Hi everybody,

Over the last couple of weeks, the ASTU class has taken a major course shift and we have been analysing and reviewing poetry. We have looked at poetry as a literary genre and analysed its significant contribution to the topics in line with the previous material that we have been engaging with. Poems by Wisława Szymborska, John McCrae, Randall Jarrell and most importantly – This Connection of Everyone With Lungs – by Juliana Spahr. This particular set of poems talks about the world after 9/11. What makes this all the more challenging is that, these particular poems come under the subgenre of ‘language poetry’ in comparison to the common ‘lyric poetry’. It is conceptual poetry that emphasis not the semantic, but the material aspects of language. For most of us, if not all, this was an unheard of topic and hence, there were different ways the class reacted and felt about this form of poetry.

The class had mixed emotions when it comes to the political and sentimental aspects of the poems. Oliver, for example, talks about the two contrasting war poems by John McCrae (In Flanders Fields) and Randall Jarrell (The Ball Turret Gunner) and how these poems were censored during the wars of the 20th century in order to protect countries’ morale as these poems had the power to alter people’s feelings and to boycott their support of the wars as it contained the actual gory details of reality. But McCrae’s poem glorifies the efforts during war and hence, became a statutory reading for every Remembrance Day while Jarrell’s poem was dismissed as neglecting the positive efforts of the soldiers and therefore, was not as famous/celebrated like McCrae’s poem albeit, they were written about the same topic. Oliver uses this comparison to justify the political and national impact that poetry can have. Lisa writes along the same lines, stating that “Poems from Guantanamo” edited by Marc Falkhoff, is a book that not takes out, but rather adds politicised context to poetry and that the poems written by the prisoners not only are a means of communication, but also have major broader political implications.

Other students like Codi and Evan, took a different viewpoint towards reflecting on the poems. They reviewed how their traditional understanding of poems being structured and mundane had changed with the knowledge and understanding of these recent poems. They understood the impact of poetry as a wider genre and its direct effect on our relationships and responsibilities as a society as it highlights and brings awareness of the connection that we possess and how our every action can create a difference in the world.

All in all, it was indeed helpful that the class took these various stances instead of a common one, as it brought out the ability to look at poetry and its meaning through multiple lenses and connect and reflect on the importance that it has in society today.