Di Prima Vs. Ginsberg

Both di Prima and Ginsberg write about America in their poetry, Ginsberg in his poem "America" and di Prima in her "Revolutionary Letter #16," both targeting consumerism and capitalist culture.

Ginsberg's poem is obviously sarcastic in tone, shown in the lines "That no good. Ugh. Him make indians read/ Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us/ all work sixteen hours a day. Help." His use of this primitive voice is a mockery that presents America as ignorant and brainwashed from modern societal capitalism. The brainwashing is also prevalent in the repetition of "them Russians" and the obsession with communism during the Cold War era. Ginsberg's poem is very personal and uses "I" throughout because he does not want to be included in the masses of capitalism and seeks to maintain his individuality.

Di Prima presents America as an image having diverted from a more primitive state and being more closely associated with nature. She states that the overflow of consumerism has damaged the integrity of our relationship with nature by saying "every large factory is an infringement/ of our god-given right to light and air/ to clean and flowing rivers stocked with fish." Di Prima, in contrast to Ginsberg, speaks with a collective voice by using "we" throughout her poem. By including everyone in her statements, she is making a sort of call-to-arms motion that beckons people to make a change in their actions.

--John Prichard

Full Circle

As we near closer and closer to the end of the quarter, I want to re-share one of the very first pieces we read for the class: Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Challenges To Young Poets." Very similar to Kerouac's 30 essentials for writing, Ferlinghetti's advice exemplifies many of the aims of beat literature. Hopefully we can use these words as inspiration, to carry on the legacy of beatitude and make our own beautiful bop prosody.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti "Challenges To Young Poets":

Invent a new language anyone can understand.

Climb the Statue of Liberty.

Reach for the unattainable.

Kiss the mirror and write what you see and hear.

Dance with wolves and count the stars, including the unseen.

Be naive, innocent, non-cynical, as if you had just landed on earth (as indeed you have, as indeed we all have), astonished by what you have fallen upon.

Write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance level for hot air.

Write an endless poem about your life on earth or elsewhere.

Read between the lines of human discourse.

Avoid the provincial, go for the universal.

Think subjectively, write objectively.

Think long thoughts in short sentences.

Don't attend poetry workshops, but if you do, don't go to learn 'how to" but to learn "what" (What's important to write about).

Don't bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces.

Resist much, obey less.

Secretly liberate any being you see in a cage.

Write short poems in the voice of birds. Make your lyrics truly lyrical. Birdsong is not made by machines. Give your poems wings to fly to the treetops.

The much-quoted dictum from William Carlos Williams, "No ideas but in things," is OK for prose, but it lays a dead hand on lyricism, since "things" are dead.

Don't contemplate your navel in poetry and think the rest of the world is going to think it's important.

Remember everything, forget nothing.

Work on a frontier, if you can find one.

Go to sea, or work near water, and paddle your own boat.

Associate with thinking poets. They're hard to find.

Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking. "First thought, best thought" may not make for the greatest poetry. First thought may be worst thought.

What's on your mind? What do you have in mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling.

Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

Question everything and everyone. Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and the status quo.

Be a poet, not a huckster. Don't cater, don't pander, especially not to possible audiences, readers, editors, or publishers.

Come out of your closet. It's dark in there.

Raise the blinds, throw open your shuttered windows, raise the roof, unscrew the locks from the doors, but don't throw away the screws.

Be committed to something outside yourself. Be militant about it. Or ecstatic.

To be a poet at sixteen is to be sixteen, to be a poet at 40 is to be a poet. Be both.

Wake up and pee, the world's on fire.

Have a nice day.

What "Really" Happened at UC Davis

Here's a video posted earlier this week regarding the pepper spray incident at UC Davis. The 15 minute long video (I encourage you to watch it in its entirety) shows in chronological order the events leading up to the moment where police sprayed students.

In the video, officers give the students warnings before making any arrests. Once arrests had been made, protesters gathered around them and demanded that the detained be released. Again police warn students that they must move when the squad car comes or they will have to "use force." Students refuse to budge and continue their chanting, at one point the phrase "from Davis to Greece, fuck the police." The standoff resulted in the use of pepper spray.

I found this video to be helpful in showing the events leading up to the incident to help provide a different side of the story. However, I disagree with some of the biased commentary that the author of the video put over the footage.

The comment section on this video has erupted with controversy. It seems to be narrowed down to two groups:

1. Supporters of the policemen for having warned the students. Some posts say that officers were patient and properly warned protesters of what would happen if they did not clear a path. Others say that the students antagonized the police by not allowing them to leave and chanting disrespectful "fuck you's."

2. Supporters of the students for occupying peacefully and for their rights to free speech. Posts claim that there was not just cause for the use of pepper spray and that it was an attack on the student body, and that police should not have harmed students when it wasn't necessary.

Comments? Opinions?

-John Prichard