How the 1920's Influenced Poetry

"Languages"

The Poem

• THERE are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a new course Changing its way to the ocean. It is mountain effluvia Moving to valleys And from nation to nation Crossing borders and mixing. Languages die like rivers. Words wrapped round your tongue today And broken to shape of thought Between your teeth and lips speaking Now and today Shall be faded hieroglyphics Ten thousand years from now. Sing—and singing—remember Your song dies and changes And is not here to-morrow Any more than the wind Blowing ten thousand years ago.

Meaning of the Poem

• In Carl Sandburg's Poem "Languages" the sense of loss and disparity are ever so present. In his poem Sandburg uses a river as a metaphor for languages. He describes how the river (or languages) are beginning to meld together in the ocean, leaving little trace behind to prove their existence.
• What Sandburg means by this stretches beyond just languages and connects straight to culture. Sandburg feels that cultures are being lost, and that the defining attributes of each culture will soon cease to exist.

How the 1920's influenced his poem

• During the 1920's the Nation's total wealth doubled. With all the extra money the american people were able to splurge and invent. Towards the middle of the 1920's a movements called "Mass Culture" began to take America by storm.
• Inventions such as radio, television, jazz, swing, refrigerators, and toasters, swept America and before you knew it everyone was listening to the same music, dancing the same, eating similar and their extracurricular activities . mirrored eachother
• In his poem, Sandburg expresses a certain distaste for the "Mass Culture" movement. He was afraid that everyone was becoming to similar and that people individual cultures were loosing their originality.

"The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter

The Poem

• WHILE my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse; You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: 5 Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. At fourteen I married My Lord you. I never laughed, being bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back. 10 At fifteen I stopped scowling, I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever, and forever. Why should I climb the look-out? At sixteen you departed, 15 You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies, And you have been gone five months. The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead. You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, 20 Too deep to clear them away! The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the west garden— They hurt me. 25 I grow older. If you are coming down through the narrows of the river, Please let me know beforehand, And I will come out to meet you, As far as Cho-fu-Sa. From the Chinese of Li Po.

Meaning of the Poem

• Ezra Pound's poem "The River Merchant's Wife" opens on a young girl in a garden. Both her childish haircut and location symbolize her innocence. A young boy suddenly appears, taking advantage of his youth while playing childish games. The poem then moves on to the marrige the two shared and their the distant realtionship. The girl soon becomes comfortable in the company of her husband, only to have him leave and not return due to his job as a merchant.
• The poem was written as a letter addressed to the womans husband, in which she tells him of her sadness that she suffers from and the goodtimes he is missing.

How the 1920's Influenced the Poem

• Still focusing on the mass culture movement, i belive that the sudden influlx of mass prodeuced goods and mervhandise woul have been the main source of influence for this poem. Since people from all over the world were puurchasing goods made in mass porportion, small buissness owners such as Merchants would either suffer finacially and would have to travel far and wide to make sales or they would get caught up in the selling of mass produced goods.