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zynita · 5 years ago

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My Decade in Books

I was tagged by the lovely @brightbeautifulthings and her blog is filled with exactly that, so please jump over and give her a follow.

The 2010's were good years - they weren't perfect by any means and they involved a lot of growing up/learning what it means to be an adult, but I think that I came out of them a much better person and better prepared for what the world has in store for me. Looking back, I read a lot of amazing books! When I went back to make my choices for this post I was surprised to find that I read 333 books from 2012 through 2019! 2012 was the year that I created my Goodreads account and since then I have used it to track my reading progress over the years, so looking back at 2010 and 2011 may be a bit hazy, but there are a couple of special reading moments near and dear to my heart that I can share. So let's get into this~

The Rules: Respond to the prompt “My Decade in Books” however you want and then tag some people! I decided to share a book and/or series which defined the year along with some of my memories/reasons as to for doing so. You can do that or make up a response that is entirely your own, there is no wrong way to go about it.

2010: Yep, like many I got caught up in the Twilight craze and while I still find sparkly vampires a bit odd/silly, this series did motivate me to start reading again on a regular basis. Prior to that, I had been in a car accident in the late fall/early winter of 2006 and then my daughter was born April 2007. Unfortunately, my mental health was not the greatest as I was dealing with post-partum depression in combination with my pre-existing depression and possible/slight post-concussive changes. In 2010 I was given a boxed set of the series as a birthday gift and reading it ultimately helped spark my interest in books again - this was one of the first steps to breaking out of my apathetic depression. I will always be thankful for Twilight because it showed me that I was still capable of feeling real living breathing changing emotions.

2011: This year was marked by the completion of my Associate's Degree in Accounting/Business Administration that spring and acceptance to continue studying accounting at the local state university. My daughter was 4 years old and about to start preschool. We were able to get a place of our own moving in with my wife (then girlfriend) into a cute 2-bedroom apartment - we became a family. One of the best memories I have from our time living there was how at night I would read the story of the boy wizard who lived in a closet under the stairs to our daughter. This series would go on to define so much of our lives as it became her favorite for a number of years - the first major book series she read entirely on her own, eventually going on to do so in Spanish as well. We became a small flock of Ravenclaws and she has bloomed into quite the reader herself. I will always have a soft spot in my heart and memory for this series because of the story it tells and for the part it played in our story.

2012: I previously read King's Dark Tower in the mid 2000's and the story deeply resonated with me. When I found out that King was planning to release a new Dark Tower book, The Wind Through the Keyhole, I knew that I had to reread the series. The series' story feels dark and gritty, the tale of a knight from a world that has moved on fulfilling his quest to reach the Tower, revered as the center of all worlds. There is a certain tragic nostalgic romance to the story of an old knight in a dying world haunted by his past questing with what initially seems to be an unlikely group, only to eventually come together as something more - as ka-tet. This is a series that I know I will return to in the future.

2013: If you go through my Tumblr history, specifically on my book blog, you will come across my reviews and a large portion of my reviews written in 2013 dealt with my read through of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series - 22 books and 1 novella (Guilty Pleasures through Affliction). I first picked up Guilty Pleasures during a book sale in ~2011 and I recall reading it and a couple of the subsequent books (maybe 3 of them at most). At first, I was drawn in by Anita herself but when I came back to the books in 2013 and read the entire series I found myself intrigued by the many characters around Anita and her relationships with them. The series started as one thing and developed into something different - changing focus from a supernatural police procedural to being more character driven. This doesn't mean that Anita doesn't still go out and hunt the bad guys, but it is no longer the absolute main focus of the story and I am okay with that. Anita and her relationship struggles helped me to understand/come to terms with the concept that love isn't the same across all relationships, that people love differently and that is okay. It helped me to become comfortable in the knowledge that I can love others and it doesn't compromise/lessen the love that I have for my wife. For that reason alone, I will always have a strong admiration/fondness for Anita Blake. I plan on reading the two most recent releases (Crimson Death and Serpentine) some time this year!~

2014: This year was a very very difficult year for me and my wife and I spiraled into a deep depression. Due to my mental health difficulties I failed to complete my bachelor's degree program and had to leave school. I ultimately wound up doing nothing more than sleeping, playing video games, and attempting to read when I could. I remember that I was scrolling through Tumblr and I saw a post praising The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - I was immediately enamoured with the cover, the starkness of the black/white/red, a circus, magic, and intrigue, I had to read it. My first read through took me 4 days because I never wanted it to end. This book helped me break a major reading slump through its beautiful lyrical prose of opponents turned lovers forged and bound within the fire locked behind the blackened gates of the traveling Les Cirques des Reves. I have read this book a total of 4 times and each time has only further deepened my love and appreciation for it - this book is my ultimate comfort read (though it may now have strong competition from her sophomore novel, The Starless Sea).

2015: At the behest of my love and my pseudo brother (I basically adopted him as the younger brother I never had) I picked up/started reading Robert Jordan's epic fantasy saga Wheel of Time which was ultimately completed by Brandon Sanderson following the death of Jordan. The series made up a great deal of my 2015 reading though I did make time for other books as well. What I particularly loved about the series was a combination of the richness of the world and the complexity of the characters. We witness these characters as they mature and grow into themselves ultimately becoming worthy of the title of ta'veren placed upon them by the Wheel. With the Amazon TV show on the horizon, I will likely pick up the series again and with subsequent readthroughs comes the opportunity to pick up on little things/foreshadowing that may have been missed before.

2016: This was another year where I didn't read a lot of books (only 38), but the majority of the ones I read were ones that I really enjoyed and Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate Series was a notable favorite. While I was working on my bachelor's degree I had the opportunity to take an upper division English course focused on Victorian Era literature and what started as a spark of interest became a warm comforting fire. Parasol Protectorate combined two genres which I had enjoyed on their own (historical fiction and paranormal/fantasy[?]) into something which felt entirely unique. I fell in love with the characters and thoroughly enjoyed the series - so much so that I have returned to Carriger's Victorian Era with my current read through of her Finishing School Series, an upcoming re-read of Parasol Protectorate, and a first time read through of the sequel series The Custard Protocol.

2017: So much of 2017 is honestly a blur... I was hired in July 2015 as a medical transcriptionist but over the following years would continue to gain increased responsibilities (with associated pay increases) allowing for some pretty notable things to occur leading up to my girlfriend and I getting married!~ We had been dating/living together in addition to having been friends for so much time before that it just made sense for us to get married and I can't picture my life without her in it. My favorite read that year was E.K. Johnston's That Inevitable Victorian Thing for so many reasons. The novel plays with history as we know it and speculates on what would have occurred had colonialism never taken root and instead a utopia was formed under the British Empire - an empire without racism, homophobia, and classism built upon mutual respect and harmony. This book is full of diversity/representation/LGBTQIA+/etc. while exploring identity, orientation, and relationships in a respectful/open-minded manner. I have already slated this book for a re-read as soon as I finish my current read through of Carriger's works.

2018: This book is probably one of the most important books I have ever read. I can't remember how exactly I came across it but I knew that I had to read it as soon as I read the synopsis. I then shared it with my daughter (who was then 11 years old) and we decided to buddy read it. This book...this is the book that I wish I had had the opportunity to read when I was that same age attempting to learn about and understand my own sexuality. This book has also allowed my wife and me to have a continuing, open dialogue with our daughter (now turning 13 in April). I actually Tweeted this basic sentiment to Ms. Blake upon finishing the book and she actually replied to me!~

Since then my daughter has read the book multiple times and we bought her a hardback copy for Christmas. Maybe one day we can attend a signing and thank Ms. Blake for Ivy's story personally.

