Poems, Poems, Poems

And again this week, there were many poems that still didn't make any sense to me. Some of them just seem like the author decided to put random words together and call it a poem. I don't get it how some people can actually get certain meanings out of those poems. One poem that we went over as a class, which I didn't even know where to start when I read it on my own, actually made sense to me during the discussion. This poem was the scattered one with words all over the page, literally. The author was Susan Howe. When I first looked at this poem I thought the ink exploded, or the typewriter went crazy while she was writing this, but come to find out she set it up like this on purpose!

I found out that this poem was about a battle and how writing can become a battle. I know it's about a battle because of certain lines, such as, "Parted with the Otterware at the three Rivers, & are Gone to have a Treaty with the French at Oswego & singing their war song The French Hatchet Messages. This shows some battle going on with some country or army going to have a treaty with the French. Another example about a battle is "Of the far nations over the lakes Messengers say The War Belt & singing their war song The French Hatchet Messages." This is about some soldiers singing a war song while marching.

The author ties this into writing by having some sections of the poem about writing, such as, The Frames should be exactly fitted to the paper, the Margins of which will not per[mit] of a very deep Rabbit." Oddly she states that the frames should fit the paper, while her poem is very scattered all over the pages. There are also more examples of both the way writing should be and of a battle. The two things are linked in this poem because the author is trying to state that writing can be chaotic like a battle, and writing can be a battle within itself. Some writers may even go crazy trying to write a poem, or a story when they can't come up with ideas. The structure of this poem shows the craziness and chaos that can occur while writing and also during a war.

This poem stood out to me, not only because it was crazy, not structured like the others in the packet, but also due to the meaning. I understand what it is like to have writer block. Every time I'm asked to write a poem I end up sitting,  staring at the blank page for ten minutes, just trying to think of something to write down. I often get writers block, even when writing a research paper. I really liked this poem due to the fact because it wasn't structured and writing sometimes has no structure to it.