Timothy McAleenan

Yes, Bruce Springsteen Counts as Poetry

Timothy McAleenan

Most people would probably argue that “I love you” are the three most powerful words in the English language. At the risk of being a complete jerk, these people are wrong. The three most powerful words in the English language are: “Bruce Springsteen Live”. Given the fact that my iTunes regularly reminds me that I’m coming perilously close to hitting the 1,000 mark for some of the Springsteen songs I get stuck on repeat, and given the fact that I’m going to be spending a decent chunk of change for Springsteen concert tickets this summer, I feel the need to step and defend Springsteen’s work as being equal in quality to the poetry and fiction that we read in academic settings.

Of course, I could talk about how Springsteen’s work is filled with just as many literary allusions as that of any poet—he became obsessed with Flannery O’Connor in his mid-twenties and titled “The River” album after Flannery’s short story by the same name, and he claimed that the song “Nebraska” was inspired by the Flannery theme of “taking on the meanness in this world.” And in the ultimate sign of respect for Flannery, Springsteen wrote a song entitled “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. But it’s not just O’Connor that Springsteen fell under the influence of—there are elements of the Richard Lovelace poem “To Althea, From Prison” in his song “Living Proof.” Lovelace wrote the famous lines “Stone walls do not a prison make / nor iron bars a cage”, but Springsteen answers several hundred years later with, “You showed me my prison was just an open cage / There were no keys, no guards, / Just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars.” Springsteen is well-read, and almost every song I hear from him draws some kind of parallel with a great literary work or offers a deep historical allusion of some kind.

But most of all, Springsteen manages to merge poetry and prose together in a highly unique way—he captures and condenses the strong narrative elements of prose by using a disciplined and creative vocabulary that encompasses the beauty of poetry. In fact, Springsteen is a modern-day Wordsworth in his ability to use common language to express emotion through unadorned lyrics—but whereas Wordsworth looks to nature for his inspiration, Springsteen finds his inspiration in the common man. How can you listen to a live 1978 performance of the song Racing in the Street and not “feel it” when Springsteen breaks into a guttural scream, crying out, “I got sick of waking up in a world that somebody else owns”? He captures this emotion equally well in the song Badlands when he shouts, “Poor man wanna be rich / rich man wanna be king / And a king ain’t satisfied ‘til he rules everything.” These are great commentaries on class struggle and the link between ownership of one’s soul and the ownership of material goods, and I absolutely believe these lyrics are as good as anything a traditional poem might offer.

But Springsteen also captures the mystique that often seems to be a prerequisite of good poetry. T.S. Eliot once remarked that if he understands something the first time, it can’t be much good. Eliot’s point was that it is best to feel a poem before understanding it. That’s how I feel about the lyrics in the song Jackson Cage, “Every day ends in wasted motion / Just crossed swords on the killing floor / To settle back is to settle without knowing / The hard edge that you’re settling for.” This strikes me as a perfect example of what Eliot’s talking about—you feel something happening as you listen to these lyrics, but yet it’s difficult to pinpoint it with any type of exact precision.

But there’s a playful side to Springsteen as well that captures the spirit of an independent youth, and I don’t want my commentary to neglect that aspect of his music. He tells his lover in No Surrender, “We learned more from the three minute record baby / than we ever learned in school.” But it’s not just dialogue where Springsteen expresses his playfulness; he does it in his descriptions as well, such as the opening verse of the song Jungleland, “There’s a barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a dodge / Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain.” And he ends the song Spirit in the Night with the howling sound “Me and crazy Janie were making love in the dirt / Singing our birthday sooooong.” I love Springsteen’s versatility in this regard—he can shift from talking about broken dreams to pranking a lover within a verse, and this is yet another part of what makes his work so poetic.