2019: My favorite of read of 2019 was Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity. ((I know, I could have easily posted and gushed about Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea which I absolutely love but given that I had previously mentioned The Night Circus I felt it prudent to discuss something else.)) When I was book blogging in 2013-2014 I remember seeing a lot of posts talking about it and its unique approach to storytelling. I remember picking up the ebook but I was so caught up in reading other things at the time that it sat on my TBR shelf. Fast forward to last year and I finally decided to take the time and read it. Color me 100% floored and angry at myself for waiting so long to read it! I fell absolutely in love with Verity/Julie, with the story that she wove, with the friendship between her and Maddie. The synopsis describes the book as "harrowing" and "beautifully written," descriptors that I wholeheartedly agree with. My wife knew how much I enjoyed it and I received a copy of the hardback edition which will eventually grace my bookshelf (sort of kind of need to buy one first).

So that is My Decade in Books! I am very bad about tagging people in things, but if you saw the post and feel so inclined to make one of your own please do and tag me in it to check out. If you stuck through this post to the end, I greatly appreciate it and wish you well in the new reading decade.

*Zyn/Melanie*

#mine #zynita #brightbeautifulthings #my decade in books #books #booklr #bookish #novels #reading

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the-end-of-art · 6 years ago

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Poetry is almost the only way we can escape from the vicious constipation of moral relativism

POETRY IS THE ART OF PREJUDICE: An interview with Jack Gilbert

(Note: Originally transcribed from a tape-recorded conversation between Jack Gilbert and Gordon Lish, at Gilbert’s San Francisco apartment, July 18, 1962)

LISH: In your poem “Quality Is a Kind of Exile” you mention a lady asking what poets are like between poems. If the question were asked specifically about you and you had to give a prose answer, what would you say?

GILBERT: I’d be evasive. It’s the sort of question that can only make a fool of you.

LISH: But if you had to answer?

GILBERT: If I had to? Well, I’m a little like a mongrel dog, I guess. Not the sickly kind, or the savage or woe-begone kind. But the shorthaired, off-white type you still sometimes see trotting along in the city. Obviously on his own. The kind that survives.

LISH: Not a lap-dog?

GILBERT: Wait. Let’s not get this started off wrong, full of terse clever answers. It was my fault; that sounds pretty precious about the dog. I didn’t mean it like that, but it’s a hard question to answer quickly. I just mean that I’m not respectable. I’m thirty-seven years old and a kind of failure. I don’t really have an occupation. Most of the time I wander around looking at the trees. Or the concrete. And trying to understand and to have my life. And love. Kind of an urban Walden. I’ve never worked at a job more than six months at a time in my whole life. And most of those were in steel mills or washing dishes or selling Fuller Brushes. I’ve evaded all the adult responsibilities of marriage, a home, a car, a regular job, children, furniture, a bank account for emergencies, pipes, guns, and all the rest. While other people have been coping with their responsibilities as husbands and citizens and PhD’s, I’ve been off looking at the sea and trying to write a poem. Or living in the mountains. Or on the Lower East Side.

LISH: But you’re not part of the Beat Movement?

GILBERT: God, no! And I don’t go in for freakish behavior nor esoteric knowledge.

LISH: What do you conceive your world to be then? What audience do you write for, for example?

GILBERT: I suspect I’m like most poets in that I write with a vague audience in mind made up of a few friends multiplied and a bunch of heroes—most of whom are dead.

LISH: But certainly some poets have a more general public in mind?

GILBERT: Maybe so, but remember that the contemporary artist’s audience is not the same one aimed at by Edwardians and Victorians. One of the things that defines modern poetry is its separation from a general audience. Not because the poet wants it that way, but because what he wants to do pushes him beyond the scope of the bus driver.

LISH: All poets?

GILBERT: Well, just about all serious poets today are beyond the reader of good will who is inexperienced in current literature. It used to be there was usually something for anyone with a minimum education. If you listened to music, you could wait for the tune to come around again. Today you’d wait a long time. Or in painting, you could enjoy the way a lemon peel was imitated or be moved by the scene of a young boy saying goodbye to his mother before going off to the big city. You might not know anything about painting, but you’d remember when your boy Walter went off. In poetry you could enjoy the sense of beauty without any idea of the meaning—the lovely, hypnotic beauty-bath. But poets aren’t trying to do this anymore. Nor good composers, nor sculptors, nor novelists, nor architects. They are trying to do something different, and it involves the nature of poetry and the audience both.

LISH: What specifically is this difference?

GILBERT: In the old days, poets tried to create beauty, and to please. Most of them, anyway. Today, the major talents aren’t interested in creating beauty—not in the ordinary sense, and certainly not in the sense of providing recreation. Poetry before the First World War was usually an elevating experience taken dutifully after a good meal in the better homes; rather like going to church each Sunday to sit worshipful and empty-headed. Instead of providing instant-uplift or a passive sense of nobility, the poets now are trying to interest and disturb.

LISH: Surely this kind of poetry has been with us a long time.

GILBERT: I don’t mean it’s a new thing. However, I doubt if it’s ever been so predominant. And there is a difference between the serious art of today and art in the past in that our art is harder to misuse. You look at the painting elements in a painting today or you go home. You read contemporary poems as poetry, and actively, or you leave it alone.

LISH: I assume this would be your answer to the accusation of limiting your readers by the geographical, historical, mythological, and personal references in your poems.

GILBERT: It depends. I don’t believe in poems as cross-word puzzles—poems created as victims of the New Criticism. There should be a public level of the poem available to an educated reader who is willing to contribute a fair amount of thinking. On the other hand, there are some things you have a right to expect him to look up. Helot, for example, if he doesn’t know. But if a poem has too much of this, its function breaks down—becomes a game of scholarship.

LISH: Or of vanity.

GILBERT: Especially of vanity. Not always, though. Not all poets who go in for this sort of thing are trying to create the illusion of profundity by an illicit obscurity. Some are entirely sincere. Just as some of the surrealists are, or the word-manipulators, the logomaniacs.

LISH: Are you equating the pedant poets with the surrealists and the logomaniacs? Aren’t some of these people legitimately experimental poets?

GILBERT: Of course. But I’m tired of the kind of experimental poetry we’ve been getting. I don’t say it’s not poetry. There isn’t any one correct way to write poetry. Poetry is a word like love: an endless confusion of different things all warped into one word because no vocabulary of discrimination exists. So I’m not saying my way of writing poetry is the way. But I am admitting my weariness with the great body of poetry which is nothing more than a curious manipulation of words, what Kenneth Tynan has called literary masturbation—a sterile effort to force words to breed. After one or two pages of surrealistic poetry my mind just stubbornly refuses to be polite. Wallace Stevens put it very well when he said that the trouble with surrealism is that it invents rather than discovers. It’s a kind of trick anybody can learn who has imagination. You just throw your mind slightly out of focus so everything seems different. Or better yet, you learn to set your mind wrong so that each item is mechanically related to an inappropriate neighbor. It’s great when you’re starting out in poetry and words are a kind of fascination. But how can a poet sustain an interest in this kind of thing. Wait a minute, I was just reading something by Samuel Johnson. Here it is: “The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted.”

LISH: And yet your poetry isn’t devoid of experiment. For example, I’ve noticed in your poetry a peculiar distortion of line—as if the language were strange to you, new—especially this poem “The Poetry Line”.

GILBERT: All good poets today try to wrench the language, to freshen it. But my main concern with form is different. I’m concerned with how to make poems work. I think any group of my poems will show a range of solutions. Many poets have one or two ways to write a poem. The poem to them is like a cake-decorator where you put your different materials into the same bag each time and squeeze. The cake will be decorated differently each time, but the method is the same. My greatest difficulty is not finding subjects or language or conceits, but in finding the poem.

LISH: This would be a preoccupation with form rather than language then?

