To round out the week of National Poetry Month posts, and in honor of tax day, here are five poems that will tax your powers of interpretation—but that pay high dividends if you allow yourself to be taxed. (And no, I won’t be saying anything about them—that’d be cheating!)
Anne Bradstreet, “Prologue” (1650)
Philip Freneau, “The Indian Burying Ground” (1787)
Emily Dickinson, “441” (c.1865)
Robert Hayden, “Middle Passage” (1962)
Kenneth Goldsmith, “Two poems from ‘The Day’” (2001)
Next series this coming week,
Ben
PS. Any poets or poems that tax you (in the best sense)?
4/14 Memory Day nominee: Anne Sullivan, the titular “Miracle Worker” without whose impressive perserverance and educational efforts Helen Keller might never have become the inspiring American she did.
4/15 Memory Day nominees: A tie between three very distinct and equally interesting and significant American men: Charles Willson Peale, Henry James, and A. Philip Randolph.
[I’m spending much of my blog-time this week working on a new writing project, about which more to come soon (when details become more finalized). So in honor of National Poetry Month, I’m going to highlight one amazing American poem per day this week, say one thing about why I love it, and then hope that you’ll a) read and enjoy; and b) share your own nominations in comments!]
Ian Williams’
“Not Saying” (2007)
On this Friday the 13th, I note one of the many ways in which I’ve been very lucky over the last ten years: getting to work alongside the amazing and talented Ian Williams.
Wrap-up post this weekend,
Ben
PS. Last request—favorite American poems (or poets)?!
4/13 Memory Day nominees: Thomas Jefferson and Nella Larsen—not just as a tie, but as a very complicatedly and appropriately matched American pair.
[I’m spending much of my blog-time this week working on a new writing project, about which more to come soon (when details become more finalized). So in honor of National Poetry Month, I’m going to highlight one amazing American poem per day this week, say one thing about why I love it, and then hope that you’ll a) read and enjoy; and b) share your own nominations in comments!]
Joy Harjo’s
“A Map to the Next World” (2000)
Everything I ask poetry, and literature, to be and do.
Final poem tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Favorite American poems, merci beaucoup!
4/12 Memory Day nominee: Ronald Takaki, the pioneering scholar of ethnic studies, Asian American Studies, and multicultural American history who really represents, quite simply, the ideal for which American history-writing, scholarship, and education should continually strive.
[I’m spending much of my blog-time this week working on a new writing project, about which more to come soon (when details become more finalized). So in honor of National Poetry Month, I’m going to highlight one amazing American poem per day this week, say one thing about why I love it, and then hope that you’ll a) read and enjoy; and b) share your own nominations in comments!]
Stephen Crane’s
“I saw a man pursuing the horizon” (1898)
At once both deeply cynical about the core of human existence (and the speaker/poet’s ability to change it) and yet somehow humanistic and hopeful as well, an uneasy and important balance in all of Crane’s works.
Next poem tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Favorite American poems, por favor!
4/11 Memory Day nominee: Jane Bolin, whose pioneering life of firsts culminated with her appointment as the first African American woman judge, and whose critical and impassioned perspectives on the core historical issues of the 20th century are just as inspiring as her professional trailblazing.
[I’m spending much of my blog-time this week working on a new writing project, about which more to come soon (when details become more finalized). So in honor of National Poetry Month, I’m going to highlight one amazing American poem per day this week, say one thing about why I love it, and then hope that you’ll a) read and enjoy; and b) share your own nominations in comments!]
Sarah Piatt’s
“The Palace Burner” (1872)
Parent-child relationships, class and revolution, gender and identity, self-reflection, history, the need for and limits of empathy … is there anything important this poem isn’t about?
Next poem tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Favorite American poems, please!
4/10 Memory Day nominee: William Apess, about whose tragic but inspiring life, and angry and eloquent voice, see that link!
[I’m spending much of my blog-time this week working on a new writing project, about which more to come soon (when details become more finalized). So in honor of National Poetry Month, I’m going to highlight one amazing American poem per day this week, say one thing about why I love it, and then hope that you’ll a) read and enjoy; and b) share your own nominations in comments!]
