Response to Sam Hammil’s Essay
It is obvious from reading this essay Sam Hammil had far from a picture perfect childhood and this has evidently clouded his ideas of society and the human race. A social activist especially against the Vietnam War as half of the world was in that time, he turned to poetry as a release and a way to communicate to his audience of readers, teaching at different institutions from schools to prisons expressing the need for people to communicate through words not war.
A Poet’s work: The other side of Poetry (1990) was an essay he wrote about he feels as a society we are communicating less and are destroying our self with violence. Ultimately we choice what we hear and we choice what we want to believe and what we perceive as reality. He makes note that “writing is a form of human communication expressing ideas…” this is true as it is often easier for people to communicate and express themselves on paper then having to look someone in the eye. We don’t fear we will say the wrong thing when we commit it to paper. Expression will flow easier without the threat of verbal reprimand and disagreement.
He touches on the concept of nature vs. nurture in a round-about way, every culture not just American accept violence as a “norm” to a certain extent, we are the only species on this planet that kills each other without a purpose or a fundamental need for survival, could this be why we are at the top of the food chain? A good way to judge ourselves as a society is to just look at what women are taught in self-defense classes, if you are being attacked by a man never cry out rape but cry out fire instead. This is a sad state of affairs that this is what our society has resorted to, no one is willing to help a “fellow man” but is more than happy to stand by and watch a building burn to the ground.
Poetry like creative writing is a way to express pain, happiness, sorrow and any other emotion, as Hammil describes, poetry is more frowned upon in society than a essay or novel but when broken down the concept and point being portrayed by the author is no different. He quotes Gary Snyder as saying “I write to find out what’s on my mind”; I also do the same and find the process of writing very therapeutic. Now Poetry may not be a “physical touch” parse but it is a touch none the less and can create a wealth of emotion in the reader.
Hammil goes into depth about war, military and what we are becoming as a human race, I feel we reap what we sew and our children will learn by example. The beauty of the human race is that we are all different and some will fight with words and some with violence we just have to hope that it all balances out in the end. Children go to war because they feel and are raised to believe that it is their duty to their country, yet like the Vietnam war they went not really knowing the purpose for it or why they were even their. I found it amusing in a way he refers to army recruiters as “recruiters for the business of death”, there is a need for a military if only to maintain peace. I may not personally see the need for all the wars or our participation in them, yet the need for a military presence is still there. Hammil to me seemed a little narrow minded in that sense and not as open minded to the concept of maintaining order in society for our own sake.
One aspect in the essay I agreed with is that not all poets are good, moral people, take Kenneth “mad dog” McKenna, the serial killer who wrote and published poetry, so does that make the poems not really poetry in the sense of the word because it was written by a monster? But is that not what Hammil wants? He believes that we should communicate through poetry not violence, but in my opinion any poetry written by a serial killer would be devoid of any aesthetic value so to call it “poetry” is an offense to poets everywhere. I give respect to poets such as Edgar Alan Poe and Emily Dickinson who wrote some poetry focusing on the darker side of life but writing about being a killer and being one are two different things.
Below you can find a link to Kenneth "mad dog" McKenna's poem "Beneath the blood red moon", so you can judge for yourself if it has any value as "poetry"
No comments:
Post a Comment