A Fine Line: Bridging the Political and Poetic

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Reuben Gelley Newman

A Blog Post by Jada Gordon

When I was approached by Indolent Books to help curate and edit poems for What Rough Beast, I was given clear guidelines for how to select them. The poems were to be “politically adjacent.” That is, while the poems may, and often do, reveal a clear political stance or perspective, we do not want political rants or diatribes or artless attacks on Donald Trump, his orange hair, his small hands, or similar pettiness. In short, we do not want doggerel. Rather, we want poems that portray what it is like to live in the current political climate. In the process of choosing poems to be published, I was stuck between two rocks and a hard place: I had to ensure we were caught up with the daily posting and that the poetry was “politically adjacent.” As I was looking through the poems in Submittable, I asked myself one essential question: “How can I identify if a piece is politically adjacent?”

After posing that question, I thought of the current state of affairs we’re in as a country. We’re all stuck in a similar way. Politically, personally, and artistically, we have internal and external conflicts constantly pulling us in different ways. Politically, we live in a country that seems to be at odds. One half of the country believes in the President and the administration; the other half has absolutely no faith in the President and the administration—but then we have people caught in the middle. It’s a constant game of tug of war between two sides and we’re caught observing as artists—and in a twist of events, even choosing sides. As editors of a poetry series with a progressive orientation, how can curators deal with a submission that is “politically adjacent” and also happens to be politically conservative? That is a question that could apply to any publication, conservative or liberal/progressive. The lines of subjectivity, opinion, fact, truth and fiction are becoming more and more blurred. How do we as artists skate along the lines of poetry and politics? How do we express our perspectives without undermining our poetics? How do we merge art with politics?

This topic has been discussed many times, but I felt the need not only as a writer but as a reader to ask this question again. Artists have had a long history of being political through different artistic mediums. There are visual pieces such as Norman Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With in 1964, which depicted Ruby Bridges, the first black child to be sent to an integrated school, being escorted to school by the National Guard. Another painting, Dmitri Vrubels’ The Kiss (1990), shows Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German President Erich Honecker enthusiastically kissing each other. Lastly, poet Sharon Olds’s open letter to Laura Bush in 2005 explained why she wouldn’t attend the White House dinner in protest of the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War.

This long history of artistic resistance makes it no surprise that politics and poetry, like fear and faith, are inherently intertwined these days. With the Trump administration in full swing, there have been many artistic responses to Trump and the administration. However, as an editor seeking “politically adjacent” work for publication, I have to look for poetry that portrays life as we live it in the current political climate, but that does not descend into rant or diatribe. As writers observing this administration, people want to make their voices heard in opposition to those who silence them and a government that encourages that silencing. On the other hand, we seek work that utilizes all the resources of poetry. The feelings, thoughts, and emotions can and indeed should be present, but not at the expense of craft. It may be a fine line at times, but it’s all about a balance of creativity and message that successfully merges art and politics.

Politics is all about balance and messaging: the balance of the personal and professional life, the balance of catering to divided parties, the balance of different types of people that look to the politician to help them. Poetry is also about balance and messaging: the balance of poetic craft to tell a personal story. The balance of expressing thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and opinions in a way the draws the reader in rather than pushing the reader out. Politics and poetry have had their fair share of controversy that has made both mediums historically unique. Political moments like the Watergate scandal of 1974 and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (which faced and won an obscenity trial in 1957 upon publication) are landmark examples of that controversy.

Poetry is subjective. What, in the end, qualifies as poem as “politically adjacent”? What makes the merging of poetry and politics so enticing is that the reader experiences the poem as a conversation to which they have been invited rather than a lecture to which they have been subjected? There is no one way for the poet to balance their own creative objectives with the needs of the reader, just as there is no one way for the statesman to balance their own political agenda with the needs of the citizens whom they are elected serve. In both cases, it is a matter of craft.

Jada Gordon is a writer, editor, and poet from the Bronx, NY. She’s won the 2017 James Tolan Student Writer Award and published and edited the magazine for BMCC’s Writing Club, The Writers’ Guild. She’s also been published on WordPress and in Sula Magazine.

Writing Classics Queerly

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Reuben Gelley Newman

A Blog Post by Reuben Gelley Newman

I’ve been thinking recently about the politics of writing a poem called “Ganymede and the Eagle.” You may be familiar with Yeats’ poem “Leda and the Swan,” which describes the Greek god Zeus taking the form of a swan and raping a human woman. But in the myth, Zeus also soared down from Olympus as an eagle to take a boy, Ganymede, to be his cupbearer. The story had obvious homoerotic subtext, and Ganymede’s name eventually morphed into the Latin word “catamitus,” a boy or effeminate adult male kept for anal sex by an older man, and the equivalent word “catamite” in early modern English.

