Mother to Son - Langston Hughes

courtesy poetryfoundation.org:

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

___________________

This was one of the first poems that ever truly "hit" me. Not coincidentally, it is my mother's favorite poem, and one that she read to me from a young age. I think that this poem addresses one of the most universal sentiments in all of human existence: That life, on the whole, is painful. We like to discuss life as if it were a party or amusement park or something of the sort, but I believe that this glamorization is simply self-deception. Not to say that life isn't amazing, wonderful, beautiful, etc. (as a great man once said about life: "it beats the alternative.") But it is also very hard. I can't imagine how hard it was for Mr. Hughes' mother (for the sake of this analysis, I will assume this poem is based out of some autobiographic truth). Growing up a white male is distinctly different than growing up a poor black woman at a time when desegregation was a bleak hope for the future. Regardless of race, however, I feel that we can all take something away from this poem: That our lives aren't, and never will be, "a crystal stair", but that we will face our share of torn-up boards on our journey.

Grammies offer a few (major) surprises.

I just finished watching the annual endurance test known as the Grammies and, as always, the recording industry missed the mark almost universally. As was pretty much expected, the chronically troubled Amy Winehouse cleaned up, with no less than six trophies going into her column. Understandably, Winehouse was a Grammy favorite, with the hit single "Rehab" having been on our collective radars for the better part of the last year; however, one would have thought that due to her noted stints in rehab (ah, how art imitates life!) and recent visa issues, the voters may have changed their course.

The ever-outspoken Kanye West picked up the trophies for best rap song and album, once again, predictably, although with arguably his weakest album to date. Mr. West also performed the evening's biggest "head scratching" performance, which included neon lights, space suits, and a giant pyramid.

However, the one true surprise that came out of the night was saved for the finale. With such heavyweights as Winehouse, Kanye, and Foo Fighters seemingly the favorites to pick up the award for album of the year, it was jazz pioneer Herbie Hancock who left with the big prize. For a generation that for the most part only knows Hancock as the punchline to a Tommy Boy joke, this may have been a bit confusing, but as a fan of Herbie's for a number of years, I couldn't have been more pleased. For one reason, with the exception of Winehouse's album, the other options were relatively tame (probably the Foo's worst offering to date). But more importantly, this was a chance to put Jazz music, the oft-forgotten intellectual older brother of Blues, Rock, and R&B, to the forefront of the evening's festivities.

While still terribly and embarrassingly out of touch with the truly great music out there today, this year's show did provide a silver lining, albeit a silver-haired one.

Thesaurus

courtesy of poemhunter.com:

Thesaurus

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

Billy Collins

--------------

I personally love this poem because it reminds me of why I love the English language so much. Imagining words gathered together at family reunions is pretty hysterical (to an English teacher, at least), and I love how the loosest synonym is referred to as the "odd cousin". My favorite part of the poem, however, is the underlying message that no two words actually mean the exact same thing, and that there is no such thing as a true synonym. The whole concept of the last stanza-- that the poet (Billy Collins, one of my favorites, by the way) encourages the "mixed marriage", so to speak, of unreleated words, is very powerful and exciting, from a writer's standpoint. What do you think?