Guns showed up in my Poetry class today

[MedGrl]

So...I'm sitting in one of my english classes today and the professor has us turn to a certain page in our text book and discuss the poem after we had a moment to read it. Here it is

Target
by Kim Addonizio

It feels good to shoot a gun,
to stand with your legs apart
holding a nine millimeter in both hands
aiming at something that can't run.
Over and over I rip holes

in the paper target clamped to its hanger,
target I move closer with the flick of a switch
or so far away its center looks
like a small black planet in its white square
of space. It feels good to nestle a clip

of bullets against the heel of your hand,
to rachet one into the chamber
andcock the hammerback and fire, the recoil
surging along your arms as the muzzle kickes up, as you keep
control. It's so good you no longer wonder

why some boys lift them from bottom drawers and boxes
at the backs of clossets, and drive fast into lives
they won't finish, lean from their car windows and
let go a few rounds into whatever's out there.
You can hear what comes back as they speed away:

burst glass, or the high ring of steel,
or mabey moans. Now you want
to take the thing and hurl it into
the ocean, to wait until it drops down
through the dark and cold and loges so deep

Nothing could retrieve it. But you know it would
float back and wash up like a bottle carrying a mesage from a dead man.
You stand there firing until the gun feels
light again, and innocent. And then you reload.




The class disscussion was interesting and I was wondering what you all thought about it.

 

[JohnKSa]

I've written poems about stranger things...

My masterpiece was "Ode to a Dacron Patch" written for a coworker's hernia surgery...

 

[Beetle Bailey]

Well, for starters, she uses "clip" for "magazine" and "bullet" for "cartridge" and the poem doesn't even rhyme. I'm not even going to mention "rachet one into the chamber."

So if I am doing a good job reading this poem, the protagonist is enjoying gaining proficiency with the 9mm pistol but seems to feel guilt and/or anger because she is identifying that pleasure with a drive-by shooting. She wants to blame the gun and get rid of it but in the end she knows she will get the urge to go shooting again.

You stand there firing until the gun feels
light again, and innocent. And then you reload.

She calls the emptied gun "innocent" and I don't know that I'd agree. That suggests a loaded gun is somehow guilty/bad/evil. Guns are inanimate objects and it is the person who uses one who is either good or bad.

BTW, as far as enjoying shooting, I know the feeling. While I believe self-defence is a great reason to learn to shoot, I just plain like shooting. It's a very satisfying activity (well, it is when you have a decent gun).

When I am ringing a steel gong with my guns, I don't actively think about the fact that I am enjoying "playing" with deadly weapons (although I always follow the four safety rules). I just concentrate on the experience. Seems as if the protagonist needs time to get used to the idea of controlling that amount of power. Glad she reloads at the end. HTH.

Hope the class discussion was an open-minded one .

 

[MedGrl]

well Beetle...I agree on many of the things you said and brought them up in class. Especialy the part about identifying the gun with drive bys and the 'innocent' empty gun. I let the technicalities (mag and cartridge irather than clip and bullet) most of the class wound up sounding vaugly anti in that they agreed with the whole guns= drive bys. But a couple of the guys in class agreed about the whole empty doesn't = innocent and that loaded doesnt equal bad/evile...was an interesting disgussion.


...any other takers on the poem?

 

[Cosmoline]

It's not poetry--it's two bit agitprop. The author never even bothered to learn how a semiautomatic functions. Cock the hammer back after you rack the slide? Please. The implication is right in line with PC dogma. The firearm leads to gangland drive by shootings. Guns=crime. The poem also fails to show the link between the pleasure she apparently feels shooting the 9x19 and the crimes she complains about. Obviously, there is no link. Unless you're profoundly stupid enough to believe gangsters go around shooting each other because it FEELS GOOD to shoot a firearm. What hogwash. The message is clear--stay away from these things because they are fetish objects full of bad ju ju and will corrupt you and make you do bad things.

