The Public/Private Spectrum

Komunyakaa and Pinsky both seem to incorporate the public and private spheres in their work in different ways. Yet, when compared to the other poets we've read, their approach seems more similar than disparate. I see both poets using the public/private in a way that differs, for example from Forche. In general, I think Forche seems to be more specifically addressing a public--she wants us to see or feel something. While Forche's poems are told from her personal perspective and thus inherently include her private point of view, the goal of the poem seems to be to act upon a public. With Komunyakaa and Pinsky, it seems as though their poems reflect a weaving of both the public and private. This differs too, I think from Strand, whose work could perhaps be viewed on the opposite end of the spectrum from Forche's--that is, as being primarily private. I'm not exactly sure where Rich would fall--somewhere in the middle with Komunyakaa and Pinsky, but with a definite leaning toward the public end. Although Rich's poems are often intensely personal, they definitely seem directed toward a public. Of course, all poems can be said to address a public in some way--I see then Rich's poem as being highly conscious of this public and as attempting to do something specific (not unlike Forche) in the way that she communicates with this public. As for Knox, I think what she does with her poems exists in a slightly different category from everyone else--because her work aims to explore and manipulate the structures of language itself, I see her as slightly removed from the public/private spectrum. Knox definitely seems to be having a discourse with a public, but I'm not so sure she has a specific message to convey and examining the private self doesn't seem to be her foremost aim. The self and the public are inherently part of Knox's work, yet I think she is more concerned with the way these things can be depicted through language than with the private and public themselves.

Komunyakaa and Pinsky seem to deal with the public/private in a sort of middling ground in which they are concerned with the way the public affects the private as well as the way the private can serve to represent the larger public. Pinsky's poetry seems a mixing of specific private and public detail. I see this operating in "An explanation of America": Pinsky is painting a picture of America using a series of detailed descriptions that reflect his personal vision of America . And while this poem does not really contain details from Pinsky's private life, the poem itself is framed by the fact that this is Pinsky's explanation to be given to his daughter--a seemingly private act. Yet, the poem also functions as Pinsky's explanation to us as readers, something more public.

Komunyakaa's work also seems a blend of the public/private, yet I think Komunyakaa more often gives a personal narrative through which we can see how larger public themes operate on the individual. We see the effect of public events on a private life--we also see the way in which Komunyakaa's personal experience can be representative of a larger public experience (i.e. the Vietnam war). If Pinsky, give us an intermingling of public and private detail in order to piece together a picture of both the individual as well as the society he lives in, Komunyakka gives us a specific picture of the individual from which we can extract the larger public.