owned and ran a successful automotive die design business in Michigan. There are others--Phillip Levine, whose poems continue to return to his native Detroit, and Theodore Roethke, whose imagination grew out of his father's greenhouse in Saginaw. I could go on. "Let us all be from somewhere," says Hicock's poem. But, as the great poet Richard Hugo says, a poet must then switch allegiance from the triggering subject to the words themselves. A Primer
from Fleda Brown: Traverse City Record-Eagle: On Poetry: We all come from somewhere
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1 comment :
I agree. Philip Levine consistently wrote poems concerning his life in Detroit, Michigan. Levine not only referenced this part of his childhood but also reflected on the fact that his parents were migrants. In his poem "They Feed They Lions" Levine writes specifically about how each worker working in the car factories during the Great Depression all came from different places, but all ended up in the same place. He writes of people coming from "West Virginia to Kiss My Ass...drive shafts, wooden dollies...guttted cars" (lines 8, 4, 2). This links to how Levine observed the workers that he worked among. Levine was also trying to get out a message. You referenced this in your post that he, too, wrote of his past life and yes I agree. However he not only wrote of his past life but he reflected on it and took a stance on it.
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