0 0 0 w bo0 $. Reason to rhyme By Steve Miller N EW POETRY in this age of change and turmoil seems strange and contradictory. The critics call it modern, but poets themselves are all romantics at heart, and they always will be. Tinged with a sense of obligation to the present, framed by the constraints of realism, they still hope for a happier future. Most would even be satisfied with a happier tomorrow. The Sleeping Beauty by Hayden Corruth Harper & Row, 143p. Hayden Carruth's book, The Sleeping Beauty, is one long poen with 124 sec-i tions, one to a page. It truly is a modern poem, composed between 1972 and 1980, containing ideas of the age we live in, interspersed with far older ideas seen in the light of the present. The sleeping beauty herself conjures up an image of a woman awakened long ago. She isn't actually in the poem, but the idea ser- ves as a delicate mythic tracery of modern womanhood-asleep at times, but perceptive, shrewd, loving, vuerotinl and sexual yet evenly paced, Carruth's verses slide from one image to the next, from one myth to the next, from jazz singers to neighbors to strangers. -He doesn't start or end anywhere in particular, but he covers a lot of territory. Wars, communism, THE ADVENTURES of IT'S A ARO... IT'S A POET... IT'S- WALT WHITMAN, A KOSMOS, OF MANHATTAN, THE 50N, feminism, and decay of the countryside as cities expand all follow in an inter- connected sequence. There have been far more powerful poetic uses of each of these themes, but Carruth skillfully blends them into the personality of the narrator, a quiet man, sensitive but distant from the white-hot core of these movements. In the poem's best spots this man shies away from world-shaking events. The problems that directly affect his world evoke a feeling of identification and reality-the cold winter days in the country, cutting wood, pulling cars from a ditch-actions that can be carried out by the lone figure. Carruth's love of life is beautiful, but cold and sometimes distant. If reality is the poet's true realm, then this is good and successful poetry. For Carruth, existing until tomorrow is the struggle, and believing in the ground beneath four feet of snow is the only imaginative luxury a poet-farmer can afford-other than his few dreams. A Glass Face in the Rain by William Stafford Harper & Row, 124p. Opus Posthumous by Wallace Stevens. Vintage, 306p. These two volumes are polar exam- ples of the realistic forces in poetry. William Stafford in A Glass Face in the Rain writes for people as individuals. He offers his poetry as a message of hope, something people need to help them through another day and night. His sensitivity and empathy contrast with Wallace Stevens' fearfulness for humanity's fate. In Open Posthumous, Stevens writes for collective groups, even humanity as a whole. He sets up his own terms, for existence and others must either reach them or fall short. Both poets are striving for life beyond mere survival, while maintaining a firm grip on human nature. They do not present images for the sake of imagery, but work to expand the mindset and at- TURBULENT, FLESHY, SEN! EATING, DRINKN&G AND BREE °- f titudes of their readers. Using almost opposite poetic styles and a range of subjects and techniques, they arrive at the same goal. Stafford's book is simple, stylistic, and straightforward. On the surface, he seems to lay down a single image and flesh it' out with emotional subtleties. But the reader soon becomes compelled to participate in the poem with personal emotions and background. In "Why W'e Need Fantasy," for instance, Stafford touches on a creative side of everyday existence, drawing on forgotten thoughts and connecting apparently disparate concepts. While it is, an uncomplicated- technique, Stafford picks and chooses ideas out of the humdrum routine of daily life, selecting the odd imaginative thought that springs to mind between washing the dishes and raking the leaves. All the same people and fur- niture are there as they are in any nor- mal day, but Stafford discovers them at their best. Stevens' book is far different, mainly because it's been assembled almost haphazardly from the poet's entire life's work. It contains poems, prose, and plays written from early in the cen- tury up to the mid-'50s, all held together by the poet's consistent perspective. "Realism is a corruption of reality," he writes. To fight this, he uses the in- terpretive powers of consciousness and imagination set free from the strictures of realism, and searches for