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The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems
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The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems
“All of her life’s events are chronicled in the poetry collected in her published works, Diane Wakoski was born in California in 1937.” This quotation will be the center of this article. In light of this, it’s critical to recognize the intimate connection between her personal life and her work. A poem “must naturally grow out of the writer’s life,” she says, and “all poems are letters.” Her poems are so intimate that she has been called a confessional poet. However, she rejects the label. It is common knowledge that the “author” and “speaker” of a poem are two separate entities. However, in this case, Wakoski is both author and speaker simultaneously. While attempting to solve an issue, she alludes to actual people and real events in her life in such a manner that some critics find it too personal. In the words of Wakoski, composing a poem is a kind of therapy; it’s a way of expressing oneself, not to a counsellor or even to the audience. Poems serve as a way to “finish a dream” because, as she put it: “It’s the only way I know how to achieve something that I can’t do in real life.” She’s learnt to exist in both worlds as a pragmatist.
Poets, says Wakoski, must first have something to say before conveying it in the right way. Using the cosmos (moon, rings of Saturn, Magellanic clouds), history (George Washington, the King of Spain), personal experience (the motorcycle betrayal poems), and literary rivalries to create personal mythology in the style of William Butler Yeats, she carves out a territory that is strictly confined to herself CITATION Wak71 l 1033 (Wakoski). As a result, her themes of loss and acceptance, ugliness and beauty, identity loss, and growth are developed via mythology. Her ideas are dualistic and, more importantly, vulnerable to the poem’s resolve. In her mind, poetry helps her heal rather than splinter. It’s worth noting that the novel Coins and Coffins was written as a tribute to La Monte Young, her second husband and the father of her second child. A lost lover is introduced in this book, building her mythology in the process. “Justice Is Reason Enough” borrows from Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan” with its “vast shape and its pounding wings.” It’s the “shape” of her mythical twin brother, David, with whom she had incest, that is the focus of this poem. For the justice that “balances the beauty of the universe,” she mourns her brother, “dead by his hand.” Since the poem’s final line mentions beauty, the overall tone is acceptance and encouragement.
Discrepancies and Apparitions also include “Follow That Stagecoach,” a poem that Wakoski considers one of her greatest and most characteristic writing pieces. With its classic sheriff and black rubber skin-diving suit-wearing speaker, Dry Gulch Hollow may seem to be situated in the Wild West. Still, it rapidly transforms into a river, and the macho Western sheriff transforms into a homosexual authority figure. “The sense of disguise is a/ rattlesnake,” the poem’s opening line, implies that the lover- sheriff, like a snake in the grass, puts on and takes off various disguises, including gender: “oh yes, you are putting on your skin-diving suit very fast running to the ocean and slipping away from this girl who carries a loaded gun.” It’s a reversal of roles as she assumes the power he does not have, carrying about a phallic pistol in place of his. “So I’ll write you a love poem if I want to,” the poem concludes, with its trademark self-assurance. Being from the West, I have no fear of my own shadow. Cleverly, the “shadow” refers to her second male personality; the lover is suggested to have rejected his completeness by rejecting the “shadow.”
This time, Wakoski takes on “the father of my nation,” a term given to one of Washington’s poems, the patriarchal political and military system, by focusing on The George Washington Poems, which she dedicated to her father and husband. Anachronistically, “George Washington” emerges as the speaker’s confidant, absentee father, and occasionally absentee lover throughout the book’s twenty-three poems. He plays historical positions such as surveyor and tree cutter and general politician and enslaver. Poet Robert Wakoski pokes fun at the traditional image of a man in leadership in the United States by beginning his first poem with an allusion to “George Washington and the Loss of His Teeth,” in which he refers to “George” throughout the poem in a disrespectful manner.
We better understand her feelings and experiences due to this poetry. Diane Wakoski specialized in writing poetry that dealt with the subject of grief. When a woman feels she isn’t attractive, she suffers the loss of her childhood, the loss of her loves, and the loss of her family. Because of these setbacks, she found herself surrounded by a scorched soil of loneliness, which she expressed with great sincerity. However, in my opinion, these poems do not represent a statement of female autonomy. In many Women’s Liberation tracts, their wrath is not intellectual, as in this book. Miss Wakoski employs a novel strategy, though. She gnaws on the enslavement of women with her teeth and yells them out with such ferocious passion that the Chains begin to dissolve. Enthusiasm is that of a solitary prisoner who is both bitter and free at the same time. However, this is not a generalization throughout the book. I’ve never come across modern poetry like these poems. Vengeance and self-knowledge are sometimes disguised as whimsical asides that delight the reader while frightening him with understanding.