GILBERT: Yes, but obviously not form in the sense of sonnets or sestinas. In fact, I think the major esthetic problem in the 20th century is the attempt to escape Form with a capital Fto form in lower case. At the beginning of the century with the idea of Art for Art’s sake, with the influence of Flaubert, with the distaste for a world in which falsification had become standard, many poets went in for what Yeats called technical sincerity. They found truth in an esthetic technology. Recently poets (and artists in the other arts) have become discontent with Form as an object. They no longer are content to create a pretty, well-made thing. They want to make a poem that extends beyond the museum of perfection. Often they don’t particularly care how it looks—if it’s shaggy or messy or incomplete or exaggerated—as long as it has the effect on the reader that the poet intends. In fact, he may deliberately include the anti-poetic in order to prevent misunderstanding. He doesn’t want the reader coming along collecting jeweled phrases. I’ve talked to a number of the best writers working today about this. Some at length, like Pound, or some just briefly, like Saul Bellow, and I’ve found over and over that they want to escape the inhibiting quality of Form as a hieratic, imposed felicity. They want to devise a form that allows them to do things. Pound expressed it by saying his greatest contribution to younger poets was enabling them to get things back into poems—to make historical references, for example. This recurring groping for an open form can be traced through the whole history of European literature.

LISH: But your poetry shows considerable concern with form in a more direct sense.

GILBERT: Sure. Any poet must be concerned with it. I would expect any poem of mine to meet all the tests of craftsmanship. And obviously form in this sense can never be separated from the other concern. And still, in some peculiar way, they are separate. No one has ever been able to say exactly how, but it is nevertheless true that a preoccupation with the formal construct produces a lesser poetry. Primary poetry deals with life. This is, of course, the most old-fashioned of positions. It has been repeatedly denounced by all the best modern critics like Northrop Frye, Warren and Wellek, Wimsett, and the rest. I always have the feeling they are annoyed that poems are written by people instead of being spontaneously generated out of the accumulations of books in the great solemn libraries. It’s an inconvenience. They remind me of the people who confuse technology with sex.

LISH: How does your attitude affect your poetry?

GILBERT: I am far more concerned with content than most poets, I think. I assume I manage all the technical elements adequately, of course. But usually my poems are caused by and impulse to communicate some part of my life rather than to please. I don’t want the reader to finish the poem and say how lovely it was. I want him to be disturbed. Even miserable. I don’t envy Spenser the slightest bit. I do envy the man who wrote Lear. And yet…it’s so hard to get it straight. At the same time I am always deeply concerned with the poem as a made thing. Always. Like something chopped out of stone that won’t weaken. But not as a decoration. Not a recreation. There are two kinds of poetry finally. The kind that gives delight, and the kind that does something else. Delight is fine. But in Lear or Oedipus there is something else. It’s a delight, too, but of a kind so different that it is misleading to use the same word. The first is recreation; the second change man. It is a grave misunderstanding to come from a performance of Lear concerned primarily with technical felicities. Ideally, one should cry at a good performance of Lear. If the critic can’t cry, he should be unfrocked.

LISH: Doesn’t this kind of approach set you apart from a lot of contemporary poets?

GILBERT: Maybe so, but an awful lot of the poems I see published remind me of the correspondence between Marx and Engels. Engels was always writing elaborate letters filled with ingenious, painstaking comments on Marx’s theories equating them mechanically with some current scientific thought. And Marx (or the reader) kept writing back, Dear Fred, please send the money.

LISH: But you go beyond just insistence on a relation to life in your poems. You seem preoccupied with moral values. Isn’t it true that most contemporary poets no longer accept the ideal of right and wrong?

GILBERT: Who knows? Surely it’s an exaggeration to say most. But it is true that a great many poets now shy away from this kind of subject in favor of a kind of genre verse. Partially I think this is the result of a moral paralysis that is current. But isn’t it also because they don’t have a sufficient motivation for writing? Isn’t a great part of poetry now being produced to support an established reputation? The poet is actually tired of poetry, but he must turn out poems to qualify for prizes, grants, and academic positions. What’s he going to do? He manufactures verse. And it’s a lot easier to deal with a small subject when you’re getting by on merely careful technique. And if he’s a man teaching at a university, as he probably is, and married to a wife he courted years ago, and has several quite healthy children…what’s he going to make his poems out of? He makes them out of books or he makes them out of the incidents of a normal, commonplace life. If he goes sailing off Long Island on Sunday afternoon and he wants to write a poem after dinner, he will probably write a poem about sailing off Long Island.

LISH: A small poem?

GILBERT: Oh, he’ll mention Charon at the end to make it seem big, but he is probably tired after a long day and he contents himself with making a respectable poem rather than trying to do anything to the reader. He’s unlikely to be what the Elizabethans admired so much, an over-reacher. You aren’t likely to get a big-boned poem straining its limits.

LISH: And you think this is the case with most poets today?

GILBERT: It seems to be true of most poetry today. Probably it has always been true of most poets. And it is only fair to say that all poets would like to write great poetry. It is also true, though, that if ninety-nine percent of the poets writing today stopped publishing, it would not be a loss. It might not even be noticed. We are in danger today of the kind of misguided tact that has so hampered modern British poetry. A kind of insidious conspiracy of courtesy. If there could be a truly unmalicious literary pogrom, it would do more for American literature than even making them publish anonymously. Or how about another way? You know how in the Congressional Record they have all those speeches that were never actually delivered in Congress? They save everybody’s time by waiving the reading and just print it so the people back home can see it and be satisfied their Congressman is making his voice heard. Suppose we publish a huge book called The Very Finest American Poetry of 1962? Everyone will waive the poems being actually published anywhere except in those thousands of pages of unreadable tiny print. And each poem who sends in something will automatically be issued a certificate saying he has published so-and-so many poems in 1962, and they have been declared to be the very finest of the year. It will be signed by all the right people. Then the poet can just turn this over to the head of his department when culling time comes around. The reward of promotion will be for the greatest number of certificates—and these will be given for assiduity, just as now. And he can get duplicates to send his mother, or to show his wife’s friends, or to send to the Fulbright and Guggenheim and Ford people. Or to have lying around when he has a girl up he’s trying to make.

LISH: Do you think these people who are involved in poetry to further their careers or who make mild poems out of trivial material are dangerous to the reader?

GILBERT: Mostly in being dangerous to themselves and other poets—in that they reduce poetry to something toilet-trained and comfortable. They pretend poetry is just like everything else, only fixed up funny. Like sex. Everybody understands now that sex isn’t really dirty. A little odd at times, but certainly nothing to be disturbed about. Like the sensible books on technique say. And it’s good for you. Rosy, reasonable sex. Well, it isdirty. And fantastically intimate. A kind of insanity. Of course, they often feel the same way about insanity. It’s kind of like the common cold now. And they can’t get over the secret feeling that their friend really knows, at the bottom, how silly he’s being. Someone once said to Blake that after all when he looked at the sun he saw a bright copper penny like the rest of us. Blake replied that when he looked at the sun he saw a choir of singing angels.

LISH: You feel the poets really don’t know the difference?

GILBERT: Who knows anything about poets? But I remember talking recently to a poet who teaches at the University of California who kept saying how it’s all nonsense to criticize professors for not having enough life in their poems. Take him for example, he said. One of his favorite things was to go walking up and down the main street of Oakland at night. Now I’m not making fun of him. He is quite intelligent and talented, and he sincerely believes he’s getting close to the brute reality of non-academic life walking up and down there in Oakland. It’s admirable that he wants to reach reality, but it scares me to think a man so intelligent can become so insulated that he isn’t even aware how far he is from the demon world of actuality.

LISH: What poets do you think are in touch with that demon world?

GILBERT: First let me take back that bit about the ��demon world.” It sounds like the dark-world-of-unnamable-evil out of somebody like Huysmans or Lovecraft. And let me say that most poets have had contact with the world beyond the academy and domesticity when they were young or in the army or on their year tour of Europe. But how many of them have recently lived for any time really with hunger or corruption or danger or ecstasy or madness or the alien or romance or physical labor or poverty or anything? Or evil? Directly, I mean.

LISH: All right, but what poets do you admire?

GILBERT: In the world, or writing in English, or just in America.

