I really love writing spoken word, so I've decided I am going to write an epoch poem, and I will also record it on a cd so you can really hear what it sounds like. The only book that has really, really stood out to me so far in this class was the Gary Snyder book. For some reason it really resonated with me because it was very spiritual and soft. My favorite chapter was, "Goddess of Mountains and Rivers," though I liked all his woman-goddess chapters. In this chapter he talked about how society has matrifocal roots, and it has only been Patriarchal for several thousand years. He also talked about yin and yang, which is a symbol that I like. The moist, fertile, female energy and the hot, dry male energy are the two balancing forces in nature. "The dance of yin-yang energies in nature... becomes the image vocabulary in Chinese erotic poetry."(87)
Since this course has been a big discussion on the balance of nature and industry, I want to write my epoch poem about that. I want to write about an "erotic poem" where the female, symbolizing nature, is in opposition with the male, symbolizing industry and urban planning. I bought this really cool book on the matrifocal beginnings of civilization and yin and yang called "The Great Cosmic Mother" by Barbara Mor. I want to use this research to construct a trippy, philosophichal, semi-erotic, epoch poem that captures the contradictory essence of San Francisco as a poetic, organic city and also an elite, urban power.
This topic relates because, to me, it is the main theme of what all these authors are saying. I definately can use some Brechin material in this, even Solnit, and I can get erotic inspiration from Brautigan. The main books I am going to focus on are the Gary Snyder book and my Barbara Mor book. Some Taoism research will be useful as well.
My thesis is that San Francisco is a double-sided city, with both the "male" and "female" sides, (symbolically.) I want to tell it as the story of matrifocal societies being taken over by patriarchy, but it is San Francisco being taken over urbanism.
My only concern about my project is that I need to make it long enough and with enough depth to hold up to a ten page paper. I believe that it will be a challenge but if I do a lot of research I can probably write a three or four page poem, and then write a one page explanation. I definately want to include an audio cd because when I write spoken word it has a particular rhythm that sounds a lot better when i perform it.
1 comment:
Zofia,
This sounds like a great project, and I'm interested to see how you'll cast San Francisco in terms of yin/yang, male/female, organic/urban... It's interesting how there's a thematic connection between the tensions we've been noticing in Brechin - contado/core, for example - and Buddhist-influenced spiritual philosophies, which build a lot on the idea of tensions and opposite forces. I wonder if there's something about San Francisco in particular that allows all these ideas to come together and flourish...
In any case, this is a great point of departure, and it sounds like you have a good direction. As far as structuring the project, can we do this? Include these items for the final:
+ the poem (written, recorded, if you get to it); you don't have to worry about the length so much, but 3-4 pages as you've proposed sounds like a good length.
+ 3 page statement of poetics. This is a little longer than you proposed, but I'd like to press you a bit to make really concrete connections between the Snyder and other material, and your piece. You've already started to do this here, and I think it could be useful if you keep working on the creative piece after the class.
Looking forward to seeing the poem...let me know if you have questions down the road.
sc
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