From the readings that are due tomorrow, I have realized our transition from Harlem to sort of narrative poems. I noticed that UN was mentioned by James Schuyler and Frank O’Hara. Although they were both descriptive, I noticed their different styles of poems. Frank O’Hara seemed to concentrate more on the environment and sequence of how things went while James Schuyler seemed to make heavy emphasis on visualizations and colors. Aside from those two poems, I couldn’t find a similarity between those two poems and Allen Ginsberg’s except for the fact that those poems are based on the background of New York and they are all personal experiences of themselves. However, I found his story very interesting, and his constant reciting of “Om Ah Hum” kept reminding me that he was a practicing Buddhist when he wrote this.
From reading these poems, I felt somewhat more open to reading poems. These poems were fairly easy to read and understand since they were based on authors’ experiences, and was about New York. I somewhat did avoid to read poems because a lot of poems are for readers to read between the lines, and are hard to understand, as if it was by Shakespeare. However, these poems felt more of modern novels that are easy to understand compared to the other poems I have read. Of course there were poems I have read that were in simple English but they mostly had some sort of message behind. These poems however seem to be authors’ method of messaging the readers of their own experiences just like how we are writing blogs about readings.
– Jason Cho
