Challenges to Young Poets

My Own Challenge to Young Poets

I myself am a creative writing major and if you ask me what kind of people are poets at UCSC I'd give the opposite of Ferlinghetti's Challenge to young poets. Young poets at UCSC are squirrely, sexually frustrated, acne plagued and full of unnecessary emotional baggage. I've taken a few poetry classes and it feels like I go to class to just listen to ten people read their teen angst and emotional baggage out loud while I sit very awkwardly. Also most of the poems suck. This poem, Challenges to Young Poets, is one that questions the sad archtype of poets and their work. Innovation and passsion are things sorely missing from poetry. I feel as if Ferlinghetti is half way serious and half way critiqueing the occupation of poets. When Ferlinghetti says, "Climb the statue of Liberty." He is talking about creatively striving higher and he could also be infering that most poets should get out of their houses to literally climb something- exercise. I love that at one point he says, "Be Naive, innocent, non-cynical" Because most literature majors I know are very cynical.

I feel that poetry is something so intimate that people are very protective of it. In the creative writing classes kids throw a fit if you point out a spelling error. Ferlinghetti takes the occupation with a grain of salt, " Be a poet, not a huckster." Poetry is something you do and who you are. It is very weird but people like to cry when they read their poetry. Maybe I'm just not emotional. Maybe I'm just not a poetic soul. One day in poetry three people started crying. I just want to stand up and say lighted up baby life is not that depressing. Ferlinghertti is absolutely not being snide, faux-intellectual or pretentious. He is being soo light hearted and funny about this idea of poetry as a thing you do along with other occupations. I've had it in my head that poetry was so intrinsically elitist. Ferlinghetti is just plain poking fun at the sterotypical poet here, "Don't contemplate your navel". I do not contemplate my navel.

Have a nice day.

Week 1 Ferlinghetti

The animorphism of the Dog is a reflection on the nature of man. The context of the speaker's tone is not one of a feral animal. In fact, the speaker describes a analytical dog that dissects the world around him, "He doesn't hate cops/He simply has no need for them." As man's best friend, this choice to use a dog is one made to more easily symbolize man's own loyalty to authority figures. Men are dogs and in this case it is literal. The obident dog is brought in to parallel the complacent man in the world. Throughout the poem, the dog wanders the world looking at "drunks in doorways" and "tough policemen" but does nothing. The dog is waiting for "some victorious answer/ to everything." By the third page there is a line break with a change from traditional line form to a more avant-garde style of line ordering. This is also meant to symbolize the change in narration and also thought. The wandering dog becomes a "barking / democratic dog." The poem becomes increasing scarcastic and darker in it's message about societal obediance.