Sometimes, I get asked to give an example of Springsteen at his best—the moment when his lyrics are so overwhelmingly good that I can have that “Q.E.D” moment in my argument—and my honest answer is that it can’t be done. You don’t regularly ask parents what child is their favorite; you shouldn’t ask Springsteen fans what song is the best. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s take a look at the poetry that can be found in the last verse of “Backstreets” that I’d be semi-comfortable resting my case on:

“Laying here in the dark you’re like an angel on my chest
Just another trampled heart crying tears of faithlessness
Remember all the movies, Terri, we’d go see
Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be
And after all this time we find we’re just like all the rest
Stranded in the park and forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets
We swore forever friends, on the backstreets until the end.”

Obviously, the only way to do this right is by listening along, and you can do that by clicking on this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksDUUkaoqY

Should You Experience What You Write About?

Timothy McAleenan

In Professor Wheeler’s “Poetry & Place” class this semester, we had about five or six occasions where the class discussion went from the level of “good” to “damn good”. One such occasion came up when Professor Wheeler mentioned that some writers engage in code-switching in their novels and personal lives—that is, they speak much differently when speaking to a guy at a gas station than a fellow member of the English department.

Of course, this might seem to be an obvious application of common sense—you’re not going to use the same tone of voice and vocabulary with your lover that you would use with, say, a Dean (unless you’re trying to live out the Bob Dylan song “I Shall Be Free No. 10”). Different circumstances call for different sides of ourselves to emerge, and this does make sense practically. I’m not going to reference Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred” while watching a football game in the frat house. But the class conversation got very interesting when we started talking about the ethics of switching our vocabulary in relation to our peers—is it a dishonest, manipulative practice to change our personality to try to win favor with others? This idea of a split personality can be somewhat unsettling because the chameleon-like demand of adjusting to our surroundings suggests that we might act like someone we are not, which puts us at risk of becoming, in Holden Caulfield’s immortal words, “a phony.”

Professor Smith mentioned this trend to the class earlier in the semester—many stories about people coming from disadvantaged backgrounds are written by people who did not experience the disadvantageous circumstances that appear in the story. Certainly it is not necessary to experience something in order to write about it well—just look at the plethora of Civil War novels that have come out in the past thirty years to find proof of that—but surely this does raise some questions about the authenticity of experience. If all things are equal, is it better if a person writing about an auto mechanic comes from a blue-collar background, or would it be perfectly all right if Mitt Romney penned the narrative?

My opinion on the subject matter would be this—if you have an inventive imagination and the ability to craft sentences like a Charles Dickens, then of course you can write about anything you want. But if you choose to write about someone or something that you have never experienced, then you are much more at risk of resorting to caricatures and stereotypes of the people you are depicting, and you should constantly guard against this if authenticity is a primary objective.

Granting Legitimacy To Poetry Written Under…Unique Circumstances

Timothy McAleenan

So today I did a class presentation in my modern poetry class with Professor Wheeler on a poem titled “Spring” by Anna Jackson. The poet, Anna Jackson, tells the story of how she wrote the poem in under three minutes as a result of e-mail correspondence with a friend, and the poem made it into the anthologized collections produced by Bill Manhire.

For me, this raises the question as to whether a poem’s background story can subtract from the poem’s legitimacy. If we know that a poem was written in a hurry, is it fair to discount the substance and craftsmanship if we have an admission from the author that the poem did not receive much disciplined effort? The history of poetry is filled with variations of this story—whether it be writing a poem about a cat from an insane asylum or writing “Kubla Khan” in the aftermath of an opium-inspired vision—we regularly encounter anecdotes that suggest that a poem was not written under the influence of sedulous thought.

Obviously, some poets put on an act and lie to their readership to bolster their own ego—William F. Buckley often bragged that he wrote most of his New York Times editorials in ten minutes (as opposed to his National Review editorials that he claimed to spend forty-five minutes working on), and this was all a part of his “Look at how brilliant I am, I can do this without effort” schtick. Most likely, WFB spent more than ten minutes writing his editorial columns, but he liked to create the myth to enhance his own reputation for erudite brilliance.

