Spendy learns about poetry and luke and woops and benny and jenks help teach him things

[sus]

The bigger picture is called natural history and every poet should know it

 

[0bleak]

Nobody's conquered the US yet, mind you. And recent history's going to be felt more intensely than ancient. All well and good talking about the Mayans and Aztecs and whomever, but there are people still living who've suffered as a result of US policy.

FYI: There are still non-hispanic Aztecs and Mayans alive today that even still speak the language

re: kid c writing about what they know - closer to home in the states, and a more a more morally complex tale of Indians and capitalism could encompass the gold rush that caused the native american trail of tears, while some native americans who were once also enslaved (before Africans and then together with Africans), later became African slave owners and many of their African slaves that also died on the trail of tears, and then include how many native americans were sometimes moved to some of the most barren of places without any resources, that treaties had been broken multiple times, and that many of those reservations are still the poorest places in the states - "but there are people still living who've suffered as a result of US policy."
also maybe sneak in something about the spanish asking indians about gold and describing it as yellow, heavy and valuable and then being brought maize by the indians

 

[luka]

obleak keeps a slave i hear tell, a small Gypsy girl he keeps in a cupboard.

 

[0bleak]

she told me it's no longer politically correct to refer to her as gypsy

 

[luka]

Gypsy is fine provided you capitalise it which you have conspicuously failed to do

 

[version]

FYI: There are still non-hispanic Aztecs and Mayans alive today that even still speak the language

They won't have direct experience of being conquered during those societies' heydays in the way people still living in Chile will have experienced living through a US-backed coup in the 70s though.

 

[0bleak]

I suppose that works with words like the N-word, too

 

[version]

The bigger picture is called natural history and every poet should know it

What makes you think Neruda doesn't?

 

[0bleak]

They won't have direct experience of being conquered during those societies' heyday in the way people still living in Chile will have experienced living through a US-backed coup in the 70s though.

but they're still being persecuted and going through genocides.

 

[version]

but they're still being persecuted and going through genocides.

And I'm sure any writers among them are writing about that.

Gus seems to think these people should always be writing from a big picture perspective and gesturing towards some vague, cyclical sense of history. I don't think that's necessary. I think you can write about what's happening without having to add a caveat. You can write about United Fruit without having to mention that people were killing and conquering before Europeans arrived in the Americas too.

 

[luka]

yeah theres no real issue with writing an angry little poem about united fruit. its normal to be angry about it. gus is like craner in that they both think the colonised should be grateful.

 

[kid charlemagne]

the presentation went well, my partner in class and i got the biggest applause of all the groups.

 

[kid charlemagne]

i needed to stand my ground and make impressions after this thread stomped over neruda and his sensualizing tendencies and formally blunt and obvious political musings in poetry.

 

[0bleak]

I thought you might have thought to ditch it after some ignoramus said he liked it.

 

[sus]

Just because it's written by the losers of a geopolitical engagement doesn't mean it isn't propaganda

 

[kid charlemagne]

i am anti imperalism. i will have no silliness here

 

[sus]

He had determined once to be serious
Later, he knew that he had made a mistake
But too late he had arrived, and there were rooms
And all rooms were not the same
Some better than others, he thought
A better view, a better layout
Better shower, softer bed
Not so far from noise, more like home

 

[kid charlemagne]

thinking about boycotting my last poetry analysis. i have not gotten better than an 8.4 out of 10.

 

[sus]

Yes tell him that analysis is apartheid culture

 

[sus]

Analysis always involves splitting things apart making distinctions creating differences. You're interested in unity