LISH: Let’s say just American.

GILBERT: It’s hard to answer. I admire some things in many, many poets. You remember in The Lost Weekend how the guy is hurrying down the street full of ain and he sees a new book by F. Scott Fitzgerald in a window and he stops and crouches down to read what he can of the two pages that are half open? In the middle of his hurry and unhappiness? Well, I’ll tell you the people I’d crouch down like that to read. Pound and Eliot, of course. And Williams. And Frost. And Auden, if I’m allowed both him and Eliot. And Marianne Moore. Lowell and Duncan and Wilbur and Creeley. Shapiro and once upon a time Ginsberg. And Laura Ulewicz and Richard Hazley and Gerald Stern and William Anderson and Jean McLean. And others I’ll think of later. It’s a fine century for poetry.

LISH: Doesn’t that contradict what you were saying before?

GILBERT: I hope not. It’s exactly because I think we are in one of the great centuries for poetry that I feel so strongly. The last fifty years has been a golden age for English poetry. But it’s a constant race against being inundated with proficiency. We are in danger from a glut of mediocrity of an extraordinary high calibre. The problem is to write the poems that matter. Too many poets are concerned with poems as art objects. It’s a clever kind of juggling. It’s beautiful, and very difficult, and even admirable. But it mustn’t usurp the center of poetry. We will never get people like Chaucer or Villon or Dylan Thomas or Baudelaire or Blake or Homer or Sophocles or Shakespeare by making merely beautiful things. We’ll get them only from a poetry that is significantly involved with life. And I don’t mean domestic life. Certainly the poetry must also be technically competent, but the important thing is to exceed this. So many poets now seem to aim at the adequate poem rather than the important one.

LISH: Doesn’t this dearth of important poetry at the moment owe, in part, to the feeling of many poets that life no longer holds significant subjects? What do you, for example, consider significant material?

GILBERT: All the conventional subjects for poetry. Love, death, man, virtue, nature, magnitude, excellence, evil, suffering, courage, morality. What is the good life. What is honor. Who am I.

LISH: But isn’t that just the point? Aren’t the conventional subjects too confused and wearied from a surfeit of examination and the blurring of values?

GILBERT: That’s why poets shirk.

LISH: They try something more manageable?

GILBERT: Not only that, but they don’t have enough experience or involvement to try the other. It’s what I was saying before. Most of the poets are trying to earn a living and support a family. That usually means teaching school. And after a while, it means teaching school comes first. Poetry comes second. You meet very few poets whose lives are devoted primarily to writing poetry. The may love poetry, and respect it; they may be competent, well-trained, well-meaning, good people. But you don’t become a great poet in your spare time. Besides, nice guys seldom write exciting poetry.

LISH: But even if that’s true, doesn’t part of the reluctance to deal with large moral problems come from the complexity of the problems today—obsessed with relativism, wanting to be fair, to be objective? No longer understanding all of anything, especially the major values?

GILBERT: That’s true, but it’s exactly why poetry is crucial now. Poetry and the novel have largely taken over the function of philosophy for us. Philosophy is locked up in epistemology and can’t get out. No philosopher asks any more: What is the good life? What is justice? They deal with technical problems about cognition and even more with a kind of verbal paraphernalia. Poetry seems almost the only device we have for persisting at problems without their being mysteriously transformed into an abstract game. It seems almost our only escape from the blind alley of sophistication where comparative anthropology and psychiatry have led us, seeing that there are so many sides to any question that it is impossible to have convictions. Poetry is almost the only way we can escape from the vicious constipation of moral relativism. Because poetry is the art of prejudice. If prejudice is the inability to discuss a conviction calmly, then poetry is prejudice. Prose is rational and fair. It works out an idea and gives all the evidence. Poetry doesn’t. It doesn’t argue, it demonstrates.

LISH: Then you do see absolutes. That is out of fashion, isn’t it?

GILBERT: I think most good poets see absolutes, but they mistrust themselves because they think they’re not being fair. Well, poetry isn’t fair. Poetry, at it’s best, doesn’t try to be fair. Poetry is one-sided, and being one-sided, it can say what truth is. As the art of prejudice, poetry eludes the modern situation where everything seems true and nothing seems to matter very much. The poet has a way of thinking that, peculiarly, breaks through the ambush of qualification and gets to the other side where you so often can see the truth all along but can’t find your way through the jungle of intellectual ceremony.

LISH: Somehow this seems a lot like the attitude of the Beat poets.

GILBERT: Well, it is true that one of the reasons the Beat Movement got so much attention (outside of their gift for publicity) was that their intellectual crudity helped them to break through the impasse of sophistication and establish some contact with subjects that mattered in a real world. Just as the Italian Renaissance was possible partly because the people in Florence were provincial. It could never have happened in Byzantium.

LISH: You say the beats were intellectually crude.

GILBERT: Yes, but that doesn’t mean dumb. Let me make it clear that I’m not attacking them. It’s pointless for people to keep kicking them now when the whole thing is in such disrepute. Five years ago, people in the universities hated the movement but were secretly fascinated. Now they are genuinely contemptuous and indifferent. It is useless to attack it or defend it now on doctrinaire grounds. It’s more important to evaluate it; not only fairly, but with knowledge. It was the most important literary movement of a quarter century in America. Why did all that talent and opportunity come to so little?

LISH: Why, then?

GILBERT: Mostly because of inadequate character and the repudiation of intelligence. Most of the poets in the movement are incapable of maturity. Any examination of the work of, say, Ginsberg and Corso (and Kerouac in prose) show a failure to grow. In fact, they are dedicated to the opposite. They apotheosize all the infantile qualities: impulsiveness, resentment of discipline, incapacity for self-discipline, short attention span with a consequent preoccupation with the moment, mistrust of authority and order, egocentricity, and all the rest. At first this gave their work the freshness and energy that’s usual when gifted children start out in any field: poetry, tennis, science, music, chess, whatever. But it also has a similar tendency to come to nothing. To predictably pass through a stage of exaggeration and a kind of hysteria, followed by bitterness, and finally a withered passivity. They are like those insects that get arrested at the larvae stage. I forget their name. They have all the parts, but they just don’t continue. If you want a case in point, read the interviews involving Ginsberg and Corso and Burroughs in the Journal for the Protection of All Beings. It’s sad and rather frightening to see people of such native talent ending up in such juvenility. And it’s not just in that one example. Almost anything they do now shows it. Look at Ginsberg’s piece in Pa’lante where he’s approaching middle age lost in a hopeless confusion of the most elementary philosophical problems.

LISH: And you say this failure of character goes along with the repudiation of intelligence?

GILBERT: Yes, in favor of some kind of intuition. I think intelligence has produced almost everything that is noble in man. Of course, when I say intelligence, I don’t mean just syllogistic logic. I mean the total capacity for perception and understanding available to man. Logic, intuition, gestalt, common sense, empathy, and all the rest. They want to rely on primitive, clumsy impulsiveness alone. Anyone who has lived where intelligence hasbeen replaced by intuition (such as Apulia or Mexico or India) knows how quickly life becomes diminished to something close to the animal. These people feel more at ease in those conditions. They evade the complexity life really has; and they can escape awareness of themselves into sensation. When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness.

LISH: But I thought the idea was to arrive at a greater awareness of the self. And to be more open to love.

GILBERT: They talk a lot about love, but they experience almost none. Neither for people nor the world. Their natural condition is unhappiness. And because they have so little genuine appetite for the world, they go in constant fear of boredom. That’s why they are quiet so little. After all, there is something radically wrong when you have to go to always more violent and stranger devices to get a response. A man who delights in the world isn’t so dependent on drugs and alcohol and novelty. And the sad thing is that even so they manage to squeeze our always less response. If you’ve been to any of their parties, you must have noticed how much it was like an hysterical woman straining for an orgasm synthetically. And the poetry is the same. Almost none of it stands up under rereading. In the first place, it all ends up sounding curiously anonymous. And in the second place, despite the cult of energy, all that violence of language and image seems curiously slack after six months. The poems just don’t wear well.