Should we assume that these anecdotes about poetry written in sub-optimal conditions are true? If so, does this add or take away anything from our interpretation of the poem? Or should we let the content stand for itself? If Bill Manhire was sitting next to Anna Jackson and saw her write “Spring” in under three minutes, would he then include it in his anthology? We like to think of poetry as something that can’t be bogged down by context like that—once it’s written, it ceases to be the author’s—but I wonder if it is foolish to discuss literary devices as if the author deliberately crafted them when they happen to be a happy coincidence of quick or impaired thinking.

Follow the link so you can read Anna Jackson’s poem and make your own call

http://www.nzetc.org/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP10/t1-g1-t14-body-d1.html

The Unintended Consequences of the Steve Jobs Biography

Timothy McAleenan

When we look at the grand scope of the influence of novels on American life throughout its history, I’m guessing that most English professors would lament that well-written novels have not managed to change the discourse in America as much as they wish it would have. Certainly, there have been some books with particularly strong consequences—Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a possibly contributing factor to the American Civil War, and Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” sharply affected the American dialogue on life for factory workers—but most literary works fail to achieve their mark on mainstream discourse.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Bio as Bible: Managers Imitate Steve Jobs” points to the unintended consequences of Walter Isaacson’s biography on the Apple co-founder. Managers across the country are reportedly missing the point of what made Steve Jobs a success, namely: his natural feel for aesthetics, ability to manage people effectively, ability to implement designs, the gumption to raise input costs to achieve perfection, and a general inclination to take risks in the pursuit of lofty visions. But unfortunately, as the Wall Street Journal article points out, managers are focusing on the eccentricities and gimmicks of his persona rather than his natural talents—such as his regular use of handicap parking, his tendency to drive in triple digits on the highway, a complete lack of consideration for others (i.e. impromptu firings), a reality distortion field that completely obfuscates what is really going on, and a general inclination to lie and manipulate others for sport. Essentially, these managers are focusing on the “black turtleneck” aspect of Steve Jobs rather than the stay-up-for-fifty-hours-straight-to-perfect-the-Macintosh aspect of Steve Jobs, and this is a lazy way to interpret the biography.

It’s important to remember that Steve Jobs managed to succeed in spite of these things, not because of them. A similar phenomenon occurred when the Warren Buffett biographies started rolling out—instead of focusing on the fact that Buffett spend countless hours locked away reading annual reports, they often focused on his early disregard for authority. “Look, I disobey my teachers too, I’m kind of like that Buffett fellow!”

Earlier, Professor Smith made the joke that this black turtleneck syndrome with Steve Jobs is the equivalent of a military general attributing his on-field success to putting his hand in his coatpocket—see, just like Napoleon! By focusing on the side effects of Jobs’ success, these middle managers are missing the point. Jobs didn’t get a cult of personality because he parked in handicap parking spaces, he achieved success by creating an aesthetically pleasing personal computer that could slowly take away market share from the global behemoth Microsoft. This goes to show just how many unintended consequences have affected the interpretation of this book, and it seems to me that the focus on the wild aspects of the Steve Jobs persona overlook the true ingredients of his success: a relentless drive, brilliant marketing instincts, and good old fashioned hard work.

Political Agendas & Poetry

Timothy McAleenan

In class, Professor Smith briefly commented on the passing of the poet Adrienne Rich, noting how she was particularly adept at blending poetic discourse with political dialogue. Rich seems to be a straightforward example of how a poet incorporating politics into her poetry. But it seems that there is another trend that is often at play that affects whether or not a poet or poem becomes mainstream—the politics that the readership impute into the poem.

For instance, for a good portion of the 1800s and 1900s, Alexander Pope was the gold standard of poetry who occupied a central role in the discourse of any budding English scholar. An analysis of “The Rape of the Lock” was a basic “Introduction to English Poetry 101” element of any university curriculum for a large portion of the past three hundred years. However, that has slowly started to change over the past five to six decades, as many English scholars began to accuse Pope’s works of promoting sexism, as well as the inferior intelligence of women in comparison to men. Since most feminist interpretations of Pope’s work endorse the viewpoint of his sexism, Pope has gradually begun to recede from English curricula across the country due to his perceived sexism.

