THE USE OR AVOIDANCE OF SENTIMENTALITY IN POEMS

I will discuss the issue of sentimentality in two poems from the readings. The

poems that I will discuss include "The Truth the Dead know" by Anne Sexton

and "Momentos 1" by W.D. Snodgrass. It is my conclusion that Sexton's poem was

written with the author having the protagonist avoid sentimentality while the poem

written by Snodgrass describes a protagonist that expresses sentimentality.

The poem "The Truth The Dead know" by Anne Sexton apparently tells the story of a

person who has lost both parents in a short period of time in quick succession. The

protagonist is acknowledging the passing of the parents but apparently refuses to be

broken by grief, and avoid sentimentality. An excerpt from the poem can illustrate

this:

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse,
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

The poem "Momentos 1" by W.D. Snodgrass, relates the story of a man who once

loved a woman through WWII when he went ot war and fought Japanese forces. He later

got married to this woman and eventually divorced. The author did not avoid

sentimentality and used sentimental language when writing the poem. An example of

this can be seen from the following excerpt:

Then through the war and those two long years
Overseas, the Japanese dead in their shacks
Among dishes, dolls, and lost shoes; I carried
This glimpse of you, there, to choke down my fear,
Prove it had been, that it might come back.
That was before we got married.

Sentimentality has been both used and avoided by these two poets.

COMPARISON OF POEMS FROM THE "BEATS" AND "NEW YORK" SCHOOLS.

I intend to compare two poems from the "Beats" and the "New York" schools. The poems that I will discuss are "Sometime

During Eternity" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of the Beats and " Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams" by Kenneth

Koch of the New York school. My first impression when reading these poems was that both of these poems share the

similarity of being rather comedic in nature. They appear to differ in the way that the verses are constructed.

The poem "Sometime During Eternity" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a poem that discusses the legacy and death of Jesus

Christ and casts doubt on the authenticity of the scrolls discovered in the Dead Sea in 1947. It displays the use of "cool" or

"hip" language and this is one of the first things that I noticed. I also noticed that the versification was rather different in its

layout from the structures that we have been dealing with in the class till this point. An example can be seen in an excerpt

from the poem:

Sometime during eternity
some guys show up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter

In the poem "Variantions on a Theme by William Carlos Williams" by Kenneth Koch, the antagonist is comically relaying to

the protagonist several devious things that he has done to her. The versification scheme in this poem is different from the

type I observed in the poem by Ferlinghetti. The number of lines per stanza alternated between four and three lines. An

example of the hilarity that I found in this poem that is similar to the comedic nature of the poem by Ferlinghetti can be

seen in the following excerpt:

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy, and
I wanted you here in the ward, where I am the doctor.

VERSIFICATION AND A COMPARISON OF POEMS

Versification can be described as the way a poet decides to arrange the structure of a poem as relates to the formation of

verses. Versification can involve fixed verse and rhyme forms or Free Verse. Free Verse poems are poems that are written

with verses that do not follow a set format for sentence length or rhyme scheme. The poems that are currently being studied

mostly follow the Free Verse format, but also share some characteristics that are similar to poems that the class has studied

in the past.

The poems I will discuss are both written by Randall Jarrellr and are entitled "The Death of The Ball Turret Gunner," and "Next

Day." These poems are as poetic as those written in previous eras because they not only use Free Verse as can be seen in

other poems but they also employ the use of poetic elements such as figures of speech, such as metaphor.

The poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" discusses the experience of an airman who is stationed on a Bomber

aircraft and is ordered to operate the machine guns in the "ball turret" of the aircraft. Metaphor is very apparent in the poem

as can be seen from an excerpt:

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loossed from its dream of life,

In the poem "Next Day" the use of metaphor is also used extensively. The protagonist is an old lady who relates that she is

doing shopping and wishes that a boy that is helping her would "notice" her. She explains that as a younger woman she was

"noticed" all the time by the world but does not experience this as much at her current age. This can be compared to her not

paying much attention to the individuality of the poultry she had just purchase. An example of this can be seen from and

excerpt from the poem:

... Now that I'm old, my wish
Is womanish:
That the boy putting groceries in my car
See me. It bewilders me he doesn't see me.

The use of figures of speech like metaphor is common in these essays and those written in previous eras and I believe that

the poetic nature of these poems can easily be observed