Sexton vs. Plath vs. Labels

To lump Anne Sexton with the "confessional" poets is a disservice. Simply because she studied with Robert Lowell (who's book Life Studies was the first to be dubbed as confessional) and Sylvia Plath does not make it so. Since Plath was certainly confessional, I think the fact that they were friends and contemporary peers, and both died at their own hand, forces the label on Sexton as well. I think the difference between Plath and Sexton is this:
Plath conveys the disillusionment, horror, highs and lows of her life through her poetry as a means of release. All the doubt and anxiety she felt became, for a time at least, not hers as she transferred it to the page. Then it was ours. Unfortunately, the well from which these feelings sprung ran deep, and she could never expunge fast enough. Her work was more nakedly autobiographical than Sexton's. Confessional is an appropriate label for her.
Sexton, through her personal narrative was examining the horror in society, in particular relationships and intimacy. She wasn't so much exposing her soul to us as she was letting the dark and uncomfortable of the world filter through her soul. Sexton craved the spotlight. She was only completely comfortable when she was "on," reading her poetry. A confession is a deeply personal thing, and one who is making it does not draw attention to herself. I know that Plath submitted poems from an early age and was published often, but she still kept herself at arms length from the spotlight.
I sense that writing poetry for Plath was like cutting herself open and bleeding words on to paper. I see Sexton as a black hole who sucks everything around her into herself and then spits poetry out the other end.

Deep and Dark "puddle-wonderful"

Cummings is a great poet to spend some time with in a modern poetry class. Although his work does not demonstrate or command the authority in voice of a Stevens or Whitman, there is much to be learned (and un-learned) from this quiet genius. Most important is to get past the apparent quirkiness of the design of his poems. Yes, he misuses or abandons punctuation; yes he breaks lines and words non-traditionally and spreads them all over the page. But to focus on this aspect of his work is dismissive of his love of form (see one of his sonnets such as "["next to of course god america i]"), his dark satire, and all of his strong personal and political beliefs. Because we are traditionally exposed to few or one of his poems in high school (almost certainly "[in Just-]"), Cummings too often is glossed over as a one-trick-pony, flash in the pan who wrote that wonderfully fun poem about spring.
By beginning, at this level, with a more adult explication of "[in Just-]," we emerge from the world of the sinister balloonman shaken. We are forced to look deeper into Cummings' playground, to see what might be lurking behind the parentheses.
I wished to look at a poem I had not read before, and I found "[Buffalo Bill 's] to be quite interesting. Right away the reader is put off by the use of the word "defunct" in line 2. The subject is not exactly dead, he instead has stopped functioning, as if he were a programmed, automated entertainment machine rather than a person. Immediately we are told that this elegy (if that is even what it will be) is not exactly going to mourn or praise the deceased. Indeed the poem evolves into a satirical account of Buffalo Bill's progression from army hero to side-show act, ending with Cummings' ultimate statement of contempt in line 10:

"how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death"

A common device in Cummings' poetry is the use of childlike voice and perspective. He employs that here to show the change in perspective that he perhaps has experienced toward Buffalo Bill. The combining of nine words into one in line 5 emulates the rapid, overexcited speech a of a young man in adoration of his idol. Yet his sarcastic address to death is pure angry adult. In order to grow up, he has had to tear down his idol. Looking at Cummings' full body of work, I find that the prevalence of satire and black comedy reminds me a great deal of America's greatest satirist, Kurt Vonnegut.

Definitely Not A River of Dreams

"The Bitter River" is as important to society as Hughes' more popular "Dream Deferred" poems. Here he eloquently uses the metaphor of the bitter, muddy river to channel his continuing outrage and weariness with the continued racial and social injustice in the South. Written when he was 40, this is perhaps a follow up to his earlier "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," written when he was just 17. The river has changed from one that can "turn all golden in the sunset," (Speaks. Line 8), to one that reflects "no stars by night, no sun by day," (Bitter. Line 23-24). It is immediately apparent that the optimism of his youth has been eroded by the river of oppression, ironically grown stronger since the abolishment of slavery.
With it's dedication to two young black boys who were lynched, Hughes is obviously addressing racial injustice in its overt, physical, violent form. The poem is enclosed by the reference to this violence in the dedication and the last stanza. Hidden within the violence, Hughes is lamenting about the more subtle social injustice he is seeing. He uncovers it in many places. He tells us in lines 16-20 that although blacks might be allowed an education, it is useless as it will never get to be put to use. Although they may be trained in certain vocations, the training is moot as nobody will hire them.
The third stanza is really the heart of this piece. With their false promises of better days through patience, hard work, and education (lines 38-43), the wealthy, white ruling class is merely patronizing blacks. Hughes knows this, but when he speaks out, he is labeled "Disruptor! Agitator! Troublemaker!" By pointing out the social injustice, he runs the risk of becoming a victim of the violence of racial hatred. He ends the stanza with a wholly depressing thought. Because blacks have been allowed certain liberties and freedoms, they have once again become bound to the rules and suppression that whites have imposed on them. Instead of being slaves in a physical sense, they are socially enslaved. If they question their "freedom" they are considered ungrateful troublemakers.
In the fourth stanza, by repeating over and over how tired he is: of dreams broken, of hopes dashed, of imprisonment, of patronization, of segregation, of being poor; he paints a picture of a man (and a race) that feels utterly defeated. The tragedy is that Hughes offers no hope of redemption or change within this work. One cannot but be moved by the despair in those last two lines, again repeating tired, tired. He is a broken man who has lost the one last thing that a human has to cling to when everything else in the world has been taken from him: hope.