meaning in his own emotions. He can't explain what causes him to think a certain way, but the search reveals many promising possibilities. "It is necessary to propose an enigma to the mind. The mind always proposes a solution."uNo guarantee that it's the right solution, but the thought is an end in itself, a goal that may serendipitously solve a dif- ferent enigma. Stafford's poems shouldbe read aloud on a frosty Sunday afternoon, while an appie pie is baking. He is soothing, happy with life. But Stevens' poems are something to be alert for, - WORDS FROM "LEAVES OF GRASS"- whenone is self-sure and skeptical of the world. They should be read under a bright light, with a full pack of cigaret- tes close at hand and room for jumping! up when excited or angry. Stevens' work needs to be confronted, accepted or rejected. Opus Posthumous is an ar- tificial construction, but Stevens demands consideration as one of the driving voices in "modern" poetry. The Writer's Craft- Hopwood Lectures, 165-81 ed by Robert A. Martin Univ. of-Mich. Press, 286p. By rights, this volume doesn't belong. here. As the subtitle says, it is a tran- scription of 16 Hopwood Lectures. The Writer's Craft, third in the series, isn't poetry and it isn't fiction. It's about writing fiction, plays, poetry and criticism. It is commentary on the state of the art, with a healthy dose of sage and gentle literary advice from Those Who Know (read: Those who make money at it). Arthur Miller, Joan Didion, Theodore Soltaroff, Tom Wolfe, and a dozen others offer up their views. Of course, some of their comments seem aimed at keeping their listeners awake, but buried amid the filler are a few useful bits for the aspiring writer. Theodore Soltaroff's lecture, "The Practical Critic: A Personal View," is fun and anecdotal, but he makes a few stimulating points about focusing images and the combination of image and purpose that would help any writers, critics and poets alike. Many of the lectures aimed at poetry-Donald Davie's "Sincerity and Poetry" or Peter Taylor's "That Cloistered Jazz"-pose questions about the motivations of poets, helping to isolate the emotions and thoughts that generate a poem. They criticize past in- terpretations, tell amusing parables, discuss the nuts and bolts of the business, and keep it all interesting and (mostly) to the point. The level of complexity between the speeches varies from year to year, from the heavy-duty criticism of the avant-garde by Robert W. Corrigan to the funny stories by Peter DeVries about his family. The level of usefulness varies also, but unless you're taking notes, who cares? They're clever essays, not for reading all at once, but for sampling oc- casionally. Poetry Comics- A Cartooniverse of Poems by Dave Morice Simon & Schuster, 186p. Here it is folks, "the book you wished you'd had in English 101" or, at this university, English 240. Poetry Comics by Dave Morice is a big comic book about those poems we've all been reading since fourth grade. Morice uses dozens of comic book styles to illustrate Donne, Shakespeare, Black, and others on up to the moderns. Morice usually sticks with a literal in- terpretation of the poems, but when he lets his imagination roam, he comes up with some startling and hilarious effec- ts. "The Adventures of Whitman" is the best and most ambitious piece in the book. Using only words from "Leaves of Grass;" Morice guides his superhero off into the cosmos to battle evil, after Whitman downs a generic brew. "It's a bard . .. it's a poet . . . it's WHITMAN!" And it's a funny- looking crowbar in the works of the Establishment Poetry mathine. 0 come up here, go to a couple of parties, they do this, do that. And in a couple of weeks, they are branded. The guys call them 'the whore on the third floor.' Even if they never do another thing, they've got that reputation," said Blon- din. Male students, however, are dismayed at the notion that they're only out for sex. Sure, their friends do that sort of thing, but not them. It's just not right. "I don't respect people that pressure other people into sex," said one male senior. "I think that a lot of it is related to drugs." Another said, "Guys sometimes feel they have the right to certain things, especially if they have spent some money on their date. I know a few guys that have probably used a little force in getting what they want, but I don't think that's right." It's not right. It's not fair. But it hap- pens, and it happens a whole lot. And the fact that it's happening a lot may be a radical