Louis Jenkins

My favorite poem by Louis Jenkins was "Afterlife." I thought it was a really witty and interesting take on a pretty huge topic. I bet if I had a nickel for every poet that's tried to tackle "life" or even more specifically "looking back on life" I'd... have a fair amount of nickels. I've read some pretty boring poems on this subject, too; yet when I read Jenkins' "Afterlife" I found myself chuckling at the humor and nodding along the way as he made pretty profound statements about how humans reflect on life.

"Most of the time I was confused… and there was way too much sex and violence."
"Violence anyway," he says.

I find this hilarious. In addition, look at this line, one of the poem's speakers' take on life:

"The whole thing lacked subtlety."

I also found this amusing. I won't try to pick apart the language, but I love this way of pretty accurately describing life using a phrase we hear a lot when referring to film. "Subtlety" is such a sought after quality of film - how does this word feel when we apply it to real life? I don't know. I think it's kind of a deep thing to think about.

This quality of Jenkins' writing that I liked - that is, combining wit and humor with profound statements about the human condition - turned out to pop up elsewhere in his poetry (go figure!). Here's a short poem entitled "Big Brown Pills:"

~~~
I believe in the big brown pills, they lower cholesterol and
improve digestion. They help prevent cancer and build
brain cells. Plus they just make you feel better overall. I
believe in coffee and beet greens and fish oil, of course,
and red wine, in moderation, and cinnamon. Green tea is
good and black tea, ginseng. I eat my broccoli. Nuts are
very good and dark chocolate, has to be dark, not milk
chocolate. Tomatoes. But I think the big brown pills really

help. I used to believe in the little yellow pills but now I
believe in the big brown pills. I believe that they are much
more effective. I still take the little yellow ones, but I really
believe in the big brown ones.
~~~

This poem was a little less heavy than "Afterlife" simply because it didn't tackle such a profound topic. Yet it still retains that quality that I enjoyed. It's goofy. The way Jenkins writes about people's weird ideas about nutrition is pretty funny. Then he looks at a sort of deeper idea - modern society's blind faith in prescription meds and their magic-like benefits. Another poet might have written a really dreary rant about how Americans are constantly taking pills and such. Instead, Jenkins writes about the "big brown pills" in a way that not only is funny but also highlights the point he's trying to make, that is the borderline-brainwashed nature of the pill-taker.

Poetry Journal: MUZZLE

For my poetry journal blog post I took a look at the MUZZLE Magazine online blog. For a while now, the blog has been focusing on the theme of "30 Poets in Their 30s." The goal of this theme was to highlight the poetry of those who are at an age where it's not easy to be a working poet. Laura Swearingen-Steadwell, poetry editor for MUZZLE, writes, "Although most poets still don't truly establish themselves until later on in life, this is the age when we begin to fret the world might not take notice of our talent and skill. Many of us begin to profoundly question our choice of profession: this can mean worrying about the financial solvency of an artistic career, growing disillusioned with any given poetic establishment, or losing faith in our own abilities to continually produce work that is both solid and innovative." I thought that this was a really profound insight on what it means to be a working poet at any age. In fact, I really related to this quote because it's applicable to many careers where financial solvency is questionable. I know I am really enthusiastic about photography, but I will probably never pursue that to a professional level because making a living in that field is very difficult to do. I'm making this point because understanding why MUZZLE is doing a compilation of poets in their 30s really helped me look at their work in a new light. It's not that I see them as desperate, or running out of time; instead I see these poets as people who have continued to stick with poetry and turn their passion into a profession. For that, I have the utmost respect. One particular poet that I enjoyed was Traci Brimhall. Her featured poem was entitled "Dueling Sonnets on the Railroad Tracks." I really liked the first few lines:

Don’t admit anything. Don’t ask your question.
I tasted her sweat on your knuckles, her whispers
in your mouth like secondhand smoke.

