To be honest,
I chose this poem because I thought that Baraka may have committed suicide, and some dark, twisted side of me wanted to read this poem to understand why. After reading the poem, and a little research, I found that he did not commit suicide, in fact he is still alive.
This poem is from the first volume of poems he published, and I have found that his was a very political person. He was very involved in African American Rights, and I believe this poem reflects that.
It feels that in this poem he is not happy with the way things are, and that it does not seem to be changing. This is seen by him saying that he has "become accustomed to the way the ground opens up and envelops him..." He later states "it has come to that..."
This statement seems so blunt. He is not happy. He does not like his everyday life.
He later states that he counts the stars, and there are always the same number. By saying this, I feel that he is telling us that things are not changing. He is hoping for a new one every time he counts, (why else would he count?) but there is always the same number. Meaning, nothing is changing around him. It has become the normal.
I feel that he has lost hope, but this last stanza is what changes him.
His daughter is talking to someone on her knees into clasped hands. I take this that she is praying, and prayer to me, means there is hope. In this stanza, his tone changes to. By starting it out with "And then," It changes what he was previously feeling. By seeing his daughter hold onto this hope that there is something better, he knows he has to make it better for her.
I really enjoyed how different Baraka's poems seem. In "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide" he is sad but in the end still hopeful and his message is very clear. Then in "An Agony. As Now." Baraka seems angrier and his message was not as straight forward. It took a bit for me to even realize he was talking about himself.
ReplyDelete-Alyson Vann
I am not too sure what it is, but when I first read the preface, I did not get even the slightest inclination that it could be a suicide note. I thought it was just a person reflecting on their daily activities, like as if they were in a rut. Regardless of the title, I wouldn't think it was a suicide note. On a second and third read I was finally starting to kind of a see the idea that it is a suicide note. Still it doesn't speak to me so much as "dark" or even "emotional". I would expect a suicide note to be much more emotional than that.
ReplyDeleteI admit when I first read the title of the poem I thought it would refer to death and literally the idea of committing suicide. However I didn't think it was a message Baraka was leaving to people, planning to commit suicide. I agree that the poem implies his unhappiness at the way the world is. It doesn't say the reason why but I kinda do think what inspired him to write it was to show his frustration and seeing nothing change in regards to African American rights. I think the instances where he says the ground is enveloping him and seeing the stars always looking the same imply the unhappiness of an unchanging world. I do think that he does see hope through his daughter still having hope for a better future.
ReplyDeleteI did find this poem so sad... in every phrase he says i can see a sparkle of sadness, sprecially when he mentions the stars the fact that he never sees new ones and he only perceive the ones that are missing and count their empty spaces, it makes me believe he does not see any new oportunities in his future or any hope on the contrary every time they are fewer thing which he considers good in his life.
ReplyDeletebesides we all know that rutine can kill happines and thats all he is describing. rutinnary stuff without any sparkle of exitement or any new thing in them.