change from how things were at the University ten, or even five years ago. Leonard Scott, who's worked as a University counselor for 12 years, has kept track of changing male attitudes. Scott's worried, because he's noticed recently that male students are reverting back to old stereotypes he thought were left behind long ago. The image is returning of the "man's man" who does whatever is necessary to get laid. "In the 1970s, men grew in their con- sciousness, their awareness. Men could see how they were trapped in the same way women were by social conventions. But now, there's a feeling that we're going through some sort of return to the 50s. Some of the stereotypes are retur- ning. "Pressures among men to be aggressive in a way that can be defined sexually-like catcals, that sort of thing-is coming back. Three or four years ago catcalls were frowned upon. Men thought about it before they did it.'" And as men are becoming more stereotypically "male," women are returning to their stereotypical sub- missive roles, too, according to Scott. "It reminds me of when I was in college in the 50s. Today's fraternities and sororities sound like they were then. "The fraternities are interested in the sororities like a meat market. Who's going to get what, who's going to score. Some women fall into that, too. They join a sorority to meet men, not to develop themselves. This is disturbing. That's how it used to be. I wish it weren't so." W OMEN ON CAMPUS have heard all the stories. "It comes down the frapevine," said Cindy Phillips, a sophomore. "Someone will casually say, 'He tried to attack me when we went out.' People often say, 'Just blow it off' even though that's not fair." Blow it off. Forget it. It wasn't really a rape. That'a the response women get when they tell their stories,'and not just from men, but from women too. "Some women even think that a woman was asking for it," said Marilyn Wedenoja, a woman's studeies teaching assistant. j "Theres not always that mind of sup-. port from women that you'd expect." The problem, according to many counselors, is that almost everyone-both men and women-doesn't associate acquaintan- ce rape with rape. To them, it's just men-a date or a boyfriend-getting a little overzealous. Koss found that half the rape victims in her survey didn't even realize they had been raped. "You could say to them 'Did you ever have sexual intercourse, against your will?' And they'd say 'yes.' Then you'd turn around and say 'Have you ever been raped?' and 1 they'd say 'no,' "she explained. Women often don't think of-or worry about-a sexual assault from an acquaintance. Freshmen arrive here with a certain fear drummed into their heads, but it's not the fear that may protect them. "It's always your moter teling you 'Don't go out alone at night and get attacked by a big man behind a bush,' "said Pauline Gagnon, an RD at East Quad. "Mom didn't say 'Don't go out with a man who will rape you.'' "I don't think it really crosses many freshwomen's minds," said Blondin. "The idea of rape itself is so abhorrent, the idea of someone you know doing it is not in the realm of possibility." Anti-rape organizations in Ann Ar- bor-from the Ann Arbor Coalition Against Rape to the Citizen's Advisory Committee on Rape Prevention-per- petuate the myth. If your mother doesn't tell you to watch out for a man on a date, a campus anti-rape group probably won't either. "It's a relatively new issue," one member of the Coalition Against Rape said. "It just hasn't been addressed." The annual at- tention-getting culmination of anti-rape activities, the Take Back the Night march, is exactly that-a fight for the right to walk safely alone. Walking safely with someone you know is barely brushed upon. The narrow scope of such anti-rape efforts can cause problems. "I don't want to make any judgments about those other approaches to fighting rape," Koss said, "but they can mislead people-both men and women-into thinking that the rapist jumps out of the bushes." The University, too, doesn't seem eager to tackle the problem of acquain- tance rape. University housing, security, and counseling officials claim their hands are ied. They can't treat acquaintance rape as a major problem, they claim, because they never hear about it, the statistics just Iaren't there. According to Walt Stevens, director of University safety, the last incident reported to University security that could be called a date rape happened five years ago. It involved a drinking party at a dorm, and several men had sex with