Of course, this plays out in the other direction as well. When William Wordsworth put out Lyrical Ballads, he chose to place Samuel Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” first in the original edition. Because most readers at the time were looking for straightforward language that depicted “emotion recollected in tranquility”, they were generally turned off by Wordsworth’s decision to include the clunky, archaic and oftentimes bizarre Mariner poem at the beginning. The contemporary politics at the turn of the century largely rejected Coleridge’s poem as an “injury to the volume”, but when we press the fast-forward button to 2012, we can see that Coleridge’s poem is the most enduring part of Lyrical Ballads, save for Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey.

Personally, I think it’s a shame that Alexander Pope will most likely have less notoriety in the year 2030 than he has today. My general approach to the politicization of authors (in identity politics) would be this—include the historically significant poems, and then have a conversation on their virtues and their failings. Instead of slowly removing The Rape of the Lock from the debate, I think we should continue to include it, and the detractors can use that opportunity to explain their objections to his work. If they are truly right, they ought to be able to make their arguments convincingly enough to persuade others.

Putting Recreational Reading to “The Flannery O’Connor Test”

Timothy McAleenan

Flannery O’Connor once said that she stops reading a book the moment that she “would not feel a sense of loss if she were to quit reading.” Professor Smith has mentioned that he regularly reads a twenty to thirty page story and thinks something to the effect of, “This story really begins on page eight.” For the past four years, the English majors have been living in a bubble in the sense that we do not get to decide whether we want to continue reading the work or not—if a teacher assigns a work, we’re obligated to finish it.

But what happens when you enter the realm of recreational reading? If the book isn’t interesting, should we stop reading and turn on Mad Men, or should we work our way through it, and earn our way to the meat of the novel, as if we’re eating lobster? In my personal experience, I feel that way about William Faulkner’s work. I really like the idea of William Faulkner, and I have a great interest in many of the themes, motifs, and sense of nostalgia that animates his texts. But with the exceptions of the short story A Rose for Emily and The Sound and the Fury, I haven’t particularly enjoyed the experience of reading a William Faulkner work—getting through Flags in the Dust felt more like a chore to me than an exhilarating reading experience. Yet, once I was done with the work, I was glad that I read it.

I was willing to slog through Flags in the Dust because I was aware of Faulkner’s reputation and I had a good idea of the subject matter at hand before I even read it. But what happens when we’re dealing with no-named authors writing on topics we’re not familiar with? At that point, it’s like picking a piece in the box of chocolates, but some of the options…aren’t chocolate.

If you’re fifty pages into a novel that’s yet to impress you, what do you do? Do you work your way through it, hoping to find the nugget that makes the experience worthwhile, or do you adopt the “life’s too short mentality” and simply give up on it? My attitude on the matter is this: if the author has a well-earned reputation for quality, I’m going to be charitable and give the book a couple chances to capture my interest. But if I’m doing the equivalent of perusing a book on the rack at a bookstore by some Johnny Come Lately, then I’m much more inclined to move on to the next option, as if I’m cable surfing on the television.

Interview With Reginald Stinson (AKA Prince Hollywood)

Timothy McAleenan

Listen To Song: Get Her First

Earlier this afternoon, I had the fortune of conducting an interview with Reginald Stinson, an up-and-coming rapper in Queens, New York better known as “Prince Hollywood”. Hollywood has a budding reputation for well-written lyrics backed up by strong beats that reflect the intensity of his personal feelings on the subject matter at hand. Hollywood was born in Butler, Georgia, but moved to the South Side of Queens when he was five years old. He started writing music when he was eleven, and started focusing on the relationship between conveying authentic emotion within the confines of well-written lyrics while serving a short prison sentence around 1995. His career took off in 2009-2010 with the release of his album “Hollywood Star”, which is a tribute and successful collaboration with Warren “Dirty War” Davis and another popular Manhattan rapper, Red Viper. Currently, Hollywood is working on the album “Under Dog’s Volume 1” which features the mix tape “Project G.E.D.” Hollywood regularly performs at night clubs and concerts in Georgia and New York, and will be making a live performance at Washington & Lee University in May 2012.

