words matter

Charles Bukowski will never become a cliché. He’s raw and visceral, just like Ani DiFranco. His poems are unadorned verbs. Numerous small magazines are now jam-packed with poets who are unabashedly inspired by the freeing up that poetry received at Bukowski's hands.

Here is an image: So can you imagine Plath and Sexton in the same writing class? They were together in Robert Lowell’s poetry class in Boston (although he put the two wackos down often in his class, he was so taken by their genius that he changed his own writing to the confessional mode.) Plath and Sexton would go drinking after class for hours – to kill time before their therapy sessions.

By far my favorite poet of the last ten years is Billy Collins. "Collins writes lovely poems," John Updike raves, "lovely in a way almost nobody's since Roethke's are. Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides."

Have a look:

Billy Collins - www.bigsnap.com/linklibrary.html

Charles Bukowski - http://www.mindspring.com/~stewarts/arthurs.htm

But I will save most of my space here for the big guy: Ken Kesey and the hero's journey, and specifically his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

The novel – not the movie. It’s an important distinction because the novel is narrated by the a silent, dignified, huge and towering Indian giant "Chief" Bromden, aka "Broom" (cuz he is always pushing that broom in silence) - a "deaf and dumb Indian" "as big as a god-damn tree trunk" - with a father blinded after many years of alcoholism. (The movie seems to be from the point of view of McMurphy, who is actually the catalyst for Chief Broom’s hero’s journey.) Chief Broom feigns muteness and deafness to protect himself from pain. McMurphy rescues him from his silence.

Describing Ordinary World

Chief Broom, and all the other characters on the ward, have a relatively safe and predictable world. They have no expectations and nothing to look forward to – thanks to the emasculating presence of Nurse Ratched who keeps to a carefully orchestrated, and dull, schedule – day after day after day.

Call to Adventure

One day, in a group therapy meeting, McMurphy begs Nurse Ratched to rearrange the "carefully worked out schedule" of the work detail so that the inmates can watch on TV the opener of the 1963 World Series baseball game, at Yankee Stadium, adding: "a little change never hurt huh? A little variety?"

To intimidate his liberating challenge to the leadership of the ward and to cause no disruption to the ward's precise schedule, she refuses: "Some men on the ward take a long, long time to get used to the schedule. Change it now and they might find it very disturbing."
The Nurse proposes a vote to decide the matter - "let majority rule" - already knowing that authority and power are on her side against the slavish, malleable, drugged-out patients. Only three votes support McMurphy's request and he can't believe it, evoking a political comparison: "What is this crap?...What is the matter with you guys? Come on! Be good Americans."

Crossing the First Threshold

Okay – examples like this go on and on. He is making all the other inmates feel “alive”. They eventually start to hear his call. Finally, Nurse Ratched and the authorities decide that McMurphy needs to get electric shock therapy. McMurphy is waiting to get strapped down when he is talking to Chief Broom and he offers him some gum – Chief says “Juicy Fruit”
HAHAHAHAHA – Chief has been holding out on them all this time. He wasn’t deaf or dumb at all!

Hero’s Journey – Catalyst Departs

Well, the Chief has decided to join the living! He can no longer hide and it’s time to awaken. He has a rebirth. Later in the novel, when McMurphy’s rebellious nature earns him a lobotomy (the ultimate objective of the establishment as defined in the book). The Chief decides he cannot let McMurphy live this way. So, he puts a pillow over McMurphy’s head – suffocating him. Chief picks up a heavy faucet fixture and tosses it out a window. Chief Broom runs away – no doubt hitchhiking his way to freedom.

Find out more about Kesey at http://www.pranksterweb.org