-             portrait with twins, with giggles, with sister at                   last, with epistrophy, with crepescule with nellie, with my favorite things. self-portrait with hard head, with soft light, with raised eyebrow. self-       portrait voo-doo, self-portrait hijinks, self-portrait                   surprise. self-portrait with patience, with political             protest, with poetry, with papers to grade. self-       portrait as thaumaturgic lass, self-portrait as luna             larva, self-portrait as your mama. self-portrait                   with self at sixteen. self-portrait with shit-kickers, with hip-huggers, with crimson silk, with wild mushroom risotto and a glass of malbec. self-       portrait with partial disclosure, self-portrait with                   half-truths, self-portrait with demi-monde. self-             portrait with a night at the beach, with a view       overlooking the lake, with cancelled flight. self-             portrait with a real future, with a slight chance of                   sours, with glasses, with cream, with fries, with a way with words, with a propositional phrase. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22038#sthash.73zfqTnv.dpuf

self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks       of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,                   with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait             with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,       painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self-             portrait with twins, with giggles, with sister at                   last, with epistrophy, with crepescule with nellie, with my favorite things. self-portrait with hard head, with soft light, with raised eyebrow. self-       portrait voo-doo, self-portrait hijinks, self-portrait                   surprise. self-portrait with patience, with political             protest, with poetry, with papers to grade. self-       portrait as thaumaturgic lass, self-portrait as luna             larva, self-portrait as your mama. self-portrait                   with self at sixteen. self-portrait with shit-kickers, with hip-huggers, with crimson silk, with wild mushroom risotto and a glass of malbec. self-       portrait with partial disclosure, self-portrait with                   half-truths, self-portrait with demi-monde. self-             portrait with a night at the beach, with a view       overlooking the lake, with cancelled flight. self-             portrait with a real future, with a slight chance of                   sours, with glasses, with cream, with fries, with a way with words, with a propositional phrase. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22038#sthash.73zfqTnv.dpuf

self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks       of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,                   with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait             with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,       painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self-             portrait with twins, with giggles, with sister at                   last, with epistrophy, with crepescule with nellie, with my favorite things. self-portrait with hard head, with soft light, with raised eyebrow. self-       portrait voo-doo, self-portrait hijinks, self-portrait                   surprise. self-portrait with patience, with political             protest, with poetry, with papers to grade. self-       portrait as thaumaturgic lass, self-portrait as luna             larva, self-portrait as your mama. self-portrait                   with self at sixteen. self-portrait with shit-kickers, with hip-huggers, with crimson silk, with wild mushroom risotto and a glass of malbec. self-       portrait with partial disclosure, self-portrait with                   half-truths, self-portrait with demi-monde. self-             portrait with a night at the beach, with a view       overlooking the lake, with cancelled flight. self-             portrait with a real future, with a slight chance of                   sours, with glasses, with cream, with fries, with a way with words, with a propositional phrase. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22038#sthash.73zfqTnv.dpuf