The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 3B

Love poems, not poets

Cacophony, or music? It all depends on your perspective.
Keep on Festi fa lin

How I learned to
stop hating and love
the extravaganza
By CASSIE BALFOUR
Daily Community Culture Editor
It took me three tries to work
up the courage to brave Fes-
tifall. Each time I neared the
Diag I veered off, stalking the
perimeter like a feral cat unused
* to such a dense population of
people. After pathetically and
shamefully hoping Festifall
would get canceled a second
time, I finally inched my way
toward the dreaded spectacle.
I was met with a cacophony of
*competing top-40 hits and stu-
dents-turned-salesmen trying
to lure me with buttons and the

cheap candy that inevitably ends
up languishing at the bottom of
my backpack.
I tried to think like a fresh-
faced freshman as opposed to
the jaded junior I've become
after years ofcasually signing up
for countless listservs, and then
accidentally hitting "Reply All"
in order to request to be taken
off. Sorry for the inadvertent
listserv public shaming, anony-
mous student group. I think you
guys are great.
But as soon as I got within
shouting distance of any of the
densely packed tables, I was
bombarded with manipulative
questions that I guess aren't
actually rhetorical. "Do you like
art?" someone chirped at me
when I accidentally made eye
contact. I was trapped behind a
herd of students, so I stuttered,

"Uh ... no," before shamefully
ducking my head and seeking
shelter in Angell Hall.
After collecting my thoughts
and doinga couple of improvised
deep breathing exercises, Isteeled
my nerves and promised myself to
actually try engaging with these
well-meaning students. After all,
I should be able to empathize
with my flyer-wielding peers - I
forewent my own duties to run a
beloved student group's booth in
order to write about the Festifall
experience.
I, too, have faced down the
apathetic student who gave me
a blank stare when I asked if he
liked social justice (he didn't,
and by one student I mean, like,
hundreds). I've watched with
dismay and eventually rage as
students graciously accepted my
See FESTIFALL, Page 4B

et's face it - poets are
hard to love. I don't mean
it's hard to love reading
them; if you've followed this col-
umn for the past year, then you
know I think
it's easy to
love poetry.
But try lov-
ing someone
who didn't
pay the rent
last month \
because he DAVID
wrote a son- LUCAS
net on the
back of the
check instead. It's not easy to
enjoy mundane reality with
someone whose energy is so
often committed to the imagina-
tion. Maybe that's why poets
tend to fall in love with other
poets: Only the misunderstood
understand the misunderstood.
Things often go badly when
poets love poets. No matter how
many times they read the warn-
ings of sad love poems, they still
fall in love with the people who
write sad love poems. They won't
listen. It's like trying to tell a
teenager that he might someday
regret having the lyrics to "Jimi
Thing" tattooed on his back.
Even if poets' relationships
with each other don't last, the
work they write about each other
can. We read those poems expect-
ing the home fires to burn in their
language, too. That's certainly
true of the poems from the bro-
ken marriage of Sylvia Plath and
Ted Hughes. The poetry mega-
couple of the twentieth century,
Plath and Hughes are Brangelina
for Norton Anthology readers.
I don't know a book of poems
more urgent than Plath's "Ariel."
Plath wrote these poems, which
she called "the best ... of her life,"
in the winter of 1962 to 1963, after
Hughes had left her for another
woman and before her suicide
that February. The wrested
restraint of her first book, "The
Colossus," gave way to potent

emotion
"Bewar
ash / I r
I eat me
Hugh
on the n
publicat
in 1998,
In "Visi
as if ton
its urge
burst in
At the b
/You ar
a story.,
if the
Hughes
spective
It wa
ago eith
lives of
George1
Mary G
her step
Percy S]
he bega
(his tea
by Clair
have be
Later, C
ated wit
person:
to "The
Rc
PO
Whil
of 1816t
Mary SI
"Franke
on hisn
Pilgrim
in creat
intense,
form ou
Shelley
Singing
address
is wild,
The blo
/... I am
suming

