From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 2:08 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 26. Cavafy // Personal Identification
Cavafy's poem "The City" hit me like a familiar smack on the head. I have not seen a lot of the world, but wherever I've gone, I've noticed one thing: I take everything with me. There is no way that a move or a vacation or whatever can turn me into a different person than the one I already am.
"As you have destroyed your life here/ in this little corner, you have ruined it in the entire world." I am not claiming that I have already ruined my life, but that does not make this statement less correct. No matter where I go from here, I will take my successes and everything else along with me. Our baggage makes us who we are and we can never change that, no matter how much we would like to.
I disagree with the negative spin that this poem puts upon this experience. If we do not learn from our experience, then who are we? We need to learn and grow from previous experience or else we are merely plants, reacting to the environment as it happens.
The phrase "in this little corner" strikes me as important. We all envision the world as a small shell, with us at the center. There seems to be no way around this impression and if anyone has found a way, let me know the trick. Our world is a tiny sliver of infinite space and possibility, but within that little space we create incredible things. Consider Rilke, who has impacted so many people without leaving Europe, or Rumi who stood and left his desk one day on the whim of an old man. Our experience in our little corner of the world can lead to a ripple affect that spreads further than our eyes can see. Who we are "in this little corner" may end up affecting others in unknown spaces, but it is the little corner that allows us to become who we are.
I just wanted to say that I've had a really good experience in this class and have changed a lot because of it. Thank you all for being so patient with my stumbling and false starts. I appreciate the open honesty that we have in class and hope that we can all carry that honesty to the rest of our classes, be it science or math or whatever.
Good luck in the future andà I'll see you at the chapel!
Jen :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 1:15 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 25. Wagoner, David // Same author... same approach?
THE AUTHOR OF AMERICAN ONITHOLOGY
SKETCHES A BIRD, NOW EXTINCT
(Alexander Wilson, Wilmington, N.C. 1809)
When he walked through town, the wing-shot bird he'd hidden
Inside his coat began to cry like a baby,
High and plaintive and loud as the calls he'd heard
While hunting it in the woods, and goodwives stared
And scurried indoors to quard their own from harm.
And the innkeeper and the goodmen in the tavern
Asked him whether his child was sick, then laughed.
Slapped knees, and laughed as he unswaddled his prize,
His pride and burden: an ivory-billed woodpecker
As big as a crow, still wailing and squealing.
Upstairs, when he let it go in his workroom,
It fell silent at last. He told at dinner
How devoted masters of birds drawn from the life
Must gather their flocks around them with a rifle
And make them live forever inside books.
Later, he found his bedspread covered with plaster
And the bird clinging beside a hole in the wall
Clear through to already-splintered weatherboards
And the sky beyond. While he tied one of its legs
To a table leg, it started wailing again.
And it went on wailing as if toward cypress groves
While the artist drew and tinted on fine vellum
Its red cockade, gray claws, and sepia eyes
From which a white edge flowed to the lame wing
Like light flying and ended there in blackness.
He drew and studied for days, eating and dreaming
Fitfully through the dancing and loud drumming
Of an ivory bill that refused pecans and beetles,
Chestnuts and sweet-sour fruit of magnolias,
Riddling his table, slashing his fingers, wailing,
He watched it die, he said, with great regret.
LOONS MATING
Their necks and their dark heads lifted into a dawn
Blurred smooth by mist, the loons
Beside each other are swimming slowly
In charmed circles, their bodies stretched under water
Through ripples quivering and sweeping apart
The gray sky now held close by the lake's mercurial threshold
Whose face and underface they share
In wheeling and diving tandem, rising together
To swell their breasts like swans, to go breasting forward
With beaks turned down and in, near shore,
Out of sight behind a windbreak of birch and alder,
And now the haunted uprisen wailing call,
And again, and now the beautiful sane laughter.
These two poems, though both comment on nature, intending similar results, they approach the problem in a completely different manner. Both poems seem to intend a respect for the natural world. The first comments directly on human exploitation of that natural world by portraying a man with an incredible lack of respect for the bird he has captured and the second is a comment on the beauty of relationship between two loons.
The imagery of the first poem is incredible. The ivory-billed woodpecker is "swaddled" like a baby and cries "like a baby." The bird is obviously under the man's complete control. Not only that, but the man is a hero for his actions. The people in the town laugh and laugh and slap their knees and laugh again at the cry of the helpless woodpecker. The injured bird becomes even more pathetic within his capture, as he struggles to tap his way out of the man's room, straight through the wall, only to become tied to the table to wail its way to death, while the man calmly draws the woodpecker into the immortality of a books pages. The obvious disapproving tone is prevalent throughout the poem, but is most obvious in the last line. "He watched it die, he said, with great regret." The emphasis is on "he said"à the implication being that, though he protested regret, his inner thoughts contained little to no regret. If he had had any regret, he never would have shot the bird in the first place.
The bird cries and cries its way straight to the heart of the reader and the man becomes a representation of the evil manner in which humanity views animals, as collectors items, rather then respected beings. The poem "Loons Mating" contains an obvious respect for the beauty of the natural world, which is also a comment on the human world, though humanity doesn't appear within the poerm.
The poem is a comment on the beauty of the loons, focusing first on "Their necks and dark heads" before moving on to the beauty of their actions, as they swim together. They play and wheel in the beauty of the natural world, "the lake's mercurial threshold." Not only are they beautiful in this manner, but the author also calls them "sane." Within this poem, these loons are the perfect element of the world. For a brief moment, they are the center of everything, with everything moving away from them in calm, lake ripples. They call, that haunting call that can be heard between 3am and 5am just outside my house, and cackle with "beautiful sane laughter." The author shows us that these mating loons (which mate for life, I believe) have all of the answers. Answers that a human cannot necessarily find.
Though the second poem is written about loons and not human interaction with them, their remains a human interaction with the animals in the form of author to subject. The author of the poem is respectful and distant, allowing the loons to speak for themselves, but that in itself implies an incredible depth to the relationship, which is obviously non-existent in the first poem. The loons are beautiful, but if captured, they would have struggled to break through the walls, just as the woodpecker did.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 9:37 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 24. Rozewicz & Carver // A second poem = a definition
A Voice
They mutilate they torment each other
with silence with words
as if they had another
life to live
they do so
as if they had forgotten
that their bodies
are inclined to death
that the insides of men
easily break down
ruthless with each other
they are weaker
than plants and animals
they can be killed by a word
by a smile by a look
by: Tadeusz Rozewicz
translated by: Czeslaw Milosz
The Cobweb
A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck
of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,
and everything that's happened to me all these years.
It was hot and still. The tide was out.
No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing
a cobweb touched my hair. No one can blame me that I turned
and went inside. There was no wind. The sea was
dead calm. I hung the cobweb from the lampshade.
Where I watch it shudder now and then when my breath
touches it. A fine thread. Intricate.
Before long, before anyone realizes,
I'll be gone from here.
by: Raymond Carver
These poems seem to be very different approaches to similar thoughts in "The Voice", the two individuals or perhaps an entire population cannot manage to recognize the value in their lives, for they are WASTING time. "They mutilate they torment each other/ with silences with words" : they are spending their days hurting the people in their lives, feeling pain, causing pain, and wasting time which they might be enjoying. Our time here is so short and passes so quickly that we must hold on to that time we have. The poem even places this human effort to hurt on a scale lower than the activities of the rest of the planet. "àthey are weaker/ than plants and animals/ they can be killed by a word/ by a smile by a look" Plants and animals stand above the activity of humans because they are above the activities of verbally hurting each other. Humans, rather than ignore this side of ourselves, seem to revel in it.
This theme of wasting time runs rampant in the second poem, "The Cobweb." The speaker of the poem returns inside because the world is unexciting. "It was hot and still. The tide was out. No birds sangà There was no wind. The sea was dead calm." He or she can find no joy in the normalcy of the world, so the individual returns to the house, bearing the cobweb which fell to his or her hair. It is only in gazing at the cobweb that the individual realizes his or her own mortality and connects it to the earlier thoughts. I wouldn't be surprised if the individual in the poem sprinted back outside to enjoy the dayà to rethink "everything that's happenedà all these years." In my mind, the speaker of this poem is regretting all of the things "The Voice" made clear. He or she is reflecting upon and regretting those incidences in which time was "wasted," the days of anger with little to no purpose, the jealousy, the hatred,etc. When taken in combination, these poems reveal one simple commandà Don't waste your lifeà..
Jen
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 7:50 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Object poem
I'm sorry this took me so long!! It's been one of those weeksà.
Eraser
In the corner sits
the mammoth,
pink
eraser,
a professor of literature,
black rimmed glasses
permanently fixed upon
her
pink
nose,
awaiting the next mistake,
leaping with glee,
abandoning only
black
shavings
in memoir of
my
mistake.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 11:53 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 23: Kate //outside // wow...
outside
his eyes wrinkled into a smile,
behind him through the window
boarded windows, dark blue clouds.
"think it'll rain tonight?" i asked,
feeling a calm from the rumbling outside.
his eyes wrinkled again. "hope not,"
he said . . . "don't bring bad luck." he
dipped his head and laughed softly.
that night i lay listening to the rain
pounding the ground outside,
imagined him struggling to pull his collar up,
to huddle under an overhang.
i slid further under my covers
and tried tried to muffle
the growing roar outside my window. Kate Lucas
Kate, I love the gap in the second to last line of this poem. I fell in love with Taslima Nasrin's use of gaps and visual art in her poems. The gap you use seems perfectly placedà reminds me of a futility of action, a lonely feeling. I can almost feel the gut of the speaker wrenching physically along with the frustration of the line. Awesome. :-)
It's amazing how one meeting, one sentence, one brief touch of another individual can have such an incredible impact on your life. Not only that, but it's rather incredible how much we will do to try to remain the same, to deny the change that has occurred within us. We pull the covers over our head and try to shut out the world and all of the truths it has to show usà the homeless, the drug abused, the gambling habits, etc. We come face to face with these issues in our daily lives and then go home, struggling to remain the same. Intriguing poem, Kate! :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 10:20 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 22. gonzalez // Yesterday theme??