Randall Jarrell’s
“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (1945)
The best poem about war I’ve ever read; also the single most gut-wrenchingly powerful poem I know.
Next poem tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What’s a favorite of yours?
4/9 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Paul Robeson, whose diverse and singular talents and achievements were for a while overshadowed, but should instead only be amplified, by his political and social passions and risks; and Paule Marshall, the daughter of Barbadian American immigrants whose powerful and inspring novels and stories explore Caribbean American identity, race, culture, and gender in America, city life, and universal human themes with equal sensitivity and skill.
[A slightly belated recap of the month that was in American Studying.]
March 1: 1912: My series on interesting Leap Years continues with a unique presidential election, international adventures, and the origins of Hollywood.
March 2: 1936: The Leap Year series concludes with a year defined by the Depression but featuring plenty of interesting pop culture and international American Studies events as well.
March 3-4: Celebrating Shirley Sherrod: A Women’s History Month series begins by celebrating a woman who should be remembered for exactly the opposite reasons the late Andrew Breitbart argued.
March 5: Celebrating Sophia Hayden: Celebrating a pioneering woman whose most public achievements were also the focus of the sexist critiques that drove her from the public sphere.
March 6: Celebrating Zitkala-Sa: Celebrating the Sioux orator and author who helped capture and yet thoroughly transcended some of her culture’s and our nation’s lowest points.
March 7: Celebrating Margaret Fuller: Celebrating one of America’s most impressive and talented writers, philosophers, and voices.
March 8: Celebrating Sui Sin Far: Celebrating one of the most genuinely and inspiringly transnational American writers and identities.
March 9: One Short Video, Two Impressive Women: Celebrating Sojourner Truth and Alfre Woodard, a compelling two for one to end the Women’s History series.
March 10-18: Spring Break Question: In which I left my readers with a spring break question about their American Studies interests and perspectives, one to which I’d still love to hear your answers!
March 19: Old Town State Historic Park: A series on sites of public memory in San Diego starts with the city’s most historic and cross-cultural space.
March 20: Cabrillo National Monument: Three sides to one of San Diego’s most rich and multi-layered historic sites.
March 21: Balboa Park: The inspiring origin points and evolution of this central San Diego space.
March 22: The U.S.S. Midway: The two very distinct and equally significant public purposes of San Diego’s most unique museum and site.
March 23: The Safari Park: A few of the amazing creatures we met at this famous and powerful site, and what they can help us better understand, as the San Diego series concludes.
March 24-25: Race in Contemporary America: I start a series on this significant American Studies topic by asking for your ideas and suggestions—which I would still very much welcome and appreciate!
March 26: Race and Trayvon Martin: My two cents on one of our most contemporary and painful American events and questions.
March 27: Race and Danny Chen: On the tragic and inspiring sides to another recent and painful American story.
March 28: Race and The Hunger Games: What the racist responses to the recent film release can help us understand and analyze.
March 29: Racism in Contemporary America: A controversial episode from late last year helps me engage with the issues surrounding racism in the 21st century.
March 30: Race and Technology: A graphic shared by fellow American Studier Jen Rhee helps me analyze this very complex and important 2012 topic.
March 31-April 1: Race, President Obama, and Us: How American Studies can help us analyze this contested question with more sophistication and significance—and another request for your input, as the series and month ends!
More next week,
Ben
PS. Besides the specific questions asked by many of those posts, I’ll ask this one too: topics you’d like to see me engage with in this space?
4/7 Memory Day nominee: Marjory Stoneman Douglas, whose 20th century spanning life included activism in virtually every significant social movement, but whose environmental advocacy for Florida’s Everglades, exemplified by the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), led directly to the preservation of that amazing American space.
4/8 Memory Day nominee: Oscar Zeta Acosta, the Chicano writer, lawyer, and activist whose connections to Hunter Thompson and mysterious 1970s disappearance shouldn’t overshadow his unique, ground-breaking, and compelling works of autoethnographic fiction.