LISH: None of it?

GILBERT: Certainly some remains. Parts of Howl and Kaddish, for example. And besides, it depends on who you mean when you refer to the Beat Movement. It’s as Procrustean a word as academic. I certainly am not talking about Creeley or Duncan or Olson. And I think Whalen and Snyder will produce important poetry. But for the rest, if you travel around America, you find the reputations of five years ago washed up like great dying whales. And beginning to stink.

LISH: There’s that figure whales. Whales and elephants and Alcibiades. What precisely do you mean by whales?

GILBERT: You know without my telling you that no poet means precisely anything. It’s not a one-to-one relation. That’s allegory. It means a lot of things. For one, it’s the impossibly literal world. And it’s what you can’t reduce to the human scale. For me, trying to think about a whale, that endlessness down in that infinity of depth, in darkness, moving around—with a mind inside it…

LISH: Doing things.

GILBERT: Yes, and silent. I can’t make any adjustment to it. Like Lawrence said: “I said to my heart, who are these? / And my heart couldn’t own them.” He was talking about fish. And he says someplace else in the poem: “There are limits / To you my heart; / And to the one God / Fish are beyond me.” Whales in this sense, the sudden sense of the alien nature of the universe not translatable into human terms. But what particularly interests me is the sense of magnitude. It’s out of scale, and not just physically. It threatens my life, the formulations on which I operate. I have to redo my mind. There’s a poem by Rilke where he goes along describing a statue. All of a sudden, for no reason, he breaks off and says: You must change your life. When I think about whales, it’s the same in a way. Or elephants or love.

LISH: Or Alcibiades, evidently.

GILBERT: Or Alcibiades. He was the Golden Boy of 4th century Athenian culture. Pericles was his guardian, Plato his teacher. A fine athlete, a brilliant general, handsome, marvelously intelligent, popular, everything. A summation of the Golden Age. And what happened? He went bad. He was vain, treacherous, selfish, sacrilegious, debauched, dishonest, and a traitor twice over. His aid to the enemy during the Syracuse campaign destroyed Athens. Just about the finest product of the most notable civilization man has accomplished, and it turned out like that. This haunts me like the whales. Like the irrational East haunted the Greeks. Like the irrational still frightens the French. It is so much the problem today. It is so often our most endowed people who go wrong—become corrupt, sexually distorted, criminal, mad. I don’t mean just because of irrationality, or course. You might just as well call it Evil as it has been so often called to simplify things. But whatever the name, it is clear that Cordelia has little relevance for us except as a lost Eden. What concerns our time is Goneril. That’s why insanity, homosexuality, and semi-criminality are so common among poets. These prevent him from escaping into the obliviousness of normal life. Especially in modern times, the poet often has a built-in inability to succeed, so he is forced to associate with whales.

LISH: And you intend to continue to live with them by choice?

GILBERT: Well, I’m not crazy, queer, or crooked (Ai! Is there any group I haven’t offended?)��anyhow, I don’t know about it being by choice. Certainly after this interview I’m not likely to be tempted by either the universities or the foundations. It’s a choice in that I prefer whales and love and the rest; but then Heraclides said a man’s fate is his character. In any case, I intend to go on wandering around having my life and watching for whales—willingly. And with delight.

LISH: One final thing. Before the Yale printing of Views of Jeopardy, you were almost completely unpublished and unknown, weren’t you?

GILBERT: Before sending the manuscript to Yale, I had submitted poems to editors only twice in the twenty years I’d been writing poetry.

LISH: And now you have been nominated for next year’s Pulitzer Prize competition.

GILBERT: That’s true. And it makes me happy in a shamelessly uncomplicated way. To be nominated, I mean. I’m thinking of writing a poem, though, called “How It Feels to Be Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize Competition the Season Robert Frost Published His First Book in Fifteen Years.”

(https://unsaidmagazine.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/jack-gilbert-interviewed-by-gordon-lish-1962-from-issue-one-of-genesis-west-part-one/)

#Jack Gilbert #Gordon Lish #poem #poet #poetry

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thepsychicclam · 7 years ago

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Could you talk a little about what being a professor/getting your PhD has been like? Do you have to constantly do research and publish, is it hard to find jobs, do they pay enough to relieve the doctoral debt? I know you’ve moved at least once and I wasn’t sure if it was to follow a job, or if it was for personal reasons and then, was finding a new job hard? Did you start teaching while getting your PhD? I’m just fascinated by it and you seem like the best to ask!

Yes! I can share my experience. Everyone’s experience is different, and mine is unique for a few reasons I’ll discuss below. It may also vary from field to field. My PhD is in literature/English, and from what I’ve gathered, your concentration can influence a lot of stuff, too. So, under the cut, I’ll try to share my experience as much as I can! This is VERY LONG, so be warned, nonny! :D

Before I decided to get a PhD, I got a MAT - a master’s in secondary education with a focus on English literature. My BA is in creative writing/english lit. I taught high school for three years, and for a lot of reasons said FUCK THIS NOISE and quit. I lived with my parents and they told me they’d help support me. I ended up with a college teaching job (you can teach adjunct in the states with a masters) and they told me to get a PhD if I wanted to do it full time some day. I love teaching, and I’m good at it. I especially love teaching literature. So, I decided to go get my PhD.

Choosing my specialization was kinda interesting bc I decided to go for medieval literature, which I hadn’t really studied up until that point. I had always done Victorian and Shakespeare/Renaissance, with a bit of dabbling into Native American and postcolonial literature. But I taught Dante’s Inferno to my seniors my last yr at HS and fell in LOVE. So, I thought, “Hey, there aren’t a lot of medievalists. Everyone gets a PhD in Shakespeare/Victorian lit, so I’ll do that. Maybe it’ll make me more marketable.” I have always loved medieval lit, so I figured lets go for it.

My original plan was to do something with romances, so late medieval stuff. I ended up with two professors in the dept, one who focused on Anglo-Saxon/Old English and one who focused on Chaucer/later medieval. I took multiple classes in both, and my second or third semester, I took intro to Old English. I fell in LOVE WITH IT. It was a linguistics course where we learned the Old English language (which is completely different than modern or even middle english) and translated. I was GOOD at it and took to it unlike anyone else in the class. It just made sense. I think probably bc I had a background in Latin and German (I was a German studies minor in undergrad until I realized I couldn’t speak German to save my life :P) and I took like 3 or 4 yrs of Latin in hs. Anyway, I was hooked and switched to Old English. I took a lot of postcolonial literature courses, like Indian lit, lit of SE Asian, and Native American lit courses, and through this I met another professor who I adored. I ended up working with her to do my minor/secondary specialization, which is literature of the indigenous peoples of America (Native American, Chicano lit, etc - mostly Native American). I ALMOST wrote my dissertation with her bc I loved her so much and I love Native American literature so much. However, as a white woman, I didn’t feel that I would make a good postcolonial/Native American scholar, so I stuck with Anglo-Saxon lit.