. From "Lady Lazarus": Byron fathered a daughter with
V / Beware. / Out of the Clairmont, but their relation-
ise with my red hair / And ship had soured so much that
n like air." he agreed to raise her himself if
hes remained almost silent Clairmont would leave him alone.
natter of Plath until the Percy Shelley drowned in 1822,
tion of "Birthday Letters" and a fever claimed Byron in
the year of his own death. 1824. Their poems endured, but
t," he writes, "I look up - Clairmont had the last word near-
meet your voice / With all ly 200 years later. Scholar Daisy
nt future / That has Hay recently discovered a memoir
on me. Then look back / in which Clairmont writes, "I saw
ook of the printed words. the two first poets of England...
e ten years dead. It is only become monsters of lying, mean-
/Your story. My story." ness, cruelty and treachery."
intervening years allow That's a bad breakup.
perspective, it is the per- There are exceptions. Robert
e of the full scope of loss. Browning fell in love with the
s no easier 200 years poems of Elizabeth Barrett, six
er, in the intersecting years his elder, and courted her
Percy Bysshe Shelley, in letters and secret meetings.
Gordon (Lord) Byron, During their courtship, Barrett
odwin (later Shelley) and wrote some of her most famous
sister Claire Clairmont. work, including "Sonnets from
helley was married when the Portuguese," in one of which
n an affair with Godwin she says, "I love thee with a love
cher's daughter), assisted I seemed to lose / With my lost
mont, who herself may saints, - I love thee with the
en involved with Shelley. breath, / Smiles, tears, of all my
lairmont became infatu- life! ..."
th Byron, adding a fourth Despite her family's disap-
to this literary precursor proval, Browning and Barrett
Real World." married in 1846 and lived togeth-
er in apparent happiness until
Barrett's death in 1861. That year,
uses are red Browningwrote"Prospice" (a
SeS R e re , Lain iperative meaninglook
ets are blue. ahead") in elegy for his wife and
in defiance of death. "I was ever a
fighter," he writes, "so --one fight
more ..." The bereaved husband
e spending the summer refuses to fear death; instead he
ogether in Switzerland, imagines, "a peace out of pain, /
helley began writing Then a light, then thy breast, / 0
enstein." Byron worked thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp
arrative "Childe Harold's thee again..."
age": "'Tis to create, and That said, I must emphasize:
ing live / A being more Poets in love do not end up happy
that we endow / With and remembered like the Brown-
:r fancy ..." A year later, ings. Love poems all you want,
wrote "To Constantia, but avoid poets. If you want fidel-
," widely read as an ity and stability, try a rock star or
to Clairmont: "My brain politician instead.

S / A 'JURASSIC PARK' (1993), UNIVERSAL
'Jurassic' not yet extinct

By ANKUR SOHONI
Daily Arts Writer
At one point in Steven Spiel-
berg's original "Jurassic Park"
adaptation, when its dinosaurs-
reborn concept has already reared
its glorious Apatosaurus head,
Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum,
TV's "Law & Order: Criminal
Intent"), in his best wacky chaoti-
cian voice, provides the ultimate
caveat: "Life finds a way."
Eighteen years after the
film's release, "Jurassic Park"
is increasingly relevant, and its
themes are even more prevalent
today than ever before. The film
is often considered among Spiel-
berg's less cerebral efforts, given
its six-month release window
with the heavier "Schindler's
List." "Jurassic Park" has fallen
victim to flighty opinions, paying
more attention to the film's cul-
tural effect than its content.
People might remember
"Jurassic Park" for its chase
scenes, lush visuals and before-
its-time animatronic and CGI
dinosaurs, but what people
rarely mention about the block-
buster is its success in creating
an effecting ensemble of human
drama without much contem-
plative melodrama and a subtle
script approach, something sel-
dom seen in such a populist film.
While "Jurassic Park" may be
Spielberg's quintessential spe-
cial-effects film, it's also one of
the most affecting and cohesive
pictures of his career.
In the film, as in Michael
Crichton's original novel, Juras-
sic Park is an island off the coast
of Costa Rica morphed into a
dinosaur amusement park by the
genetic engineering company
InGen and its cheery Brit chief
John Hammond (Sir Richard
Attenborough, "Miracle on 34th
Street"). With recombined DNA
sourced from prehistoric fossil-
ized mosquitoes, the dinosaurs
of Jurassic Park are just about
the real thing - huge, majestic
and vicious - but are caged up in
pens like in a zoo.
In the case of Jurassic Park,
as Dr. Malcolm said, "Life finds
1a way." Once the electric system
on the park fails, there is little to
stop the assault by the dinosaurs,
which we soon find have been
breeding, despite genetic efforts
to prevent it. Needless to say, our
human protagonists are soon
overwhelmed by the creatures
and find themselves the prey of
their zoo animals.
"Jurassic Park" became a cul-
tural phenomenon and was, at