Left wing anti-gun idiots. It's absolutely typical of the schlock the folks at the Academy love. And then they wonder why nobody actually reads poetry outside the classroom anymore.

 

[Travis Lee]

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1978

 

[Smokey Joe]

The poet's idea of how it's supposed to sound

Travis Lee--Couldn't agree more that reading one's own poetry aloud is not a good idea.

I REALLY liked Vachel Linsey's (sp?) "The Congo"--Until I hear a recording of the poet reading it. My reaction was, "Well, if that's how it's supposed to sound, I have no further use for it. Ugh." Spoilt my appreciation of that poem for good.

So. IS there a really good poem about pistol target practice?? I think about a lot of things when I'm working with my bullseye guns, but so far, poetry is not among them.

 

[jtward01]

So...I'm sitting in one of my english classes today and the professor has us turn to a certain page in our text book and discuss the poem after we had a moment to read it. Here it is

Target
by Kim Addonizio

(poem text deleted)

The class disscussion was interesting and I was wondering what you all thought about it.

Wow. I'm really surprised this thing made it into a book, considering the poor spelling, grammer and use of punctuation. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be all that surprised. I used to edit news releases submitted to the newspaper where I worked and those with the worst spelling and grammer invariably came from teachers.

 

[Smokey Joe]

Nobody uses English worse than teachers...hmmm...

Jtward--

I used to edit news releases submitted to the newspaper where I worked and those with the worst spelling and grammer invariably came from teachers.

James Thurber once wrote a brilliant essay in which he skewered the use of generalizations such as this. Suggest you look it up and read it.

 

[Wiley]

Good.

I liked the autors imagery of the physical act of shooting, the fun of putting holes in paper, juxtaposed with the darker aspects of firearms.

Sounds like the author has some famiarity with shooting and has an imagination.

 

[svtruth]

"lives they won't finish"

Do the drive bys fail to finish lives because its a 9mm, not a .45?

 

[CAS700850]

I quite enjoyed the poem. Then again, with a degree in English Lit., I'm prone to enjoying such things. The juxtaposition of the pleasure of target shooting vs. the darker aspects of firearms usewas good. I think if we were all honest, we've all had a thought about the illegal use of firearms, and I'd imagine we've all had a thought about "what if they were all gone?" Of course, we've all thought it all the way through and reached the proper and logical conclusion.

Not a bad piece. Curious about how the class discussion went, especially what views, if any, were espoused by the professor.

 

[Guyon]

MedGrl, you ought to write Kim Addonizio and let her know what you think of the poem and tell her about your class discussion. http://www.kimaddonizio.com/ Praise what you think deserves praise; critique what you think deserves critique. If she responds, it would make for an even better class discussion.

Maybe you could explain the difference between a clip/magazine, bullet/cartridge as well as why you don't have to cock the hammer when you've just racked the slide. I do wonder if Ms. Addonozio has ever really fired a handgun. Perhaps, but I doubt she makes a habit of target shooting.

The poem is decent, technical slips aside. FWIW, I think she means until the gun feels innocent to the shooter--not that the gun has any innate feelings of its own.

 

[Thain]

(I prefer my poems about the good and evil of firearms to be written by someone who has at least seen one! I don't deny that from a poetic standpoint a gun - like a sword - carries an awesome weight of responisbility. It is a weapon, afterall, but one capable of no good or ill outside of its users intent. Anyhow... this is a good gun poem and one you might bring back to class.)

"Brown Bess"[ib]
Rudyard Kipling

In the days of lace-ruffles, perukes and brocade
Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise--
An out-spoken, flinty-lipped, brazen-faced jade,
With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes--
At Blenheim and Ramillies fops would confess
They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.

Though her sight was not long and her weight was not small,
Yet her actions were winning, her language was clear;
And everyone bowed as she opened the ball
On the arm of some high-gaitered, grim grenadier.
Half Europe admitted the striking success
Of the dances and routs that were given by Brown Bess.

