My Apologies: Bob Dylan IS a Poet, & Other Stories! (edited)

Due to my ignorance, I was surprised Dylan had been awarded the Nobel Literature Prize because I thought he had not written literature, but he has. My partner has a poetry book Dylan wrote in the 60s: Tarantula, experimental prose poetry, which is a merit (I have a prose poetry short story if you want to read it, and see how dangerous it is to write) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_(Dylan_book) And it’s hard for poets to get prizes.

I would have given him the Peace Nobel instead, really, because his songs were key for the peace movement (the so-called hippies), and to spread ideas, not violence, but well — I take back my words in class the other day. I have nothing to say about his getting the Literature Nobel Prize. Well —

I think of Joan Baez… She would have been a good candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, as good as Bob Dylan, in any case. And both probably better than other people who were awarded this prize! Were Baez’s lyrics poems? Dylan’s were. Actually, he said of some of those that he didn’t intend to write a protest song (Blowing in the Wind). A great many people in the 60s, who loved literature and the arts, acknowledged Dylan as a talented writer. It’s true that the 60s were full of patriarchal ideology, in spite of feminism being at full blast (as compared with other times, in the USA at least, an extremely patriarchal country, full of patriarchal ideology, this is, violent ideas of superiority-inferiority). Just watch the movie “Hair” if you have a developing feminist intelligence and see what I mean. Women were invisible most of the time, in spite of it all. It was the time when you were considered “estrecha” (not that kind of girl) if you decided to choose who you had sex with, and rejected a proposal. (Include women, and the history of humankind is slightly different.)

And then —

It’s telling that the 10 nominees were men. Not a single woman. But I don’t want to say now that it would have been great if women writers had been considered because I didn’t say that in previous cases where traditionally-minded men were awarded a prize.

I’m glad progressist-minded people are taken into account, because progressist ideas are what have helped us humanize our violent cultural upbringings. That’s my view. People always have questions about whether progressist people DESERVE the (few) awards they get, but I’m critical of this, obviously. (You can disagree with me, anyway — I’m into freedom of expression and find that dialogue is positive for everybody! 🙂 )

Now listen to these people. Bob Dylan IS actually considered a talented poet.

At the same time, I always regret women are nowhere to be seen. Still, there’s no stopping a feminist, there’s no stopping social change for the better, also because quite a lot of women are managing to keep alive and free — particularly, provided people start considering ideas instead of fueling the defamation/slander and misinterpretation of kind people, instead of demonizing  those who care about human beings.

And here is a very telling (significativo, que significa cosas) poem by Anne Sexton, who like Hemingway, committed suicide, but who, unlike Hemingway, instead of being considered a Hero (in the anti-hero version, like he was), was considered a bad mother for abandoning her children, something men writers who committed suicide never were — as if suicide were a frivolity when done by women.

Her Kind – http://www.talkingpeople.net/tppodcast/2010/02/01/poems-her-kind-by-anne-sexton/

Incidentally, I’d like to invite you all to learn a poem by ear by heart! ❤ ❤ ❤ I recommend Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver. But this poem may also keep you company, at times. Here are videos with students who learned a poem in our C1 course, in previous years: songs & poems playlist.