"Yesterday"
This poem seems to be about how people in a society react to a drastic change in their environment. The locals of the poem are ignoring the everyday excitements of life, even the children, who don't look up to see the plane, while the strangers are completely oblivious to the change, enjoying their coffee as usual.
When something drastic changes in a society, the "I'll tell you about when"s seem to begin. You have the older members of society speaking of how it used to be, how they wish it was, and how bad things currently are. That is the impression that this poem leaves me with. After the complete "sadness invaded hearts", everyone could think and speak only of yesterday.
What occurred to this group of people to cause this change? It could have been their country's declaration of war or some other political turmoil, which would explain why the strangers are so content. Or it could be the strangers themselves, content in a world that doesn't seem to appreciate their presence.
I liked this poem, though I'm not sure what it means. I'm anxious to talk about it in class!
Jen :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 10:38 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 21. Ravikovitch // Beautiful
After they all leave,
I remain alone with the poems,
some poems of mine, some of others.
I prefer poems that others have written.
I remain quiet, and slowly
the knot in my throat dissolves.
I remain. (Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, P. 330)
After they all leave,
The question immediately arisesà who? Who left the speaker of the poem? "They" could imply anyone at this point in the poem because of the ambiguity of the title of the piece. "Surely You Remember", the title of the poem, gives little insight into the "they" of the poem, but merely implies that whomever makes up the "they" are memorable individuals. "They all" implies a lot of people, so the speaker of the poem is most likely not referring to his or her parents because "they all" would seem to imply more than two people, but perhaps the speaker is referring to his or her entire family. The speaker could also be referring to enemies in a war, finally leaving him or her in peace. The possibilities are almost endless at this point in the poem.
I remain alone with the poems,
There is a sense of relief that buried in this line. The speaker seems to feel some sort of discomfort around the others of the poem, the "they" of the poem. When "they" leave, there is relief in the silence and the reliance upon inanimate objects for company. She or he seems to sigh this sentence, finally alone with her or his thoughts, in peace "with the poems".
some poems of mine, some of others.
This line seems to speak of a community in which the speaker approves. His or her community exists on paper, as a communication between poets. His or her own poetry, speaks loudly in this community, but the poems of others, with similar concerns are welcomed and appreciated.
I prefer poems that others have written.
This seems to be another statement to community. There is a respect on the part of the speaker for the poems, to which he or she has access. A respect, and perhaps a sense of personal inadequacyà the personal intuition that his or her poems are not as good as those that others have written or that the speaker can get more out of those other poems (more personal insight).
I remain quiet, and slowly
the knot in my throat dissolves.
I think this is another reference to the interference of the "they" at the beginning of the poem. The speaker is returning to his or her center, that place of emotional peace, through the reading of poetry and silence. There is a sense of relief, of calming. My brother tenses in large groups, no matter if the large groups consist of family or friends, the speaker seems to resemble that type of individual, one who cannot function and feels extremely out of place with a lot of people about.
I remain.
This seems to be a clarification, a restatement by the speaker of his or her own reality. It is a centering statement, calming and permanent. It brings him or her to earth. Like the statement "I think, therefore I am." The speaker is now in his or her place, feeling comfortable and in the moment.
I love this poem! It reminds me of the mornings I would spend on the couch, curled up with a book and a cup of coffee. I would watch the snow trickle down on a Saturday morning, praying to God that no one found something for me to do before I soaked up enough of the experience. Just breathing, is a positive experience on those days.
Great poet choice!! - jen :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 11:17 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 19. Hirsch Chapter 2 // few thoughts
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
Are there some cemeteries that aren't lonely? I personally have never come across a cemetery that was exactly cheerful, but the first line of this poem seems to imply that there is something beyond a lonely cemetery. Perhaps one can envision flowers upon a grave that take away from the loneliness and silence of the place. But the implication of the flowers is only a visitor to the place, not a resident. In other words, aren't all cemeteries lonely places? The soul has departedà only the granite is left.
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
This image is horrendously sad. At death we become mere matter, mere flesh and bone. The stuff that makes the person (whatever that stuff is) has departed, leaving only the matter. In death the body loses itselfà loses everything. Very sad.
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
This is another contradictory image for me. I have always believedà even as I question Godà in some sort of positive occurrence at death. Either a white light at the end of the tunnel, or at least something. These two lines contain a hopelessness, which I find very disturbing.
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
Another image that contradicts my impression of death. I thought I would die going away from myself. Moving on to something different than what is current. Moving beyond this body into an interconnected state of being.
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
What will I be thinking of at death? After death? Hopefully, I'll be able to think of those people who are so near to my heart right now. This is the image I get from this line. Someone drowning in his or her own sense of compassion for his or her loved ones.
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
This image I love! There is no choice in it. The individual merely falls out of his or her skin and into his or her soul. There is no way to protest, no way to back away from the inevitable. It implies a universal nature to deathà no matter what you believe or who you are, you will fall. Fabulous imagery.
-jen
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 8:44 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 18 Brecht // Visually intriguing
In Bertolt Brecht's poem "War has been given a bad name", the long dramatic spaces in the lines are eye catching. What is their purpose?
In my opinion, the spaces are included in the conversation of the poem, to emphasize and imitate human speech.
For example:
à à à à The Ruhr Industrialists
Are said to regret the bloody manhunts
Which filled their mines and factories with slave workers. (Brecht, 99 Poems in Translation, p. 24)
The gap in the second line allows for the sharp intake of breath of the speaker. The speaker, in her or his ironic tone is conceding something with the pause that the space implies. One could read this with a shrug and make it sound like, "I had a really good day today (pause), but I did hit that girl on the playground." Brecht uses this method again later in the poem for a slightly different purpose as follows:
A lamentably bad turn, and that war
While in itself natural and necessary, has, thanks to the
Unduly uninhibited and positively inhuman
Way in which it was conducted on this occasion, been
Discredited for some time to come. (Brecht, 99 Poems in Translation, p. 24)
The gap in the first line again allows for a pause of speech, but this time it is for emphasis of a specific point. The pause is left for a definition by the speaker to a disbelieving listener. In a conversation, this would be like saying, "My best friend Bob (pause), you know Bob the tailer." The second portion of the sentence is used to define who Bob is after a pause for an "everyone knows this" affect.
There is another kind of pause in the poem. This one is for extra sarcastic emphasis on two wordsà "intellectual" in line 8 and "feeling" in line 12. The speaker is implying with his HUGE gaps before each word that she or he does not believe what is being said at all. If the line were merely straight, the sarcasm would be lost.
There is also another visual aspect to this poem in that there is a building (growth of line length) to the center of the poem and then there is a receding (shortening of line length) as the poem continues to its end. I'm not sure what is intended with the overall appearance of the poem, but it is definitely noticeable. - jen
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 8:45 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 18.5 The Life of Bertolt Brecht
taken from http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/german/brecht/index.html
Biographical information from http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_bio.html
Brecht, Bertolt
original name EUGEN BERTHOLD FRIEDRICH BRECHT
(b. Feb. 10, 1898, Augsburg, Ger.--d. Aug. 14, 1956, East Berlin),
German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes.
Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied medicine (Munich, 1917-21), and served in an army hospital (1918). From this period date his first play, Baal (produced 1923); his first success, Trommeln in der Nacht (Kleist Preis, 1922; Drums in the Night); the poems and songs collected as Die Hauspostille (1927; A Manual of Piety, 1966), his first professional production (Edward II, 1924); and his admiration for Wedekind, Rimbaud, Villon, and Kipling.
During this period he also developed a violently antibourgeois attitude that reflected his generation's deep disappointment in the civilization that had come crashing down at the end of World War I. Among Brecht's friends were members of the Dadaist group, who aimed at destroying what they condemned as the false standards of bourgeois art through derision and iconoclastic satire. The man who taught him the elements of Marxism in the late 1920s was Karl Korsch, an eminent Marxist theoretician who had been a Communist member of the Reichstag but had been expelled from the German Communist Party in 1926.
In Berlin (1924-33) he worked briefly for the directors Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator, but mainly with his own group of associates. With the composer Kurt Weill (q.v.) he wrote the satirical, successful ballad opera Die Dreigroschenoper (1928; The Threepenny Opera) and the opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1930; Rise and Fall of the Town of Mahoganny). He also wrote what he called "Lehr-stucke" ("exemplary plays")--badly didactic works for performance outside the orthodox theatre--to music by Weill, Hindemith, and Hanns Eisler. In these years he developed his theory of "epic theatre" and an austere form of irregular verse. He also became a Marxist.
In 1933 he went into exile--in Scandinavia (1933-41), mainly in Denmark, and then in the United States (1941-47), where he did some film work in Hollywood. In Germany his books were burned and his citizenship was withdrawn. He was cut off from the German theatre; but between 1937 and 1941 he wrote most of his great plays, his major theoretical essays and dialogues, and many of the poems collected as Svendborger Gedichte (1939). The plays of these years became famous in the author's own and other productions: notable among them are Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (1941; Mother Courage and Her Children), a chronicle play of the Thirty Years' War; Leben des Galilei (1943; The Life of Galileo); Der gute Mensch von Sezuan (1943; The Good Woman of Setzuan), a parable play set in prewar China; Der Aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (1957; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), a parable play of Hitler's rise to power set in prewar Chicago; Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti (1948; Herr Puntila and His Man Matti), a Volksstuck (popular play) about a Finnish farmer who oscillates between churlish sobriety and drunken good humour; and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (first produced in English, 1948; Der kaukasische Kreidekreis, 1949), the story of a struggle for possession of a child between its highborn mother, who deserts it, and the servant girl who looks after it.
Brecht left the United States in 1947 after having had to give evidence before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He spent a year in Zurich, working mainly on Antigone-Modell 1948 (adapted from Hulderlin's translation of Sophocles; produced 1948) and on his most important theoretical work, the Kleines Organon fur das Theater (1949; "A Little Organum for the Theatre"). The essence of his theory of drama, as revealed in this work, is the idea that a truly Marxist drama must avoid the Aristotelian premise that the audience should be made to believe that what they are witnessing is happening here and now. For he saw that if the audience really felt that the emotions of heroes of the past--Oedipus, or Lear, or Hamlet--could equally have been their own reactions, then the Marxist idea that human nature is not constant but a result of changing historical conditions would automatically be invalidated. Brecht therefore argued that the theatre should not seek to make its audience believe in the presence of the characters on the stage--should not make it identify with them, but should rather follow the method of the epic poet's art, which is to make the audience realize that what it sees on the stage is merely an account of past events that it should watch with critical detachment. Hence, the "epic" (narrative, nondramatic) theatre is based on detachment, on the Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect), achieved through a number of devices that remind the spectator that he is being presented with a demonstration of human behaviour in scientific spirit rather than with an illusion of reality, in short, that the theatre is only a theatre and not the world itself.
