"The Rise And Fall" Analysis
As a writer, there are many things you must study, understand and risk in order to succeed in the literary field, if not you might make a mistake and fail. In “Constantly risking absurdity and death” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and “Betting on the muse” by Charles Bukowski, they both show how a poet is more than what society typically thinks of them. They do this through the use of metaphors, the role, and importance of the poet and the use of death and risk. Although in “Betting on the muse” they contrast the poet as better than a professional athlete in every way, while in “Constantly risking absurdity and death” they directly compare the poet to an acrobat.
Firstly, the role and importance of the poet in these poems are slightly different but both place great importance on the poet, in “Constantly risking absurdity and death” the role of the poet is to be entertainment for the audience. The poet is constantly risking basically everything until the poet makes a mistake and messes up their career as a writer or actually gets a big break and succeeds in their career. “Constantly risking absurdity and death / whenever he performs above the heads of his audience” (1-2, Constantly), this quote in the poem explicitly says that the acrobat risks everything to entertain their audience, also comparing the acrobat to a poet, “poet like an acrobat” (3, Constantly). While in “Betting on the muse” the poet is described as the superior to the star athlete. Basically saying that why do you want to be an athlete when you can be a writer, “Being an athlete grown old / is one of the cruellest / of fates / to be replaced by others… just to be an old man / like other old / men. ” (3-4, Muse). In this quote, we see that the author thinks very little of a hall of fame athlete as they get worse rather than better in their life and athletes get forgotten, while authors are famous for centuries. Both of these poems put an extreme importance of the poet as a very important piece in social structure and entertainment but in different approaches of explaining it in both poems. Secondly, the use of metaphors is crucial in this comparison give emphasis on the acrobat and the athlete within the poem. The first metaphor I will talk about is in “Constantly risking absurdity and death”. The entire poem is an extended metaphor that compares the poet’s skills to that of a tightrope walker, “Whenever he performs above the heads of his audience / the poet like an acrobat” (2-3, Constantly), suggesting that the poet takes great risk regularly in writing and that making even one small mistake can lead to the end of their careers as a whole.
The second metaphor is in “Betting on the Muse” the metaphor is “This is why I chose / to be a / writer / … you can keep / getting better instead / of worse / you can still keep hitting them over the wall” (10-12, Muse). This metaphor is comparing how as an athlete, you hit your skill peak at a younger age, around 20-30 and get slowly get worse as you age. While, as a poet/writer you start out as the worst of your career, when you know the less to when you are older and only get better, wiser and more creative, as you get older and older. “Hitting them over the wall” (12, Muse), being the main part of the metaphor in the previous quote, as an athlete stops being able to hit a ball over a wall, supposedly. A poet would easily be able to do the counterpart in their career to it, such as write a famous poem. Lastly, the use of risk and death in these poems is very important to the overall meaning of the poems as it shows how much the poet had to risk to get where they are. In “Constantly risking absurdity and death” it is stated that “Constantly risking absurdity and death / whenever he performs above the heads of his audience / the poet like an acrobat climbs on rime to a high wire of his own making” (1-3, Constantly).
In this quote, it says that the poet climbs on a high wire of his own making, making him responsible for anything that would happen on the high wire. Putting all the risk that he puts themselves to, to succeed being in only his hands. In “Betting on the muse” it is said “this is why I chose / to be a / writer. / if you’re worth just / half-a-damn / you can keep your / hustle going / until the last minute / of the last / day” (9, Muse). Through this quote, we can see that, you have to be worth something first before you can risk everything and hope to succeed. Also in this, the role of the athlete is constantly trying to stay relevant so his persona doesn’t “die” and get forgotten in the past. Therefore, these two poems are very comparable in the sense of how a poet is viewed upon society their use of metaphors, the role and importance that the poet is used for and the use of risk and death in both poems. Even though both poems resemble the same points, they convey them in two separate ways making the comparison very interesting. Both Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Charles Bukowski both represent a poet in society as an entertainment figure that must take a lot of risk to succeed, helping us understand that we should respect writers for the everyday risks that they take to entertain.
