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The meaning of poetry
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In Cage’s poem the use of no words is the language he develops, which includes the silence of blank spaces, sentence gaps or fragmentation, and the flow or continuity of the entire piece, is as critical as the use and placement of actual words. Together, in balance with each other (not with words in a more exalted position than no words), they form what he wishes to say in a manner similar to a musical composition. And what he wishes to say is there is nothing to say - there is no one phrase of words that sums up the poem’s significance. Instead, reading Lecture on Nothing in its proper language or dialect is meant to approximate the experience of listening to a piece of music. The poem is written in a manner that allows it to be grasped, like music, in the moment of hearing and listening, not in an exercise of analysis afterwards. It is a reading of sheet music that becomes music as it is read.
The poem is set up in a rhythmic structure using measures, similar to music, and is to be read from left to right with rubato. This musical term, rubato, describes the art of a performer slowing down or speeding up the tempo of a piece in order to give it more depth and emotion and variability. In viewing the poem overall, as one piece, there are many blank spaces interjected within sentences or sets of words. In addition, punctuation is often separated from phrases and sentences so that periods, question marks, colons, semi-colons, etc., rest in their own measures, quite apart from both words and blank spaces. Due to the juxtaposition of words and no words (punctuation and blank spacing), the poem does not present a smooth, unbroken text from beginning to end, but rather a complex pattern of spaces, phrases, isolated words, and punc...
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...rked together, or how strings and brass and woodwinds worked together. That may be examined at a later time. But at the moment in which it is performed music is merely taken in by the listener and enjoyed. Cage is fighting to have his readers enjoy his poetry at the same level at which they enjoy his music or the music of others – not by discussion, but by adopting his new poetic language that permits them to interact with the poem in the very reading and listening of it, abstaining from and negating the necessity of any later experience to grant it significance or, indeed, legitimacy.
Works Cited
Works Cited
Cage, John. “Lecture on Nothing.” Poems for the Millenium. Eds. Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998. 413-415.
The poem is written in the style of free verse. The poet chooses not to separate the poem into stanzas, but only by punctuation. There is no rhyme scheme or individual rhyme present in the poem. The poems structure creates a personal feel for the reader. The reader can personally experience what the narrator is feeling while she experiences stereotyping.
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
The informal language and intimacy of the poem are two techniques the poet uses to convey his message to his audience. He speaks openly and simply, as if he is talking to a close friend. The language is full of slang, two-word sentences, and rambling thoughts; all of which are aspects of conversations between two people who know each other well. The fact that none of the lines ryhme adds to the idea of an ordinary conversation, because most people do not speak in verse. The tone of the poem is rambling and gives the impression that the speaker is thinking and jumping from one thought to the next very quickly.
... is shown moreover through these pauses. We also see that he places question marks at the end of sentences, which is another way he is showing us the uncertainty in the voice of society. Through his punctuation and word placement, we clearly see the voice of society in his poem, but in a way that tells us not to conform to it.
The idea of silence explains that there is nothing to hear, nothing to create vibrations for a person’s ear drums to feel. ‘Silence’ only occurs in space where there remains no medium for the vibrations to travel through. However, here on Earth, air and water remain the mediums, therefore, I can concur with Cage in that there exists “no such thing as silence”. Comparing this philosophy with the definition of what music should be, then “Mr. Cage’s work fails totally” (Rockwell). Several of Cage’s works were just long periods of silence. If you played a John Cage CD, you might as well have put it in the machine and not even pressed play (Rockwell). Music is supposed to entertain people with its lovely melodies and colorful moods. However, John Cage’s music did not entertain people, it allowed people to entertain themselves. Listening closely to what surrounded them, people need to work for their entertainment, not mindlessly listen to music somebody has already composed. In a way, Cage created an entire new perspective on the way music is seen and
The speakers and audience in poem are crucial elements of the poem and is also the case in these poems. In the poem Untitled, it can be argued that the poem is being written by Peter based on what his father might say to him...
Balance can be a difficult characteristic to hold within one’s self as well as their pieces of work. To obtain this quality, an equal amount of time and effort must be put within the creation of any type of design. There should not be any form of emphasis towards a certain topic unless another placed on its opposite. Artists, musicians, and dancers alike have the option to convey these characteristics in their works; either having that balance clearly noticeable, or placing emphasis on other features or a specific one at that. The people under analysis; Pollock, John Cage and Merce Cunningham, all had constructions in which freedom, control, purpose and purposelessness are exhibited. The question, upon examination of these works is whether
John Cage has always been known as a controversial and new age composer. Some say that his pieces lack the very structure that makeup classic forms. I argue that John Cage’s work Living Room Music, despite instrumentation with no set pitch, has conclusive harmonies and is in the style of a Baroque suite. This is a strange concept for some because pitch has become such a focal point around harmonic analysis when in reality it can be determined simply by ensemble texture and dominate features.
The constant rhythm throughout the poem gives it a light beat, like a waltz; the reader feels like s/he is dancing. The rhyme pattern of...
Furthermore, Maya Angelou’s poem, ‘Caged Bird,’ there is a heavy usage of imagery to contrast the lives of the free and caged bird. For example, the first stanza includes vivid details about how free and easygoing the free bird’s life is. The text includes, “A free bird leaps/ on the back of the wind/ and floats downstream…” “...and dips his wing/ in the orange sun rays/ and dares to claim the sky.” Evidently, this bird can openly travel through the wonders of the world, such as streams and beautiful skies; there seems to not be a care in the world. However, the reader gets a peek into the life of the caged bird, who has a multitude of challenges and sorrow. These circumstances are first shown in the second stanza, but there is a more intense picture in stanza five, “But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams/ his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream/ his wings are clipped and his feet are tied/ so he opens his throat to sing.” There is an obvious switch in mood that is projected from the author, as the caged bird has lost its dreams and had many obstacles preventing it from breaking
Such as the poem The Caged Bird sings.
The structure of this poem is not the traditional form of poetry, in that he begins with a first person statement then after an indentation, he elaborates on it almost lik...
The run-on line could also be interpreted as a representation of the child’s speech, which is cut and uneven because of his cheerfulness and need for a breath. Moreover, the word choices of the author, particularly words such as “snatched”, “quick”, “look”, “sudden” help to reinforce the pace of the poem and thus forces the reader to read quickly through the lines.... ... middle of paper ... ...
I chose these three poems because the subject matter appealed to me and I believe that the poems convey their meaning very effectively. Upon researching the poems, I discovered that Caged Bird was in fact inspired by Sympathy, which accounts for the similarities in language and imagery, as outlined below. All three poems deal with the subject of freedom using the imagery of birds; On Liberty and Slavery is narrated as a human plea for freedom, and makes reference to birds in that context, whereas Caged Bird and Sympathy both use the imagery of caged birds to explore the theme of loss of freedom. The symbolism of birds is used to depict freedom, as birds are essentially without constraints; in comparison to the limitations of humans, they have limitless possibilities. When a bird is caged, however, it loses that potential and is restricted not by its own limitations, but the limits set by another.
It is this moment of recollection that he wonders about the contrast between the world of shadows and the world of the Ideal. It is in this moment of wonder that man struggles to reach the world of Forms through the use of reason. Anything that does not serve reason is the enemy of man. Given this, it is only logical that poetry should be eradicated from society. Poetry shifts man’s focus away from reason by presenting man with imitations of objects from the concrete world.