Going from Notley and how she wrote her poems and how one poem lead you to the next I was imaging something somewhat similar with Levis, but I soon realized that Levis has a completely different poem writing style.
At a first glance of Levis’ poems I was expecting a more easy read, a more understandable read, a more here I am this is what I’m saying and this is what I hope you get out of it type deal. I also soon realized his writing isn’t like that. You would think by how the stanzas are set up and how the punctuating is that it would all flow and make sense without having to look words up or expand your knowledge. This however was just at a first glance. As I read more into the poems I was completely taken back by really how difficult these poems were to read and interpret. I found myself so lost and confused at some points, where as others I thought I had a rather good grip on what a poem was talking about but as Levis does he throws you a loop right when you think your starting to understand.
Through out this whole book I was reaching for a dictionary to look up meanings or words, or I was looking up names of people and places to try and get the full effect of what message was being brought out. I have to say that I gained more knowledge out of this book, vocabulary wise along with history wise then I have with any of the past books we have read thus far. Not that its close to a bad thing but it was very time consuming and made reading each poem a little more difficult then the last, except when I got to the last few poems, where he actually refers to past imagery to help make more sense to the “elegy” aspect.
Richard's Response:
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some excellent points about Levis and his poetry, especially how, at first glance, his poetry looks far easier to read than it actually is. I feel as though it is the type of poetry that someone benefits from being well read before reading this. His references to other works, such as Dante's "Inferno" and the biblical references in works such as "Elegy with a Petty Thief Caught in the Rigging" add quite a bit of meaning.
The entire book seems to toy with first appearances, as none of the poems seem that difficult at first, and even the first few lines of some of his poems seem to invite the reader in, sort of a bait and switch routine, and then he begins to hit the reader with a slew of deep, lyrical meanings meant to cause the reader to slow to a snail's pace and pay attention to every single word on the page, otherwise the reader risks missing something very important that could affect the entire poem.
I thought that Elegy was an appropriate title for the book throughout the entirety because none of these poems are exactly uppers... in fact, I don't think any of them are uppers, containing some very saddening visuals, or at the least, some allusions to some very sad or even visually repulsive imagery... cutting off and boiling a man's hand in "Petty thief in the Rigging" comes to mind.