Response 3

The man with the Blue Guitar

Despite its incredible length, the man with the blue guitar was one of my favorite poems. It had an interesting narrative accompanied by a Picasso painting both of which I found inviting.  I also found structure in the repetition of “things as they are” and “blue guitar.” The length asks a lot to be invested of the reader and makes me wonder about the significance of having 33 verses. It’s almost like an epic yet song like as well. That being said I cant see the necessity for so many verses. Once some of the language begins to get confusing, such a long length seems daunting. However the poem does invite you to complete it with its aura of insight. It’s written in such a way that implies a lesson or metaphor awaits you in the end.

The Man with the Hoe

The Man with the Hoe seems to be written in a similar fashion to the man with the blue guitar, in, for example, the sense that it is lengthy and seeming insightful. However what I found to be a fatal difference is this: a man with a gardening tool is not nearly as alluring as a man with an instrument of notable coloring. Like two adjacent paintings in a gallery I view these two pieces in relation to each other because of their proximity and similarities. The language in this one also seems older or at least there seems to be a time difference between the two. I feel as though this piece is very descriptive but at times I can’t figure out what exactly is being described.

Cezanne’s Ports

Allen Ginsberg’s “Cezanne’s Ports” was definitely one of the most well done of the visual poems he writes about and directly described the painting but he used his words to call the viewer and the reader to look at both in a new way. It is also probably one of the shortest pieces that speaks directly about the painting. The image and insight are succinctly packaged within the language making it easily digestible. Without the painting, the poem seems to rely on insight but because the painting has such an importance, I see that the poem is actually a seamless blend of image insight and imagination. A literal image incites the imagination, which generates the insight about the metaphorical image implied by the literal one.

The Red Studio

The lines that finally grabbed me in The red studio poem were ”his own room drank him. /What else could generate this Terra cotta raging through the floor and walls” By describing it in this way, it removed the environment from the range of events I would deem normal or expected. As the poem goes on it speaks about the paintings flatness which on one of the elements of 20^th century painting. The language deliberately describes the physical space as alternative to everyday life. It talks about passing through the space and things not being real which is a visual effect resulting from flatness. The “real” objects in the room described are the ones that have been modeled to be more three dimensional, adhering more to rules of linear and atmospheric perspective; two structural elements of renaissance illusions of space.

American Gothic

The American Gothic poem was like an interesting little stream of consciousness. The tone and diction were of someone speculating about all the things possibly in the situation, but not depicted visually in the painting. The poem even starts with the phrase “Just outside the frame.” However, personally I’m really not into this particular painting; so the poem is interesting because it’s like I’m peering into the rambling mind of someone else looking at this painting who is perhaps also not so into it. The poem ends on a note that is darkly comic and in my own mind I imagine the ending of a little ditty that would’ve gone along with it to emphasize the morbid humor.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Because Thirteen ways of looking at a black bird is in so many parts I am remind of the man with the blue guitar. However this poem is much shorter in the length of its stanzas as well as the number of parts it is in, making it easier to read through. The stanzas are however non sequential which sets it apart from man with the blue guitar and frees it from having a plot structure influence its length. This liberty was utilized by using such a symbolic number as a limitation. The visuals seemed arbitrary to the point where I would have overlooked them if their arbitrariness didn’t catch me. I wish the visuals interpreted the title in some metaphorical or engaging way as in thirteen ways of “looking”. Otherwise why have the pictures if they aren’t adding to or informing the text.

A Red Figured Cup of the Onesimos Painter

I almost wish he just didn’t if the text hadn’t added so much to the piece by limiting the interpretation to the point of being intentional.  The imagery is vivid almost too vivid. The imagination is addressed in its lack there of. It addresses a stark and taboo realism that act as a sort of historical allusion creating insight for the viewer and reader into an actualized situation. The language is almost grotesque but I can’t overlook the fact that the blend is well done.