When it comes to the book’s most glaring shortcoming, its rage becomes shallow and repetitive. Stridency doesn’t always transform into poetry; the words are crushed nearly into impotence by their wrath. Her dedication: “This book is dedicated to those guys who have deceived me at one time or another, in hopes they would fall from their motorbikes and shatter their necks” sets the tone. The intended sarcasm doesn’t fully work. Many of the poems display excessive rage, leading to a lack of kindness and blindness that detracts from the poetry’s power. Overall, Wakoski is a poet’s poet, and he has a wealth of knowledge to share.
Works Cited
Wakoski, Diane. The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems. Second Printing, Touchstone, 1971.
Crime, Drug Abuse, War, and Terrorism
Crime, Drug Abuse, War, and Terrorism
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Crime, Drug Abuse, War, and Terrorism
A social problem is any behavior or condition that negatively affects large number of individuals and that is considered as a behavior or condition that requires to be addressed (“Social Problems,” 2015). Examples of social problems include drug abuse, terrorism, war, and crime. These social problems disrupt peace and security across the globe, threatening livelihood. Therefore, in order to contribute to peace and security across the globe, there is a need to make the world safer from crime, drugs, war, and terrorism. A comprehensive understanding of these social problems is required in order to deal with them. Therefore, the paper gets premised on analyzing drug abuse, crime, terrorism, and war, as well as their causes and possible measures for their prevention.
The issue of drug abuse continues to be a major concern across the globe. The risk factors are generated from an individual’s internal and external environment. Familial risk factors like childhood maltreatment, parents’ marital status, relationships between the child and the parents, and the level of parents’ education have exposed people to drug abuse. Also, the parent’s socioeconomic status, where the child cannot get the appropriate child care, exposes the child to early child abuse (“Social Problems,” 2015). Physical and sexual abuse has also become a social vice accelerating the drug abuse like the mistreatment of the adolescent in the society. Increased sexual abuse has risked people’s posttraumatic stress disorder, which has enabled them to consider drugs as the initiative to resolve the voice. Physical abuse occurs in males, while sexual abuse occurs in females. Consequently, neglect by the family and friends has increased the chances of drug abuse by an individual. Other social and environmental factors include deviant peer relationships, bullying, popularity, and the tendency to associate with gangs.
Mitigating the drug abuse through arrest is important. However, arresting hundreds of people for drug possession has become a vice in society. The government spends a lot of funds investigating and arresting drug possessors. The money used in arresting people due to drug possession could be used to sensitize the public on the possible challenges of drug trafficking and the benefits of evading the risk factors that may induce an individual to drug abuse (“Social Problems,” 2015). Also, arresting people for drug possession mistakes sensitizes the public on the importance of drug trafficking. The economic status of individual drug traffickers has always been at a glamorous rate, making others who struggle economically consider getting involved in drug dealing for economic prosperity. Sometimes, an individual might be innocent of drug possession. As such, arresting that person without clear investigation and evidence is a breach of constitutional conduct.
Notably, the specific measures in dealing with drug abuse get construed as immediate strategies for mitigating the drug misuse the society. Majorly, sensitizing the public on the risks involved in drug abuse remains an effective measure in controlling the accelerating drug problem. Public sensitization on drug misuse enables society to understand how drug abuse develops. It also enables an individual to avoid temptation and peer pressure that may develop from friend interactions. Also, providing psychological support to the affected individuals creates a framework through which the drug abuse gets culminates in society (Mnunguli & Kisangiri, 2018). Psychological support entails supporting individuals suffering from mental illness and providing counseling appropriately. Furthermore, using legal procedures in dealing with the drug problem is the responsibility of the members of the society and the government to reduce the increasing drug addiction. The legal measures entail arresting the drug traffickers with full evidence of drug trafficking, providing rehabilitation services in remands, and jailing drug addicts.
Crime is also a social problem that needs to be addressed. Drug crime gets construed as a violation of laws involving manufacturing, distribution, and the usage of drugs within a nation, state, or country. It also involves illegally possessing drugs from cultivated areas and manufactured points and distributing them to illegally recognized individuals. Sometimes a crime can get undertaken by obtaining money from the public or private institutions to support the illegal use of drugs in society (Mnunguli & Kisangiri, 2018). As such, the society or an individual may develop an intense dependency on the drug but lacks financial and social obligations to obtain the said substance. Therefore, the drug crimes remain the illegal usage, selling, and possession of drugs within the society.