I used my class papers to start working on my dissertation ideas. I got obsessed with monstrosity and the narrow definition in AS lit, and connected that to ideas of reason, which I also became obsessed with, and ended up writing all my papers about some type of monstrous transformation and how it connects to the reason of the punished. Thus, my dissertation topic was born, which currently has the working title of Transformative Bodies and their Punishments as Social Control in Anglo-Saxon Literature. It’s a terrible title, but right now, at least it states the overall topic lol

My comps, which are the comprehensive exams you have to take, took me a year to read for. Most people take one semester, I took 2. I took mine in the spring and just read for two semesters. Now, to put it into perspective, the English dept standard was 40 primary texts and 20 secondary texts, so 60 texts. Mine was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over that. I ended up with over 16,000 pgs of texts to read. Hint: I DID NOT READ THEM ALL. And remember, half of mine were in Middle English, so they took 3 times as long to read, and half were translated OE texts. But I read a lot, read the secondary stuff, and took my comps. Comps were supposed to be 2.5 hrs. The director of graduate studies handed me my comps and said, “You’re the medieval one, right?” And I was like, “...yes...” and he looked at me and said, “You get 4 hrs.” THAT’S HOW FUCKING LONG MY ADVISOR MADE MY COMPS. I HAD TO GET EXTRA TIME. So, 4 hrs I did nothing but type. There were questions on there that were not part of my 16k words, but I answered everything. I wrote 9 fucking thousand words in 4 hrs. I was PUMPED. Then, he gave me just a PASS not PASS PLUS. I’m a straight A student, valedictorian, graduated cum laude and magna cum laude, mortar board, scholarships, etcetc. I WAS PISSED :|||| I MEAN I HAD 4 HRS AND WRITE 9K ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?? It didn’t matter bc I still passed, but it was a pride thing lol

Okay, so that August I moved to Boston. My diss director was PISSED. I was ABD (all but dissertation, ie I had passed my comps), so I was going to work on my dissertation remotely. Many ppl do this. Well, he basically looked at me and said, “Yeah most ppl don’t finish who do this.” I cried for like 2 weeks. Then I got pissed and told myself I WILL FUCKING FINISH THIS IF IT KILLS ME. I regretted not doing the Native American diss with the professor I loved. My dissertation director is a dick. Hands down. I would be finished if I had a better director. I have had no support. Now, I did move to Boston, I procrastinated and took my time and had a lot of anxiety, but he didn’t help me at all. He made it worse. If you’ve followed me for awhile, you know I struggle with depression and anxiety, and at times it’s basically debilitating. So, it increased tenfold with the dissertation process. It took me a year to get my proposal submitted, finalized, and approved.

I started working on my dissertation, which thankfully I had drafts of chapters from my class papers. As of right now, I have drafted 4 full chapters of average 40 pgs each and am revising. My director takes forever to get back from me, and my comments give me MAJOR anxiety. Part of the dissertation process is being told “yeah this needs work.” It’s like, hey, your ideas are great! You have a good point! But here are 100 ways you suck. Or that’s what it feels like. So, it became a major source of crippling anxiety for me. When I was in therapy, it was like all I talked about. I have to spend a week or two just pumping myself to check my fucking email. I have been trying to make an inface mtg with my advisor for a freaking yr. He blew me off to go to the bar with his friends at a conference we attended last yr (I only know this for a fact bc I SAW HIM AT THE BAR WITH THEM when he texted me and said he had “fallen asleep.”) So, needless to say, that has been a huge struggle and conflict. However, I don’t think that’s normal. lol I’m just cursed.

Right now, I’m trying to learn how to push myself as an academic writer and researcher to the next level. Something I need him to teach me, but still trying to meet face to face! I’ve gotten to the point in my drafts that I need to improve the arguments and research in a few places, but I’m not sure how to break through my wall. I need guidance, you know? Bc I don’t live around the campus, I’m doing this alone. I don’t have a writers group or any friends in the program. I’m pretty alone and isolated, which sucks. It’s also not the norm either, I don’t think. So, I have to push myself and keep myself going and write in a vacuum. I’m the only medievalist in the Eng dept getting a PhD, so there’s not even someone else writing their dissertation in Anglo-Saxon lit or even Middle English. The medieval dept is small.

So, that is my PhD schooling experience. Let’s talk about work and loans. I worked at a different college as an adjunct while doing my classes. I did not do a graduate research or teaching assistant job at the university, which means I paid for my schooling out of pocket/loans. I had someone tell me once, “If you’re paying for your own PhD, you shouldn’t be getting one. If you’re not being paid to get it, you’re not worth anything.” Pretty much, I feel like I was told the entire way I was doing everything wrong. I couldn’t get a GRA/GTA while teaching at the other school. I was an adjunct with a 3 class load, so I made decent, though not much. I lived at home w my folks, so I was okay with money. I was extremely lucky bc of that bc most ppl live on their own and have to work multiple jobs. When I moved to Boston, that’s when I got the 239847239 jobs. (also why I used to write a lot of fic and now I don’t write as much lol real life, man). When I moved to Boston, I taught adjunct, 3 classes. I also did freelance writing and worked at a farm, mainly bc rent was$2000/mth and I didn’t get paid during the summer. When I moved to SC, I also ended up with a 3 class adjunct job, but continued with the freelance writing. I have always been incredibly lucky with getting jobs. I think it’s bc I have a lot of teaching experience (this is my 10th yr teaching) and I have a background in English literature instead of education. I also wasn’t picky where I taught. I wasn’t teaching at Harvard, Boston College, or even something like the University of South Carolina. I taught at a small state school to start with, a community college in Boston, and now another small state school. But all experience is good experience. One thing that will make you marketable is your teaching experience. Everyone I’ve every talked to who hired me was interested in my teaching experience.

For my career, right now I do a lot of conferences. I am doing 5 this semester, and I have done a ton of them. Graduate conferences, medieval conferences, lit conferences, pedagogy conferences, even library conferences. I give presentations/papers at each of them, bc I don’t see the point of going to a conference if you aren’t going to give a paper. I haven’t done any publishing yet. I have a few ideas for articles, but I’m terrified. It’s very hard to get published, so I haven’t tried yet :/ it is an expectation of all professors/phds to get published. At my current job, where I just got hired full time as an Visiting Assistant Professor, if I get a tenure track position, I have to have at least 1 publication within 5 years. That is a peer reviewed journal article or book. Getting published in English is SO MUCH HARDER than the sciences. I have a friend who works in Atlanta as a research assistant/lab technician/scientist (I’m not sure the title tbh) and she has like 3 publications bc she helped with these studies that they publish online that get published within like a month. My sister has a chapter in an art history essay collection, and it took 2 years to get published!! Academic publishing is the WORST. I’m hoping at least one dissertation chapter gets accepted as an article. I also did a project in my 102 class last semester that I have given multiple conference presentations and teaching workshops about, and I’m starting to work on turning it into an article. I want to be a teaching professor, not a research professor, so I’m trying to focus on the teaching aspect of my career. I just got a Brit Lit class for next semester instead of a sea of composition, so I’m trying to come up with a unique topical angle that I can use on my CV to show my teaching skills. So, part of my job is trying to find ways to increase my CV. Like, I run a panel at a regional literature conference (I kinda lucked into it bc my mentor used to run it, and now I do lol), so that looks good on my CV, too. So, it’s not constant publishing, but you are expected to do SOMETHING, conferences, publication, things like that.

Is it hard to find jobs? I’d say yes. Like I said, I have been incredibly lucky to always have a job. My dissertation director told me last yr after I got my job in SC, “Well, I guess you’re doing something right. I mean, you always seem to find a job.” (thanks asshole for that BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT) I am not picky. Experience is experience, and you’re not going to find your dream job immediately. That sense of entitlement limits you and keeps you from finding a job to start. Right now, I teach 5 fucking composition 101 classes. I was bitching to my sister today about how I was teaching fucking TOPIC SENTENCES and my students don’t get it!!! It sucks!! But, it pays a full time salary, and it gives me experience. Do I want to teach how to write a FUCKING TOPIC SENTENCE?? NO!! I can translate Old English and have studied medieval and early British literature for almost a decade. THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO FOCUS ON. But, I’m not an entitled asshole and realize I have to work my way up. When I finish my PhD, will get the perfect medieval/early British job? NO. I hope to get a job as an early British person somewhere (not my current school, who has no need for a medievalist really), but I know it will take one to two jobs before my dream job. Everyone I know has done 1-3 jobs before their perfect tenure job. Of course, there are always people who have the magic CV or whatever who will get that perfect job right out of grad school. I have no delusions. That’s not gonna be me. I’m an okay researcher and scholar and a damn good teacher. The first part means more than the last part for colleges. I just hope to eventually find somewhere I can teach Medieval lit to undergrads, and maybe do a course on monsters in pop culture.

