POETRY/PEDAGOGY
  • Home
  • Sue's Blog
  • Youth Spoken Word Poetry
  • Poems. Just poems.
  • English education
  • Class Plans and Resources
    • ENGL4302: Spoken Word Poetry & Pedagogy
  • Contact
  • The Public Teacher Interview Project

ENGL4302 SPOKEN WORD POETRY & PEDAGOGY
​CLASS BLOG

Feature Poet: Henry Rollins (by Joshua Bartholomew)

10/12/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Henry Rollins (b. Feb 13th 1961) is a former member of the legendary punk band Black Flag, writer, activist, and journalist. Originally from Washington D.C., he is colloquially known for his stage demeanor, notably during his time as Black Flag’s frontman, but in recent years, he has become more well known as a spoken word poet, due to his transparency and humorous antics. Rollins is often seen as a cynical old punk, but there’s more to his story and perspective than meets the eye. He is sober by choice and influenced a variety of generations to push against faulty human rights and homophobia, as well as partaking in many benefit concerts and events in an effort to give a breathing example of true punk rock ethos.

Rollin’s style of spoken word poetry is fluid and unconventional; there is little space between spoken word and stand up comedy. The concepts are centered around humanity and the value of knowledge and common sense, but his delivery is spastic, ranging from having many asides and rambling sections to being short and neatly phrased. When Rollins performs “Eric the Pilot” there is a sense of apathetic comedy embedded in the experience, his emotions are quite visible on his face as he explains taking flight in a single propeller plane, “I am used to like feeling that stuff rearrange my innards...you get the idea that there are hamsters on bowling balls, we go tooling around the International Airport of St. Louis looking for the runway” as well as the terrifying experience of being below a commercial plane in the air, “it was an act of god that we were in the air...a few minutes in, you hear from miles above us a commercial plane coming into the airport; the entire plane starts vibrating...I don’t know that it’s way up there...Eric he looks over the wheel with this look [confused look] everything in him says fuck I hope this is okay” the poem then veers into strange territory, as Rollins and Eric end up landing in “Pigsknuckle, Arizona” and consequently has to reschedule his show in Tulsa.

As a poet, Rollins’ work carries the same straightforward approach, highlighted with glimmers of comedic relief, hope and suffering all packaged into one neat stream of poetry. There is such power in his poems, for example in “One from None” Rollins states “It’s funny/These people try to bum me out/Calling me shit/They’re not telling me anything I don’t already know/When they talk shit/It’s lightweight compared to what I say to myself” and you can feel the realism and resilience to his environment. He continues to wisely write, “Kindness is strength/It’s easier to open a door, than to keep it open/Hatred is easy/Frustration is life on pause” exemplifying a person stripped of their bleak outlook on life, but still bitter with the way things are. When he addresses the roots of recreating oneself, “Self-Creation is painful/Trying to take my parents blood out of mine/Trying to stand on my own two feet/Without leaning on someone else/Looking to myself for total strength” Rollins returns to the separation between parent and child to truly illustrate why he has become one from none, not out of egotistical need, but a symbol of the strength any one person can hold.

1 Comment
Sue Weinstein
10/13/2017 02:55:58 pm

I'm so glad you chose Henry Rollins. I've known of him from his time with Black Flag, and I remember being kind of confused and on the fence as he shifted into "spoken word," which definitely struck me more as comedy than poetry. But as all these categories shift and flow, it seems maybe he was just ahead of the curve.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    ​​ENGL4302 Spoken Word Poetry & Pedagogy at LSU

    Archives

    October 2017
    July 2017

    Categories

    All
    Ashley Bran
    Claire Happel
    Daniel Johnston
    Denice Frohman
    Elizabeth Acevedo
    Feature Poet
    Grant Holmes
    Hannah Lichtl
    Henry Rollins
    Ian Cogswell
    Ivy Moore
    Jessica Cummins
    Jolie Gilbert
    Jorge Abadin
    Joshua Bartholomew
    Kristalyn Richard
    Madison Landry
    Marqual Moy
    Nayo Jones
    Niara Collins
    Patricia Smith
    Phil Kaye
    Porsha O
    Resources
    Rita Dove
    Sam Sax
    Saul Williams
    Sonia Pereira
    Sonia Sanchez
    Starlito
    Suheir Hammad
    Taylor Mali
    Tiarea Harrison

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Sue's Blog
  • Youth Spoken Word Poetry
  • Poems. Just poems.
  • English education
  • Class Plans and Resources
    • ENGL4302: Spoken Word Poetry & Pedagogy
  • Contact
  • The Public Teacher Interview Project