Just from reading these first few lines, I was already convinced I knew what the poem would be about. That is, a woman who knew her partner was cheating on her. I thought that this was refreshing; all too often I have to struggle to understand the basic premise of a poem by carefully picking apart the language. Instead, Brimhall used beautiful, descriptive language to show - not tell - that she suspected her partner of cheating and I was able to understand this right off the bat. Traci used the rest of the poem to really the speaker's side of the story and how they feel, which did require a little bit of digging. I found her metaphors and other poetic devices interesting to dissect. Lastly, I loved that her poem didn't seem to follow a clear form yet still flowed really well and had a beautiful, song-like rhythm to the words that made this poem truly enjoyable to read.

another hip hop style poem

Sign it and seal it; wheel it and deal it
Gettin lethal when I reel they all kneel, ya feel?
You might say a wise man never lies but if you look into his eyes you'll find supplies for disguise
So next time you feel like one of the guys, see what their actions imply, over-sensationalize
Teens in the scene hear artists on the green rap about cups fulla lean, don't even know what it means
Throw up a smoke screen - and before you're sixteen you understand the fact that you're owned by the machine
But not everybody has to be part of the grind
Break through and realize the potential of the mind
We must realize the truth that free thinking is not a crime
Yeah, small steps for man but
the biggest leap for mankind

Untitled

Untitled

They say this generation is the worst the world has seen
It's easy to take a problem and nail it to a teen
The weight is off your back but the trouble's on your shoulders
It smolders as we get older and beauty can't escape the eye of the beholder. He wishes he could hold her.
Renovate the room, but the house is still outdated
My life must be a memory cause all my friends are faded
I sit here contemplating if rhyme and reason will ever meet
Finding meaning in the words but the sentence is incomplete
Clock on a gun, you could call that ish a timepiece
Through the streets, you hear them scream, "F#@& you and F#@& the Police!"
Parents yell and scream and wonder why their kids are angry
Instead of looking outwards look inside and face reality.

Two more poems

California Love

Cali.
I'm infatuated.
Hard to say
if this is permanent.
Will I lose this passion?
I hope not. All it took
Was one college visit trip. Now... Well.
Can't see myself getting excited about anywhere else!
I'm wary - wary of getting too hooked
Especially on somewhere I barely know.
But the sun! THE GIRLS!
The beach: surfing, swimming.
How could I
go anywhere
else?



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Yo. Uh huh. Shouts out to the homies back home..

Days like these I just wanna sit back, relax
Roll a couple up and forget all of the facts
Reminisce about the carefree days of junior high
All matter aside, just chilling with the illest guys
Honeys these days all just wanna snuggle
Wake up into the struggle, too many things I'm tryna juggle
Before I lay me down to sleep I pray that I can make the leap
If chall can't recognize the truth then I say we're all still asleep
Call the daily grind that rapid eye movement
Finding deeper peace takes a little self improvement
Fools saying "step back, find a greater force" well
I say we step forward, rhyme until we're hoarse
Quit trying to find the truth, take the time to look around
Hit the ground, skip town, flip a frown, slow it down
Food for thought, why don't you chew instead of rushin
If you're chokin on my words then you best ask in the discussion.

Chris Martin

The first thing that struck me about Chris Martin’s poetry was the written structure of the poems. They all consist of very short lines organized into any kind of stanza structure. But he really does like his short lines. The tricky part about his short lines is that he heavily employs enjambment in his work to take bigger ideas down into smaller lines. I personally found that this made his poetry more difficult to read. When I read his poetry out loud, using punctuation instead of line breaks, it really came together and made at least a little bit of sense. For instance, in “Surviving Desire,” Martin writes,

Coming out of

The tunnel from Carroll Street

The graffiti reads CHOKES

HIS CHICKEN EVERY NIGHT

And we the passengers

Convene momentarily, our anonymous lot…

Obviously it’s not difficult to understand if you take your time reading it, but I know I stumbled over even just this small passage on my first go through. It’s definitely not a bad thing, however. In that particular poem, Martin uses enjambment in order to create a poem that is one huge run-on. There’s really no other way he could have connected all the stanzas into one run-on “sentence” without using this goofy enjambment. In another poem, titled “The Bubble,” Martin continues to use a lot of enjambment but unfortunately does not compliment it with punctuation, which was my guide for reading the last poem. Look at this example from “The Bubble”:

I called us angels
for how hard we listened
and like angels we pondered
pain’s monopoly on the bodied masses
who burst always into darkest might
and lay hands upon virtue

If I were asked to describe Martin’s use of short lines and enjambment to a layman, I’d say “it sounds really… poetry-ey.” Content aside, the structure he uses breaks the rules of normal writing and really sets itself apart as stereotypical “poetry.” I think that was the strongest common theme that I noticed throughout his writing.