Art influences art. It’s sort of a common trait in the creative world, finding inspiration through others works. Often writers draw from past writers for this enlightenment of sorts, but the idea of drawing from a painting, often an impressionistic view of the world on canvas, seems oddly foreign. I had a hard time seeing the meaning in the swirling, inaccurate colors of a two-dimensional tree. I more so was indifferent to the whole genre. However, in really thinking about it, I suppose one could find inspiration in seeing their world in a different light. When looking at an image of ‘Yellow’ by Jane Freilicher, it seemed there could be inspiration there. The image seems that of a desk, but the deeper the image goes it forms in to unrecognizable shapes. To me, the background actually looked like a distant city skyline, with sky and a river. Perhaps it is noting on the active life of a city encouraging work, or perhaps it is like Howl where the city is a looming threat over creativity in the image of the desk. Then there is the choice of the color yellow, which is often associated with the symbol of energy and life. It is also associated with another city feel, in the idea of taxis being that exact shade. Perhaps then one is supposed to draw a sort of life from the image, inspiration that drive comes in from the mix of comforts and city bustle.

I Wanna Be A Skunk

It seems complicated, that line that Lowell continually seems to tote. He is not a classicist. He is not a hipster. He dips his toe in to both lakes but doesn’t dive. The uncertainty knocks him back in to the kiddie pool, where he drowns in disappointment. Seemingly in ‘Skunk Hour’, Lowell expresses a fear towards change in his work. Where one part of Lowell see’s the world mutating in to a new era, one that he partially desires to join, the other half of him is weaved in to the beliefs and strict structure of the past. From his upbringing it is of no surprise. A well-bred person is supposed to grow in to a copy of their well-bred forefathers. Higher society for centuries has remained an isolated, stiff statue as they all are taught to mold to the set idea of what makes a ‘classy’ person. However, Lowell in ‘Skunk Hour’ is aware of this and whilst fearing the change also wishes to embrace it.

Lowell then creates the Skunk, an image of the new, blazing with wild patterns and ‘red’ eyes. It’s passion and raw, wild in the world of controlled living. It lives off the scarps of the higher, disgusting to civilized views but unhindered by care. It scoffs at the conformity and trivial, aged ideals. The Skunk is free, rooting in the garbage and fearing nothing. It is the symbol of what Lowell longs to be, a man away from his upbringing, released in his art and revitalized in the new air. Thriving on the garbage, not afraid to get dirty and blasting the world with the realism of raw life.

However, it doesn’t seem like Lowell achieves this in his own head. While the ‘Skunk Hour’ appears free form to my eye, Lowell still ends the poem with a sense of longing. He ends it wishing to be the Skunk, not embodying it. There is a hint of sadness in this, as Lowell can not release the fear of leaving the old ways. Form is so deeply rooted in him, and he struggles through the meter and laws of poetry as he struggles through the upstanding laws of his status and family name. Lowell’s life in every aspect embodies the struggle, and he does not trust his own mind to leap in to the new uncharted land that is emerging around him.

Whether or not the entirety of ‘Life Studies’ is resolved in the end is then a mystery to me. The poem is ambiguous, as it shows what he longs to become and what he is, and although it hints at him changing it does not give us a definitive answer. Lowell might or might not embrace the free Skunk life he places before us. He longs to root in the garbage uncaring, but he cannot completely release the ideals of the statue world he’s grown up in. And it also seems that Lowell fears his mind if he were to take on such a wild life. Perhaps it is then the fear of what he will become if he embraces the Skunk and gets the stink on his coat tails.

Howl HaHa

In reading 'Howl', generally the first thing that pops in to someone's head is not the word "funny". The poems general overtone appears drenched in raw, ugly truths that are meant to shock its reader. Whether to open their eyes to a deformed world or to simply make a point, the striking power of Ginsberg's work at first glance wouldn't at all seem to come across as humorous. Yet, Ginsberg says that his poem has an air of 'comic realism'. In learning this, I went over the poem numerous times, trying my damnedest to see what was supposed to be so funny. Yet try as I did, I never laughed. If there was humor it supposedly lay beneath the dirt and weight of a dark candor. But I suppose that's the point. Often times in life there is a sort of dark humor to reality. It's not normally blatant, or obvious to those who are blind to how screwed up things really are, but to those who see it I suppose it can be seen as funny.

