California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present Dana Gioias - Book Report/Review Example

1) In his compilation of poetry, California Poetry: From The Gold Rush to The Present Dana Gioia's definition of California poetry includes only the work of poets who are either native born and raised here or writers who have spent at least half of their lives in the state. The editors have also excluded California born poets who have left the state, like Michael Harper and Ron Silliman. The only exceptions have been made for two significant California born poets, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Robert Mc Dowell, who currently live in organ's southernmost country, which historically in part of California and in fact never formally seceded. I think this residency requirement captures the authentic perception and culture inherent in most California citizens. 2) According to Dana Gioia, what four elements characterize California poetry After reading the text, do you agree with him Why Why not The four elements that classify California poetry Is that poets must be native; They must not have left the state; 5) Jean-Francis Millet is a French painter and the founder of the Barbizon School. He is most noted for his portrayals of peasant farmers. He is also the driving force behind the naturalist movement, but some of his work has been classified as realist as well. The industrial Revolution had caused many to abandon French farms leaving and endless and unrealistic burden for individual peasant farmers. When Millet exhibited his painting Man with a Hoe at the Salon in 1863, it caused an eruption of controversy. The Parisian bourgeoisie interpreted the peasant farmer to be very brutish and frightening. The image was quite disturbing and alarming for the elitist class and considered to be a socialist protest by Millet on the behalf of peasant farmers. The painting was so significant during the time in France because the peasant represented everyman. Millet purposely refrained from adding color to the man, as to avoid giving him any sign of individuality. The sheer exhaust on the mans face and his posture from the back breaking labor represented the state in which peasant farmers were in as result of the socioeconomic structure of France. Being a California poet, Edwin Markham was able to relate the conflict in the painting to the same conflict experienced by farmers of the Napa Valley. California produces 15% of the economic value of the United States, and this income is earned through agricultural labor. Markham's poem was written in direct response to the plight of these farmers. His work was also considered to be a socialist critique against capitalism, which is very ironic considering that he earned over a quarter of a million dollars distributing the poem. 7) In "Part II, California Modernists," eight poets are discussed, some who seem to have a great influence on the poets found in "Part III: Mid-Century Rebels and Traditionalists," where twenty-eight poets are anthologized. In "Part II," Robinson Jeffers (1899-1962), Yvor Winters (1900-1968) and Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) appear to have a preeminent position. What is their role as mentor 8) Lowell's poem is very vague. It might have something to do with the fact that he was an alcoholic. It deals more with the monument of statues constructed in memory of the Union soldiers in the present day than the actual trials they went through during the war. It does make reference to some of the conflicting views that Shaw's regiment had to face, by pointing out that Shaw's father was a racistThe film Glory, on the other hand does do a reasonable portrayal of how the incident might have played out. I can't say that it was authentic, or factual, because I wasn't there. I do know that many of those black Union soldiers were fighting for their freedom, and that service in the army was actually the closest thing to freedom that some of them actually ever had. This garners the possibility for many believable conflicts to occur among them. One conflict in particular that occurs in the film is between Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, in which they argue of over the meaning of the word "nigger" and how it should be applied. 12) William Everson, otherwise known as Brother Antonius was an American poet of the Beat generation. He earned his credibility as a rebel in 1940, when he registered as an anarchist and pacifist with his draft-board. In compliance with the 1940 draft-bill he was sent to a Civilian Public Service work camp for conscientious objectors in Oregon. At the camp, he and other poets, artists and actors founded a fine-arts program, in which they staged plays and learned fine printing. Robert Duncan is an American poet and student of esoteric tradition, which is the ancient belief of inner knowledge. He spent most of his life around San Francisco. He is often most identified with New American Poetry which developed and maintained popularity between 1945-1960. He is rebelliousness is most prevalent in his protest for homosexuality. He is known for his relationship with Robert De Niro Sr. abstract expressionist painter, and the father to acclaimed actor Robert De Niro. He was the first to connect the plight of the homosexual to that of the African American and Jewish American. His poetry is seen as being rebellious for that sole fact. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet and the co-owner of the City Lights Bookstore and publishing house. He is known for being the key publishing company that published all of the early literary works of the Beat generation. He is also seen as being responsible for launching the careers of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. He officially established his rebel status during the HOWL trial in which he was also put on trial for publishing and distributing the poem. A Coney Island of the Mind is a book of poetry by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It's free flowing style and portions of poetry which he wrote specifically to be read atop Jazz is very beat-esque and authentic to the revolutionary nature of the Beat movement, in comparison to the straight laced square culture of the suburban American 1950's. 14) Considered to be one of the most famous post-World War II American writers, Norman Mailer is a novelist and journalist and he won the Pulitzer prize for his work The Armies of the Night in 1968 and the Executioner's Song in 1979. At the age of 25 in 1948, Mailer came an international literary success with the popularity of his book The Naked and the Dead, which he published in 1948. Mailer's most famous definition of Beatness was to refer to those who adhere to it as White Negroes. In his book by the same title, he argues that the hipster earns his stripes by swinging where the square does not, because that way he is allowed to come to consciousness a pain, a guilt, a shame, or a desire which the other has not had the courage to face (The White Negro, 598). John Clellon Holmes defines the Beat Generation as a product of the second world war. He says that the children who arose from it were weaned by the depression era. His basic argument is that the Beat generation is a product of those who have had enough of the homelessness, valuelessness, and faithlessness of society. This need for faith can be credited for how Allen Watts found his place contributing to the development of beatness. Being a writer and philosopher who specialized in Asian philosophies, he was able to give the beat generation an alternative form of theology to which they could adhere. The end result of Alan Watt's influence on the Beat Generation can be more so seen in the hippie movement in the meditative experiments the different students would later carryout at universities across the country during the Hippie movement. Ironically, the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac is heavily praised within the Hippie community. Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, to French-Canadian parents, in Lowell, Massachusetts. Kerouac was raised fluent in French, and didn't start learning English until he was six years old. While attending Boston College and Columbia University, he demonstrated extraordinary athletic ability in the game of football, until he broke his leg. After losing his football scholarship, Kerouac moved to New York. There he met the makeup of the group that would later be known as The Beat Generation poets. This group consisted of: John Clellon Holmes, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, William S. Burroughs and Herbert Huncke. Kerouac's explanation of the Beat generation in the 1959 Playboy article The Origins of the Beat Generation was in reaction to the commercial media's attempt to defame the movement by referring to the followers of the trend as Beatniks. In it he says, The Beat Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in the late Forties, of a generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way--a vision gleaned from the way we had heard the word "beat" spoken on street corners on Times Square and in the Village, in other cities in the downtown city night of postwar America--beat, meaning down and out but full of intense conviction. American poet Jack Kerouac has been classified as the originator of the Beat Generation. He is known for his spontaneous confessional style, as well as his connection to Buddhism, Allen Ginsberg, and American self actualization. His rejection of mainstream 1950's society is his trademark, and the core ideal behind the beat-nick culture he helped spawn. Here it is very clear where Kerouac is coming from, and at the time where he felt his movement was going. The aspects of anarchy and chaos that the author brings to his writing and to his descriptions of the images that he and Ginsberg envisioned for the Beat generation, sounds more like a spiritual revolution and massive social shift than anything else. And apparently this turned out to be the case, considering that these poets were some of the main initial idols of the hippie generation. 15) The film Drugstore Cowboy follows Bob Hughes and his drug attic entourage across America, specifically the US Pacific Northwest during the early 1970's. To support their drug habit, they burglarize pharmacies and hospitals. The lifestyle of this drug attics is very erratic and spontaneous, oddly enough many of the debates are logical. In one rant Bob intuitively comments on the nature of kids growing up, he says, All these kids, they're all TV babies. Watching people killing and fucking each other on the boob tube for so long it's all they know. Hell, they think it's legal. They think it's the right thing to do. With all of the random vandalism, drug use, introspective thinking, and mind searching traveling the film definitely embodies the true essence of the Beat generation. To even more signify this connection to the Beat generation, the director inserts a cameo appearance by the original junkie William S. Burroughs, who was a novelist and poet of the Beat generation and often wrote about his addiction to opiates. The spontaneous nature with which the characters get up and go from one place to the next, the scattered way in which they think and interact are quintessential examples of the authentic free flowing style inherent in beat poetry. 17) The 1957 HOWL obscenity trial was in reaction to Allen Ginsberg's poem HOWL. The basic complaint posed by the prosecution was that the poem broke obscenity laws due to the fact that it referenced to illicit drugs use, and sexual practices, both heterosexual and homosexual. The one specific line that was deemed the catalyst to the trial was, who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy. As a result, 520 copies of the poem were seized by customs officials on March 25, 1957, as they were being imported from the printer in London. During the trial, the sanctity of the poem was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union. More than eight literary experts testified in the poem's favor. Judge Clayton Horn ruled that the poem was of "redeeming social importance", and Ferlinghetti won the case. The fact that the case was so publicized only led to the rampant reader ship of the poem. Today, HOWL remains one of the most read poems by an American author. I think the poem used the reference to illicit drug use and homosexual rape, for symbolic and metaphorical meaning to better capture the ideals of the generation in contrast to the ideals of 1950's America. The passion derived from the poem is proof enough that Ginserg's message was not misconstrued by its intended audience. The fact that HOWL, along with the Beat Generation, served as the precursor to the hippie movement and civil rights is only further evidence that the public received Ginsberg's message over time. 19) The American writer Carolyn Cassady most notably was associated with the Beat Generation by her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with other writers. She gained her notice within the culture through excerpts in many of Jack Kerouac's writings where he would make extensive descriptions of his friendship with Neal. A key role that Carolyn Cassady played in the beat generation, and women in general, was giving the culture its motive and its permission for free love. Carolyn Cassady's relationship with Neal Cassady and her open affair with Jack Kerouac, established the archetype for the female position within Beat culture. Joyce Johnson also established herself in this way based on the book she wrote entitled Minor Characters about her relationship with Jack Kerouac. Originally raised in Manhattan, she ironically lived just down the corner from William S. Burroughs, the beat poet previously noted for his cameo in Drugstore Cowboy. In Minor Characters, she gives a poetic description of the years of 1957 and 1958, her relationship with Jack Kerouac and his rise from obscurity with the publication of On the Road. Her book serves as a memoir signifying the female experience during the Beat movement. She has had the quintessential female influence on the Beat generation and aesthetic community considering her own writing, her relationship with Kerouac, brief marriage to abstract expressionist painter Jim Johnson, and her giving birth to Daniel Pinchbeck who is an acclaimed author and co-founder of Open City literary magazine. Read More