Wait a second, adolescents “kept for anal sex by an older man?” Isn’t that child abuse? From a modern perspective, of course. From an ancient perspective, no. The Greeks in particular had a tradition of pederasty, in which young men were sexually pursued by older men and at least in theory received educational and moral mentorship as well.

This seems like a horribly unequal power dynamic to us, and it was. Many wealthy Greek and Roman men could have sex with women, boys, and slaves at their whim. It was also considered unmanly to bottom, or be in the “passive” role, and some poets dissed their enemies through sexual insults. For example, in one poem, the Roman poet Catullus tells his friends: “I will butt-fuck you and skull-fuck you, Aurelius, you pussy-boy, and Furius, you cocksucker!”

That’s a translation taken from a Huffington Post article by Indolent’s Michael Broder where he argues that this wasn’t hatred so much as camp. There’s definitely a debate to be had there, but the point is, however inequitable ancient Greece and Rome were, we can also recognize their queerness today. That’s what drives my desire to write about them.

Already, though, by thinking about it as “Ganymede and the Eagle,” I’m implying that Zeus rapes Ganymede like he rapes Leda in Yeats’ poem. I’m making it more familiar (if still horrific) to modern sensibilities by framing it as cis-white-God-rapes-young-innocent-boy. But who am I to do that? Is this how I’m sympathizing with the #metoo moment in an inauthentic way? And why do I need classics to do that anyways? Is classics just a bunch of Western canonical bullshit that writers are obsessed with?

I don’t have answers, but I can hint at some. I’m trying to talk about different ways queerness has been conceptualized across time, and how there’s queerness, in some form or another, everywhere. I’m queering classics, something poets like Carl Phillips and Reginald Shepherd have done for a while. I’m not at all the first to queer the Ganymede myth, either: see Jericho Brown’s powerful and chilling take here.

This trend fits into the broader paradigm of poets and other writers rethinking classics, as exemplified by feminist poems like Carol Ann Duffy’s “Eurydice” (available on Genius, of all places!) or epics like Derek Walcott’s Omeros. Because classical culture has influenced Western civilization in so many ways—both good and bad—I think this is important work.

But I’m trying to do it self-consciously. Right now, there are actually two poems: one a stripped-back retelling of the myth, the other a prose poem, weaving Ganymede in with broader concerns about Jewishness, queerness, and my own identity. They’re both ambitious, and I’ve gone through several drafts of each. In the first, I’m trying to portray Ganymede as more than just a passive victim, but I still wonder if I should write yet another poem in Ganymede’s voice, as Carl Phillips does with Leda in “Leda, After the Swan.” The second one has the potential to be too sprawling and disjointed, something I’ve worked hard against.

The joy of it is that I’m taking risks and asking myself the hard questions: about how poems can be political, about the politics of writing about classics, and about my own positionality. Although I feel like the poems are relatively finished now, who knows where they’ll take me? Their making, like the subject matter, is quite queer indeed.

In addition to interning here at Indolent, where he edits the blog, Reuben Gelley Newman is an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. His work appears in Alexandria Quarterly, What Rough Beast, and HIV Here & Now, and is forthcoming in The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, 2nd Edition.

The Rhetoric Surrounding Poetry of Illness

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Reuben Gelley Newman

A Blog Post by Olivia Hu

Writing as a form of autonomy, both on physical and mental realms, is not a foreign practice. The conception of poetry is almost immediately correlated to healing, which is not completely wrong; poetry is no doubt a cathartic, almost ritualistic experience for many who battle illness and disability—yet it is also integral to question the many limitations of such associations. As a poet who battles illness, I have often questioned the authenticity of my own work and the narratives that I subconsciously adhere to. In a society that seeks digestible, poignant narratives, the often vulgar realities of illness are shoved aside.

