ode to beards

What I'm striving for.

Am I writing for the second time today just so I can get four posts on my blog by tomorrow? Maybe. But do not let that make you think that there is no sincerity in my words. I still have not done a post that contains dialogue between me and my avatar and I also have not shaved my face in almost three weeks and I am starting to seriously doubt whether I can go through the full Movember. Self-confliction epitomized.

Anyways,

today I attended the poetry reading of my Introduction to Poetry professor, Dave Denny. I was very impressed and entertained by the level of skill that Professor Denny had both in poetry and beard growing. My favorite poem of his was a mash-up of Frankenstein and the presidents in his lifetime. The two subjects were intertwined so smoothly and masterfully with the intensity of it all elevating as professor's voice raised and raised until finally reaching its peak and letting out that ominous but comedic shout, "IT'S ALIVE!!!" Truly amazing.

But regarding the class I am taking by him, we are currently studying about Pablo Neruda, whom Ms. Patton was talking about a few days ago and whose poem we had to read for homework. The evolution of Neruda's poetry is quite interesting. Starting out as a love poet, Neruda delved into more surrealistic imagery and themes in the 1930s while still maintaining his primary subjects of the sea, women as mother nature, etc, as his involvement in the Communist movement influenced his writing. In one of his most famous works, Canta General, Neruda displays a more dark and somber tone with drawn out Walt Whitman-esque lines and a wide range of diction. As oppose to this, Neruda's volumes of The Elementary Odes, displays a more a minimalistic approach, with some lines being just one word with the poem's subjects just common items. Neruda's ability to be deep and complex as well as minimalistic and economical in his writing, while also being accessible, is a quality that I find myself trying to achieve as I go through my days. When I write prose, poetry, and songs and instrumental parts and arrangements, I always feel that there should a balance between intricacy and simplicity, while still retaining some sort of universal appeal for listeners and readers. I feel that the primary intention to create any form of art is not to satisfy the viewer, but rather to be such an expression of oneself that the viewer relates to it as a byproduct of the artist's expression. Now I do not want to start rambling on about the philosophy of aesthetics, so I will end this post just like how I started (from the "Anyways,") with the first poem that really got me into poetry.

If—

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175772