inequality

Death By Lipstick- Navneeth Perumal

Navneeth Perumal Leave a comment

 

Everyone In Me is A Bird

Melissa Studdard

Mind was a prison, ruby lined
in its lipstick noir—everything woman
I was expected to be, trapped between
papered walls. What they said to do, I did not
but only levitated at the burning,
the body a water in which I drowned, the life
a windshield dirty with love. What they
said to think, I thought not but instead made
my mind into a birdcage with wings

The poem I chose is “Everyone in Me is a Bird”, by Melissa Studdard. To me this  poem felt similar to one that we read at the beginning of the year, “Lady Lazarus”, by Sylvia Plath. Both of the poems focus on the internal anguish felt by its narrators.  The struggles of both center around the feeling of confinement. In Lady Lazarus, the narrator was trapped by time. In this poem, the narrator feels trapped by her own mind. A final similarity is that both emphasized the narrator’s femininity. In lady Lazarus, the narrator specifically mentions how being a woman has contributed to her anguish, and this work has a similar theme. This is demonstrated with the line, “Mind was a prison, ruby line in its lipstick noir- everything woman.” In class we talked about how the structure of a poem could engender a specific feeling in the reader’s mind. I think this poem is a perfect example of that.  The poem is very short. This adds to the intensity of the work, as each words takes on added significance. Furthermore some of the lines create a confusion in the reader, like, “What they said to do, I did not/ but only levitated at the burning”. This confusion is probably analogous to the narrator’s own confusion. We also discussed  how imagery affects a poem. In this poem, the imagery reflects the narrator’s internal emotional state. The line “trapped between paper walls” really creates a sense of suffocation. One can understand her pain through this imagery. We also discussed how the visual form of a poem creates meaning. The work’s uniform creates a rigid structure. This rigid structure is exactly what the narrator feels trapped against. Finally, in class we discussed poetry concerning water.  This poem also has that theme, with its emphasis on the narrator’s drowning. Like in the other poem, it serves as a symbol for the loss of self.

Power of Language

Meng Zhao Leave a comment

Power of language

My  experience visiting the Beat Exhibit is intriguing. Among all the artifacts in the exhibit, two of the artifacts are particularly interesting to me. One is the propaganda ‘Black People Boycott’ and the other is a letter. Although the two artifacts display different focuses of the Beat generation, they are similar because both employ the power of language.

I will start with discussing the propaganda. The aim of the propaganda ‘Black People Boycott’ is to convince and urge the government to enrich the African-American population by providing them more education opportunities. The opening of the propaganda ‘Now Now Now’ immediately builds up a tone not only authoritatively didactic, but also an immediate urgency. The author then makes a juxtaposition between ‘Christmas and ‘Thanksgiving buying’ among American middle/high class society and ‘food and medicine’ in Philadelphia or suburbs. Christmas and Thanksgiving shopping represents American consumerism and capitalism—they are leisure activities which people do during holiday seasons. On the contrary, ‘food’ and ‘medicine’ are necessities for living. By indicating a ’No’ in front of holiday shopping, the author effectively denounces government’s ignorance, as it only cares to promote unnecessary bourgeois shopping but forgets what really matters: survival of low-class society. The action oriented verb ‘hit’ at the beginning of the last line parallels with the word ‘hurts’ in the end, which again effectively indicates the problem among black population: insufficient funds for education. I find this propaganda really effective in terms of promoting government action. Moreover, the use of word ‘hurts’ and the juxtaposition between the lives of middle to high class Americans and the black population consequently evoke a feeling of guilt/shame. Overall, the author’s usage of language and literary technique are really effective and powerful in promoting actions.

Another artifact is Richardson’s let to Laura Ulewicz. this is a letter about Ulewicz work being included in Penguin poetry anthology. However, Laura Ulewiz’s work did not make to publication because the editors concluded that a volume featuring female writers would not be sufficiently profitable. An offensive rejection to the female writers, it must be hard for Richardson to tell Laura Ulewicz that the rejection of her writings was merely because of her gender. However, Richardson still manages to deliver his implicit message considerably yet effectively to Laura without sounding offensive. The letter begins with using a numerical hyperbole ‘thirty million apologies’ which quantifies his feeling of guilt and apology for failing to respond her question within suitable time frame. The hyperbole effectively conveys Richardson’s guilt, and displays his full respect to Ulewicz. Richardson then states that he has to reject Ulewiz writing, but tried his best to accommodate the language so it sounds less offensive. He first generalizes the rejection, indicating that ‘all female volume has collapsed’, implying that it is not due to Ulewiz poor personal performance. He then indicates that he has to think in ‘mixed terms’, which involves a ‘larger’ number of male writers in the Penguine series. The words ‘mix’ and ‘larger’ are all terms which show some degree of inclusiveness. ‘Mix’ suggests a diverse state which involves two genders: although the proportions of male and female writers was not stated, he does imply that the writers they selected were a mixture of both genders. Similarly, the word ‘larger’ also indicates that he does not completely ignore them, thereby showing his respect to women and his efforts of being inclusive. What I want to argue is, although the basis of the rejection is offensive to female gender, Richardson makes the rejection sounds much less offensive and acceptable by his employment of language.

The two artifacts make me in awe of how powerful language could be. From the propaganda ‘Black People Boycott’, we get a glimpse of how language is a powerful tool in exposing the ugliness and ignorance and cruelty of inequality.  Yet, from the letter, we sense that language is equally powerful in disguising/undermining the potential discomforts fostered by inequality.