*You can access Young Hollywood’s music by visiting the website www.soundcloud.com/younghollywood

Mr. Hollywood. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to conduct this interview. I really appreciate that. My first question for you is this: What made you decide to abandon the name Reginald in favor of your stage name, Young Hollywood?

It all has to do with how I live my life. Obviously, everyone wants to go to Hollywood and live a Hollywood lifestyle, but we can’t all go to California. So I try to live a Hollywood kind of life. Every day, I live the glamour, I got the “here and there” mindset, while not forgetting about tomorrow. Everything I do is energy, that’s why I’m Hollywood.

Very nice. I was hoping to talk to you for a minute about your debut album, “Hollywood Star,” that sort of put you on the map in the Queens scene. What do you think it was about the album that has made it such a big success?

Well, the album is all about real feeling, and laying down rhymes that it tell it like it is. People can relate to that. When they know you’re being real with them, and spitting out truth, you get a response. I worked with my longtime partners “Dirty War” and “Red Viper”, and they both bring the killer stage presence. They were there for me at “Fourth Ward” and “P.A.N.I.C”, and I’m grateful for their supportive collaboration. It’s hard not to make it big when you’ve got that kind of energy on stage.

Fourth Ward and Panic. Any chance you could elaborate on that for us?

Absolutely. Me and Dirty War came from the Fourth Ward of Butler, Georgia, and we make sure that no matter how big we get, we never forget where we come from. It’s about being true to ourselves, and making sure that we don’t ever lose sight of ourselves. Panic is actually an acronym, P.A.N.I.C.,that Dirty War came up with to fight the discrimination we had to deal with growing up. It stands for “Put All N-words in Check”. That was the mentality of a lot of people who hated us, fronted us, and weren’t real with us while we were growing up, and we tried to flip that negative and turn it into a positive. Every song, we say “Fourth Ward! Panic!” to remind ourselves of who we are, where we came from, and that we’re never going to let that go.

I just finished listening to your track “My Letter to God.” It sounds very inspirational, and rejects valuing the opinions of those who judge you in favor of seeking refuge in God. If I can say so myself, I thought it was a very bold track. What’s the story behind that sound?

Listen To Song: My Letter To God

You know, when I wrote that, I just got jumped in Queens, and the guy took me for what I had. It was hard for me to write about faith in God at that time, but I knew that I had to do it. Because having faith isn’t just about God in the good times, but finding him in the bad times as well. Especially then. So I changed up the vocals, and wrote a dialogue where I spoke to God, and then responded based on how I thought God would talk to me. It was definitely my most daring song, and I’ve been lucky that most of my fans such as yourself have overwhelmingly responded positive to it. If people look to my work ten years from now, I hope “Letter To God” is the song that they remember.

Oh wow. So are most of your songs autobiographical?

Absolutely. Some of it is fictional, but I always talk about what I’m feeling at a given time. If you want to know me, the real me, who I am, just listen to my songs.

So what’s your process for writing songs like?

I just sit on my front porch, take out a notebook and pen, and write how I feel it. Even if it didn’t happen to me, I’m talking about an emotion that did. That’s what it’s all about it. Conveying to my audience what I feel. The truth is what I tell my audience, and I make sure to get that through in my work. When I’m up front and honest with you, and you know I’m not fronting you, then we’re there.

What has been your best performance lately?

I recently peformed at a couple of night clubs in Queens with Dirty War, and that was a killer success. I’m from Georgia, so I’ve played there as well, but there’s nothing quite like putting on a show in New York.

If you were from Butler, GA, how’d you work your way to New York?

My mom and my brothers moved out of Georgia and went to New York where she was originally from, when I was five. My dad’s family is from Georgia, and I still go there from time to time.

What do your parents think of your rap career?

