Late

Due to the fact that I have been sick for the last couple of days I haven’t gotten online to do my blog although I have been thinking about it.

I have already made my opinion on Walt Whitman clear and in case you don’t know it, I think he is an egotistical bastard. That aside I do appreciate what his work lead to even if I don’t like his work myself. I do like the detail he goes into and the way he lists things he sees but I hate how he jumps from one topic to the next. I feel like I’m missing the bigger picture and that is what I want to see and instead I’m betting snapshots that don’t line up and there are gaps that I cannot fill because there is no understanding of what is in those gaps.

My opinion on Emily Dickinson is the exact opposite. I do so love her stuff. There has yet to be something of hers that I didn’t like. Either because of the imagery she uses or the subject she is writing about; a headache is no longer just a headache but a funeral in a brain. I’m not sure if that is really what she was talking about but that is what I think of when I read that poem.
The two people that we were told to read, Stein and Loy are vast opposites. Out of the two I like Mina Loy the best. Her play on words that bring to mind ideas and images, which I know aren’t normal for someone reading her poems. For example, in her poem “Brancusi’s Golden Bird” there is a footnote about the Alpha and the Omega which references Jesus, in my mind I see werewolves both the top and the bottom of the pack thrown together to make this toy. The best of both the top and the bottom and coming up with the best of everything. You can tell I really like Science Fiction. But to me that makes more sense that it having to do with Jesus, so that’s what I see and it still makes sense to me in the context and I like the poem all the more for it! I would love to have a toy that is the perfect form of a werewolf, the best parts taken from the alpha and the omega.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is Gertrude Stein makes my head ache and me wonder if I read the last line or if I’m rereading a different line. I can understand and appreciate what she was doing with the repetition but that doesn’t make it any easier to stand. Luckily the only time I see that to the point of making me want to shoot myself is in “Picasso”. However like Walt Whitman she flutters from one topic to another, giving snapshots that don’t touch. I think I’ll have to set it down and read it again to even begin to understand her. Once I do I might even like her but until then I will say that I don’t really like her poems.