INDUSTRIAL CULTURE POETRY
WHAT IS IT? by: Jack Bowman ©
The following poem was written in 1972 and performed twenty three years later at the Front Street Coffee House in Dayton Ohio. I read the savage lines and Todd (a Christian missionary) read the missionary lines. Todd and I were handcuffed together as we read our lines. It is titled The Missionary and the Savage Talk about Toys.
| Look at our shiny new toys; new cars,
color t.v. new clothes.
But the end product is a rat race. We have simplicity and in that simplicity we have peace of mind. Look at our modern art. We have reached great heights of beauty in form and function. Your art depicts the insanity of the human mind. Not the beauty of nature. We are fully aware of form and function. The most beautiful form is the human form and the functions is that of reproduction. Does modern art replace that? But look at our beautiful cities booming with industry. They may be beautiful but I am blinded by the smog. Look at our trees and the beauty of nature. Or can you not see because of the glare of your toys? Look at the educational system. More and more get college education's. That is not education. It is indoctrination so that the few with the most toys can continue to have the most. But look at our system of government. How it hold millions together. Yes, but it could not hold them together without them all having a common cause. The accumulation of more toys. We are adults. We put our toys away nearly two-hundred years ago. |
Important here in defining Industrial Culture Poetry are several things.
The fact that it was written in 1972 and performed twenty three years later indicates that we are somehow caught in the world of 1972.
The two performers were handcuffed together symbolizing that both the missionary and the savage are locked together.
It was performed in a Coffee house in an industrial area.
The concerns of the savage are the concerns of contemporary Industrial Culture Poets.
This poem by JeanAnn Bolliger shows more sensitivity to the Industrial concerns than the savage.
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ARMCO Now AK Steel Across the street an orange flame dances....It wavers, brightens, and dims, upon the clouds,...casting obscure reflections against traffic. It is 12:30 a.m. at the coke plant which....is the burning city that trembles unaltered.....Unlike other towns, its blaze is deliberate. Behind the city another flame burns blue...bounding sky-ward from its subterranean space....Steam and smoke issue around the city....from chimneys and cracks--drifting....across low pressure sodium lamps. It is a scene from Dante's inferno....the place, in urban legend,....where scientists drilled a hole seventeen miles deep....then lowered a sensitive mike...to hear screams and moans below. The tellers of this story would have us believe.... these cries are cries of the dammed....Perhaps this is so--just not exactly in this place...but down the road. In Busters bar or at Bill's Cafe in Mayfield....They cash pay checks from this city every Thursday.....You will find many of its denizens there....answering to different names, their voices rising in the smoke. and like the dammed, ....their expressions remain unrecorded. |
Industrial culture poetry not only shows a sensitivity toward the working man (the one that actually does the physical labor) but as all poetry it calls up images from our inner psyche of him and his plight.
Industrial culture poetry is not limited to a "poetry form". It can take on any form from free to rhymed couplet. Here is a Villanelle I wrote a couple years ago.
| Life and beauty the young children's
dreams so filled
Print clean dresses flying in the air Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled The parent's youth and beauty the capitalists had killed Their freedom their cupboard had all been stripped bare Life and beauty the young children's dreams so filled Living in a house without heat makes a heart so chilled. No silk no oak wood just a plastic chair Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled As the garbage and sewage was the air they smelled Wealth and beauty they were always told was just over there Life and beauty the young children's dreams so filled The little girls dancing high on the garden hill With silken floating flying hair Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled Revolution, Revolution for the strong willed Life only belongs to those that care Life and beauty the young children's dreams so filled Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled. |
| A Villanelle is a French verse form from the fifteenth century with the following formula: ( A/c/B ab/c/A ab/c/B ab/c/A ab/c/B ab/c/A/B ) The "A" and "B" stand for complete lines which rhyme with each other, and which are repeated in their entirety throughout the poem as indicated with the formula; "c" stands for different lines sharing the same outside rhyme; and ab stands for different lines sharing the same rhyme as "A" and "B". [from Poet's Dictionary by William Packard] |
Here is a poem by Scott Stalnaker addressing the issues of the so called Generation-X. It cries of the woes of the Industrial Culture in which it was born.
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GEN X: BITCHIN' TO A BUSTER Don't babble to me.....About the VW busses.....They aren't spray paintin' flowers......On the BMW's and Benz's. Don't ramble to me........About how he was.........Rebellin' 'gainst the Establishment..................He was going to join the Peace Corps.....And heal the poor.....After he finished med school.........Insurance won't pay for mom's nursing home. Don't mumble to me 'bout.........Fightin' the Man..............She wasn't marching........On the Washington Memorial .......... When the shit was gettin' beat out of....Reginald Denny and Rodney King. Don't whisper to me about Woodstock........The naked stage baby.........was molested by a foster brother....While her mother and father...Shot morphine in their motel room. |
In conclusion Industrial Culture Poetry recognizes the working man and the woes brought to him by Industrial Culture. It uses the romantic natural images as a reference for what might have been. It does not actually use them in an overly glorious way. It uses many industrial images such as smoke, heat, drugs, sewage, traffic, capitalism. It more than anything else brings to the forefront the negative attributes of the culture so they may be changed to improve the common man's lot.
Submit Poetry for consideration of publication to mailto:dapoets@bright.net