Primaries

Primaries

؛A political primary enables members of a party to express their preference for a candidate to run in a general election. In most primary election, the candidate must receive a plurality (more votes than any other candidate) to win. Primaries may be open or closed.

A primary election is an election in which voters in a jurisdiction select candidates for a subsequent election (nominating primary). In other words, primary elections are generally when each political party decides its nominee for the upcoming general election. Primaries are common in the United State.

Types of Primaries

Closed; Voters may vote in a party's primary only if they are registered members of that party. Independents cannot participate. They should declare a party affiliation.

Semi-closed; As in closed primaries, registered Republicans and Democrats can vote only in their own party's primary. Semi-closed systems, however, allow unaffiliated voters to participate as well. Depending on the state, independents either make their choice of party primary privately, inside the voting booth, or publicly, by registering with either the Republican or Democratic Party on Election Day.

Open. A registered voter may vote in any party primary regardless of his or her own party affiliation. When voters do not pre-register with a party before the primary, it is called a pick-a-party primary because the voter can select which party's primary he wishes to vote in on Election Day.

In an Open primary voters "are not required to publicly choose one party or the other. Rather, they enter the voting booth and choose the party ballot on which they will vote in secret." Hence, one does not need to be a member of a particular party in order to vote in a party's primary. Also a member of one party can vote in the primary of another party. However, one can vote in only one primary. For example, the Virginia Open Primary Law states that all persons qualified to vote…may vote at the primary. No person shall vote for the candidates of more than one party.The purpose of an open primary is to incorporate more moderate votes into the primary elections. Open primaries were established in Wisconsin during 1903 to respond to pressure from the progressive faction of Republican Party and to public concern expressed over the rights of nonpartisan voters (Wisconsin, 1975:5-7).Argument supporting open primaries are that they protect the rights of voters to keep their party preferences secret, they maximize a voter’s choice in selecting a primary candidate, and they encourage widespread citizen participation in candidate selection.

A closed primary is a type of direct primary limited to registered party members who have declared their party affiliation, in order to vote in the election. The closed primary serves to encourage party unity and prevent members of other parties from infiltrating and voting to nominate weak candidates؛.

Social Stratification in the United States

Social Stratification in the United States

“In sociology, social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of social classes, castes and strata within a society. While these hierarchies are not universal to all societies, they are the norm among state-level cultures. Social inequality is a basic aspect of all social processes.”

“Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures.”

“Most societies, especially nation states, seem to have some notion of social class. We can consider United States as a good example.

United States

 Educational attainment, occupational position and income are the main determinants of class in the US. “While it is possible to create dozens of social classes within the confines of American society, most Americans employ a six or five class system.” The most commonly applied class concepts are:

·         “Upper class; those with great influence, wealth and prestige.

·          Upper middle class; the upper middle class consists of white collar professionals with advanced post-secondary educational degrees and comfortable personal incomes. Upper middle class professionals have large amounts of autonomy in the workplace and therefore enjoy high job satisfaction.

·         (Lower) middle class; Semi-professionals, non-retail salespeople and craftsmen who have some college education who often suffer from a lack of job security.

·          Working class; according to some experts such Michael Zweig, this class may constitute the majority of Americans and include those otherwise referred to as lower middle. It includes blue as well as white collar workers who have relatively low personal incomes and lack college degrees with many being among the 45% of Americans who have never attended college.

·         Lower class; this class includes the poor, alienated and marginalized members of society. While most individuals in this class work, they commonly drift in and out of poverty throughout the year.”

Twentieth-Century American Poetry

                                Twentieth-Century American Poetry

                                               Daniel Kane

Daniel Kane: He was born in New York City though he grew up in a variety of places including Manila, Mexico City, London, New Jersey, and New York City. He received his BA from Marlboro College in Vermont and his PhD from New York University.

.His research interests: modern and contemporary American poetry , forerunner writing, film and culture

•          His works: A book on the aesthetic exchanges between 'New American' filmmakers and poets.

•          All poets welcome: Berkeley: The University of California Press (2003).

•          What is poetry: New York: Teachers & Writers (2003).

•          ‘The Torso’ and the enactment of ritual.

•          Conversation between film and poetry.

American poetry:

. American poets recorded the impact of modernism and  its perfect figures. People looked to the U.S. for new voices and forms, and for democratic verse.

. Most of popular American poetry in the U.S. during Victorian period depended on British-centered notions, but with the coming of American poets Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, American poets could break from their Victorian legacy in order to create new poetic. As the 19thc moved forward to 20thc Dickinson’s and Whitman’s work stood as a kind of model. The free metric and direct emotional expression of Whitman, the gnomic obscurity and irony of Dickinson—all of which profoundly stamp the American poetry of the 20th century.  

 . To survey American poetry in 20thc we need go through the history of American poetry and some movements.

 

Modernism, American-style

Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1930 in the tradition of modernist literature; Modernist literature attempted to move from the bonds of Realist literature and introduce concepts such as disjointed timelines. Modernist literature is defined by its move away from Romanticism. It is a clear rejection of the optimism apparent in Victorian literature.

This new idiom, combined with a study of 19th-century French poetry, formed the basis of the United States input into 20th-century English-language poetic modernism. Ezra Pound (1885–1972) and T.S Eliot (1888–1965) were the leading figures at the time, but numerous other poets made important contributions. These included Gretrud Stein (1874–1946), Wallace Stevens (1879–1955), William Carlos Williams (1883–1963), and Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) (1886–1961) ….. All the modernist poets mentioned above, all identified their country of birth as the necessary ingredients crucial for a new poetry and poetics.

