to danny:
Gabe Tharp.
upon reading about a few other poets i am starting to question how much you can make off witting poetry, considering the fact that almost all seem to have multiple jobs to pick up the tabs even though Gary is the first poet that i have heard of who was a part time lumber jack, most like mine (Sherman Alexie)do occupations like writing books part time, even though it could be used as poetry subject matter i do admit. This excuse does not answer why my poet does stand up comedy or why he directs movies though????
hello Kevin.
your poet’s child hood sounds almost depressing and he seems to have similar intelligence levels as my poet does (Sherman Alexie). Even though i don’t know if a suicidal father beats, constant seizures, brain surgeries, as well as exile but they both seem like downers. Sherman like john was a very intellectual child while growing up (even if he did not skip a grade) he still read grapes of wrath by the age of six. this seemed to effect both are poets writing’s mine keeps on rambling on about killing those evil whites (hes native American forgot to mention that) and how the he wants to start armed revolts against the whites, even though most recently he has stopped using such strong language, but i was wondering what you refer to when you say dark. even though are poets are separated by a century they seem pretty similar.
to briget:
I find your poem a super market in California to be allot like Sherman alexies poem
Defending Walt Whitman
Basketball is like this for young Indian boys, all arms and legs
and serious stomach muscles. Every body is brown!
These are the twentieth-century warriors who will never kill,
although a few sat quietly in the deserts of Kuwait,
waiting for orders to do something, to do something.
God, there is nothing as beautiful as a jumpshot
on a reservation summer basketball court
where the ball is moist with sweat,
and makes a sound when it swishes through the net
that causes Walt Whitman to weep because it is so perfect.
There are veterans of foreign wars here
although their bodies are still dominated
by collarbones and knees, although their bodies still respond
in the ways that bodies are supposed to respond when we are young.
Every body is brown! Look there, that boy can run
up and down this court forever. He can leap for a rebound
with his back arched like a salmon, all meat and bone
synchronized, magnetic, as if the court were a river,
as if the rim were a dam, as if the air were a ladder
leading the Indian boy toward home.
Some of the Indian boys still wear their military hair cuts
while a few have let their hair grow back.
It will never be the same as it was before!
One Indian boy has never cut his hair, not once, and he braids it
into wild patterns that do not measure anything.
He is just a boy with too much time on his hands.
Look at him. He wants to play this game in bare feet.
God, the sun is so bright! There is no place like this.
Walt Whitman stretches his calf muscles
on the sidelines. He has the next game.
His huge beard is ridiculous on the reservation.
Some body throws a crazy pass and Walt Whitman catches it
with quick hands. He brings the ball close to his nose
and breathes in all of its smells: leather, brown skin, sweat,
black hair, burning oil, twisted ankle, long drink of warm water,
gunpowder, pine tree. Walt Whitman squeezes the ball tightly.
He wants to run. He hardly has the patience to wait for his turn.
“What’s the score?” he asks. He asks, “What’s the score?”
Basketball is like this for Walt Whitman. He watches these Indian boys
as if they were the last bodies on earth. Every body is brown!
Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
Walt Whitman dreams of the Indian boy who will defend him,
trapping him in the corner, all flailing arms and legs
and legendary stomach muscles. Walt Whitman shakes
because he believes in God. Walt Whitman dreams
of the first jumpshot he will take, the ball arcing clumsily
from his fingers, striking the rim so hard that it sparks.
Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
Walt Whitman closes his eyes. He is a small man and his beard
is ludicrous on the reservation, absolutely insane.
His beard makes the Indian boys righteously laugh. His beard
frightens the smallest Indian boys. His beard tickles the skin
of the Indian boys who dribble past him. His beard, his beard!
God, there is beauty in every body. Walt Whitman stands
at center court while the Indian boys run from basket to basket.
Walt Whitman cannot tell the difference between
offense and defense. He does not care if he touches the ball.
Half of the Indian boys wear t-shirts damp with sweat
and the other half are bareback, skin slick and shiny.
There is no place like this. Walt Whitman smiles.
Walt Whitman shakes. This game belongs to him.
after reading it I felt quite odd thinking that so many poets had written about Walt Whitman as the actual subject, this might just be from my over growing hatred for Whitman and his long annoying, boring, patriotic, gory and sexist poems but I found it odd that people can like that guy enough to spend the time writing a poem about him as a person. Well any way I think it is interesting that both poets wrote poems about meeting Walt Whitman.
to Jessica:
after reading the poem there is a blue bird, and all the poems by Sherman alexie, i am beginning to wonder if all poets are addicted to alcohol and drugs they all seem to be almost obsessed, with what most people would be call sin. up until this last month i believed that all poets where based on sun shine and the happy parts of life, or at least a beatification and obsession with lost and tortured souls. With all these poems on drugs alcohol and cigarettes, I am beginning to understand why we usually don’t start serious poetry analysis until high school (even though why now when they are trying to prevent teens from drinking/ smoking.
comment on posts in general:
i found that doing posts this way was far more interesting then doing a full on boring study filled research paper and actually added an interesting aspect to what would have been just another dull and boring paper. the one regret that i had with doing the blog post (i bet i am in the minority here) is that i wish that i could have more poems to be analysis and that some of the poems you could just analyses my self and not have to rely on others ideas considering there was several of my favorite poems by Sherman that i was not able to do because the lack of scholarly sources.