When ruffles were turned into stiff leather stocks,
And people wore pigtails instead of perukes,
Brown Bess never altered her iron-grey locks.
She knew she was valued for more than her looks.
"Oh, powder and patches was always my dress,
And I think am killing enough," said Brown Bess.

So she followed her red-coats, whatever they did,
From the heights of Quebec to the plains of Assaye,
From Gibraltar to Acre, Cape Town and Madrid,
And nothing about her was changed on the way;
(But most of the Empire which now we possess
Was won through those years by old-fashioned Brown Bess.)

In stubborn retreat or in stately advance,
From the Portugal coast to the cork-woods of Spain,
She had puzzled some excellent Marshals of France
Till none of them wanted to meet her again:
But later, near Brussels, Napoleon--no less--
Arranged for a Waterloo ball with Brown Bess.

She had danced till the dawn of that terrible day--
She danced till the dusk of more terrible night,
And before her linked squares his battalions gave way,
And her long fierce quadrilles put his lancers to flight:
And when his gilt carriage drove off in the press,
"I have danced my last dance for the world!" said Brown Bess.

If you go to Museums--there's one in Whitehall--
Where old weapons are shown with their names writ beneath,
You will find her, upstanding, her back to the wall,
As stiff as a ramrod, the flint in her teeth.
And if ever we English had reason to bless
Any arm save our mothers', that arm is Brown Bess!

 

[grimlock]

Kipling was the last manly poet.

 

[rick_reno]

Is the poem "Long Guns" by Carl Sandburg in your book? How about "Among the Red Guns" by the same author? Mr. Sandburg is well known poet, I'm wondering if they included any of his work on the subject of "guns"?

Long Guns

THEN came, Oscar, the time of the guns.
And there was no land for a man, no land for a country,
Unless guns sprang up
And spoke their language.
The how of running the world was all in guns.

The law of a God keeping sea and land apart,
The law of a child sucking milk,
The law of stars held together,
They slept and worked in the heads of men
Making twenty mile guns, sixty mile guns,
Speaking their language
Of no land for a man, no land for a country
Unless … guns … unless … guns.

There was a child wanted the moon shot off the sky,
asking a long gun to get the moon,
to conquer the insults of the moon,
to conquer something, anything,
to put it over and win the day,
To show them the running of the world was all in guns.
There was a child wanted the moon shot off the sky.
They dreamed … in the time of the guns … of guns.

Among the Red Guns

Among the red guns,
In the hearts of soldiers
Running free blood
In the long, long campaign:
Dreams go on.

Among the leather saddles,
In the heads of soldiers
Heavy in the wracks and kills
Of all straight fighting:
Dreams go on.

Among the hot muzzles,
In the hands of soldiers
Brought from flesh-folds of women--
Soft amid the blood and crying--
In all your hearts and heads
Among the guns and saddles and muzzles:

Dreams,
Dreams go on,
Out of the dead on their backs,
Broken and no use any more:
Dreams of the way and the end go on.

 

[Khornet]

It's not a poem, for one thing

It's just a not-very-welll-written paragraph, chopped and stacked to look like verse. But verse it ain't. The Kipling above: that's a poem, whether you think it a good one or not.

Real poetry is language cubed, language to the third power: what it actually says, its meter, and its rhyme. Example:

Far I hear the bugles blow
To call me where I would not go
And the guns begin the song,
"Soldier, fly! Or stay for long.

Comrade, if to turn and fly
Made a soldier never die,
Fly I would, for who would not?
'Tis sure no pleasure to be shot.

But since the man that runs away
Lives to die another day,
And cowards' funerals, when they come,
Are not mourned so well at home,

Therefore, though the best is bad,
Stand and do your best, my lad,
Stand and fight, and see your slain,
And take the bullet in your brain.

That is A.E. Housman's "The Day of Battle". May or may not be a good poem, though I think it is: but it's a POEM. The crap from Addonzio is what you usually see from people with axes to grind but no talent. As in Maya Angelou.
Just a pet peeve of mine. I love good poetry.

