Blog: "Life"

This is the first poem of Terrance Hayes's that I am reading where he seems to be directly creating a message towards someone and making it blatantly obvious. He has had poems where he may be discussing another person or speaking towards a general populous, but in this one, he is making a clear statement towards famous singer Marvin Gaye. What I understand from this poem is that Terrance Hayes doesn't seem to be too happy with Marvin Gaye as he uses harsh language and a loud negative tone. In his first sentence, he asks a question to Gaye and references him as "bedeviling."Terrance Hayes continuously roasts Marvin Gaye, belittling his work and criticizing his character. Soon after this, Hayes claims that the difference between two of Gaye's songs, "What's going on" and "Let's Get it on" is filled with "semen and a chorus of maidens of makeup chanting." This wording that Hayes uses looks like a sexual reference. 

After listening to the two songs, the song "Let's get it on" has many more sexual references than the other songs, as the title itself is also perceived as a sexual reference. Hayes's claim was valid, about how the difference was that one has more mentions than the other; however, Hayes just worded his statement in a demeaning manner, as if THAT is THE problem. 

Terrance Hayes likes to out of the ordinary. A good word to describe his poetry would be “unique”, and this poem, well it’s very unique. A trend throughout Terrance Hayes’s poetry, is that he uses “Lighthead” to either describe himself, or another person, and I am not really sure which it is. The poems where Lighthead becomes the narrator, doesnt give any specific signs of who Lighthead could be. Lighthead has some very interesting thoughts though...

The title seems to lead the audience(well, me) into thinking this is going to be some good advice on a very serious issue. This poem does provide that, but also puts a twist on what some would think is some normal advice. Almost every “solution” to an addiction that is listed, becomes the next addiction that Lighthead discusses. The first line where I saw a twist in the “guide to addiction” was where the solution to a dancing addiction, was polio. Right away I knew this wasnt some normal list, because that sentence is just out right cold hearted. Kind of a contradictory statement that many would take offense too. The narrator even throws in a statement about race, by advising to find an underground railroad if a black male should be burned alive. 

Something interesting about this poem is that there are 4 major breaks, where the narrator sneaks in a possible personal opinion, that can somewhat correlate to the statement before or after that break. 

My favorite part of the poem is the ending where the speaker deliberately says that they are addicted to repetition, which I thought was really funny, because, well the whole poem is based on a repeating phrase.

If you are addicted to 

What a title, a real statement maker.

As I was flipping pages through my poetry book from Terrance Hayes, this title had caught my eye, so I read about it, and wanted to write about it. As an atheist, seeing the collaboration of religion and a specific culture intrigued me, and then to find out that the poem had little to nothing to do with that combination, was somewhat disappointing(LOL).

However, this poem was still as exciting as I was hoping it to be. I suspect that Hayes moved into the American "culture" part of it by describing what adulthood means in today's society. He uses the word Shadenefraude, which means the pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. If this is what Hayes believes American adulthood truly is, then that's pretty sad.

Hayes moves into how he feels about America, and one sentence stuck out to me. Hayes says, "Sometimes what I feel has a difficult name." This stuck out to me because this is a familiar feeling, a common problem, as most don't know how to describe their feelings. Possibly this was said because maybe he was trying to express this as a typical American problem...

Lastly, Hayes says he has a pretty good idea of what beauty is, but he brings this pessimistic pattern to his description of beauty as well. He claims that the idea of beauty makes it difficult to live. This common trend of finding the bad in American culture shows to exist in his poetry, but maybe Terrance Hayes isn't being purposely pessimistic, but instead, he is speaking the truth.

Yes, this is me turning my back on Terrance. Sorry, bro. But Sally's poems were just so attractive.

Sally Ashton's poems seem to me as more focused on having a deeper meaning, rather than telling a story or illustrating information about culture like my main boo does.

This poem is titled "Objects of Her Passion," and this makes sense, as the first three words of the poem are simple household objects that almost everyone has. But she adds her own twist(the deeper meaning part) to all of these common objects.

The deeper meaning comes in two forms: Imagery and Metaphors. This seems to be a common trend with a lot of poets. Ashton added two common abstract objects to her list, those being light and time. She explains each with profound detail, which builds the imagery of each. The deeper meaning is highlighted through the metaphorical description of both. Light is described with its "physical" effect, and time is illustrated with the basis of how it's created.

It took me phat minute to understand this poem, but it is actually way simpler than what I expected. 

