The youth of today worship Kerouac and Bukowski for reasons I still cannot yet fathom, especially since their produced poetry proved to be some of the worst of the 20th century, the same century which saw the brilliance of phenomenal poets such as Hart Crane, Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, Denise Levertov, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, E.E. Cummings, and so on and so forth. Literature and poetry courses are doing their best to stir up interest in these great writers, but it seems to little avail. It’s time to get away from the lackluster, overrated poetry of Kerouac and Bukowski and begin examining and spending time with some of the most deep, profound poetry to ever come out of any country in the entire world, which just so happens to be America. When there are more Bukowski and Kerouac quotes coming up on the blogosphere than Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, and Poe, that’s when you know the youth of today have it all wrong and are seemingly incapable of recognizing and immersing themselves into the most beautiful poetry America has to offer. It’s more saddening than it is upsetting, although it never ceases to amaze me how little future generations know about these poets and landmark filmmakers such as Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick (the sole exception being A Clockwork Orange, whereas they completely neglect masterpieces such as Paths of Glory and Barry Lyndon), Ingmar Bergman, William Wyler, Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Andrei Tarkovsky, and last but not least, Charlie Chaplin.
Jack Kerouac - In Vain
The stars in the sky
In vain
The tragedy of Hamlet
In vain
The key in the lock
In vain
The sleeping mother
In vain
The lamp in the corner
In vain
The lamp in the corner unlit
In vain
Abraham Lincoln
In vain
The Aztec empire
In vain
The writing hand: in vain
(The shoetrees in the shoes
In vain
The windowshade string upon
the hand bible
In vain—
The glitter of the greenglass
ashtray
In vain
The bear in the woods
In vain
The Life of Buddha
In vain)Anne Sexton - Consorting with Angels
I was tired of being a woman,
tired of the spoons and the post,
tired of my mouth and my breasts,
tired of the cosmetics and the silks.
There were still men who sat at my table,
circled around the bowl I offered up.
The bowl was filled with purple grapes
and the flies hovered in for the scent
and even my father came with his white bone.
But I was tired of the gender things.
Last night I had a dream
and I said to it…
“You are the answer.
You will outlive my husband and my father.”
In that dream there was a city made of chains
where Joan was put to death in man’s clothes
and the nature of the angels went unexplained,
no two made in the same species,
one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand,
one chewing a star and recording its orbit,
each one like a poem obeying itself,
performing God’s functions,
a people apart.
“You are the answer,”
I said, and entered,
lying down on the gates of the city.
Then the chains were fastened around me
and I lost my common gender and my final aspect.
Adam was on the left of me
and Eve was on the right of me,
both thoroughly inconsistent with the world of reason.
We wove our arms together
and rode under the sun.
I was not a woman anymore,
not one thing or the other.
O daughters of Jerusalem,
the king has brought me into his chamber.
I am black and I am beautiful.
I’ve been opened and undressed.
I have no arms or legs.
I’m all one skin like a fish.
I’m no more a woman
than Christ was a man.Charles Bukowski - She Said
what are you doing with all those paper
napkins in your car?
we dont have napkins like
that
how come your car radio is
always turned to some
rock and roll station?do you drive around with
some
young thing?you’re
dripping tangerine
juice on the floor.
whenever you go into
the kitchen
this towel gets
wet and dirty,
why is that?when you let my
bathwater run
you never
clean the
tub first.why don’t you
put your toothbrush
back
in the rack?
you should always
dry your razor
sometimes
I think
you hate
my cat.Martha says
you were
downstairs
sitting with her
and you
had your
pants off.you shouldn’t wear
you must always
those
$100 shoes in
the garden
and you don’t keep
track
of what you
plant out there
that’s
dumb
set the cat’s bowl back
in
the same place.
don’t
bake fish
in a frying
pan…
I never saw
anybody
harder on the
brakes of their
car
than you.
let’s go
to a
movie.
listen what’s
wrong with you?
you act
depressed.W.B. Yeats - The Sorrow of Love
The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth’s old and weary cry.And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world’s tears,
And all the sorrows of her labouring ships,
And all the burden of her myriad years.And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves
Are shaken with earth’s old and weary cry.