 

[Tequila_Sauer]

Ain't no class sucks worser than English.

What is the specific name of this class? The only English classes I took in college were the two core requirements and then a Business Writing class (biggest waste of time EVER and probably the largest gathering of idiots this side of a Democratic National Convention) later when I started pursuing my major. I'd be curious as to what the reception was from your fellow classmates. The open bar of ideas that college is portrayed as is often anything but, and some of the most close minded people attend classes like this.

Here's one of my favorites (it's actually a song)

Perpetual Black Second

[Music: Marten Hagstrom]
[Lyrics: Tomas Haake]

Trapped in a ceaseless fever of spite,
an unending fit of resentment and anger
Caught in a moment of unforgiveness
In the snapshot of a hate filled second

The speechless flickering of uncomprehending eyes
-Dilated in disbelief
Your vacant gaze distorted
Twisted in its accusing glare

Teeth glimmering in emotional rage
Spit of hate suspended in mid-air
Bodies strained in fury
Devoured by jaws of despair

One single image frame I wish to forget
now replayed in succession of millions
The one second I will always regret
-My hell found in its reiteration

Held within the visualization,
the continuous rerun of my own violence
A fraction of time perpetuated
By my regretful soul animated

Please forgive the evil in me - The darkness within
Ferocious, inherent demon. Adrenaline gland resident

Threatened subconscious snake. Repressed into
striking coil
Surfacing that black second. Ascending with the boil

 

[Thain]

(+1 Khornet! Now, here's more poetry about the nature of duty, honor, and the evils of battle and the good of war. Written by some Brit a few years back....)

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 

[CrazyIrishman]

Tequila,

Shouldn't that be: Ain;t no class sucks WORSTER than english? LOL

Thain,

Thanks for the Kipling poem! I really enjoyed that poem ALOT! The last one about Crispian...didn't someone by the name of Shakespeare write that? lol

As for Addonzio me thinks she needs some therapy and a firearms class!

When I am at the range and I do good I get a feeling of accomplishing something. When I mess up I get po'ed with myself too.

OTOH, I've never though of the bulls eye as being a human target . I do not understand how she equates shooting at targets be it paper or gongs with gangbanging and drive-by's.

I would hate to see the rubbish she would come up with after a CCW class!

OH, almost forget! Whats with "RATCHET one into the chamber"? Is this like a True Value or Craftsman brand pistol?

 

[cambeul41]

I was raised on Kipling and Service. Both wrote manly things.

The Quitter

Robert Service

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . .
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.

"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame.
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight --
Why, that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

 

[Farnham]

I think you need to look into finding a better poetry class. Last time I read drivel that bad, it was scratched in the paint of a Circle K bathroom stall.

S/F

Farnham

 

[Texfire]

She had pretty inconsistent use of paragraph, punctuation and person. I took the liberty of redoing it for her. Mind you I wasn't aiming to make bad poetry into good, that's kinda beyond my skills.

Range Time
by Texfire

It feels good to shoot a gun
to stand with your legs spread
holding a nine millimeter in your hands
aiming at paper that hangs in space
over and over I rip holes
transforming powder into noise and flame

I clamp the target to the frame
starting with it up close
then with the flick of a switch
it moves so far away its markings look
like tiny black planets circling
in a white square solar system

It feels good to slam the magazine home
with the palm of your hand and then
slingshoting the slide to rack one into the chamber
I aim carefully, squeeze the trigger and it kicks!
The power surges up my arms as the muzzle rises
my muscles tense as I bring it back on target

It's a ritual, touching some primitive part of me
no wonder why some fear what they don't understand
impressing their fears on the gun like it presses my hand
fearing the unknown and conjuring demons that hide in the shadows
yet the gun is the same no matter if it is in my hand
in the hand of a killer, or resting in the purse of a loved one

The gun has no morality, no sentience
except that which I assign to it
it is a machine whose purpose is fulfilled
when I use it to punch tiny holes in paper
until the slide locks back on an empty mag
and then I reload

Tex