Word: poemes
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Taziona G. Chaponda '97 read an original poem about his native Malawi, titled "Drama at Lunzu...
...poem includes, by and large, just the events one might expect: personal landmarks, such as learning to read, meeting famous poets in college and getting married, as well as some historical events, such as the Korean War and the moon landing. No elaborate premises here, no conceits; just snapshots from a whole life, perhaps the life most representative of American poetry in our time...
When "The Old Life's" interest doesn't lie in local reference, it often comes from a kind of humor that is closely related to stand-up comedy. Hall, an experienced reader who turns each poem into an expert performance piece, drew big laughs with poems about Steven's swearing, and about a literary game he played in college, "The Giant Broom." But while these pieces are funny, they are not necessarily poetry; remove the line breaks and you have simply an anecdote. In other words, if T.S. Eliot's poetry was stylistically artificial and thematically impersonal, and Robert Lowell...
...Parkinson's Disease," for example, he describes a paralyzed old man, living in his daughter's care, as about "to pass from this paradise into the next." Here, being loved and cared for reveals paradise; elsewhere, it's found in sexual union. The book has three rather explicit poems, including "The Rapture," in which Kinnell describes sex and orgasm in spiritual terms. (Interestingly, this poem was met with utter, embarrassed silence on Tuesday, as if there are still some taboos on public confession, even in Cambridge...
Kinnell's spirituality is conveyed in a designedly accessible package. His poems, generally, are rhapsodic monologues, which seem carelessly laid out on the page, but take on a vivid energy when he reads them. On Tuesday night, the audience clearly loved him and them, responding with exclamations and applause at all the right moments. And, as with Hall, some of his poems verge on comedy; a real crowd-pleaser on Tuesday was "The Deconstruction of Emily Dickinson," in which the poet imagines telling off a pompous, Derridaspouting professor. It's a clear set-up with an easy pay-off; Kinnell...