In 1949 Brecht went to Berlin to help stage Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (with his wife, Helene Weigel, in the title part) at Reinhardt's old Deutsches Theater in the Soviet sector. This led to formation of the Brechts' own company, the Berliner Ensemble, and to permanent return to Berlin. Henceforward the Ensemble and the staging of his own plays had first claim on Brecht's time. Often suspect in eastern Europe because of his unorthodox aesthetic theories and denigrated or boycotted in the West for his Communist opinions, he yet had a great triumph at the Paris Theatre des Nations in 1955, and in the same year in Moscow he received a Stalin Peace Prize. He died of a heart attack in East Berlin the following year.
Brecht was, first, a superior poet, with a command of many styles and moods. As a playwright he was an intensive worker, a restless piecer-together of ideas not always his own (The Threepenny Opera is based on John Gay's Beggar's Opera, and Edward II on Marlowe), a sardonic humorist, and a man of rare musical and visual awareness; but he was often bad at creating living characters or at giving his plays tension and shape. As a producer he liked lightness, clarity, and firmly knotted narrative sequence; a perfectionist, he forced the German theatre, against its nature, to underplay. As a theoretician he made principles out of his preferences--and even out of his faults.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 8:40 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 17. Term Paper // Taslima Nasrin // The Battle for Women's Rights with Poetic Beauty
Jennifer Lindquist
Great Poets
3/15/00
Taslima Nasrin
The Battle for Women's Rights with Poetic Beauty
Taslima Nasrin spins worlds with her poems, pulling the reader into her creations with the power of a magnetic pole. "You're a girl" begins Taslima Nasrin's poem "Character" and hands the reader his or her identity for that specific poem, but also speaks to a more general role of the reader for many of her other poems (Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, 401). Nasrin's poetry is a telling inspiration to women all over the globe, as she fights her battle for the rights of women in Bangladesh from her exile in Sweden. Three of her poems, "Eve Of Eve", "Character", and "Another Life", provide a telling insight into Nasrin's beliefs and work through both their differences and similarities.
The title of Taslima Nasrin's poem, "Eve Oh Eve" brings its reader to expect a lament, a rail against Eve and her action in the garden, in which she is portrayed as responsible for the expulsion of humans from paradise. She took the fruit of knowledge from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and ate of it in defiance of God and man. The title of the poem seems to open a lament of Eve's actions, that in eating, she gave up something precious to both herself and to the reader. However, the actual poem does not follow with this logic, but rather asks Eve why she waited so long to taste of the fruit, thanks her for the action's repercussions and then gives advice to all women and humanity in general.
The first potion of "Eve Oh Eve" uses multiple references to Eve's human qualities, emphasizing her human nature and not her perfection. The poem asks, "Didn't Eve have a hand to reach out with, /fingers with which to make a fist; / didn't Eve have a stomach to feel hunger with, /a tongue to fuel thirst, / a heart with which to love?" (404). In other words, Nasrin's poem wonders if Eve were truly human or if she merely had the potential to be human. Nasrin brings Eve out of the bible and into sight as an actual human woman, rather than a divine individual, by using both human body imagery and human emotion and needs. If Eve existed as a human, with human curiosity and faults, why not take and eat of the fruit for the knowledge that it will bring?
If Eve had these human frailties, she would have had no need to eat of the fruit because she already would have been as human as we are today. Instead, before eating she had the body parts in place and the potential, but no need for them. Eve, in paradise, had no need for the fist fingers could make, nor did she hunger or thirst because all of her needs would have been immediately met in the garden. So, if Eve has no access to any of these characteristics, then she also has no access or knowledge of the last, which is the ever important, human defining love. Had Eve been human, with knowledge of taste, love, and the anger of a fist, she would have taken the fruit and eaten of it directly.
So, if Eve is not human in the first part of the poem, but rather a divine individual with restraint, it is also that Eve who "suppresses her wishes, regulates her steps" (404). A non-human Eve who is "so compelled / to keep Adam moving around in the Garden of Eden/ all their lives?" (404), for if Eve were human, she never would have, never should have submitted to Adam and God. Eve never would have lived that monotonous life of eternity in a paradise she couldn't recognize because there was nothing with which to compare.
The poem seems to be proposing that the very essence of Eve's human nature made her eat of the fruit, which made all of the difference in the world. Eve's bite gave her access to all of the beauty of reality, so that the line "Because Eve has eaten of the fruit" ends with a realization of "sky and earth", "moon, sun, rivers and seas," and joy, rather than with a tale of human horror ending in disaster (405). By "eating of the fruit, Eve made a heaven of the earth" (405), for she created the human experience for generations to come.
It is the final line of this poem that carries its advice for women. "Eve, if you get hold of the fruit/ don't ever refrain from eating,"(405) If the reader, as a woman, comes across a forbidden fruit, one forbidden by society or by a separate cultural pressure, she should take that fruit and devour it, rather than watch it hang upon its branch because who knows what fantastical realizations will result from the eating of such fruit. One may even uncover a bluer sky than that which presently exists. One may even uncover paradise.
It is Nasrin's poem "Character" that warns women of their reception when they choose to eat of the forbidden fruit as it is described in "Eve Oh Eve." In the case of "Character", there is a progression of good and evil contrasts in accordance with the severity of the ripple effect a woman's 'misplaced' presence can cause in the 'ruling class' of a society. In the poem, the girl spoken to has four levels of existence. The first is within her own home, where she is accepted and expected to be present. The second is her first step away from that protected, acceptable atmosphere, which immediately draws male eyes to her person. The third is her continuation of that outward motion away from her safe environment as she wanders on down the lane, which gives the men even more permission to follow and whistle their appreciation and ownership of her. The fourth is the woman's step on to the "main road" and away from all accepted boundaries and positions, of which men approve, which gives men permission to "revile the girl and to call her "a loose woman" (401). Freedom of travel is the forbidden fruit and the punishment arises not from original sin, but rather patriarchal limitations.
The description of the four levels facing a woman can be easily compared to the battle facing every woman in society today. There are certain understood limits which a woman is expected to accept and avoid crossing, such as wanting to participate in combat within the armed forces or desiring equal pay for equal work in the job market. Each of these is a description of a forbidden fruit that exists is our society, awaiting its first taste by a woman or by "you" (402).
If one chooses to follow this difficult path "onto the main road", Nasrin believes that character, strength of moral will, is an implicit attribute of your nature (401). She says, "If you've got no character /you'll turn back" and buy into society's beliefs about your capabilities (402). However, if you don't turn back "you'll keep on going, / as you're going now" (402). Those women bucking the system in this poem are on a path, which directly implies a depth to their character.
Nasrin's poem "Another Life" is important, especially in combination with the two poems previously discussed in this paper. Within "Another Life", two major themes are discussed, women's need for each other and the need of heterosexual women for male love and companionship. These two themes are of equal importance, but it is the last, which separates this poem from the previous two.
Women can give and take an incredible amount from each other, evidenced in the poem by women who "spend the afternoons squatting on the porch/ picking lice from each other's hair" (405). There is a sense of companionship inherent to these lines of the poem. The women are relying on each other for friendship and the benefit of mutual experience, like care of their little ones and their mutual abuse. This mutual experience allows for a closeness and love between women that can grow to very deep levels; however, it cannot be confused with the romantic love and needs of a heterosexual woman.
The women of this poem can pick the lice from each other's hair, yet they cannot examine each other's hearts and retrieve the stones that have gathered there. Those stones cannot be removed by female hands, but are rather the result of poor relationships with the men in their lives. These women "offer their backs" as a sign of surrender to their individual men, only to be abused, used, and ignored (405). Their needs are ignored, their hearts are ignored, and the stones piling up cannot be removed by any other than those who place them there. They cannot be removed because "there is no one to touch them with two fingersà"(405).
Nasrin's poems are incredibly powerful, encouraging women to new heights, while teaching men about the feeling of oppression. From Eve to the reader, Nasrin pulls female experience out of the depths of society and into truth in words. Words so true that she was banned from her own country for them. Now that is character.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 3:09 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 16 akhmatova // Contradictions... ?
Anna Akhmatova is the literary pseudonym of Anna Andreevna Gorenko. Her first husband was Gumilev, and she too became one of the leading Acmeist poets. Her second book of poems, Beads (1914), brought her fame. Her earlier manner, intimate and colloquial, gradually gave way to a more classical severity, apparent in her volumes The Whte Flock (1917) and Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922). The growing distaste which the personal and religious elements in her poetry aroused in Soviet officialdom forced her thereafter into long periiods of silence; and the poetic masterpieces of her later years, A Poem without a Hero and Requiem, were published abroad.
Taken from http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/akhmatova/akhmatova_ind.html
Here is another great site for info on Anna Akhmatova: http://www.odessit.com/namegal/english/ahmatova.htm
First of all, I know that we, as readers, are not necessarily supposed to assume that the author is speaking as herself, but this poem seems to come directly from her. I have one major question. Is this Anna Akhmatova speaking to us through poetry?
"I am not among those who left our land"
I am not among those who left our land
To be torn to pieces by our enemies.
The speaker is one who stuck with her home, believing in the possession of that soil, even though it were taken over by another. There is a connection with the land hereà it reminds me of the stories I have heard of the Irish, who seem to hold their land closer to their hearts than their own kin. There is also a respect for the land, of which only those familiar with it will be successful in their attempts to properly work it.
I don't listen to their vulgar flattery,
I will not give them my poems.
Here is more possession! The speaker owns her poems and only gives them to those people who are worthy of the gift. She will not acknowledge their opinions of her poetry because they can have no opinion of value to her. Their flattery is vulgar and will not move her to more than an increase of disgust in them. They do not respect her home, if her poetry is about that home, their respect can only be feigned.
