Language poetry – I don’t have to get it to get it!

It should not come as a surprise to many in the Post 45 class that I was initially not a fan of the “language poets”. I prefer my poetry to look and sound and act like poetry. I struggle to make sense of poems that look like random words squished into or spread out over a page, with little rhyme or meter, and especially a lack of reason. In actuality, I even struggle a bit with Emily Dickinson, with all of her odd syntax and enjambment and disjointed meter. I freely admit that this is a failing on my part, not the part of any of the remarkable poets that work so painstakingly to bring their vision of poetry to life. The fault lies with me, as I seem to lack the requisite ability to decipher many forms of poetry that are not straightforward. I recognize this even while I struggle to broaden my horizons while simultaneously shying away from anything that strays too far off course from a typical Shel Silverstein passage.

Until today.

In “The Radical Syntactical Forms of Language Poetry“, Susan B. Brill encourages me to see the language poets through a few lenses that I had yet to consider – radical feminism and queerness. With this slight shift, Brill opens up a whole new world to me, and I may never look at poetry the same again. Honestly, I’m not sure that I’m totally ready to reevaluate my relationship with poetry. However, even as I examine this new attitude while I write this, I feel a shift in myself. I was not expecting this at all, and I’m going to need to sit with it for a while to see if it holds, or if this newfound understanding is as fleeting as a Whoville rhyme.

What could possibly be said or written that would inspire such a seismic shift in my own psyche? “Within a patriarchal discourse, the reality of woman becomes the reality of woman as defined within the bounds of an oppressively phallocentric world” (Brill 56). It took seeing those words in black and white for me to seriously consider the implications of how much of the patriarchal culture and expectation is wrapped up with neat little bows by the poetry that I have always associated with the traditional feelings equating to good. How have I never seen, never even considered, this before when most of my adult existence has been spent unlearning so many things that I accepted before I realized how pervasive those patriarchal roots were buried?

Brill argues that part of what makes language poetry the perfect place for both feminist and lesbian writers, or anyone with an “othered” identity, is that this form of poetry allows the poet the opportunity to throw out the “normative western syntax” in favor of syntax that is adaptable to any number of identities that do not align with a strictly patriarchal/traditional structure. Brill cites both Julia P. Stanley and Monique Wittig as writers who have chosen to go against traditional concepts of poetry and stray way beyond the imposed bounds that patriarchal limits allow. Brill also examines Gertrude Stein’s poetry as an example of someone that eschewed patriarchal structures in favor of a new imagining of not only what might be allowed, but also of what might be possible.

This new imagining of a world in which we are freed of patriarchal constraints does not come without certain considerations. While Brill explains her understanding of language as a process, she describes this in a way that made sense to me. Language poets are often interested in changing the world, or at least in seeing change made to the world. However, when we view language as static, as something that remains traditional=good, we run the risk of removing the process aspect from language. If that happens, we might also remove the progress from language.

Brill’s explanation that in order to move outside the reach of the patriarchy, we must be willing to see beyond the limited view of language that the patriarchy offers us struck a chord in an elemental place near the depths of my soul. In so many ways, I have worked to free my own mind from the gender and heteronormative structures that were instilled in me as a child growing up in a strict, traditionalist judeo-christian home. I’ve done a lot of this by exploring my own thoughts through writing. It is an exceptional experience to realize that one of the tools that I have relied upon to help free my mind from the patriarchy – language – is also one of the tools that that same patriarchy uses to subvert so many “others” into either conformity or silence.

As I consider the implications to this in various aspects of my existence, I expect to feel overwhelmed, but I am pleasantly surprised not to be experiencing the normal body feelings that typically indicate the beginning stages of panic. Instead, I find myself going back to some of the poems from this week and examining them through this new lens. This lens does not offer me any new insights into the poems. I can not magically read and grasp the meaning of the poems better now than before I read the Brill article. What it has done is offer me a deeper appreciation for the poets that created the poems. They were striving to create something outside the lines, because that’s where they see or experience or define their own existence. I don’t have to understand their poems to recognize the value in that. I don’t have to be able to decipher the meaning to recognize that the beauty is present even when I don’t understand it. And sometimes, it doesn’t even need to be about beauty. Sometimes it, whatever that arbitrary “it” is that the poet is striving to capture, might remain outside my realm of understanding or comprehension or grasp and that is perfectly acceptable as well, because it doesn’t always have to be about me and what allows me to remain comfortable.

The lesson that I keep learning in new and exciting and difficult ways is that I don’t always have to get it for it to be valid.

I’m glad that I do finally get that.