Poetry surrounding adversity is not uncommon—in fact, one could argue that hardship is both the catalyst and the basis of poetic work. Illness and disability here are inherently linked; as elements of emotional burden, one would expect the prevalence of such topics within poetry. Yet there is a danger in such a way of thinking. The archetype of the “creative genius,” an artist fueled by their suffering (specifically that of mental illness), creates a culture where pain is equated to “good” work. I myself often accept this archetype subconsciously. At a local reading, I momentarily felt dignity when the organizer announced the themes of my work, as if to say: my poetry is poetry. Of course, there isn’t anything wrong with pride in one’s work, identity, and the artistic cultivation of a personal narrative if it happens to relate to suffering, yet once I evaluated the significance I placed on my illness within my work, distortions were uncovered. “I don’t ever write happy poetry” is perhaps a common sentiment among writers—but why? The perceived necessity for artists to revel in emotional and physical difficulty means that work that is celebratory is ultimately seen as unnecessary, not poignant, or lacking in significance. It is only when celebratory poems spring from narratives of healing after pain that they seem to receive similar reciprocation as those that are directly sorrowful. It is crucial to break the idea that mental illness creates a good artist, or that artists need to have mental illness to write good poetry. It’s an almost obvious statement, but I and many of my peer writers have subconsciously manifested these stigmatizations.

Yet while it’s difficult to navigate the realms of “happy” poetry, there is also an often unrecognized boundary of vulgarity that cannot be crossed. When suffering in poetry becomes so raw and visceral, it breaks larger, prescribed societal narratives of illness and pain—and in doing so, often creates a blatant narrative that seems almost disingenuous. When poets break convention in writing about illness, the rawness often becomes greater than the narrative. Work becomes a polarity—it is either greatly admirable or seen as overwhelmingly excessive. I recently wrote a poem of the disassembling of the body and was met with confusion: “I don’t understand, so where is the illness?” It is this innate response to seek to understand, to clarify self-histories that many poets skirt around within their work. But when you write about illness, there is not always a consistent plot. Sometimes there is no plot. And there is no necessity in clear description of emotion. The dismembering of an organ seems overwhelming because it breaks established conventions of what illness is—a story.

My poetic autonomy rests on metaphorical extremes and jarring notions. I write this way not to break social convention, but because such a tone reflects my raw experiences with illness—they render the same atmosphere that such facets of writing allow. I have often questioned if my poetry has breached the boundary where it is no longer feasible, and rather overwhelmingly “ugly.” I find that “ugly” poetry becomes ugly when the illness is no longer something digestible for readers, which in actuality, is almost always the case. The difference is simply that every poet has a specific style, narrative, and voice. The subconscious pressure to write work that the audience would fathom in its entirety has persisted within me despite my attempts to discard it. But I have often questioned—is it necessary for audiences to understand poems completely? What is “understanding?” And when is truly understanding illness externally possible? Such questions extend further to concerns of how we read poetry, and whether it is truly necessary to gain meaning from all work. To truly accept lack of clarity, to welcome ambiguity, is to read poetry more expansively. By doing so, one discards preconceived notions of what illness is. No longer do we seek predictable stories that overlook the reality of illness.

Of course, poetry’s beauty still rests heavily on its ability to share experience; it would be foolish to ignore the audience’s importance for any artistic form. It would also be callous to disregard the many narratives that do happen to fall in “predictable patterns of illness,” as such would be to negate authentic experiences for the purpose of breaking authenticity, which is ironic as a whole. The recognition, however, that ill poets often navigate a difficult dichotomy between subconsciously predictable narratives and perceived vulgar over-characterization is one of great importance. Most, if not all, narratives of pain and struggle are necessary for not only external visibility, but the construction of the self. Many ill poets, including myself, use poetry as a means to reclaim power. Through narratives of suffering, we shift the pain from an uncontrollable means to our own voice. The emergence and conceptualization of our illnesses creates artistic meaning. Despite its stigmatizations, subconscious influence, and perceived inauthenticity, the rhetoric of illness prevails as integral to the self construction of our identities.

Olivia Hu is a poet based in Vancouver, Canada. She has published work in journals such as Glass Poetry Press, Cleaver, Barking Sycamores, Red Paint Hill Press, Cadaverine, Eunoia, After the Pause, Crab Fat Magazine, among others. She is the author of the micro-chapbook Ocean’s Children (Platypus Press 2016) , a Best New Poets Nominee (2018), and was recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing awards and the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest. In addition to writing, she is the Editor-In-Chief of VENUS MAG. Her poetry can be found at oliviahupoet.com.