But the exile is for ever pitiful to me,
She sees the exile of those people who have left her homeland as sad and pitiful, though they abandoned the land itself. She sees something that they may not see, knowing what they have given up to escape whatever harm the enemies could cause.
Like a prisoner, like a sick man,
Your road is dark, wanderer;
Both of these images are of hopeless individuals who cannot help themselves. The prisoner is trapped within a cage, from which he cannot emerge. The sick man is trapped by a disease too small to be comprehended or physically ripped from the body. And the wanderer stands as the metaphor for both situations. Both the prisoner and sick man are traveling down roads of which they cannot see or imagine the end. Their roads are dark and seem without hope.
Alien corn smells of wormwood.
The alien corn, the new place is unfamiliar and feels wrong, unusual, disgusting. Those who have been exiled or have exiled themselves are immersed in an alien universe which they cannot comprehend and can never feel at home in. What could be sadder than this? People who have ripped themselves from their own comfort and thrown themselves into an alien world of depression.
But here, stupefied by fumes of fire,
Wasting the remainder of our youth,
We did not defend ourselves
From a single blow.
Those who left the land and those who remained are both faced with horrendous existences. One group is in completely new and unfamiliar territory, while another is suffering the guilt of their non-action against those who succeeded in taking over the land. I do not understand the last portion of this stanza. Why did they not defend themselves? I'm guessing that defense was impossible and take-over inevitable, but that is not necessarily the case. Why are they better off for staying on the land if they did nothing to defend themselves, thus handing it to their enemies?
We know that history
Will vindicate our every hour . . .
The . . . at the end of these two lines implies uncertainty. In other words, the author may hope that history will vindicate or perhaps she feels that history should vindicate, but there is no guarantee that it will.
There is no one in the world more tearless,
More proud, more simple than us.
These people are strange. They did not defend their land from takeover, yet are proud. This is a complex poem from the point of view of a complex individual, yet she claims to be simple. She seems horribly sad for those people who are exiled, yet she is tearless. Is the contradiction caused by the loss of control in the homeland? A loss of control for the speaker of the poem? Interesting to say the least.
:-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2000 10:27 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 15 Bernard // Personable
April Bernard is an unassuming woman with deep eyes that look straight to your soul as she connects with eye contact from across the room. Her rich voice is filled with expression and fabulous emphasis as she speaks in a relaxed manner before the class. At one point she even set her head in her arms and gazed at an inquiring student, obviously tired, but not uninterested.
She read her entire essay on Sylvia Plath, called "My Plath Problem" published in 1993, which took approximately fifty minutes. Her critical essay managed to keep my attention because of the thick language in between each citation, which makes the work less of a report and more of a creative achievement. The language of her essay was not the typical critical "high and mighty", but rather was written in a form sophisticated yet comprehendible without incredible stress. Her lines were poetic, for example at one point she spoke of the "terrors and deceptions of the human heart."
Her information on Plath was equally fascinating, though confusing. Her attempt to dissect the life of a woman who seems to have had multiple personalities in both her private and public life, without being allowed to use any of Plath's poetry as an insight within the essay itself, is an incredible undertaking. If one combines that with the fact that Bernard wasn't paid a cent for doing the essay, but rather did it for her own personal growth and education, one results in a miracle of effort, combined with a solid result. Bernard said that there was no way to capture genius in a book, meaning Plath's poetical genius, but Bernard made a wonderful attempt with her essay by capturing the confusion surrounding Plath's life and death.
Bernard also addressed the useful nature of critical essays. She gave the audience the impression that though the author of the essay being critiqued may or may not find the criticism helpful, readers can find critical material extraordinarily beneficial. Bernard seems to recognize a connection that results between the author of the critical piece and the author of the piece itself, not affection exactly, but a relationship surely. By searching into a piece and writing about it, combining previous criticisms and one's one personal impressions and thoughts, one develops an intimate knowledge with the author one is critiquing. This is part of the reason Bernard spent one and a half years working on her Plath essay at the side of her other work. She saw Plath as someone she had to try to confront or face, as a wonderful author with a confusing and fascinating life.
Bernard seemed convinced that critical conversation, though not directly affecting a writers own work, inevitably changes that writer. By becoming familiar with other authors and their personal styles through experience of both their work and their lives, writer begins to incorporate or avoid certain aspects of his or her genre. It was fairly obvious that Bernard was proud of her attempt to put Plath together, no matter her ultimate success.
After meeting two poets from this last week, it is easy to see that these are real people, who have an incredible knack for the words to describe their daily and not-so-daily experiences. I must sayà I'm jealous. :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 11:35 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 14.5 Fontan // Stars of Natural Law
2
Las estrellas comportan un hßbito en la noche.
Una ley escrita entre las hojas del oto±o,
en el centro irrevocable de los pßjaros.
Las estrellas comportan un hßbito en la noche.
Aunque pronuncies ahora el adi#s que alimentas.
Y sobre el mar te deshojes,
hacia un mutuo silencio.
The stars bear a custom in the night.
A law written among the leaves of autumn,
in the irrevocable center of birds.
The stars bear a custom in the night.
Though you now say the good-bye you nourish.
And over the sea you shed your leaves,
to mutual silence.
To me, the custom of these stars is to watch over the turning of the clock on our planet and perhaps other planets as well. They are the observers of the natural law, one "written among the leaves of autumn", which are the leaves that are dead upon the ground in shriveled color, or near death, clinging desperately to their individual branches, hoping to survive the oncoming frosts. Death is an "irrevocable" part of life, observable by all who choose to look. The stars are an example of that observant nature, singing in the blackness of night, lighting the laws at work below. These natural laws, though sad and seemingly desperate "nourish" the ground with the nutrients of their dead, saying "good-bye" in order to bring more to life. The leaves return to reinforce the theme of autumn's inevitable death.
HOWEVER, I don't understand who "you" is in the poem. Is it the reader? The stars? The birds? The law itself? A tree? This part of the poem confuses me and doesn't seem to fit into my interpretation.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 11:23 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Madhubuti, Haki R. // Men And Birth... dramatic enough as is!
Birth
Unlocks cultural strangulation allowing
Men to feel & touch & experience
A source of love that springs in
Smiles occasional tears and undying commitment
Birth
Scott, I liked what you said about this word. One line of which was, "I cannot associate the word birth with any type of evil. If I hear of someone experiencing a new birth or a re-birth, it always seems positive." The word birth definitely creates images of new beginnings and new enlightening experiences for all of those involved. However, as a woman I cannot help but acknowledge the incredible PAIN involved in the process. Birth is a new beginning, but it is a beginning that takes a horrendous toll upon the female participant's body. I shudder to think of it. I am not trying to demean the impression of birth as a new awakening, but rather am trying to express how the word strikes me, as a woman with the potential for such pain.
Unlocks cultural strangulation allowing
Unlocks
This word expands on the impression of birth as an awakening process, which would unlock some sort of inner potential, or in the case of an actual birth, it would unlock the physical potential of a new life. It is a very human image though, one created with human mechanisms, which provides an interesting backdrop for the birth = awakening impression. Birth becomes the man and woman made key (in a literal sense) to unlock the new potential of a life.
cultural
This word has a tremendous affect on the meaning of birth for me. For, it has always been my impression that culture is something forced upon a child who has just been born, taking over instinct and training he or she in the "one right and true way" of that individual culture. How can the birth of a child impact the culture around that child? This is a perfect lead-in to the confusion of the rest of the line.
strangulation
I agree with Scott, who named this an extremely violent image. I do see its connection to the affects of culture though. An individual culture can allow its individuals to grow, but if certain individuals threaten the boundaries of that culture, there will be death to pay. One has only to look at the United States death penalty to see this. Or, on another level, at the anorexia of young women struggling to conform to a certain body image. Not only this, but the violence of this image gives much more power to birth, which becomes the key to unlocking this cultural strangulation. Birth becomes a tool of enlightenment in opposition to cultural influences.
allowing
This word leads into the next line with passion, causing a forced pause at the end of it as the reader's eyes glide to the next line. It is a promise of more to come, as the reader leans in, anticipating a description of what birth allowsà what a new awakening allowsà what it endsà what it affectsà
Men to feel & touch & experience
Men
The entire poem is about a male reaction to birth (which I found fascinating and wonderful!), so this noun is not a surprise. However, please note that it is not the man who is doing the act of strangulation. He is allowed to see the world in a new way because the physical act of unlocking has been committed by another individual or process. In many cases, this would be considered an insult, for the man 'should' be able to take care of himself, but in this, he becomes a pawn, manipulated by something larger than himself.
to feel
The violence of the strangulation image comes to play again in these two words. Men are allowed to feel because the acts have been taken out of their hands. They become an emotional observer, rather than an active, unfeeling participant. This also gives even more power to the use of birth, for, as evidenced by some of the poems we have read to this point, it seems hard at times to get men to feel. (ie. Saturn, Rag and Bone p.128)
& touch & experience
These words take the new feeling of men to new heights, making it deeper and broader, encompassing the entire man, rather than just his heart. He becomes his emotion. Feeling, touching, and experiencing all at once. He becomes a rounded individual, as evidenced by the use of the ampersands. The words also lead the reader on, pulling him or her toward what it is that has touched these men.
(This got too long, so I'm cutting to line by line interpretation :-))
A source of love that springs in
This line gives even more power to the birth image and the awakening that birth causes. Birth is not only the source of an awakening that strangles cultural holds, but it is also a source of love. What could possibly be more powerful than that? Birth seems to be expressed as something that can rip down boundaries, unlock permanently closed doors, and move men to deeper beings than they were before the process occurred. Not only this, but the line also pulls the reader to the next line, anticipating proof of how this love reveals itself in the men who have experienced it.
Smiles occasional tears and undying commitment
This is my favorite line of the entire poem. It brings the image of a man, holding his newborn child in his arms, a child who has been crying for a parent's love, and gently rocking that child back and forth in his arms. The process of birth is so beautiful and so traumatic in the same moments that it brings both smiles and tears while it is occurring, but its end result is the undying love and commitment of a man to his children. Undying commitment with the extra space before it seems to be an obvious representation of one ideaà. Unconditional love. :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2000 6:35 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 13 Lee, Li-Young // Gifts of Gold
This website contains real audio. Li-Young Lee reads his poem Persimmons aloud!!
http://www.wwnorton.com/sounds/lbooth.htm
Li-Young Lee was born in 1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia, of Chinese parents. In 1959, his father, after spending a year as a political prisoner in President Sukarno's jails, fled Indonesia with his family. Between 1959 and 1964 they traveled in Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan, until arriving in America.
