Poem Responses

The first poem I related to was Rite of Passage by Sharon Olds. I liked this poem because I’ve been there. The poem is what Sharon experienced at her sons 6 year old son’s birthday. Not that this is a secret to anyone that is exactly how young boys act together. It doesn’t matter much on size but on who were the oldest, being the oldest meant that you were bigger, stronger, and smarter then everybody younger then you. At that age nothing else really matters, everyone is considered an enemy or an opponent till you both agree on something, like together we could defeat someone else. I can’t think of a time where I did this but I know it happened. It makes me think do we ever really grow out of this? When meeting someone new are people as nervous as I am? Once finding something in common I feel better. Ah memories, sums up this poem for me.

The next poem I related to was The Women From The Thirteenth Floor Window by Joy Harjo. I also liked this poem. This poem is basically about a woman’s choice to or not to jump out of a window and kill herself. She thinks about all the things that are wrong with her life and all she is going to lose if she jumps. She see’s other people that have done it and how it has affected the people close to the jumper. But does it all really matter? Every day the person thinks all these thoughts before climbing back inside but will there be a day she thinks all these things but decides that today is going to be different and jump. I just can relate to this poem so much, I would never think about doing this but I do think about all that is happening in my life. I think about all the things that have gone right, those that were not planned, and how things could have been different. I think that when people finally do decide that leaping is a better choice than getting back inside that they had to do what was best for them. Some people call it selfish but I would never call that selfish, you have to put yourself above everyone because no one is going to put you before themselves.

Photo from http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/olds.html

Sam Hamill

This poem was a mixture of horrible things people go through, how people are not doing enough to change the world, and how his writing has released him from the pain he once held inside. I feel that Sam Hamill’s poem The Necessity to Speak might have been the worst thing I have ever read. I tried to read this many times with a positive view but I just couldn’t. The very first line of his writing puts me in a bad mood. “And yet we go on living closed lives, pretending we are not personally responsible for the deaths we buy and sell.” With that one line he is saying that everyone (including you and me) doesn’t care about the pain we cause other. That statement is outrageously offensive to me; Sam Hamill doesn’t know what I think about or care about for that matter. He also never says if he considers himself apart of everyone, if he also lives his life ignoring all that is wrong with the world. The way interpreted this poem Sam feels he is better than everyone. I just picture his thoughts go something like this; I went through so much being abandoned, in and out of jails, being raped, and seeing the devastation of war but now my writings are helping people with their issues, man I’m so much better than everybody else who keeps their pain inside.
If I could meet this man and talk to him maybe he could explain his writings in the way that I hope he meant for them to be read. That deep down when he wrote this he was just trying to help people by showing writing can make them feel better and that people should try and do more to help others and stop violence. This is just my wishful thinking because I can’t stop thinking that he is a pompous poet. I disagree with some of his beliefs too. He talks about how on TV that he sees people hitting women and kids getting spanked teaches them hitting others are ok. People need to grow up and take responsibility for their actions; stop blaming movies, music and video games for your mistakes. If thoughts things made people violent I would see more people jumping on turtles.
I just want to end with saying again I really hope that Sam Hamill had good intentions, but I just couldn’t see them. The way I took his words are the way they sounded to me. Pain can be eased if someone writes about it. But that doesn’t mean if people with pain don’t write or speak up are assisting with the crime. As long as the person themself is no longer feeling the pain or letting the crime happen to them then that is good enough because sometimes sharing that story with another only hurts you more.

photo from http://www.simplyhaiku.com/SHv3n2/images_contributors/sam_hamillSM.jpg