the time, the biggest worldwide awareness of our effect upon life
movie of all time. Dinosaurs cap- and an understanding of the laws
tured the attention of adults and of nature - namely, evolution
children alike, who had always and the fact that every species
dreamed about the museum skel- exists for a reason. The film is
etons coming to life. The under- an assault on human superiority.
standing that all those excavated The wild wins.
fossils once existed in the flesh "Jurassic Park" spawned two
was nothing compared to the somewhat lackluster sequels, and
experience of witnessing their bothSpielbergand Universal have
realization onscreen. hinted at a fourth installment.
Dinosaurs were a likely first The series is known for its bom-
step in CGI characters, which bast and revenue, but we should
have evolved much further since, remember it more thoughtfully
and "Jurassic Park" made dino- and seriously consider its mes-
saurs a lasting live-action phe- sage in contemporary times. And
nomenon for the coming decades. while a chorus of film viewers
Moving forward to 2011, Fox's might remember just one thing,
new big-budget TV series "Terra we should take away from the
Nova" would never have been so film its true insight - that even
marketable without the seminal though we may test it, nature has
"Jurassic Park." limits, and it'll violently chomp
you up if you push it

my breath comes quick- /
od is listening in my frame
dissolved in these con-
ecstasies."

Lucas is looking for his Sylvia
Plath. To step up to the challenge,
e-mail him at dwlucas@umich.edu.

Spoiler: Guy on
the toilet dies.
Amid the spectacle of the film
are the moments that make it
a lasting picture: moments like
when an Apatosaurus tries to feed
on the foliage near some of the
characters' restingspot. Teenager
Lex (Ariana Richards) freaks out,
already disillusioned by the car-
nivorous Tyrannosaur encoun-
tered earlier. Her brother Tim
(Joseph Mazzello, "The Social
Network") reassures her, telling
her it's merely a "veggie-saurus."
Comforted, Lex feeds the gentle
giant, which then sneezes, cover-
ing her in dinosaur snot.
It's the classic lines and
moments - even moments of
dinosaur danger - that make
"Jurassic Park" a more human
movie than the common bland
disaster and creature flicks. See-
ing the lawyer Donald Gennaro
(Martin Ferrero, "Gods and
Monsters") sprint away from an
encroaching Tyrannosaur and
toward the bathroom, Dr. Mal-
colm says simply, "When you
gotta go, you gotta go." And when
Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), park
game warden, realizes the blood-
thirsty velociraptors have out-
smarted and surrounded him, he
says, "clever girl."
More important, though (and
seldom recognized), is the film's
underlying theme. The humans'
attempt to control dinosaurs is
futile, as is InGen's expectation
to peacefully combine species
from across hundreds of millions
of years. Extrapolating the film to
the everyday, it's a call for human

"Rocky and His Friends"
Saturdays @ 11a & 5p
"The Buliwinkle Show"
Saturdays at 11:30a & 5:30p

Brad Keyell
Co-founder and director, Groupon, Inc. BBA '91, JD '93
"Entrepreneurship: The Time is Now"
Free! Open to the public. Register at http://www.epalooza.bus.umich.edu/
September 16, 2011

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