Mr. Lee studied at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Arizona, and the State University of New York, College at Brockport. He has taught at various universities, including Northwestern University and the University of Iowa. In 1990 Li-Young Lee traveled in China and Indonesia to do personal research for a book of autobiographical prose.
Li-Young Lee's several honors include grants from the Illinois Arts Council, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1989 he was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; in 1988 he was the recipient of a Writer's Award from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. In 1987 Mr. Lee received New York University's Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award for his first book, Rose, published by BOA Editions, Ltd. in 1986; and The City in Which I Love You, Li-Young Lee's second book of poems, was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets. He has also won the Lannan Literary Award. (taken from http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/lee.html )
The Gift
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
It seems to me that the importance of this first line is to contrast the painful, sharp image of the splinter with the peaceful image of the father. The author seems to desire no ambiguity in the given impression of the father's deed. While removing the painful splinter, the father is reciting a story in a low voice. The reader cannot take this to be a violent description of abuse because there are no adjectives, no descriptors to support that theory.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
This is an intriguing image, for men, who are usually never associated with the word lovely, but rather with harsher imagesà referred to as handsome or distinguished, rather than lovely, which implies a certain vulnerability in the pictured face. It also reveals the depth of the relationship between the father and the son, the reliance of the son upon the father's face is one of pure faith and trust. This image is incredibly beautiful and allows the reader to participate in the love between son and father.
Before the story ended, he'd removed
the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.
This passage gives a cute insight into the childish mind of the speaker, who has dramatized the mere sliver in his palm into a traumatic death sentence. This line also reveals the extent the father had to battle in order to relax the drama his son found in the simple sliver.
I can't remember the tale,
The story didn't matter, only the close contact and the love of the father mattered. This reminds me of a child who, when injured, asks a parent to kiss the injury. The kiss may not help the bleeding, but it does show love and affection.
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
These two lines give an insight into the twists and turns of the father's voice. The reader is forced to pause between the word 'voice' and 'still', pausing to allow the words to roll over the tongue as the father's words must have slid into the sons perked ears. The smooth, rolling sounds continue through 'a well of dark water', bringing the depth and infinite darkness of the well into the mind of the reader. The father's voice is coined in the last two words. A prayer is deep and reverent, quietly compassionate in its depth, care, and focus. The son sees this depth in his father's voice and face.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Again, the reader is not allowed to accept an abusive relationship between the father and son. The father's hands as 'flames of discipline' are spoken of only after the young son qualifies them as measures of tenderness. As a reader, I connect the two images, believing that the father's discipline is out of love, rather than a need to hurt. The father is the loving parent, so though he is compassionate and understanding of the sliver, he will guide his son as the adult in their relationship.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy's palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
What did the father plant in his son's palm? The father definitely showed his son what love is, as he helped him through the drama of his pain. But perhaps the father also gave his son a sense of what he should be like in the future. He gave him a flame that would burn within him throughout his life. This interpretation of the flame follows to the next few lines, which speak of the boy's future as a man.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife's right hand.
Just as the cycle of violence is said to continue, so is the cycle of compassion. The son has learned from the father and is applying his knowledge in his daily life.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
This portion of the poem is curious to me because, though the boy who's now a man carefully removes the splinter with the skill of his father, he does not tell his wife a story as he does it. Where did the story go? The boy did not remember it, but why didn't he tell a different one? Speech was the key in the lines above, as the beautiful sounds that made the boy look away from his trauma. Is the story the poem? As he removes her splinter, does he tell her about a time when his father did the same for him? I like that theory! :-)
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
These two lines seem to express a sense of the speaker's disbelief in the purity of his memory of his father. Disbelief that at his age and married, he can still recall the significance of his father's voice, hands, and skill.
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
This seems to be a return to a child-like response to a small trauma. The torrent of tears that come from the smallest of events. Only a child could see a metal sliver as causing death as an assassin who aims for the heart. But the importance of this group of phrases is that the boy in the poem did not react this way, the way a normal child would. This leads the reader to the next two sentences, curious as to the result of the father's touch and love.
I did what a child does
when he's given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
I love the ending to this poem. The child who could have been traumatized by the event above was instead given something to hold on to into his future, so that one day he could sit down with his wife and tell her this story as he pulled a splinter from her skin. Not only is the child given something precious out of the situation, the father is given something precious as well in the form of the kiss. The son completely understands the logic of the affectionate kiss, as evidenced by the short, matter-of-fact ending sentence, which exists as further evidence of the positive relationship between the two. Fabulous ending, which leaves the reader with "warm fuzzies." :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 3:56 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Jen, Time, Anne, Jeff // Taslima Nasrin from Bangladesh
Taslima Nasrin from Bangladesh is our poet of choice.
I hope that's all you needà it took us quite a while to come up with a decision! I hope this poet is okay!
Jen :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 11:16 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 12. McPherson // Mother and Daughter: Bridging the Gap
"One Way She Spoke to Me"
I would say whisper,
And she could never figure how to do it.
I would say speak louder into the phone,
Nor could she raise her voice.
But then I found such a whisper
Betrayal, as she began to write to me in snails,
In silver memos on the front door,
In witnesses to her sense of touch.
Home late, I found them slurred and searching,
Erasing the welcome she'd arranged them in.
'H' twelve snails. 'I' seven or six.
They were misspelling it,
Digressing in wayward caravans and pileups.
Mobile and rolling, but with little perspective,
Their eye stalks smooth as nylons on tiny legs.
I raised her in isolation,
But it is these snails who keep climbing the walls.
For them maybe every vertical makes an unending tree,
And every ascension's lovely.
Why else don't they wend homeward to ground?
But what do we do?
We are only a part of a letter in a word,
And we are on our bellies with speech, wondering,
Wondering slowly how to move toward one another.
(I hope this is the correct form for this poem!!! Please let me know if there are errors!!)
I would say whisper,
And she could never figure how to do it.
I would say speak louder into the phone,
Nor could she raise her voice.
This sounds like a reference to a child, one who has no setting between off and high. After the author's story about the snails her daughter left for her, this becomes an obvious reference to the childish nature of her daughter's autistic mind. Immediately the difficulties of the author's relationship with her daughter surface and remain in focus throughout the rest of the poem. These four lines have a sad quality that reveals a lack of communication between the author and her daughter. She has taken a relationship that is supposed to be preciousà many say that when a woman gives birth to a girl, she gives birth to her best friend. This relationship is obviously buried and the mother's heartbreak is evident. However, this information can only be uncovered through the author's life experience.
But then I found such a whisper
Betrayal, as she began to write to me in snails,
In silver memos on the front door,
In witnesses to her sense of touch.
This is the point where communication meets between the two. The author finally is able to recognize some sort of connection within her daughter for her. Of course, the message did not come in a traditional manner, but rather in the form of garden snails, carefully placed upon the front door to great a loved mother upon her return. Their placement must have taken time and careà and thought, perhaps the most important element of all.
Home late, I found them slurred and searching,
Erasing the welcome she'd arranged them in.
'H' twelve snails. 'I' seven or six.
I think there is an emphasis on "home late" at the beginning of this group of lines. If the mother had been home earlier to appreciate her daughter's creation and to appreciate her daughter in general, she would have gotten the message loud and clear. However, as it was, she found it in disarray. Each snail floating in its own individual direction, just as her daughter's mind would flit from one thing to the next, child-like, for the rest of her life.
They were misspelling it,
Digressing in wayward caravans and pileups.
Mobile and rolling, but with little perspective,
Their eye stalks smooth as nylons on tiny legs.
The author seems to feel the injury of the snail's movement. She wishes they would remain in place, holding their message for her to see, for her to talk about with her daughter. There is a sense of anger in these lines. The snails have "little perspective" because they do not see the whole situation. They do not see the meaning her daughter had intended them to convey and within that lack of understanding, they have ruined the message. The snails are digressing as her daughter's child-like mind digresses, flitting from topic to topic. The snails that are visible evidence of one of her daughter's moments of clarity, have no respect for that clarity.
I raised her in isolation,
But it is these snails who keep climbing the walls.
For them maybe every vertical makes an unending tree,
And every ascension's lovely.
Why else don't they wend homeward to ground?
I'm not certain of the meaning of this section of the poem. The author seems to be making reference to her daughter's disability and the fact that the girl cannot move beyond the boundaries of the house. But perhaps the snails are also a representatives of her daughter's mind. The snails keep climbing, moving upward, sideways, or wherever just as her daughter's mind moves rapidly in multiple directions. The last line seems to be a plea to her daughter as represented by the snails. Why doesn't her daughter come back to the solid footing of reality and become the best friend that she was intended to be.
But what do we do?
We are only a part of a letter in a word,
And we are on our bellies with speech, wondering,
Wondering slowly, how to move toward one another.
I think this portion of the poem attempts to relate the author's struggle to the struggle she sees within the world. I am constantly amazed that individuals who speak the same language, even from the same family experience can have such an incredible time putting their thoughts into words. We struggle constantly, trying to fit our ideas into language in order to find some sort of connection with the people around us, just as the author struggles daily to find a connection with her daughter. Each of us, when we finally manage to connect with someone that we love, feels a sense of relief an accomplishment. It is this sense of accomplishment that I believe the author found in the face of her daughter's snail message. They finally connected and the darn snails wouldn't stay still to be completely appreciated. - jen :-)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 4:06 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 11. Roethke, Theodore // Violence
"My Papa's Waltz" seems to be a poem from the point of view of a little boy who is trying to put a positive spin on his relationship with his father, but who cannot manage to hide the truth from the reader. The violent imagery pokes through without question in the whiskey breath of the father, the boy's deathlike grip, the violence of pans sliding from their shelves, the frowning of the mother, the father's battered hand, the boy's scraped ear, and the father beating time. A reader cannot but help to connect these images to abusive treatment of the boy. These images could possibly be connected to a simple, playful relationship between the father and the boy, but for the repetition of controlling images from the father's point of view. The father holding tightly, missing steps, beating time, and waltzing the boy. The boy seems to be the participant in a waltz which he did not instigate and does not desire, for as he says, "such waltzing was not easy."