Ginsberg humor I think is on the same level of how satire is meant to be funny. It's elegant, sometimes blatant, words poke fun at the standard of society, at what appears wrong with the world. Many satires, while not as forward, did the same in using language to display an image that mirrored their world back, to show people how ridiculous it was. I think Ginsberg does the same. He flashes it all in vibrant images, the dirt and oppression and struggle, and places it before the readers faces as if to say "Look! Isn't this ridiculous?". I think he does this most of all in the second section, where his pokes break down the grime to show the funny truth of what people have become.

While Ginsberg does also make a few jokes and penis references that would make most people giggle, I believe the real humor of his poem is not really meant to make you laugh. This is not a poem that you giggle at. It's not something that you post up and hope a hundred of you're friends get a kick out of. It's not something to laugh at and then forget. I think it's more of a revealing humor, to show the world he lives in, the standard and norm, it's own absurd nature. The humor is dirty and revealing. It's meant to mock, to make the readers think. So while it isn't obvious and isn't something most would find humorous, it does have a laugh to it, even if it is more of a snickering at society sort of 'ha ha'.

Ode on some poem...

After many reads of 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', several hours of research, and a few fistfuls of stress induced hair pulling, I can say with much confidence that I still have no definitive idea what this poem is about. While the poem is clearly titled to that of a burial vase, the poem itself seemed to be more focused once again on the subject of art, its connection to humanity, and an unusual mixed symbol on the subject of immortality and death. First of all, the urn seems to be depicted in several human activities and relating to them in some manner. It’s present in what seems to be a love scene, some sort of natural composition, and a religious act. In all three scenarios it is a silent object, to be contemplated on what I assume was the immortality of art. The urn, like art, is shown to be a lasting piece of work, aging slowly and able to withstand the quick progression of time, but it is also incomplete. As all art does, it requires humanity to appreciate it and give it life of its own. Yet the whole poem makes references to life and death interchangeably. As if Keats can not make up his mind if art, in its foundations, can make any of us immortal. Art, in itself, is just a reflection of life and is not living on its own. There are also boundaries between life and art. Keats tries to use the urn to grasp the concept, or the complexity, of the human activities shown in the poem, but the urn, only a piece of art, can not fully portray these emotions. In a way, it seems Keats is saying that there is only so much of nature and life that art can mimic.

Then there is the topic of truth that Keats seems to return regularly often. He once more depicts the urn, this inanimate object and yet eternal work of art, as the container or teller of truth. I had a particularly hard time understanding this, but I believe Keats was trying to show how art, despite its inability to fully depict life’s complexities, can produce and display the bones of nature. As a human artistic construct, it can not really describe specifics but instead show the widespread characteristics of humanity, that common ground that is shared and understood beneath the skin of most. Art, although in its being is up for interpretation, can display an often grotesque truth. Keats might be saying that art as a subject can grasp the points, the subjects of a scene. Instead of flowering it up with excuses and historical dribble, it can show the scene as it was then and there, the beauty and foul nature. Art is pure, with the ability to show human activities in their most basic form. Perhaps Keats saw art as a way to get past societies or the individuals bull, and get down to the grit, or the truth, of it all.

As for the last lines of the poem, that was the most confusing to me of all the poem. It appears to be the urn speaking for the first time in the poem, giving some sort of knowledge to humanity about beauty and truth. Perhaps it is saying that there is a loveliness in the simplicity of an honest world, going back to the idea of art depicting truth. But then again, perhaps he is just saying things are beautiful because they are truthful, that humanity desires truth and beauty because these things appear as pure origins.