The United States of America has shown increasing strategies for measuring crimes. Measuring crimes, therefore, get based on determining the data that depicts the sources of crimes like the drug crime in the society. The immediate method of measuring crime in the United States involves obtaining data from the official reports from the police departments. The official report from the police enables the government to investigate the population that has been arrested for the crime cases like drug abuse. Also, the government of the United States surveys the victims of crimes to determine the crime intensity in the society (Lohr, 2009). After analysis of the victim survey, the data generated enables the government, the police departments, and the criminal investigation departments to obtain data about the criminal and the victims. Self-report from the offenders has enabled the government of the United States of America to identify and comprehend the crimes in society. Furthermore, the self-report instances have enabled the police to investigate and determine the number of people who intend to commit the crime or have committed the crime.
Moreover, the social structure theories of crime give suggestions that people’s positions in the socioeconomic structure play an influential role in their chances of becoming criminals in society. Poor people in society are at risk of getting involved in criminal activities. Their involvement in the criminal act gets accelerated by the inability to achieve economic and social success in their lives. Other explanations of social structure theories that may induce an individual to engage in criminal actions are the lack of education, sub-cultural values, and the absence of marketable skills in business (Marsh, 2007). Consequently, the social bonding theory of crime posits that the offender’s behavior gets accelerated by broken and weak social bonds between the institutions and the law-abiding citizens. The bonds explain elements like involvement, commitment, beliefs, and attachments that give people an in-depth understanding of the institutions’ rules and regulations (Day & Caus, 2020). The bond elements facilitate the behaviors that enable an individual t act according to the law. Finally, the general assumptions of conflict theories of crime define the assumptive measures that lead to the tendencies of an individual to commit a crime. Examples of assumptive behaviors are competition, war, structural inequalities, and revolution.
Most importantly, functionalist depicts a doctrine that explains what makes something a thought, pain, and desire depend not on the internal constitution, but on the function and roles played in the cognitive system as part of the thought. As such, the culture should maintain itself to play a fundamental role in generating a desirable society. Each culture remains a system of interrelated parts and changed parts, making an individual change other parts (CODE, 2008). In contrast, conflict emphasizes the social inequality within the society and the suggestions for the social changes needed to attain a just society. Notably, the symbolic interaction examines the social meanings and understandings derived by an individual from the social interaction.
Furthermore, preventing war has remained a key initiative in maintaining a peace in the society. Appropriate approaches give promising dimensions for preventing wars. The first approach gets based on arms control and diplomacy. Majorly, the United States of America has prevented the occurrence of the war through the use of the arm control laws in the United Nations acts and diplomacy to prevent the occurrence of war between nations, countries, and states. Also, economic penalties against the aggressors have recorded an effective initiative in preventing the war. The penalties include the global economic sanctions that deprived the aggressor of accessing some economic goods. Lastly, the use of machinery for peaceful dispute settlements has enabled countries within the United Nations to prevent possible wars.
Increasingly, the main approaches to preventing terrorism are based on law enforcement and structural reforms. The law enforcement reforms get based on enacting laws that define guidelines for punishing the terrorist aggressors. It also determines how the institutions combat and prevents terrorism through the use of the nation’s police body and international policing. The reforms can be the constitutions and the treaties signed by the nations (Colgan, 2019). In contrast, the structural reform approaches comprehensively describe how the nation uses the economic structures, institutions, and regulatory measures in operating peoples’ interactions toward controlling the terrorism vice. Structural reforms include infrastructural developments, capital, monetary, and fiscal reforms.
Overall, social problems adversely affect the development of the nations and the global society in general. Drug crime remains the key crime that has been exhibited in the United States of America and many parts of the world. As such, the governments have taken the initiative of arresting hundreds of drug possessors to mitigate drug abuse. However, arresting the possessors has sensitized society to the increased involvement of drug abuse, and the government has spent a lot of money the arresting and maintaining the arrestees. Also, sensitizing the public, use of legal measures, and provision of psychological support remain the measures of mitigating drug abuse. Notably, measuring the crime in the United States involves analysis of victims survey, use of offenders’ self-reports, and the use of official police report has enabled the united states to determine the crime. Social structure theories, social bonding theory, and general assumptions of conflict theories comprehensively describe crime and its accelerating factors. Moreover, interactionalists, conflicts, and symbols create a paradigm through which crimes and conflicts get understood by an individual. Most importantly, the approaches used in the prevention of wars include using armed control, peace, and diplomacy imposition of penalties on aggressors. Furthermore, the use of the Law Enforcement and the Structural Reform Approaches creates a dimension of active prevention of terrorism.
