The paper discusses how “The Dilemma in the Long Poem”, “The Homecoming”, and “Why Literature Matters” relate to today’s society. In “The Dilemma of the Long Poem” the author is conflicted by the briefness of today’s American poetry. In “The Homecoming” the author shows the negative side effects of foster care system. In “Why Literature matters” the author informs why the reading culture is important and why we should not kill literature.
The Dilemma of the Long Poem
In this article, the author states that in today’s society poets are writing poems which are both relaxed and short. Dana criticizes poets in the 21st century saying that they can hardly write long poems because they are used to writing short ones. According to Dana 21, American poetry lacks estimable lesser writers of versatility and scope such as Gay, Shenstone, Young, Cowper, Collins, Thomson, or Dyer. Dana continues to state that America also lacks excellent poets of statues like Pope, Dryden, Milton, Spenser, and Shakespeare. Dana uses both points to emphasize that American poetry is a limited enterprise.
“American Poetry may be bold and expansive its moods and subject matter, but it remains timorous and short-winded in its range” (Dana 24). In this quote, the author praises American poetry for being bold when it comes to expressing feelings and emotions. The poetry expands the moods and feelings widely that the reader can feel what the poet is communicating. In spite of the praises, the author also states that American poetry is short-winded in its range. As seen in this line, Dana is still criticizing modern American poetry for being short. This line illustrates the title of the article. Dana is torn in between liking American poetry for being expansive and bold in its moods and disliking it for being short. Dana is in a Dilemma.
In today’s society, people are constantly writing short poetry because it is user-friendly. People no longer read poetry from books. Technology has seen the evolution of digital books where people read from phones, tablets, and computers. People want to get what the poet is communicating without having to stare at the screen for long hours. Therefore, poets are writing short poems which bring out the mood boldly.
The Homecoming
The author tells the story of a young girl who is abandoned by her mother and her father but is later adopted by a woman that she did not know. The woman turns out to be a foster mum to the girl who raises her until she becomes a young woman (Gioia 12). The foster mother is shown to be a woman who was very religious and was strict about attending church. It shows how the young girl lived with restrictions in her foster home, and when she became a young woman, jailed in prison, her only mission was to kill the woman that raised her. Having learned that the strong people always win from the books that she read as a child, she escapes prison and goes back home to kill her foster mother.
When you look at the society today, a lot of children are raised in foster homes. This could be as a result of many underage children getting pregnant with no means of supporting their children, other children suffering from abandonment issues who therefore do not need the burden of raising a child or even the lack of the nature of responsibility that can drive a person to raise a child which seems to be the norm today. The care that is given in most foster homes as well is wanting. Most children that are raised from one foster home to another grow up to be troubled young adults with some of them ending up in rehabilitation facilities or jail. This is caused by the fact that most foster parents do not take in the children because they care about young abandoned children, they do it as a means to an end, waiting for the monthly paycheck they are given by the government to support these kids.
It is because of this greed that most children in the foster homes will not have the necessary needs that any child should have. In the author’s case, the girl would steal books so that she could have something to read. In the society, we see kids stealing everywhere. These kids are taught from a young age that in this world, survival is of the fittest. They learn that while some people have it easy in life, others have to claw their way to success. It is easy to deduce how such a child would grow up to be incarcerated even as a juvenile. The traumatic experience of growing up in a foster home where you are denied basic human needs, where one lacks love and companionship and knowing that your birth parents rejected you can result in a person yearning to enact revenge on the person that caused them pain. This pain is what caused the young girl in the young girl to escape prison and go back home just to kill her foster parents. This sad cycle keeps repeating itself because in the end, whether we realize it or not, we become the people that surround us.
Why Literature Matters
In the vastly developing digital world for the soul to enrich itself Literature is very essential. According to Cliff Hodges, words were the only means of communication before the age of technology came up (61). Literature is the heart of everything from the first words that we speak to the last. Literature has been the backbone of most people’s moral journey. When reading any form of writing helps shape the way people see the world. Literature goes beyond the time and a place. Most of the readers or writers usually view things in their perspectives by going into a different mindscape. At the epicenter lies Literature, it has the power to make people laugh, cry and it also plays with people’s emotions, and that is basically what keeps people alive. Life would be stagnant without Literature.
In history, literature plays a significant role to people. History is intertwined with Literature. When people want to learn about their roots and culture, they usually turn to research, when they want to understand the ancient days they turn to literature (Cliff Hodges 63). Literature is a documentation of the happenings around people; it’s an expression that gives the reader insight of what has been happening. If people kill the culture of literature how will the future generation relate to the historical days? The Author states that most of the young people spend time on YouTube, surfing the web and texting instead of reading. People are slowly killing the reading culture. People will start forgetting historical and political events without anyone to document them afresh or without someone to re-write the happenings.
In the 21st century majority of the people use technology more and what is required is just for an individual to be creative, have reading skills and just a good imagination. Literature has been put in competition with the electronic media. The author states that people have stopped buying books to read but spend hours of their time staring at their phones, laptops or their pads. They have stopped paying attention to how they write, people do not read books anymore, and that has affected people’s ways of thinking (Miller 5). When people read they begin to imagine and ask themselves, “what was this person thinking at that time when they were writing”? With literature, it is possible able to think outside the box, and people are not limited to what they can find on the web after researching.
Literature is everything. It gives people confidence in what they are saying especially when they refer to what they have read before. It is what people need to understand each other through writing, through speaking, and through reading. Literature actually determines if people are to live together in unity and harmony. It has been used to restore peace before; it has been used to express feelings and also it has been used to teach people. A world without literature is not survivable. Literature opens readers’ eyes and minds in a way that is possible to see, beyond what is visible. With this people start to question, they begin to learn and also instincts and intuitions are built.
According to Miller, literature makes people think critically. Unlike technology that makes things easier, Literature makes people think and try to figure things out. It helps people read between the lines, connect ideas and learn more about characters. Reading is an on-going process that has no limits to time, and it is universal. Advanced literacy depends mostly on the economic factors, the education levels and also cultural factors. A nation becomes less informed, the citizens become less active, and people start having independent minds. People should strive to make the society an innovative society, a productive society and a society that has the reading culture. As the years go by, there is risk of losing a vital tool used in generating insight. Reading culture should be embraced and passed on to the other generations because it is needed. It does matter in this generation and in the lives of the future generations.
Works Cited
Gioia, Dana. "The Dilemma of the Long Poem." The Kenyon Review 5.2 (1983): 19-23.
Cliff Hodges, Gabrielle. "Reasons for reading: Why literature matters." Literacy 44.2 (2010): 60-68.
Miller, J. Hillis. Literature Matters. Open Humanities Press, 2016.
Gioia, Dana. Dana Gioia. University of Missouri, 1994.
