13. SENTIMENTALITY

Sentimentality is the state of being emotional and affectionate to an idea. Writers and speakers use this to induce or heighten the reader or listener’s emotional response. Using sentimentality can be overdone and the meanings of the poems can become lost through the reader’s personal emotional response. On the other hand sometimes writers try to avoid the sentimental literary device to remain unbiased and allowing readers to interpret their poems differently.

Sylvia Plath is a poet that uses sentimentality throughout her poems. In “Morning Song” she avoids the blatant sentimentality by the use of contradictory emotions. In the third stanza she starts with “I’m no more your mother” (line 7) which reveals the beginning of her postpartum depression. This expresses her detachment of the child from within the womb. Within the fifth stanza she mothers her child. “One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral” (line 13). This conveys the mother’s love for a child. A single cry from the child and the mother without hesitation goes to the child. Throughout this poem she does not use words that capture the reader’s emotions to her poem but slowly unwinds to the reader her personal story of her newborn.

Even though in “Morning Song” Plath does not force the same sentimentality as she does in “Daddy” and in “Lady Lazarus.” In “Daddy” she speaks of the little she knows of her father. “I was ten when they buried you.” (line 57). She lost her father at a young age and throughout the poem mentions the heartache and loss. As reading the poem the reader connects with the emotion of Plath. She uses the same style throughout “Lady Lazarus” as she speaks of her personal suicide attempts.

I feel that the poem that used sentimentality the best this week was Galway Kinnell’s “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps.” He sets the poem up well describing the sounds that he can make. He then expresses that the soft noise of love making seem to be “louder” than the ones previous mentioned. He then climaxes with “and he appears—in his baseball pajamas,” (line12) slowly revealing that it is his son that is awakened through the soft noises. He ends the poem exposing that he is not upset with his son for it was the same act that created him. I feel the way Kinnell slowly uncovers the meaning through his poem with the touch of sentimentality at the end is used successfully.

12. BEATS VS. NYS

The new contemporary writing comes from the Beats and the New York School poets during the 50’s through 70’s. Both were ironic poetry movements heavily influenced by their surroundings, generation, and social circles.

The Beats was a radical group of writers that believed poetry was an escape from oneself and their conception of a poem as a perfectible object. Wikipedia defines these poets characterized as at best only a passing fad which had been largely fueled by media-attention. The Beat literature is believed to have changed the establishment through their radical rebellion. One of the poets during this time was Allen Ginsberg. In his poem “A Supermarket in California” is an expression of this time. He writes about a trip to the grocery store interlacing influential poets throughout his poem. He brings the idea of Walt Whitman as a customer of in a modern day grocery store. “I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meat in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.” (line 4). He imagination of this idea is new to the poetry movement by combing imagination into the real life at the same time. Being a Beat poet Ginsberg uses this form of expression new to the established poetry before him.

The New York School poets is believed their work was a reaction to the Confessionalist movement. This poetry has been defined to be light, violent, or observational and their style to be worldly. The poets wrote in manners of word paintings, often using vivid and visual imagery. They were inspired through the contemporary avant-garde art movements and their friends of the New York City art world's vanguard circle. The poetry was serious as well as ironic. Frank O’Hara’s a New York poet wrote “Ave Maria.” The poems words were written in jagged fragments of sentences, forcing the reader to take in each burst of words one at a time, slowing the mind’s progress down the page. The format was not the only contemporary component of this poem. It was an extreme poem clearly written from that radical generation. To write anything against authority and being an individual is true to this time.

Both these movements created a new set of contemporary poems that rebelled against not only society but the traditional forms of poetry before them.

11. PLAIN VERSE FACTS

Free verse is a term describing various styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or rhyme, but that still are recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be part of a coherent whole defined by Wikipedia. The poets of Plainspeech, Free Verse, and everyday “Mere” facts are using a language that is more familiar to the daily reader. When using a more common language the poet can be more plainspoken without relying on other words to convey their poems message.

The use of common language does not restrict the poets from using traditional poetry styles. In Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Armadillo” she uses the traditional rhyming scheme of rhyming the last word of the second and fourth lines in nine of the ten stanzas. In the eighth stanza the tone and style changes, in the second line “Hastily, all alone,” (line 30) is a shorter line compared to the others. This line also does not continue the rhyme scheme in “rose-flecked, head down, tail down,” (line 32). This is also that free verse Bishop uses to give the poem direction and a style of its own. She wrote this poem is still written in a contemporary style of word choice. The contemporary style is not as complex as previous readings making the poem easier to understand without looking into great depth on what the poet is trying to express.

In Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” is also written with a traditional format in a contemporary free verse style. The poem is written in three quatrains, where the first and third lines rhyme and the second and fourth. The poem has on average eight syllables to each line for the first eight lines. On the last quatrain the syllables are shorter. The quick ending is a way to be stern and to the point ending the poem bluntly, “And don’t have any kids yourself.” (line 12). This is poem is written crassly; Larkin uses curse words and blames parents in an insensitive tone. The word choices the poets use give their poems the ability to transcend mere facts. This is a bold poem to write today and even more so in the 70’s. But this was also right after the time that children began to rebel against society and their parents to create a new generation in the sixties. And it’s that mindset that gives this poem a contemporary style. The poem can be written from a person obviously from a certain time but that does not have to restrict the popular styles of their influences.