Money wise, professors make okay but not mega bucks. I make pretty good for my area. But, I grew up poor, so having a full time job is like WHOO. I’ve learned how to live a great life on a lower salary. If money is what you want, this is not the career for you unless you’re teaching business or accounting at an MBA program. However, I go to work at 10 am, I leave some days at 1 and others at 3, I get from May-August and all of December off, and I make a full time yearly salary. So...I chose my profession for the time off. lol That’s exactly why I became a teacher XD I’m in a lot of student debt, but I worked out a payment plan with the student loan ppl and pay my loans every month. I’ll be dead before they’re paid off, but oh well :P

What other questions did you ask...yes, I worked the entire time teaching while getting my degree. At one point I was working 5 jobs lol but not while taking class, during comps/dissertation stuff. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask! Like I said, I have a unique circumstance, with a dick dissertation advisor, moving between 3 states and teaching at 3 different places, though I finally have landed a full time college teaching position lol When I finish my dissertation, I will be very happy with my career path. Right now, with it looming over my head and making me feel like the fucking biggest idiot and stupidest person on the planet, I regret my life decisions XD But really, I don’t bc, you know, I work like 20 hrs a week XDDDDDD

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thedramafilesblog-blog · 8 years ago

Text

We’re not a blog that is dedicated to reviewing music (including Kpop), but because we absolutely adore BTS and their music, we decided to do a memo-style review of the Music Video (MV) for their Japanese Version “Blood, Sweat & Tears” (血、汗、涙 -Japanese Ver.-).

***Note: If this is your first time browsing the Drama Files, please read The Rules on how our Memo-style reviews work.***

***Note: We really wanted to analyze the Blood, Sweat, Tears Korean MV before, but we missed out on the opportunity. We thought this MV was very interesting as well, so we were really eager to share our theories about what they could possibly signify. There are definitely many theories, so we thought we’d propose ours. Our views are simply theories and purely speculative.***

Memo

Dear Reader,

There have been some questions regarding the recent release of BTS’s 血、汗、涙 -Japanese Ver.- (“BST”), particularly:

(1) Who/What does each member represent?

(2) How is the ending clip that is reminiscient of the “I Need U” MV connected to BST?

Conclusion

(1.1) J-Hope acts as a guide. J-Hope is Archangel Michael and Frau Eva from Demian.

(2) This will be answered in a subsequent Memo.

Background

Jubiemon J: I will first start by setting the background that leads to the analysis of the characters. Please bear with me! Through BST, we see two predominant influences: the Bible in particular The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Demian. The Fall of the Rebel Angels is based on the passage from the Book of Revelation. This passage highlights the confrontation between Good and Evil, before the Fall of Man. Archangel Michael forces Lucifer to leave heaven based on God’s Orders and as a result, there is the fall of other rebel angels (See here for the actual text).

The main themes in BST, as a result, are adulthood and temptation/sin. (I write it as temptation/sin because I believe they go hand in hand. Each member is tempted by something sinful.) The lyrics of BST highly emphasize temptation; the chorus is: I want more, more, more. Given this context, we can see how each member, except for J-Hope and maybe Suga, face temptation and from these struggles, they are forced to eventually grow up and mature into an adult. I will go through each character from a biblical point of view (POV) and then from the perspective based on Demian.

When the MV has a blend of neon colours, we are safe to assume that this is a time of war/temptation/animus and that we are in the internal reality.

This is after Jungkook drank the green liquid; Look at the neon vibes.

When the MV is in an everyday type of light and the setting is still in a Victorian vibe, this seems to imply that we are looking deeper within ourselves.

Jimin is trapped in this room.

When the MV is filmed with an everyday light but the setting is modern, then that is reality in a distant past.

Jin is hitting V and V is retaliating. Look at the modern kitchen and their clothes.

When the MV is filmed with a slightly brown light that gives a nostalgic vibe, then that is the present reality.

Look at this brownish tint. Mostly only Jin shows up for these type of scenes.

I also think it’s important to establish where BST chronologically fits among BTS’ MVs to understand who each member represents. I rewatched almost all of the MVs and I think the ones that are related to BST are the Korean “BST”, “I Need U”, “Run”, the BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV, and “EPILOGUE: Young Forever”. (I consider “Spring Day” another story by itself. Feel free to read our analysis of it to understand why that is so.)

The chronology of the story, in my view, is:

1. “I Need U”

2. “Run”/the BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV/Korean BST

4. “BST”

5. “EPILOGUE: Young Forever”

I think we can divide the MVs into external reality and inner reality (aka psychical reality). “I Need U”, “Run”, and the BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV focus on the external reality (The BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV does have psychical reality, but I think it’s more like a memory playback.) The other three MVs represent the psychical reality. The way they are filmed is different from the former three.

The starting point of the boys’ story would be “I Need U”. That is when we are introduced to all of the boys’ problems (eg V struggling with his broken family, J-Hope battling what’s likely a mental health problem, etc). We end this song with V killing his father to save his sister.

Next is “Run” where we see V fall back into the water, meaning that he has succumbed to darkness. He also leads the boys into mishaps and they all play pranks or do some petty crime together.

In the end, we find that Jimin is in a tub, burning a group photo of them. All of them have changed or matured and there’s no turning back now. I placed BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV with “Run” because I see the BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV as a time where V is reminiscing about the past.

Then we move into the psychical reality. We see in the Korean BST how the characters are struggling internally. Chronologically speaking, I think the Korean BST happens around the same time as “Run” and the BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV. As the boys are changing and being led by V for the external reality, the inner reality is also occurring. That’s where the Korean BST fits in. I placed BST after the Korean BST because we see Jin reminiscing about what has happened.

Finally, there is “EPILOGUE: Young Forever” where all of them have all grown up and are wishing to stay “Forever Young”. There’s a really dream-like state with this MV, so I consider it more of a psychical reality.

There is a chance that the boys have all died as a lot of fans have remarked, but in my opinion, the boys have just matured and though they wish to stay a boy, they have to become an adult. Their “youth” has died and not their actual selves. When we go through each boy, we see what they have gone through or left behind.

White ribbons are used in Korean funerals and white ribbons can also mean innocence and pureness in other cultures. At one point, the ribbon in Jungkook’s hand seems to have turned into a white feather–hope and then the white feather is shown by J-Hope’s feet along with the scattered pills.

The members will try to savour this blissful moment for as long as they can. I think this explanation matches the lyrics more like how J-Hope raps that “[he] wants to stay young forever”/”yeongwonhi sonyeonigo sipeo nan Aah”/”영원히 소년이고 싶어 난 Aah” (See credits for translation here). I think the huge irony here is that even though they want to savour youth, getting through youth is a challenge and a maze itself. That’s why they’re in this grey fenced maze that also resembles a cage. At the end of the day, you navigate through this maze and grow up, yet you also still become super nostalgic of those days. Ironic huh?

Look at this scary maze — youth.

(Side note: I quoted the romanized Hangul and Korean lyrics because I prefer to translate the phrase as “I want to stay as a young boy forever”. Though I’m not fluent in Korean, I am certain that “sonyeon” is “少年”. 少年 in Mandarin means a teenage youth or young boy (something like a boy of ages 10-16). To be honest, I feel like when the term is translated into English, it loses its beauty and what it embodies. 少年 embodies that growing up phase.)

(Just a another note: I am not an expert in Christianity. I only know references based on what I’ve learned in English Literature and Art. I also have not fully read Demian as I have a bit too much on my hands right now. However, I’ve read summaries on Cliff Notes and Coles Notes and read character analyses. Finally, I am not a psychology major, so I apologize if I’m not 100% clear with the psychological concepts. I’ve tried my best to understand them through research.)

Now that we have all the background settled. Let’s go onto who the members represent in BST beginning with J-Hope. I have decided to release this Memo into different parts.

