I have come to the conclusion
Based on much thought and lengthy
Review, that secondary education is designed
To confound the rest of the world, showing off
Complex language.
Unmanageable, it wells forth
In my papers on the lumpen proletariat
Challenging the hegemony
Of the dominant culture:
Love complex language.
In a room, in my head, I translate
For myself: lumpen proletariat—poorest of the poor.
Hegemony—the unspoken rules of a community or government.
Dominant culture—the people in power.
Ah, complex language.
A walking dictionary of alien phrases
I will be erudite among the masses
and cocktail parties I do not attend
Entirely willing to confabulate
With complex language.
While I silently protest that it is far
Simpler to say “the extremely poor,”
I expound on the lumpen proletariat,
obfuscate the obvious, only
to make the grade.
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A perfect title for this piece as the descriptive words that were uesd really had me confused. Though through the use of these words I feel your perspective.
Although hard to read at times, due to the use of what my grandfather would have called Ten-dollar words, I found this poem quite hilarious and fun to read.
Thanks for the definitions, I would have been lost without them, they were a God send. To think that someone has teenage angst at the age of 49, you go!
Your prose is strong and the words are basically fine, but the way you’ve laid the out makes for a confusing read in the first stanza, I had to read it a second time for the lights to go completely on with what you were saying.
I have come to the conclusion
Based on much thought and lengthy
Review, that secondary education is designed (consider moving the word “Review” up to the previous line)
To confound the rest of the world, showing off (consider moving “showing off” down to the next line and adding the word “By”)
Complex language.
It would read like this:
I have come to the conclusion
based on much thought and lengthy review,
that secondary education is designed
to confound the rest of the world,
by showing off complex language.
A few of your other lines seem forced but with a second look you can fix this with ease. I truly enjoyed this poem. I believe I took this course in college and Challenged the Issue of Language, maybe that’s the title you should use. I barely survived.
Good Job.
I would be doing this poem a great injustice by simply typing the word WOW and leaving it at that.
The word usage was great. It didn’t meander, like some many other works. It stated its case quite well. I especially like the line,”A walking dictionary of alien phrases” Good visual. As far as titles are concerned, I like it. It fits, it makes its point clear, pardon the pun.
I relate with this poem immensely- I can’t even count how many times higher education has threatened what I consider realism… Sometimes complex information just confuses me, but most of the time it’s because I don’t have the patience to understand it… the most frustrating part is when everyone else doesn’t want to understand ‘it’ either, or when you understanding ‘it’ threatens the other person… regardless, I don’t think that there are any weak parts: the third stanza read slow, but that was just because I didn’t know what to expect, so I think it belongs there… The last stanza captures your message perfectly- and obfuscate is an awesome word… only one question remains- why alienate the masses when the lumpen proletariat have so much to offer?
okay if I can get my head around the fifteen $ words—I think I get your point. however I spent so much time having to look up the words u used I don’t get much out of the poem. If you were trying to use thes fancy words to get your point across I hope the people it is meant for Have a better vocabulary than I do. Good luck.
July 16, 2006
Why would you write something to pro what your against.
this is great… and totally reflective of how i feel when reading for my school work!
i’ve given into the language (i had to, it’s mandatory for the phd…)
i enjoy the irony of how you hate the complexity of the language, but still use it brilliantly within this piece.
I feel rather ambivalent about the issue you’re attacking here. On one hand, there are certainly many who abuse their college educations, who overcomplicate things in discussion in a pitiable and downright bizarre effort to give more creedence to their ideas.
On the other hand, the “complex language” you speak of, in most cases, was not created for the sake of complexity. Proletariat is a catch-all Marxian term to refer to the exploited class, the antitheis in a his reading of life as a economic/historicism dialectic.
And though that previous sentence may seem a prime example of erudition for the sake of erudition alone, the fact is that, in context, this-so called complex language is actually simplifying the matter at hand. That is to say, that Marx makes makes clearer his idea of class domination. If, instead, he refered to each individual class as the poorest of the poor, he’s using a much more familiar phrase that instantly evokes certain images, certain prejudices, ideas running contrary to that which he means to discuss. The important characteristic of Marx’s proletariat is not their financial status, but their exploitation and repression by the dominant class. Again, in context, this ostensible complexity is in fact the simpler alternative.
But, though I disagree with your assertion that secondary college education’s primary motive is to help build an arsenal of intellectual terms to be used ostentatiously, I do like your style of writing, which clearly draws on the simplicity you feel such reverance for, eschewing abstruse passages that, in the end, really don’t mean much.
July 16, 2006
Strong protest written with sly humor and a jab at those looking down on the lumpen protetariat.
Written brilliantly with passion, protest wit and intelligence.
Strong all around.
Its beauty is its raw nakidness, uninhibited by the prosaic phrases
that would diminish its overall truth.
Obfuscate the obvious! got to love it.
not even using obscure.
I like it the way it is. Others may wonder about your line ” enirely willing to confabulate with complex language at cocktail parties I do not attend. Since it seems to be contradictory.
den
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