In other words, I think this poem is about a violent relationship between a father and son. One is completely in control of the situation and the other who merely is clinging within the whirlwind his father has created about the two of them.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2000 12:33 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 10. Peacock's Chapter Ten // Peacock Logic
In Peacock's response to "My Father's Loveletters", comments on the following:
-the careful detail of the poem: including the mother's postcards of desert flowers.
-the circular quality of the poem, images that return on a weekly basis, in this case
-the importance of the father's closed lids
-pay attention to the short lines of the poem
-diminishment of father in the face of the boy's extra responsibilities
-connotations for sentences
-boy as wedge
-word pictures within the poem
-"almost redeemed" makes the reader realize that words cannot take away actions, but they can help
-balled as bawled
-use of the ampersand
-letters as a circular entity, unlike the father's in this poem because they will not be replied to
(Peacock, How to Read a Poemà, p. 132-139)
Peacock seems to respond to the poem as a whole, while breaking it into parts and taking information from those parts to enhance her overall interpretation. I think this is a logical way to peer into the depths of a poem, without losing the overall meaning. Peacock's method of looking at the whole as well as its parts can be used for any poem or any way of examining a poem. When reading with a reader's perspective in mind, the reader can look at the overall affect of the poem on his or her emotions, but also at the individual portions of the poem, individual lines or stanzas, which affect the reader more than others. When reading with the author's perspective in mind, the reader can also look at the overall poem as it relates back to the author's life or beliefs, but also can examine certain individual aspects of the poem for their specific context within the mind of the author. In other words, Peacock's manner of exploration for this poem could be used by any individual in any given situation to closely examine a poem.
I personally think that this is the way I have been reading poetry to this point, so Peacock's theory doesn't seem that revolutionary to me. However, it is possible that I do not correctly understand her manner of interpretation.
This was my favorite line out of Peacock's chapter 10. "'But I make poems out of regular words!'"(Peacock, How to Read a Poemà, p. 148)
It still amazes me how normal people can twist normal, everyday words to create images of their choosing. Fascinating!
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2000 12:01 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 9. Komunyakaa // Connection Confusion
I had an incredibly hard time connecting to this poem because my experience with the objects and the type of people the poem describes are so limited. My father has never, ever hit my mother. He would rather drive a knife into his heart. The objects in the poem are also not typical of objects which I would have found around my house or at my dad's office. The hammer and nails are obvious, but the voltage meters and pipe threaders are things which I would probably not be able to recognize. In my opinion, this takes away from my ability to understand the poem because I cannot fully identify with the images through which the poet is functioning.
I also have a limited experience with illiteracy, but I think the poet does an incredible job of bringing out the father's dependence upon the speaker. The poet also makes the embarrassment of the father obvious, for the father needs alcohol and closed eyes in order to commit himself to the letter writing process through his son. The closed eyes is key for me. The father needs to pretend that he is not in the room, not relying on his son. He is like a child who, when he closes his eyes, believes that he is no longer visible to the people in the room. "..stood there / With eyes closed & fists balled, / laboring over a simple word, / Opened like a fresh wound, almost / Redeemed by what he tried to say" (Peacock, How to Read a Poemà, P. 126-7). The father can be seen in an even more sympathetic light because of his obvious skill in carpentry, as related by the boy. "àhe'd look at blueprints / & tell you how many bricks / Formed each wall" (Peacock, How to Read a Poemà, P. 127). So skilled in one area, yet humbled by his own son to the point where closed eyes hide his soul.
I also reacted to the trapped boy, who is the speaker in the poem. The boy is caught before a violent father, who is consuming alcohol in his presence in a ritual that is repeated every week. He is caught in the middle of the relationship between his parents because of his father's illiteracy and abuse of his mother. The boy has become the "two-pound wedge" that stands between his father and his mother. The one that can read any reply from his mother to his fatherà though they would never come and write every note to his motherà though they will not be read. The boy has become the go-between and one cannot help but to feel sympathy for him.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 7:30 PM
To: Briggle, Adam R; Thamert, Mark; Sersch, Michael J
Subject: RE: Response to Jennifer// i liked it!!!!!!!!!
I think we should take a moment to discuss this poem in class. If we want to whip gender issues on to the table, this would be the perfect poem to facilitate such a discussion. However, since it will be a while before we'll have that optionà
Adam, I tried to reconcile this poem by looking at it as you did. I tried to read through it thinking the woman was mistaken and was merely being provided with 'wild' advice from her lover or husband and this is what I came up with:
I think your opinion is really interesting, but I can't see where the wake-up call comes into play. The man in the poem does seem to have a definite grasp of his wild side, which is fine. He seems to enjoy alcohol and an active kinky sex life, which is also fine, as long as he has a willing partner. However, I don't think the woman should have to participate in order to enjoy her own wild side. What if she dances naked in front of the mirror in the early morning? What if she finds her wild side in poetry or in which her husband or lover is unaware. Maybe she doesn't enjoy sex or alcohol. Also, his encouragement seems to come with an underlying threat, as in the first line "Either get out of my house or conform to my tastes, woman". Rather than encouraging, he seems to be demanding.
I would love to hear more from you on this issue! Sersch was right about the imagery in the poem, even though I don't agree with the use of the imagery. If the two of you can pull the poem out of the fire for me, I would appreciate it!
- jen
-----Original Message-----
From: Briggle, Adam R
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 10:24 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Response to Jennifer// i liked it!!!!!!!!!
I don't have the copy of that poem "Either get out of my house or conform to my tastes, woman" by Martial with me in this computer lab, but from what I remember from it, I thought it was a grand declaration of wild nature, and a wake up call to a poor woman who had been repressed by her social environment. I would love to discuss it in class.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2000 9:17 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 8 Clifton // youthful aging
Lucille Clifton
there is a girl inside
she is randy as a wolf.
The sexuality of a woman is not usually referred to with this kind of freedom. The metaphor of the wolf implies a wildness and a predatory instinct that is not usually associated with women, who are "supposed to be" of more delicate concerns. Since girl is coupled with this intense view of sexuality, girl does not necessarily imply young of age, but rather seems to be a slang term. Something like the use of girl in "You go girl!" A term of power and affection, a striving for or toward something specific.
she will not walk away
and leave these bones
to an old woman.
This portion of the first stanza seems to be a reference to the frustration of the speaker of the poem, who seems to be an old woman, slightly tired of her youthful sense of sexuality. The speaker seems to be one who wants to relax and rest in the face of her inner wild nature. In other words, the speaker seems incapable of following through with the natural and powerful instincts of the girl within her.
she is a green tree
in a forest of kindling.
she is a green girl
in a used poet.
The girl inside of the old speaker is the youthful portion of the woman, the one that will not go away. She is green and slow to burn, slow to grow tired and give up all, in the midst of a forest of quick burning kindling, which becomes exhausted in a moment. Only the green girl holds on to life and will not give in within the used poet, who has put names to experiences and emotions in life.
she has waited
patient as a nun
for the second coming,
when she can break through gray hairs
into blossom
This portion of the poem sounds like a search for rebirth. The girl inside of the elderly poet is waiting for a release or reincarnation of life, uninhibited by the restrictions of age and maturity. The girl is the green tree that will not quickly burn, just as she is a nun of eternal patience, awaiting her time, in which she can break the bonds of gray haired age and become new and fresh again.
and her lovers will harvest
honey and thyme
The lovers of the girl, once she breaks the bonds of age will find in her a sweetness which they didn't find in the old woman in her age. Perhaps this is part of a memory, a wish for a different time or place in which the girl's desires were possible either in the future or in the past. If the theme of rebirth is correct in the previous passage, this could be the woman expressing the desire for the future and the rebirth of the girl inside of her.
and the woods will be wild
with the damn wonder of it.
The forest of kindling that is the old woman will watch in amazement as she re-experiences or relives, or becomes that which she cannot have at this moment. The elderly woman cannot allow the girl to shine through because of either physical or mental constraints, so at some point, she will amaze the world.
This poem reminds me of the way I tend to look at the elderlyà ie. Mostly helpless, with fairly unexciting lives. However, my mom, who just turned 60 years old last August said that she thought 60 was old, until she actually got there. She tells me that she doesn't feel any different on the inside, even though her outside has changed and she can't do the things she once did. In other words, she is a twenty year old Katy in the body of a 60 year old Kathryn. This is what I see in this poem. The youth of an aged woman struggling against the bonds of time and desiring to throw it back in the face of all who watch her struggle in the future. - jen
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 1:01 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Response to Jeff// RUMI frustrations
Jeff, in your response to Rumi's "Four Quatrains" you said, "We must find a balance when reading our poetry: between words, lines, and the entire whole." I completely agree with you. The dissection of something seems to be a scientific, unfeeling, observer method, none of which should be included, in my opinion, in reading a poem. To gently tug apart a whole work, turning it inside out, should be done to the whole work at once. If we take lines or words by themselves, we lose the essence of the poem. It's like trying to decide exactly where the human soul is located. Is it in an arm? a heart? a head? a pinky finger? I personally think mine resides in my right little toe, but I can't be sure. :-) In other words, by cutting into and taking apart we sometimes miss the entire meaning. If a scientist merely examines fossils, he or she can understand a whole wealth of information about the animals or plants that used to reside within or around those parts. However, he or she will never know the animals eye color or the plant's flower color without actually seeing the plant or animal as a whole entity. He or she missed the forest for the trees, if you will.
I also noticed that you seem a little frustrated in your attempts to connect the four quatrains of Rumi's poem. I find myself in the same dilemma. I'm afraid that I had to look at each individual quatrain as a complete entity in order to come to some understanding and have yet to connect them as a whole. However, you commented a lot on the second quatrain, after dissolving into frustration (always nice to know that someone else feels that way sometimes). I liked this section of the poem and took a lot of meaning from it.
In the shambles of love, they kill only the best,
None of the weak or deformed.
Don't run away from this dying.
Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat. (Rumi, Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p. 9)
I think first portion of this quatrain means that in the shambles of love only the best are killed. The best being those willing to brave inevitable pain by giving of their heart to another individual. It also implies that none of the faint at heart can appreciate the pain and searing joy of love. The last two lines of the quatrain tell the reader not to run away from this inevitable pain, for whoever does not die by loving another is actually already dead, though he or she may be walking.
Jen
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 12:36 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 7.2 Martial // Did everyone miss this????
I want to take a step backward for a moment and recap a poem that we were unable to talk about in class on Monday. I would have brought this up earlier, but I didn't realize that this poem was on our schedule. Luckily, it's now on my hit list. On page 72-72 of 99 Poems in Translation lies the poem called "Either get out of the house or conform to my tastes, woman." This response is guaranteed to qualify as reader response criticism, so if you disapprove of such methods, please do not read further. Before I acknowledge my disgust, which began with the very first line of the poem, I must recognize that this poem was written by Martial between the years 40-104. However, I don't think this means that I have to appreciate what is said in the poem, merely in deference to the century in which it was produced.
First of all, the first line of the poem makes my skin crawl. If we assume that this collection of statements is being spoken aloud to a woman, a woman who seems to be the wife or long time mistress of the speaker, one can feel the insult of the first line to the very roots of being. In the speaker's mind, the woman before him doesn't even value a name, but is rather referred to in the manner one would refer to a misbehaving pet. I hope this made you as upset as it did me.
This poem is all directed and manipulated by the incredible ego of the speaker. This man loves nothing more than himself, which is proven through his references to his own thoughts and emotions, in that he speaks of nothing but personal needs, wants, likes, loves, and desires and also through his driving desire for pleasure at whatever cost to his wife. It has obviously not occurred to him that his wife may dislike having sex with him. Wow. What a thought. If you were in a relationship in which your opinions mattered not at all, would you be interested in intimacy with your ruler? Not I.
One other thing, if this poem is supposed to be funny, I am even more disgusted than before. The situations described, even if intended by the author to be hilarious, are not and will never be qualified as a good joke. In fact, if put in this situation, I would probably laugh my way out the door.
We are on our way to the 22nd century. Hopefully a century of EQUAL partnership in relationship and marriage. At least that is my personal hope. Perhaps those of you who read this poem merely felt that it was out of date and unworthy of a response. I hope that was/is the case. I just felt that I couldn't let this poem slide by unacknowledged in our world, where so much is merely let fall to the floor without concern.
If anyone saw something else in this poem, I would love to hear about it! Maybe it would help me to reconcile Martial in my mind. Thanks for listening!
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 11:03 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 7 Holm, Bill // Explore new worlds!
Someone dancing inside us
learned only a few steps:
the "Do-Your-Work" in 4/4 time,
the "What-Do-You-Expect" waltz.
These first four lines seem to be expressing the pressures of society as they are felt by the speaker of this poem ( I think the speaker of the poem is male because he later images a man inside of him intrigued by a woman. This could be interpreted differently.). The speaker is functioning in a limiting environment, which has restricted him to what is expected of that individual by the culture and society around him. This is an individual performing a tap dance around his own instincts in order to follow a pre-established plan or path of existence.
He hasn't noticed yet the woman
standing away from the lamp,
This image opens up possibility for the speaker of the poem. I can picture the speaker of the poem standing before two paths. One flows in his current direction, the direction that everyone else is following that gives into societal pressures and maintains a "normal" existence. The other is one that he hasn't noticed yet. One that may take him to new places and ideals. One that can expose him to a world completely and utterly different from his own. He hasn't become exposed to the path (the woman) that lies away from the obvious (the lamp).
the one with black eyes
who knows the rhumba,
and strange steps in jumpy rhythms
from the mountains in Bulgaria.
This portion of the poem opens up the world of opportunity that may or may not be exposed to the speaker if he chooses to search for something outside of his normal boundaries. The woman represents things completely alien to him. A rhumba rather than the basic waltz. "Strange steps" rather than the "4/4 time" of his daily existence. She offers new worlds to be explored. She represents new experiences, but much more than that, she represents a difference from the norm.
If they dance together,
something unexpected will happen.
If they don't, the next world
will be a lot like this one.
This last portion of the poem promotes the exotic, new, unexpected experience over the hum-drum existence presently being lived by the speaker of the poem. If the speaker dares to allow the man inside him to turn to the new and unusual side of his nature, in the form of the exotic woman, he will be rewarded with the experience of not knowing what tomorrow will bring him. If he chooses to follow the path he is presently on, he will continue into the next world, passing on the same inability to try new things to the people around him, maintaining the norm, rather than testing the waters.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2000 11:38 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 6 Baudelaire // A Poet's Request
To me, Baudelaire's poem, "The Albatross", uses its metaphor of the kingly albatross to represent the frustrations of the poet in the face of his or her ignorant readers. The readers are the "idle mariners at sea" pulling the poet, the albatross, down in order to poke fun at his or her vulnerabilities through his or her poems. Once the poet is brought to land on the reader's ship, his or her emotions are bared and he or she becomes completely vulnerable to the pokings and proddings of the ignorant readers who have no respect for the poet's personal and emotional contribution. By poking and prodding at the emotions and thoughts of the poet in the form of his or her poems, the ignorant reader sullies the contribution of the poet. The poet "scorns the bows and slings" of ignorant society and addresses his or her poems to those who can appreciate them. Not to the "shouting crowds", but rather to the quiet individual who can gaze from afar or respectfully examine the work without damaging or devaluing the poet's contribution, one who can appreciate the poet's "giant's wings".
This site contains multiple other poems by Charles Baudelaire. I personally like "Overcast", which contains fabulous imagery, and "Get Drunk", which contains my working theory on life (not to be drunk on alcohol, but to LIVE YOUR LIFE!!)! You should definitely check out this site!!
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/1301/
Here is the beginning of "Get Drunk" by Baudelaire from the above website, in case you don't have time to check it out.
"Get Drunk"
One should always be drunk. That's all that matters;
that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's
horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows
you down, you must get drunk without cease.
But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue
as you choose.
But get drunk.
à
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2000 12:51 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 5 Hirsch, Chapter 1 // Poe's Poignant Point
Poe's Poignant Point
In the English world, when it often seems as if everyone has the "leg up" except for you, it is wonderful to hear a poet of known caliber comment on the difficulty of the entire poetry creation process. Within the pages of Hirsch, Poe is quoted as follows:
Most writers- poets in especial-prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy- an ecstatic intuition-and would positively shudder at letting the public take peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought- at the true purposes seized only at the last moment- at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view- at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageableà (Hirsch, How to Read a Poem, p. 25).
With one paragraph, Poe has managed to give me hope. This man has reached from the grave with the secret knowledge of every poet's activities. It is so heartening to know that the great poets did not all sit down and turn out wonderful poem after wonderful poem with no time in between to sweat over a word or two or six. Perhaps I should have realized that there are few people capable of creating in such an easy manner, but it is difficult to remember as one examines incredible poems. It's odd to think that Poe has comforted me with his donation to this book after finding myself repeatedly terrified in the face of his short stories, he has come from the grave to calm my troubled soul. I'm hoping you'll see the irony. :-)
Another line from Hirsch that I fell in love with reads as follows: "As a reader, the hold of the poem over me can be almost embarrassing because it is so childlike, because I need it so much to give me access to my own interior realms"(Hirsch, How to Read a Poem, p. 8-9). I am currently in a class examining the works of Shakespeare. His writing is incredible, which I'm sure you all know. We are assigned about two acts per class period to read, but I find myself enthralled with his writing to the point of addiction. I stay up late at night reading and then re-reading his plays, anxiously awaiting the next phrase I do not understand, so that I can attempt to pull together the meaning of the poetic line or two. At times I'll look up from the play and glance guiltily around, knowing that my third time through Macbeth is not completing my computer science programs, yet I find myself unable to put the play down. As Hirsch says, I remind myself of a child fascinated with a certain toy or phrase. The child will stand or sit for hours indefinitely stroking a toy and loving the way it looks between his or her fingers or the way a phrase sounds as he or she shouts or whispers to no one in particular. Isn't it incredible what a certain author or turn of phrase can do? It reminds me of the hours I spent dragging around a chewed stuffed animal as a little girl, one that gave me courage and protected me from harm, while giving me the strength to keep searching for new soul-touching sources.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 9:00 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Response to the "Requirements" of Art
There seems to be a general consensus in our group as to the incredible benefit of art in the face of interpersonal relationships and the life of the individual participating in the act of art itself. I want to take this opportunity to step outside of that consensus and revert to a more "average" view of life.
I think that people who give themselves up to an art form are sad. Sad because it seems, as I've heard in class discussion, that there is no possibility of human relationships in combination with the drive to produce their art. For example, I believe that in our discussion of Rilke on the second day of class, that he was said to have a wife and children, whom he eventually left to pursue his life as a poet. (forgive me if I'm mistaken). Admittedly, I find Rilke's work fascinating, but I wonder what his children would have to say about him. Would they understand his drive? Would you understand the journey of your father or mother, if one of them turned to you one day and said, "I have wonderful goals for myself! I feel that I have something to show to the world! See you in ten, fifteen, or maybe an indefinite number of years, while I follow my goals."?
The multiple forms of art that exist in our world are incredible to me, probably because I cannot comprehend the complete and utter drive and focus that such Herculean labors involve. I think that something important is missing from the lives of these artists, but I am not trying to imply that they shouldn't have the opportunity to commit their lives to their art, especially if their decision affects only the artist involved. Rather I am saying that their lives are missing an important human connection, though the loss is theirs to accept.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 8:05 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 4 Khlebnikov, // Hello Dr. Seuss!
"We chant and enchant, / Oh charming enchantment! / No raving, no ranting, / No canting enchantment!" ( Pinter, 99 Poems in Translation, p.56).
I love reading Dr. Seuss books to my nephew and niece because they smile and laugh at Red Fish, Blue Fish, which has wonderful things to offer to children; however, I'm looking for something that stretches under the surface, rather than dances across it. Imagine choosing this poem as one of your favorites, only to be caught reciting it at some in opportune moment, ie. Just before an interview. Your future supervisor would stare and mumble something about loving children's books, while watching you for any signs of mental illness as she led you to your interview.