 

Imagism and Vorticism

Pound invented “imagism” and, later “vorticism” to put newness into practice(1912-1917).pound and his contemporaries wanted to make themselves as innovators breaking away from their British ancestors.

. Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery, and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment of Romantic and Victorian poetry.

. Vorticism was coined by Pound. Vorticist principles applied not just to poetry but to sculpture, painting, music and more. Pound saw Vorticism as setting "the arts in their rightful place as the acknowledged guide and lamp of civilization.“ Pound wanted to make the poetic image more intense and dynamic.

 Imagism and Vorticism encouraged poets to let all sorts of new sound, shapes and images into the poetry.

 

Competing modernisms  

The title refers to tensions which were revealed in the conflict between William Carlos Williams and T.S. Eliot, as well as Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens.

.Williams and Eliot: Williams believed that Eliot was too attached to European culture and traditions. Williams’s project aimed to inscribe colloquial American speech, therefore he saw The Wasteland as a huge step back for American poetry.

. Stevens and Frost: The language that Frost used was surprisingly informal and distinctively American. Stevens one of the most significance poets of the 20thc, unlike Frost did not employ regular meters in the service of a typically American vernacular. The influence of French symbolists and English Romantics on his work is evident. The world in his poetry is almost entirely conceptual. Stevens with his evocation of a dreamy European-American and his use of fragmentary techniques, was a true original, and was a model for major experimental poets in the post-war years, especially for John Ashbery.

Objectivists

The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s. They were mainly American and were influenced by, amongst others, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. The basic tenets of Objectivist poetics as defined by Louis Zukofsky were to treat the poem as an object, and to emphasize sincerity, intelligence, and the poet's ability to look clearly at the world. Objectivists were committed to pluralism, evoking ethnic and religious ghettos. The core group consisted of   Zukofsky, Williams, Charles Rezinikoff, George Oppen and Carl Rakosi. As Stephen Fredman notes, the objectivists make a strong claim for our attention based on their inventive negotiations between literary modernism and a Jewish heritage. Objectivist poets continued to distinguish themselves from modernists by committing themselves to progressive and socialist politics.

The Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance (also known as the Black Literary Renaissance and The New Negro Movement) refers to the flowering of African American cultural and intellectual life during the 1920s and 1930s. The Harlem Renaissance grew out of the changes that had taken place in the black community since the abolition of slavery, and which had been accelerated as a consequence of the First World War. Challenging white paternalism and racism, African-American artists and intellectuals rejected merely imitating the styles of Europeans and white Americans and instead celebrated black dignity and creativity. Asserting their freedom to express themselves on their own terms as artists and intellectuals, they explored their identities as black Americans, celebrating the black culture that had emerged out of slavery and their cultural ties to Africa. We can understand the poetry of Harlem Renaissance as actively engaged in at-times hostile and at-times friendly conversation with white modernism. Hughes’ works and other poets affiliated with the Harlem Renaissance added strategic and necessary representations of black identity and cultural diversity to modernism.

Post-War American Poetry and the New Criticism

As the U.S. struggled through the Great depression and then after attack on Pearl Harbor, entered the Second World War, a new generation of poets and critics arrived on the scene. Writers such as James Dickey, Richard Hugo, William Everson and others wrote directly out of their military experiences.

Post-War American poetry led to a competition between writers joint with “New Criticism” and those writers decided to inject a new romanticism.

 New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the mid 20thc from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Its adherents were emphatic in their advocacy of close reading and attention to texts themselves, and their rejection of criticism based on extra-textual sources, especially biography. The notion of ambiguity is an important concept within New Criticism.

.Confessional Poetry

Led initially by Lowell’s example, mainstream American poetry took a turn in 1959 with the publication of Lowell’s book Life Studies. In his review of the book, the literary critic M.L.Rosenthal called the poems ‘confessional” and so the “confessional” movement in poetry was born. A confessional poet traffics in intimate, and sometimes unflattering, information about him or herself, in poems about illness, sexuality, despondence and the like, as Lowell wrote in a loose free verse and with all sorts of personal details.

Poetry, the 1960s and New York

The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musician active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City. Collaborative poems, anonymous poems, serial poems and performance poems were all part of the new forms being developed in New York. Poets in New York and elsewhere were influenced by the counterculture and the Vietnam War protest movement. Traditional forms were taken up and ‘made new’ by second generation writers.

Slam poetry, he New Formalists, and multiculturalism

A poetry slam is a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judged by selected members of the audience. Unlike most of poetry  discussed so far, slam poetry is multicultural and reflects the racial, ethnic and religious diversity of the U.S. Poetry slams feature a broad range of voices, styles, cultural traditions, and approaches to writing and performance. One of the goals of a poetry slam is to challenge the authority of anyone who claims absolute authority over literary value.

. New Formalism is a late-twentieth and early 21tsc movement in American poetry that has promoted a return to metrical and rhymed verse. New Formalism was a reaction against various perceived deficiencies in the practice of contemporary poets.

The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s saw the emergence of identity-based poetry that reflected the multicultural conditions of the U.S.

.American poetry into the 21thc

American poetry in the 1990s and into 21tsc continues to be controversial. Currently there is talk of ‘post language’ poetry, and many young writers are associated with it.

There are also many poets affiliated with academic creative writing who are now publishing books.

What is important to consider is that there is no single history of American poetry, there are multiple histories, and in fact all of them agree that the 20thc was a remarkable time for American poetry specifically and for world poetry generally.