References
CODE, C. (2018) Three Major Perspectives in Sociology. https://portal.abuad.edu.ng/Assignments/1647292306SOC_101,.pdfColgan, B. A. (2019). Beyond graduation: economic sanctions and structural reform. Duke LJ, 69, 1529. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/duklr69§ion=44Day, A., & Caus, J. (2020). Conflict Prevention in the Era of Climate Change: Adapting the UN to Climate-Security Risks. United Nations University.
Guerette, R. T., & Bowers, K. J. (2009). Assessing the extent of crime displacement and diffusion of benefits: A review of situational crime prevention evaluations. Criminology, 47(4), 1331-1368. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2009.00177.xLohr, S. (2019). Measuring crime: Behind the statistics. Chapman and Hall/CRC.
Marsh, I. (2007). Theories of crime. Routledge.
Mnunguli, J. P., & Kisangiri, M. (2018). Evidence-based Practices for Drug Abuse Information Management and Awareness Approaches. Journal of Information Systems Engineering & Management, 3(4), 31. https://www.jisem-journal.com/download/evidence-based-practices-for-drug-abuse-information-management-and-awareness-approaches-3942.pdfSocial Problems: Continuity and Change. (2015). Social problems: Continuity and change (2015 ed.). University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. https://open.lib.umn.edu/socialproblems/
The motion picture 300,directed by a seasoned director Zack Snyder
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Introduction
The motion picture 300,directed by a seasoned director Zack Snyder, written by an experienced writer Frank Miller, talks about how a group of about 300 Spartans led by their king Leonidas (played by Gerard Butler) decided to confront the Persian army in combat of Thermopylae. The Persian army was under the command of Xerxes (played by Rodrigo Santoro). The combat was as a result of Leonidas’ rebuff in accepting the demands of the Persian army leader. King Leonidas and the Persians were able to keep the soldiers from reaching where they were for three days, and the Persians managed to keep off the Persian army by using a narrow passageway called the Hot Gates.
As the fighting was in process the king’s wife, Queen Gorgo (played by Lena Heady), was trying to persuade the Council of the Spartans to send more troops to go and assist the King, and the other Spartans who were fighting the Persian army. The council refused to allow more troops to and assist the King, saying he had gone into battle without the blessings from the Oracle. The King had broken the law by going into battle and, to bear the consequences. The Persians were on the verge of winning the battle, were it, not for the disloyalty of a man called Ephialtes. Ephialtes was unhappy by the refusal of King Leonidas, to allow him fight in the battle against the Persians because, of his malformation. He went to the head of the Persian army, and told Xerxes of another passage which they could use to attack the Spartans.
Throughout the battle, the Spartans knew that the chance of coming out of the battle alive was not there, but as their leader, King Leonidas told them. Even though they were going to be killed by the Persians in the battle, they were going to die defending their motherland, and their sovereignty which according to the King was an honorable death.
The standard, of the visual effects makes the movie to be splendid. The Imposing combat scenes are done in quick successions, but, at the same time the viewer has the chance to see the fighting techniques, which the Spartans male poses, through the use of slow motion. Apart from making use of a variety of video speeds, the Producer uses technology, specifically the CGI (computer-generated imagery), to amplify the appearance of the clothes, the sky, and the enormous numbers of the Persian army. The way the CGI has been used in the movie brings out the scenes exceptionally beautifully that some of the scenes can be mistaken for paintings, especially the colors of the sky, clothes, and the enormous Persian army led by Xerxes.
Conclusion
Finally, the use of violence in the movie is used to draw attention to the social, historical, or cultural realities. Violence is used so as to make more people aware of the forces that either shape or destabilize the world. The violence representation in the movie is significant with the chronological time of the movie. The director of the movie gives more than unrelenting violence as he takes time to explain the background of Leonidas, as a male Spartan whom was taught never to fear or accept defeat. What makes me more attracted to the movie is the way Leonidas lived. His bravery and love for his wife the queen, he also believed that all male and women in the Kingdom were equal. He proves this by saying to the Persian messenger, who was sent by Xerxes. That in Sparta every one is held accountable for his utterances right from him the King to the Messengers.