Rap: The New Lyric Poetry

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Reuben Gelley Newman

A Blog Post By Larayb Abrar

Editor’s Note: Starting today, we’ll feature a weekly blog post by one of our college interns on their experiences with poetry. Enjoy! — Reuben Gelley Newman, Intern and Blog Editor

When mining for poetic inspiration, I often turn to rap artists like Cardi B, Jay-Z or Kendrick Lamar. On the surface, their music might seem just like something to fuel a night of partying or to blast out your car on a midnight drive. We don’t think of Cardi B, with her flamboyant bright yellow fur coat and flaunting of her “red bottom” shoes, as belonging on the pedestal of “Great Literature.”

And maybe she shouldn’t be on said pedestal. Often, the best art comes from breaking the rules of tradition. If Cardi B were to publish her lyrics in a small chapbook, I can guarantee that she wouldn’t fully realize her persona of a woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone and isn’t afraid to push aside those who get in her way. Being a rap artist, like being a spoken word poet, allows the artist to create a persona and find new and unconventional methods of performance while busting some amazing rhymes. How often do we witness performances of strong no-nonsense women on TV, media, or even in real life? While Jessica Jones is a strong contender, characters like her are few. What about strong, no-nonsense women of color? Hardly ever. Similarly, Jay-Z and Kendrick take on the personas of hustlers who came from modest beginnings. Performances like theirs, which challenge the ways we understand femininity, poverty and power, are essential to creating new “normals” and thereby making great art.

This isn’t to suggest that rap music is all about the performance. While performance is a big chunk of it, the elements that give me poetic inspiration also include the musicality, the flow, and the aggressive, active subversion woven into rap music. To take two lines from the chorus of Cardi B’s 2017 single, “Bodak Yellow”: “I don’t dance now/I make money moves/Say I don’t gotta dance/I make money move.”These lines allude to her past as an exotic dancer at a strip club in order to make ends meet while she got a college education and paid the bills at home. In just these two lines she critiques the prevalence of sexual commodification in society, subverting the idea of a strip club as a place of male prowess and re-appropriating it as a place where she, the active agent, made “money move.” She cleverly structures the song to fold over itself with the repeating words, and these lines’ succinctness rival the lines of any traditional poet.

Kendrick Lamar accomplishes a similar feat in many of his songs, such as “How Much a Dollar Cost?” from his 2015 album “To Pimp a Butterfly.” In this song, he tells the story of his run-in with a homeless man at a gas station in South Africa who asks him for a dollar. The speaker refuses to give it to him because he thinks this man is a crack addict. After establishing the context of this narrative, Kendrick continues his monologue, in perfect rhythm and slant rhyme: “If I could throw a bat at him, it’d be aimin’ at his neck/I never understood someone beggin’ for goods/Askin’ for handouts, takin’ it if they could/And this particular person just had it down pat/Starin’ at me for the longest until he finally asked/”Have you ever opened up Exodus 14?/A humble man is all that we ever need/Tell me how much a dollar cost.” Tell me all this—including the biblical allusion at the end—isn’t enough to challenge the place of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues on most high school English syllabi.

Rap music and its musicians have created a subversive and creative culture of their own by penetrating the mainstream without becoming part of the “establishment.” Of course, Kendrick’s recent Pulitzer Prize win in April could change the way rap is currently perceived. While it is too soon to say, I can imagine rap music becoming a literary tradition similar to that of the sonnet.

Prior to informal poems becoming a serious subject of study, epics by the likes of Dante and Virgil dominated much of academic discourse. One of the first departures from this long-form style was by Francis Petrarch in the Middle Ages. Petrarch was a contemporary of Dante and Boccaccio. He was also heavily influenced by Virgil. Much of Petrarch’s work was based on that of ancient scholars and their poetry. However, Petrarch’s most famous work, the Rime Sparse, is a collection of 366 songs and sonnets, written in the vernacular. Through this fragmented piece, Petrarch attempted to tackle deep, introspective questions of identity, spirituality, and worldliness. This shift in form, in turn, allowed for poets all across Europe to explore humanist and confessional narratives previously untapped in the traditional epics.

Today, the sonnet is considered foundational to our understanding of modern poetry. But poetic traditions evolve, and the next step in the evolution may very well be rap or hip-hop. Both those genres retain the importance of rhyme and rhythm seen in the sonnet and many rap artists use the platform not only for textual expression of the personal or confessional but also for the physical performance of these narratives. Rap music could very well be considered new-age lyric poetry.

Larayb Abrar is a junior at NYU Abu Dhabi majoring in literature and creative writing. She contributes often to her independent college newspaper, The Gazelle. Her academic interests lie in post-colonial and gender studies. She has performed spoken word poetry at several venues in Abu Dhabi and occasionally dabbles in stand-up comedy.