Finally, "Silence"

I thought I had stumbled across a poem of Marianne Moore's that was maybe less complex than the majority of her work, in "Silence." I was woefully wrong. At first glance everything about this poem is different from the anthologised material we had to digest. The jagged line breaks are missing. Although it is often hard to find, almost all of her verses utilize end rhyme. There is no discernible end rhyme here. And good luck uncovering meter in this one. So I dove right into the meaning, which again appeared to be rather straightforward and accessible.

"Superior people" know when it's time to leave, or less obviously, when to shut their mouths. They don't need to be prompted, or given constant guidance (lines 2-3). In a word (or two), they are "self reliant." A superior person's understanding will become apparent, not in silence exactly, but in "restraint," in not speaking. Moore makes sure to emphasize the difference. She ends by commenting on the quote: "Make my house your inn," saying that inns are not residences. This seemed obvious enough as an inn is somewhere one stays for a short period of time and goes on his way. It's a clever way of telling one's guest that he is welcome, but not for too long. I should have been content at that point, closed the proverbial book on this poem and made a sandwich or something. But no, I had to read it again, and damn it, now I'm hungry.

Further examination revealed what I had missed on previous readings, that only two and a half lines (15 words total) are not quoted from outside sources; in this case overheard pieces of conversation. I also didn't pay attention to the fact that there are three distinct voices speaking: the father, the daughter (who Moore has overheard), and Moore herself. Notes on the poem indicate that Moore has embellished the first quote. So not only are we hearing Moore's voice overall, as it is her poem, but embedded within the voice of the father as well. Within the "voice" of the father also is the voice of the daughter since, although Moore is quoting the father, the words she uses are those of the daughter. Confused yet? Wondering what all of these voices are actually saying? Yeah, me too. If anyone out there has some insight - please, please help!

Here's the best I can do with "Silence." Dad realized early on the genius of his daughter, be it Moore, or the overheard woman, I don't care, I have a headache now. So he is reminding the girl, in a way that a "superior person" would appreciate, that children (especially female children) should be seen and not heard. It was merely a way for him to maintain control of his home and retain his intellectual authority. This is why silence becomes restraint in line 12. Possibly, the "self reliance" from line five foreshadows "Make my house your inn." He's not so subtly telling his daughter to shut up and move on, literally and figuratively.

I'm getting some snacks . . . and an aspirin.

A Cold Frost?

Robert Frost was not a personable man. We know this from biography, and it radiates from his poems. The grade school image of the nature loving, road less traveling poet that we have all been force fed gets turned inside out upon a mature examination of his work. This is a good thing. It makes Frost a rounded human being. It makes us re-read and re-think. We get to see his dark side, which has been lurking in many of his poems; right under our birch swinging, apple picking, woods stopping noses. Once we as readers are finally tuned in to this aspect of Frost's work however, we run the risk of seeking it everywhere, in every poem. Sometimes we are so focused on feeling our way through the dark room of the poem, that we don't see the sunlight blazing through the open window. I think "Out, Out--" is one of those poems that we want to be dark, when in reality it is, well just reality.

Certainly, this isn't a happy poem. While cutting wood with a buzz-saw, a boy accidentally cuts his hand off, and then dies as a result of his injury. Downbeat? Yes. Dark? I think not. One must keep in mind certain facts when reading this poem

1. This was a farm in the early 1900s. Every person in the family worked the farm. Their entire existence depended on the farm. If it didn't continue to run successfully, they didn't eat, let alone pay bills.
2. Frost titles this poem in reference to a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth. It's Act V Scene V, lines 17-28. I'm not quoting it, and shame on you if you don't have a copy of Shakespeare's complete works in your collection. I will paraphrase though. Life is short, full of fuss and turmoil, and ultimately meaningless.

Now that we are caught up, we can tackle the last two lines of this poem. A lot of readers are offended at how callous the family of this boy are. How can they just go back to work after such a tragedy? Because they have to. Because if they shut their lives down and spend a day, two days, a week grieving, then the farm suffers and they jeopardize their existence. They are now short one person, and his work has to be absorbed by the other members of the family.

I will go as far as saying that the boy let himself die. He did not cut his own hand off. He technically did not commit suicide. Once he knew his hand was gone; once "He saw all spoiled" (line25), he knew he was of no value to the farm any more. So he mentally and physically stopped fighting against his injury - he allowed himself to die so that he would not be a burden to the operation; he would not be a non-contributing mouth to feed. I see the boy as a self-sacrificing hero.

I love the impersonal nature of this poem. The boy, the sister, the doctor, the watcher, "those that lifted eyes" (line 4), and "they" (the family) are never assigned names. The most personified thing in the poem is the buzz-saw with its snarling and rattling. Upon hearing that supper was ready the saw was also hungry, and it was not shy about what it wanted to eat.

Back to our Shakespeare reference: the boy represents the brevity of life, "brief candle." The saw represents the "sound and fury." His death was meaningless, "signifying nothing."