They’ve never seen me live before, but they’ve both listened to my songs on my album. They might like it if I was still working other jobs, but I do what I can do. They support what makes me happy, and I’m thankful for that.

What other kinds of jobs have you worked on, or do you focus on rap exclusively?

You know, I’m in vocational school, becoming a medical office assistant. I wish I could spend all day writing, but for now, it’s just a weekend gig. I’m putting out music that’s true to myself, and that’s where I’m at right now. I want to reach the point where I can rap exclusively, but I got to provide for my little shorty, Murda, and our kids. They’re the center of my life, and if you listen to my music, you’ll get that.

Thank you so much for you time today, Young Hollywood. I really appreciate that. Do you have any parting words for those of us reading at home?

Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. Never lose sight of yourself, stay true to who you are, and if you want it, go get it. Life’s too short to worry about other people judging you. Doing your own thing everday is what makes you happy. I do what I want, where I want, with who I want, and that’s all you can ever ask of yourself. That’s where it’s at.

Thank you, Hollywood. We look forward to seeing you on campus in May.

Comments [on the progress of the website]

Timothy McAleenan

(1) I know I’ve touched on this in previous comments, but I was wondering if there was some way we could create a live stream somewhere on the page. One of the risks of running a website that only updates several times per year is that it can easily look ‘stale’ or unattended—if we could add a link to Poetry Daily that includes a stream of their updates, it could add an element of freshness to the website, which I think would be rather helpful.

(2) I don’t if this has been addressed, but on the main page, have we considered turning the author’s name into a clickable link? I know this is largely a matter of discretion and personal taste, but I know if I was an author I’d like it if my bio could be clicked on the main page. But I can’t remember if Mr. Smith thought that might be too overwhelming or not.

(3) I clicked on the ‘Current Issue’ tab of the website, and there’s a lot of dead space under the tabs, and to the left of the editor’s note. Do you think it would be possible to allow Mr. Smith’s Editor’s Note to flow out once it reaches the end of the tab so we fill out the entire page?

(4) I really like the color scheme and type of drawdown indexes you used on the ‘Current Issue’ slide. It’s very classy and professional looking. I’m a fan.

(5) Under the ‘FAQ’ portion of the ‘About section,’ do you think that we could center the picture of the dog, write out, ‘FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions’ at the top as a heading, and then have the hyperlinked text take up the entire page instead of getting cut off half-way through and going to the next line?

(6) On the ‘Credits’ section, we quote Carolyn Kizer and Claudia Emerson—do you think it would be possible to turn their names into linkable text that links to their own personal website? It’s a nice touch, and it also adds credibility about the people we’re quoting, I think.

(7) Under the ‘Features’ section, do you think we could add contrasting fonts—i.e. put the initial paragraph bio in italics, have the questions be in bold, have the answers be in standard text so it would be easier to read through?

(8) Regarding the ‘Prizes’ section of the page, do you think it would be possible having a link, or banner, on the main page of the website to whatever current prize we’re offering? That way, it would be easier to drum up support for our contests if they were in plain view.

(9) I really like the staff section—it looks very clean and professional, and very symmetrical.

(10) Under the ‘Submissions’ category, can we fix the gap between the text and the line that goes red talking about Bevel Summers? The odd spacing seems a little off-putting.

(11) Is the ‘Snopes Blog’ something that is going to be a regular feature of the website once it goes live, or is it purely a connection forum for those associated with developing its progress? If it’s going to be part of the website, are we going to delete all the conversation that show up there?

(12) I like the intern bio sections. Do we want me to see if I can get a picture of everyone to put on the site, and we could put the names in bold?

(13) I like the ‘Photos’ section. Would you want me to write some captions to go along with the pictures? Granted, the first third of it is pictures of Mr. Smith reading from a notebook in his office.

(14) I really like the contact form sections. It’s one of the more concise contact pages I’ve seen.

Good job with the website, Mr. Groom. It’s really come a long way in the past couple of months, and I appreciate the steady improvements.