The Performance of Becoming Human
The Performance of Becoming Human is the third collection of poetry written by Daniel Borzutzky. It explores the theme of violence committed by the state against its citizens, often combining mundane phraseology and jokes with grotesque imagery. The collection was given the National Book Award for poetry in 2016, and has been likened to Neruda's reaction to state-sanctioned violence in Chile. Borzutky's poems have been called un-poetic. The question "Can a Poem Make the World a Better Place?" was posted by Borzutzky, who ponders if the expression of poetry can thwart  the internal feelings of darkness and loneliness felt by those who emigrate. Early life. As a child of Chilean-Jewish immigrant parents, Borzutzky experienced emotional emptiness, which he calls "darkness," and used his poetry to find serenity in the world around him as a child. Borzutzky is best known for his political works that reflect the common struggles of immigrants experiencing poverty and prejudice from those around him. Themes and style. According to Borzutzky, "The Performance of Becoming Human" is the third installment in a series of books on "how humans survive amid the worst types of state and social  violence". In an interview with the "Chicago Tribune", he refers to Chilean poet Raul Zurita, whose work Borzutzky has translated, saying "[Zurita] told me in an interview that during the Pinochet dictatorship he wanted to create 'poetry as powerful as the pain being delivered by the state'. It's an impossible goal, but one I hope to emulate". The collection is "formatted in paragraph-like prose chunks", which "break down into single sentences or fragments, often without punctuation", noted Healey in the "Boston Review", but added that it wasn't exactly prose poetry. Healey remarked on the poetry's "prosaic  tendencies", which he saw as connected to the "Latin American tradition—that impulse toward loud and rambling lines, surrealism and biting humor, empathy with common people against political oppression, as found in the work of César Vallejo, Nicanor Parra, and the more contemporary Chilean poet Raúl Zurita, whose work Borzutzky has translated into English". Borzutzky repeats phrases and images, blurring the lines between poems; repetitions include the standard joke opening, "Did you hear the one about", followed by some violent or grotesque image. Criticism. Following the National Book Award, Borzutzky was criticized for his language: "diction described as flat and  repetitive; imagery deemed unrelentingly repellent; an authorial tone rejected as the un-poetic rantings of an ideologue". Carol Muske-Dukes noted that "the reader must confront the realpolitik that informs [Borzutzky's] style. Perhaps he is not a 'bad' writer (his intelligence and learning are formidable); rather, he appears to be writing as a 'bad' writer on purpose". To wit, his work "is an indictment of poetic simile. Think of Neruda, (with his other-worldly lyrical gifts) reacting to state-sanctioned violence in Chile: 'The blood of children ran in the streets like the blood of children'". The Performance of