This poem may have more depth than I am allowing it. I have little experience with poetry, so I usually just try to go with my instincts. My instinct on this poem, told me to ignore it; however, I can't wait to see if someone in the class, more experienced with poetry than I has some insight for me!
To continue with my theme of children's literature, Dante Alighieri's sonnet contains incredible images for the imagination to grasp. The poem provides a return to the inner child in its desire to allow the sonnet's participants to "àascend / A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly / With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend,"(Alighieri, 99 Poems in Translation, p. 36). This theme, rather than seeming to insult the adult portion of my nature with rhyme, allows the reader to quietly peel back the layers to his or her inner child. I find that this poem brings the reader to a world of "childish" imagination, which is good for the soul of an individual of any age. The poem also makes reference to the dangers of life and the hope of avoiding those dangers. "So that no change, nor any evil chance / Should mar our joyous voyage;"(Alighieri, 99 Poems in Translation, p. 36). As college students, we are faced with change everyday, and it is not uncommon to desire a way to escape those changesà A way to wing off into the wild beyond. If I had an opportunity to travel with Dante, I can honestly say that I would leap at the opportunity.
(By the way, I meant no disrespect to Dr. Seuss, who was a wonderful children's author! I also hope I'm correct in referring to him in the past tenseà he did pass away a year or so ago, right?)
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 7:26 PM
To: Markwardt, Jeffrey R; Thamert, Mark
Subject: 3 REPLY TO JEFF: More Thoughts on Shakespeare's Sonnet LXV
Jeff,
I found your interpretation of this Sonnet really interesting because the two of us appreciated Shakespeare's work in completely different ways. You found a connection between the sonnet and a search for inner peace, but I found the sonnet to be a clear representation of the slow slide of time through its hourglass. In other words, rather than your positive approach, I took the sonnet to infer that life and the natural world is mortal and responds to the steady march of time. Even as I read the sonnet now, I can see Shakespeare looking at his own mortality and watching his life slip away, hoping that his wonderful poetry will last beyond his personal, mortal limitations.
I'm not trying to imply that your interpretation is incorrect because I certainly do not have the inside line on Shakespeare's sonnets. I merely offer you another impression of the poem. Thanks for your thoughts though! They made me look at the sonnet in a different light!
Jen
-----Original Message-----
From: Markwardt, Jeffrey R
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 1:15 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Peacock, Thomas, Shakespeare // The Poem: The Perfect Balance Between Companionship and Solitude
Our class discussion yesterday consisted of many paradoxes: solitude vs. companionship, innocence vs. the wisdom of old age, and Freud's view of the id as the dark side vs. Yung's view of the id as the light side, etc. Even though these paradoxes are conflicting and they tend to stir some heated arguments, Fr. Mark addressed that these paradoxes are OK. Sersch--I'm sure you were happy because here is a new way to look at settling these conflicts and making peace with these topics. Instead of trying to resolve the conflicts with one correct answer, we should be able to accept the paradox and find a balance between both of the sides. Where am I going with this you might ask. When I think about poetry, I tend to think of a person reading in solitude in a quiet and dark room. But then I also think about Poetry Slams where poets competitively read their poems in front of an audience. Poetry is the perfect medium that bridges the wide gap between the paradox of solitude and companionship in our world today!
I came to this realization after reading the first two chapters of Molly Peacock's How to Read a Poemàand Start a Poetry Circle. First, Molly addresses the power of solitude in poetry: "àreading poetry gives you a kind of internal message. Your organs readjust, they re-relate to one another, as you become aware of a new thought or a new feeling or more likely, of something you, too, have thought and felt all along" (Peacock, How to Read a Poemàand Start a Poetry Circle, p. 14). Second, Molly addresses the power of companionship in poetry through poetry circles. I smiled when I imagined this image of Molly and her friend Georgianna Orsini "climb[ing] into [their] jammies by SIX P.M. to read poems out loud while cooking dinner" (Peacock, How to Read a Poemàand Start a Poetry Circle, p. 16). Poetry has many things to teach me. It not only will connect me to a new form of solitude, but also deeper feelings of companionship with those around me.
"I labor by singing light / Not for ambition or bread à But for the common wages / Of their secret heart à But for the lovers, their arms / Round the griefs of ages,à" (Thomas, "In My Craft or Sullen Art," in Rag and Bone, p. 167). I might be misinterpreting "In My Craft or Sullen Art," but I'm picturing Dylan Thomas writing to soothe the lovers' hearts in order to heal the lovers' outside griefs. I think this concept is neat: healing the inside in order to heal the outside. One must first heal the inside heart and body before one begins to heal the outside griefs of this troubled world we live in. A poet, who most likely has a special connection with solitude and the inner realm of the soul, must then have the key to solving the world's griefs. The poet's words alone will touch our hearts and heal us in ways that food or water cannot. Is it possible then to solve world hunger through poetry?
Again, I see this same concept of strengthening the inner self in Shakespeare's poem. "Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, / But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, / How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower?" (Shakespeare, "Sonnet LXV," in Rag and Bone, p. 176). Too often in this world, we think that by healing the outside of our bodies, we will heal the inside body. By being thin, or having muscles we strive for beauty. However, no matter how much iron we pump, if the inside of our bodies is not strong, the appearance of our outside bodies is insignificant. I'm not saying that lifting weights is bad. I'm just suggesting that if one is going to lift an iron bar, I'm sure that person can also try to lift that weak little flower growing inside ourselves to the light.
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 9:07 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 2 Peacock, Eskimo, Stafford // Random Thoughts
"When we talk about the body of a poem- its anatomy-the line is like a skeletal system, the sentence is like a circulatory system, and the image is like a central nervous system. That's all" (Peacock, How to Read a Poem, p. 19). "That's all." What? A poem is more than that. It's greater than the sum of the words included, its structure and the images it uses and creates. In fact, it is like stretching for a small piece of heaven, or some greater knowledge and then carefully manipulating it safely on to a waiting piece of paper. A poem is a piece of a soul, an individual spirit. I have always held off from writing poetry because I have never felt that I could do it justice. I will leave it to people greater than I to bring a piece of heaven to the world on paper. I, on the other hand, will focus on the relationships in my lifeà and enjoy the poetry that you create.
"Sometimes I think we are attracted to a poem because it makes us feel as if someone is listening to us. This may seem like a strange reversal, because we are supposed to be listening to it, but the voice of the poem allows us to hear ourselves" (Peacock, How to Read a Poem, p. 4). I think the poems she describes are some of the most wonderful to read. These are poems that speak back to you as your reading them, seeming to help you to formulate your thoughts and emotions on the page as it slips through your mind. I've often paged through books of famous quotes and books of poetry collections, searching for one thought or idea that best describes my emotions at the time. (Of course, this is not a very efficient way of expressing oneself, but whatever works, right?) It has only worked a few times, but in those times I have been able to give a sigh of relief as I carefully copy the lines or line on to my own paper, which immediately transferred to my pocket for safe keeping.
"Sometimes they were people and sometimes animals and there was no difference. All spoke the same language" (Eskimo, Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p. 160). I love this line of this poem because the connection between humans and animals is so beautifully stated. The words seem somehowà peaceful and calming. In the world of this poem, everyone is understood, everyone is united. As a lover of nature, it amazes me that people still struggle to set humanity apart, when I can wander in the woods and find absolute peace or sit beside a lake and meditate to the sound of quietly sloshing waves. Besides, haven't you ever closed your eyes and wished with all of your heart that you could become a bird? It must be a wonderful view.
"A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had started to say them" (Stafford, Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p.181). I am forever reaching the end of an important paper and coming to the realization that my exploration into the subject has just begun. This usually means that I scrap the entire thing and start fresh, with new knowledge and a new direction. This is a wonderful thingà except when one exists in a world of deadlines and time limits. I don't think one every really understands an opinion or an expression until he or she puts it down on paper, rolling the idea over and over in his or her mind, until the thought becomes clear as crystal. I don't think I have ever had a thought as clear as crystal, but I can only assume that, if my writing process were to continue indefinitely, I would come to the meaning of life. Yes, my tangents can be that broad. :-) I found a connection with Stafford, who seems to admire this process that I have always found a slight struggle. Especially when teachers ask for a thesis statement before the completion of a paper. How rude!
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 11:51 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 1 Rilke // Crushing Romantic Love
Our society is forever touting theories of romantic love, in which two individuals suddenly realize their intense love for each other, within a suitable three day period of acquaintance and then ride off into the sunset of romance where the relationship is destined to last forever without quarrel or hardship. These theories run rampant in today's popular culture, running amuck through the heads and hearts of dreamy eyed girls and boys. In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke carefully points out to Mr. Kappus that this impression of love is untrue to the term love and barely touches the possibilities contained in the idea of pure love.
In this text, Rilke's comments on the illusion of romantic love contain intense harassment of immature thought on the issue of love. He writes:
Love does not at first have anything to do with arousal, surrender and uniting with another being- for what union can be built upon uncertainty, immaturity, and lack of coherence? Love is a high inducement for individuals to ripen, to strive to mature in the inner self, to manifest maturity in the outer world, to become that manifestation for the sake of another" (Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, p. 65-6.).
Rilke's impression of love is one that benefits both individuals completely within the union of love. He sees a form of love that denies the needs of a self through the realization of those needs in the form of the individuals efforts for her or his partner in love. He also images love as an opportunity for the growth of both individuals within the bond of love. Love becomes an opportunity for change, rather than for the stagnation of individual thought.
Rilke harshly chastises young individuals who use love as a surface retreat from daily life. "[Young people] exchange the softly advancing and retreating of gentle premonitions of the spirit for an unfruitful restlessness" (Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, p. 67.). To me, Rilke seems to be describing the restlessness that has driven our nation to a fifty percent divorce rate and to a pessimistic outlook on relationships.
Rilke writes, "Society has known how to create every kind of refuge conceivable. Since it is inclined to perceive love life as entertainment, it needs to display it as easily available, inexpensive, safe, and reliable, just like common public entertainment" (Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, p. 67.). Society has slipped around the true meaning of self definition and connection in love in order to "dumb it down" for the population, which has bought us to an easier version of love, one that, on a movie screen, takes only three days to find, win, and keep. The value Rilke sees in love is one barely visible to today's society, but vibrant within the pages of these short letters.