At first I thought Hayes was making some crazy metaphors every sentence, to have some deeper meaning in the end. However after reading it about 5 times, I realized everything was actually quite literal. This poem was a real life story(or atleast I think it was), a play by play, of the crazy event that took place in someones life(possibly Terrance himself, or someone elses). It described the story of a protest, shown by creating a physical mark on the Robert E Lee statue. From the disguises worn, to what was spray painted, to the end result, this poem says it all. 

Now, to go into the metaphor that stood out to me. Even though this may be a literal event/story, there are still some double meanings that Hayes slid in here and there.

I picked Terrance Hayes to be my mentor poet, hoping to be taking on the dragster of poetry. After reading the first poem in his book, I had realized that I made the right decision.

The title “lighthead’s guide to the galaxy” was confusing to me at first, but then after reading the poem, I had realized that it was an actually guide; maybe not for the galaxy, but for how we should percieve the world around us. Hayes started this poem out in a tone of authority, but added his own twist(comedic or serious, not really sure) to it. He then takes us(well really me, unless you read the poem) on a imagery plane all the way around the world, to back to where we started. Almost every sentence is detailed with adjectives, adjectives, adjectives. Hayes also follows the trend of instilling a multitude of metaphors within his poem, even adding some comedy to it when he said “I believe everything is a metaphor for sex. Lovemaking mimics the act of departure, moonlight drips from the leaves”. He makes a bold statement in a serious tone, which ends up creating an impact, as it changes the perception of metaphors, specifically the one he stated right after. Immediately he shifts to an overall encompassing idea, saying “You can spend your whole life doing no more than preparing for life and thinking, ‘Is this all there is?’”. This really got me thinking, but his explanations through imagery and metaphors continued, which gave me an idea of how to approach this thought. 

This poem when read once is very confusing and extremely jumbled up when it comes to staying on one idea, but it does have a great conclusion when it is all pieced together. As said before, I believe the poem is a guide on perception. The last sentence of the poem says “Brothers and sisters, when you spend your nights out on a limb, there’s a chance you’ll fall in your sleep”. I see this as tying it all together, because when the idea of perception is compared with this final statement, it gives some sort of an explanation to that idea. 

There are many ways the world can be percieved, but dont set yourself up to see it in a vulnerable way, because the negative impacts will follow. 

After going through the list and a few names of living poets, I came to the decision to pick Terrance Hayes as my mentor poet. When looking for a poet that I would have to pick to stick with for a long time, I wanted to make sure I picked someone that I would connect too, and most importantly someone that I would enjoy reading their material. I looked at many poets and found Terrance Hayes. I searched some information about him, and after seeing his background and especially the descriptions of his poetry, I stopped looking into other poets. Culture and race was a description of his poetry that I found online, and at that moment, I knew, I found my bae. These 4 words caught my eye for a specific reason. Each of them, I connect to, in some way. Now I know that may sound strange. However I have a passion for learning and adapting to new culture, race and the social dynamic behind it mean a lot to me, music is a love and hobby, and masculinity, well. 

My motto is Never mistake what it is for what it looks like. My generosity, for example, is mostly a form of vanity. A bandanna is a useful handkerchief, but a handkerchief is a useless-ass bandanna. This only looks like a footnote in my report concerning the party. Trill stands for what is truly real though it may be hidden by the houses just over the hills between us, by the hands on the bars between us. That picture of my grandmother with my uncle when he was a baby is not trill. What it is is the feeling felt seeing garbagemen drift along the predawn avenues, a sloppy slow rain taking its time to the coast. Milquetoast is not trill, nor is bouillabaisse. Bakku-shan is Japanese for a woman who is beautiful only when viewed from behind. Like I was saying, my motto is Never mistake what it looks like for what it is else you end up like that Negro Othello. (Was Othello a Negro?) Don't you lie about who you are sometimes and then realize the lie is true? You are blind to your power, Brother Bastard, like the king who wanders his kingdom searching for the king. And that's okay. No one will tell you you are the king. No one really wants a king anyway.

After completing the book, The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis, I must say that I have many opinions on several different aspects of this reading. Michael Lewis asks this question in the beginning of the book, and at first I took it as a technique that Lewis uses to draw in his readers, but he wasnt kidding. Throughout this book entirely, he dismantled the Trump administration, from the inside out. I would personally say that I am pretty involved in knowing what goes on, on both sides of the politcal spectrum, and in politics overall, but there are things in this book that shocked me, things about the Trump administration I didnt even know. I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Lewis’s writing, as his use of several different techniques made his writing not boring, and even though breaking down the Trump administration may seem somewhat of an easy thing to do, he did it on a completely different level.

Coming back to the question Michael Lewis started this book with; really, what are the consequences if something like this is true?