Analysis

(1.1) J-Hope acts as a guide. J-Hope is Archangel Michael and Frau Eva from Demian.

Throughout BST, J-Hope is like a guide. We first see him sitting in front of Michelangelo’s Pieta. Pieta depicts Virgin Mary who holds onto Jesus Christ’s deceased body after his crucifixion. We are past the scene where Jin looks through the painting, The Fall of the Rebel Angels, with some binoculars, so we know that we are in a chaotic stage of war. Notice how when the painting is zoomed in, we only see the images of the monsters and rebel angels and the Archangel in the centre is completely black.

Jin with the binoculars (setting = reality based on how it’s filmed)

No Archangel here. Just monsters and rebel angels.

Reference to the Devil from the Korean BST.

Then the first time we see J-Hope, nearly everything is pitch black, except for him and Pieta. The neon pink/yellow light symbolizes that he is here to show the light. J-Hope has a sword in his hand; we know from a lot of stories, noble knights or Kings have to fight with a sword (ie King Arthur/Lancelot etc). Similarly, he has to fight off the bad angels.

Neon pink in BST meaning that “there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,” (Book of Revelations, 12:7)

As Archangel Michael, J-Hope chases V who is likely Lucifer from Heaven and brings about the demise of the Rebel Angels. Jimin and Jungkook are seen restraining V, the Fallen Angel. You’re probably wondering how these two can be helping J-Hope when they too have fallen into despair. I think the only reasonable way to explain it is that each member starts their story at a different time. Jimin and Jungkook were saved first or have matured enough to realize that the Fallen Angel needs to be out of Heaven.

Jimin and Jungkook are restraining V (the Fallen Angel).

Reminder that J-Hope is the one holding the sword.

I am pretty sure that this is J-Hope shooting at V because in his other outfit, he is wearing the same sweater as the one here.

After all, right after the scene above, we see J-Hope with a bow and arrow.

We never get to see who exactly is the one that aims at V. However, we see in the subsequent scene that J-Hope is the one shooting his bow and arrow. In the Bible, a bow is the doctrine of truth and good: “Jehovah’s arrows are sharp, and all His bows are bent, the hoofs of His horses are counted as rock, and His wheels as the whirlwind” (Isaiah 5:28) (See this website for more explanation). After he shoots that arrow, the doctrine of truth and good are spread to all of the boys. We see the boys hanging out with J-Hope after there’s a small clip of V being in pain.

Then we notice J-Hope pouring down some pills in a cauldron which lets the truth explode. In a way, I think it could be that J-Hope is foretelling what “may” happen, but I think it is more likely that he is telling us what “has” happened. This is because the next scene is Jin looking around in the present and after that we cut to V and Jin.

(Just a little note: When J-Hope is with the boys or in his lounge room, he is wearing a sweater that is pieced together in many parts. Half of it is black and red and the other is grey, white, and blue. I suddenly got the feeling that the red and black reminded me of Jin’s outfit throughout this whole MV. In a way J-Hope seems to embody both Good and Evil at this stage after fighting the war.)

J-Hope pouring some pills down and revealing fortunes or the past.

Based on the two filming styles, I think the V and Jin scene feels more like the past. Jin keeps hitting V and then mouths a “Sorry”. This somehow makes me feel that Jin is really enraged that V led Jin or all of them down the wrong road. After all, if we take a jog back memory lane, we will notice that V is always the one leading the group to do something. V is the only one that jumps from that high contraption in BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV.

V being the first to jump and to lead the group to elsewhere

That jumping scene is more likely a memory of the past as we first see V with bloody hands in BTS 화양연화 On Stage Prologue MV, meaning that he has already committed the murder. He keeps trying to wash off the blood but like Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, his hands are stained. Right after this short scene, the lighting in the MV changes to give off a bright yet nostalgic vibe and then there are clips of happiness. Therefore, it’s likely V’s memory of the happier times. I think this theory works because this is also a Prologue MV leading to Butterfly.

In “Run”, V is also the first one that has plunged into the water because he has sunken too deep via the murder. After his plunge, we are shown Rapmonster who dumps some sugar into his cup of coffee. This act symbolises that similarly, all the boys have subsequently fallen into darkness after V’s crime. In “I Need U”, we already know that all the boys suffer from problems. However, V is the only one who commits arguably the biggest crime out of the boys: V has murdered his father. Therefore, these all prove that V is the one that has led the boys astray.

Also, closer to the end of”I Need U”, J-Hope is the one pouring down pills. In the beginning of “I Need U”, he seems to have to rely heavily on pills as we see him with his pill cabinet. His external reality is likely dealing with a mental health issue which is why he also suffers a lot in his psychical reality. (It could be non mental health related illness as well; we don’t really know that much based on the clips.)

J-Hope pouring pills in this fire in “I Need U”

J-Hope pouring pills in this cauldron in BST

Let’s go back and contrast this “I Need U” pill pouring scene to the BST one. Somehow I keep getting reminded of the Three Witches in Macbeth. I wouldn’t say J-Hope fully embodies the Three Witches because there are three of them and J-Hope doesn’t start any of the MVs. However, I think there is a subtle inference that J-Hope may have been like Three Witches who planted the seed of temptation in Macbeth’s mind to kill King Duncan. Although this pill pouring scene is shown among all of the boys changing towards the end of the MV, there are also clips of the boys’ happy youth where they are playing with fireworks and I’m pretty sure they all gathered around a fire way before V killed his father.

V coming in to rescue his sister and ends up killing his father.

Jimin sinking to despair

Happy Jungkook at the group camp fire

Everyone playing with fireworks (in the past)

Therefore, when he pours the pills in his external reality, he is foreshadowing the darkness that will come and perhaps in a very subtle way, he has influenced V to act. However, unlike the other boys who have succumbed to darkness, J-Hope is able to break free from temptation and is the bearer of truth in the inner reality. He dumps the pills once more in BST, becomes the one that awakens from this chaos, and has to punish V, the Fallen Angel.

Now that we have established how J-Hope fits as Archangel Michael, we can see how J-Hope can also be Frau Eva who represents the anima. Anima and animus are concepts developed by Carl Jung. Anima is “the woman in men” (See here for more info). The Anima’s archetype is the mother figure. It’s quite fitting that Pieta, which shows the Virgin Mary, is right behind J-Hope. Moreover, in Demian, Demian gives a kiss from Frau Eva to Sinclair. As a result of the kiss, Sinclair who represents the conscious ego is able to combine with Demian (the self) and merge with Frau Eva (the anima). Throughout the novel, Frau Eva’s role is also to help Sinclair grow. As a result, J-Hope has helped all of the other boys mature and the boys are thrown back to the external reality.

Look behind J-Hope!

As for himself? J-Hope is left behind and gazes up to this sky that features an ominous green butterfly/pair of wings. I initially saw this as a butterfly; butterflies generally symbolize great transformation. Think of a caterpillar who changes into a butterfly. Wings gives a different meaning like freedom, independence, and in the Bible, wings are known to be spiritual truths (See here).

All of the boys have gained some form of truth and returned to the external reality which is in green. Green is associated with nature and the Earth. I’m pretty sure in BST, green here is used to represent when the characters are in the external reality.

Whenever this neon green is used, the scenes are related to the characters being in the inner reality. We first see this neon green when Rapmonster and Jungkook are sitting across from one another and Rapmonster tempts Jungkook. Notice how the neon green is on the exterior of the windows and how the Hotel is outside of this building. Jungkook was in a hotel at the beginning. The last three pictures show the ending scenes of the MV. There is V who has been punished looking up to the green sky (external reality). There is Jungkook who is going through that weird neon green/blue light to get back to the external reality. There’s Jin looking down at the vortex and stepping away from it. The green sky is all around him. He too is getting back to the external reality.

I haven’t figured out which member to analyze for the next post, so please feel free to let me know who you’d like to understand first!

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