an intoxicated woman. It was unclear, Stevens said, whether the woman was willing for the first encoun- ter and thenw was forced by the rest of the men. No legal action was ever taken. But University officials readily admit date rape may be a major problem. Statistics can lie. "The statistics I have would show - that there are none (acquaintance rapes), said Dave Foulke, manager for security services for University housing. But he added quickly, "I think that's probably not a very reliable statistic." Things might be changing-a little. Two leading student groups-the Michigan Student Assembly and the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan-say they are including the issue in their safety seminars this year. It will be the first time these groups have specifically addressed the problem of acquaintance rape. The Ann Arbor Police crime prevention bureau recognizes the problem and will give safety lectures on campus, although those talks are usually ignored en masse by students. Detective Wright speculates that students "resent being lectured on safety. When they get away from parental pressure, they don't like to be told what to do." A woman can protest herself against acquaintance rape once she's aware of the problem, both Wriht and Price said. but that means she must tread a fine line between caution and paranoia. Women's Crisis Center Assault Crisis Center Domestic Violence Project University Counseling Ann Arbor Police, Emergency University Security, Emergency "Being a little paranoid can help," said Wright. "Paranoia is self-awareness, survival." But Wright and Price agree that what's more important than being con- stantly suspicious is developing a sense of confidence in one's own judgment. Watching for hostile signs, hanging out with trusted friends, and getting to kyjow someone well before getting in- timate can all be good precautions. "How much are you going to insist that you know a person before you go off alone with them? It all comes down to that question," said Price. Women also must take responsibility for their own sexuality, said Scott, of University counseling. It's a sure-fire way to help clear up crossed signals. "There can be expectation that the guy takes the initiative to explore sex. A woman can go through a sexual ex- perience without feeling she really did it. Instead it happened to her. If guys encourage women to take respon- sibility, and if women take it, then relationships, in my opinion, would be better." But even wariness coupled with a good dose of responsibility can't solve the problems. An answer to the problems of violence between the sexes, many agree, can't come from women alone. Society's current view of sex often traps women into becoming an object. "Our culture has fostered a certain un- derstanding . . . that a woman is someone to be sought out for sexual conquest. It's safer to relate to an ob- ject than a human being," said Scott. And it's easier for a man to be brutal or callous to objects than to individuals. The signals are crossed from the start. In general, women expect to get long- term commitment, an around-the-clock companion out of their relationships. Men expect to find frequent no-regrets sex. Peer pressure from other men makes them expect it. And turning sex into anachievement, another notch n the bedpost, dehumanizes it, according to Scott. When you think about sex on campus, scoring and ego come right to mind; love behind. College element c Perhaps metaphors touchdown many men Scott addei men to rel where the play, too. I then mayb violent thi have been to play roui In the en locked int Women ar because ti ultimate s they're dra victim if r hurt as mu "When it st is-wome game-thee dehumaniz that level, ships. Ever The equa is still mis: people firs natural cc human wai statements and its libe sex is si pressured way to get s Said Oku ways toI karate. Bul or to comn they'll prol against. "It's kin that it's th only whites against wo stop it." Julie Hint Opinion!F NO SE-NTIMENTAL IST, NO STANDER ABOVE MEN AND WOMEN OR APART FROM THEM, t 1 ., J 0 o haiem ' l11 r I i \\ NEW GARGOYLE FILMS PRESE * In ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH At 9:30 Saturday, Oci In Room 100 Law Sch A] 1.__- c UNSCREW THE LOCKS FROM FRO M PAUMANOK STARTING- THE)R DOORS ! UNSCREW I Fl Y LIKE A 131 R D THE DOORS THEMSELVES ___ FROM THEIR JAMBS itman ALSO: BATMAN and MR. BILL At 7:0 (corner of State and Monroe) MOVIE SHOW 00 T CRA ZY GE Poetry comics: Whimsical Whi NITE - 5' 12 Weekend/Oc ober- lt5,492.