Funny Cause It's True

I gave this sample paper to my students today and I think they all recognized themselves in it. Imitating bad student writing is one of the major joys of my job.



What is Northwest Poetry?

Theodore Roethek was one of the most important poets of the Pacific Northwest. He moved to Washington in 1947 after having grown up in a greenhouse in michigan. His teaching was very popular with students including Carolyn Kizer, from Spokane, and Richard Hugo, originally from White Center, who became poets themselves. These three different poets wrote about different things, but also some of the same things. Northwest poetry is defined as a very influential kind of writing in the region where the poets thereby find out what is so important about the northwest.

Carolyn Kizer wrote the poem “Semele Recycled.” In this poem, a woman is split a part into different body parts because she loves the Greek god Zeus. Kizer writes, “comfortable odor of dung.” This suggests the earth and a determination to accept the less pretty side of nature.

Greenhouses sound beautiful but can also be unpleasant and full of rotting plants. “Dank as a ditch.” He even describes some plants “long evil yellow necks.” It doesn’t seem here like he likes plants very much, but actually it may be that his problem is more with his father, who owned the greenhouses. There is a clue to this when he says “battered on one knuckle.”

Alki Beach can be very pleasant but Richard Hugo doesn’t think so, despite having grown up in White Center, a suburb of Seattle. “Spray, / abandoned, falls from the statue / by the marked-off, unused picnic grounds.” Hugo was too busy with worries about what people are doing to have awareness of what is in the beauty of the space that is all around him everywhere his eyes can take a moment to find the time to look at what is in front of them. His poems are very depressing.

All in all, Northwest poetry means different things to different people, but it can also mean whatever you want it to mean.