Sound of Poetry

Plum:
delicious
juicy
round-sounding
words
swirl
on lips
of readers
devouring
this poem.

Sestina:
tears
and children,
teapots
sing
in a house
where
no parent
seems
to live.


Like many of you, I am drawn to the poem "Plum" because of the way it sounds. You can tell the poet is really having fun thinking of just the right word, how it sounds, how it shapes the reader's lips. The experience of reading the poem mimics the act of savoring a juicy plum. I also am very fond of "Sestina." Not only is the structure of the poem fascinating (and hard to pull off! I have yet to write a successful sestina), but the topic of the poem is interesting, too. There is definitely a sense of loss and loneliness in the poem, a sense of how humans cannot always connect or comfort one another. Isn't it interesting how some of the objects come to life (the iron, the picture)? I look forward to hearing your interpretations!

Top Ten Favorite Poems

In no particular order, here are my top ten favorite poems (at least, my favorite poems at this time):

"Reading Plato" by Jorie Graham
"Passwords" by William Stafford
"This room and everything in it" by Li Young Lee
"Keeping things whole" by Mark Strand
"Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand
"I have taught the Japanese" by Lucilla Perillo
"This is just to say" by William Carlos Williams
"Your Life" by William Stafford
"Thesarus" by Billy Collins
"Sestina" by Elizabeth Bishop

This is the poem I'm bringing to class:

Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

I like this poem because it deals with both what is present and what is absent - for example, "the field and the absence of field." This poem makes me think of the genre of poetry in general, how poets use both words and blank, white space to create a text. This poem speaks to that relationship between words and emptiness, sound and silence, being and not being. The last stanza, in particular, emphasizes how there is unity between being and not being. It is this relationship between presence and absence that makes "things whole." This makes me wonder in what ways my life creates presence or wholeness in what is around me.

Response to Whitman's Song of Myself

Song of my Son

Myself, myself,
assumes, assumes
that you
belong to me.
You are
in my soul,
in my every atom,
in my blood.

A spear of summer grass,
this soil, this air,
is nothing without you,


I am your parent,
Your parent,
Always the same
Till death
Your parent.

These are a few of my favorite things...

By now I think many of you have realized that I really do love poetry. I enjoy reading it, writing it, and listening to it. This does not mean, however, that I always understand every poem I read. Some of my favorite poems are not ones that I necessarily "get." Sometimes I just like poems because of the way they sound. That is why I enjoy poetry, I think, because it is a genre that appreciates how language sounds. In this short blog entry, it is impossible for me to list every single poem that I love. Instead, I will just share two with you and explain briefly how each poem has influenced me.

Song of Myself
When I was an undergraduate student (majoring in English literature and creative writing), I remember "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman as a poem that really influenced me. I loved how this poem is long, rambling, and expansive. It talks about minute details (such as blades of grass) and enormous cosmos (such as the universe). I like this poem because, as a writer, it gives me permission to discuss anything and everything in the pieces I write. When I read this poem, I feel large, all-powerful. When I read this poem, I feel inspired to become a creator of my own world, a world of language. My favorite stanza in this poem is this:

"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the
earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

Zipper poems
When I was working on my MFA degree (in creative writing, poetry)I was always looking for poets to emulate. One writer who influenced me profoundly was Jorie Graham. In her book, Erosion, many of her poems are written to look like "zippers." I found this form of poetry inspiring and began to write poems shaped similarly to hers. For example, here is the opening stanza from the poem "Reading Plato"

This is a story
of a beautiful
lie, what slips
through my fingers,
your fingers. It is winter,
it’s far

I am looking forward to hearing what poems you find interesting and inspiring!

Poetry, poetry everywhere....

Thinking ahead to Wednesday's reading (when you bring into class poems you like), I decided to post some links to digital poetry archives. While you are free to bring in any poems you like (such as from books you own/have checked out of the library or other poems in Norton), you might find these digital archives helpful resources. I encourage you to explore, dig around, and enjoy! Just remember to bring in hard copies of the 2 poems that are your "favorite" and be ready to discuss these poems with the class on Wednesday.

Academy of American Poets, Poetry Archives, Bartleby.com


And, as for my response to Monday's poems...

Why roses? What is their symbolic significance? This is the second time this semester we have come across "the rose" as a symbol, and it makes me wonder, "Why do artists gravitate to this particular flower?" I know we talked earlier in the semester about how the rose is symbol of love and passion; it can also symbolize death. But doesn't it strike anyone else as just a bit odd that writers ALWAYS seem to reference the rose. I mean, have you ever read a poem about a tulip? A water lily? A carnation? Personally, I think tulips are my favorite flower. They are not showy, they are hearty, and they come in just about every color imaginable. They are easy to grow; you just plant the bulbs in the fall and voila - come spring you have beautiful flowers sprouting up all over.

I decided to do a little research on tulips and discovered they once were so popular (in the 17th century in the Netherlands) that "early enthusiasm for the new flowers triggered a speculative frenzy now known as the tulip mania and tulip bulbs were then considered a form of currency" (according to Wikipedia). Crazy, huh? That tulips might be more valuable than money.

So, tulips, here is my tribute to you:

Red Tulips

Just this week, the tulips
lining our front walk
returned. Each day
green stalks threaten
to bend and only one blooms
explosive petals, solid red,
defying the photo once
stapled to the bag of bulbs:
pale yellow and white blossoms
streaked in purple deep
enough to be veins.

Flames, the greenhouse owner
called them, their pattern
first caused by a virus carried
by peach potato aphids. This
made for flowers beautiful
and lethal –Holland’s Tulipmania,
the stock market crash of 1636 – entire
homes or heads of oxen sold for a single
bulb, when weeks later, each plant,
sick and dying, would be worth
almost nothing.

My Barbie

Poor, poor girl.
5 feet 9 inches tall, with 36
inches of chest, 33-inch
hips and a mere 18-
inch waist, why she is wasting
herself away. Critics say
she is an anorexic, shop-a-holic,
high-heeled , brainless icon
out to destroy the self
image and esteem
of every girl.
As if this tiny girl-
like doll, just a doll,
had a mind and motive
within her empty, plastic
head, this smiling, shiny
haired head on an 11.5 inch-tall
body, a body modeled
after a paper doll,
a person made of nothing
but paper, so thin
and fragile. Nothing
at all.

Memoir: Story of the Survivor?

After our last class, I got to thinking again about the memoirs we are reading in our literature circles. Although these texts focus on very different events (rape, wartime displacement, poverty/homelessness, natural disaster), the memoirs do share this common theme: the story of the survivor.

I find it interesting that the "rowdy girls" group has chosen to name their project on Farewell to Manzanar "Survivorship." This seems a very fitting title, considering this memoir details one Japanese-American girl's experience surviving the internment of her family during World War II. This group also has mentioned how the narrator/author expresses guilt over surviving. True, this young woman survived while many other people (i.e. soldiers, Holocaust victims, Atomic bomb victims) perished. Further, this young woman was able to leave the internment camp, go to college, have a career and family, and live a normal life. Her success contrasts the life story of many Japanese-Americans who were interned. Having lost their possessions, properties, and jobs, many of these people became impoverished, depressed, and homeless.

As I reflect on this idea of the "survivor," I'm curious to know how you think this theme may or may not apply to your memoirs, too. In what ways do Jeanette Walls, Jon Krakauer, and Alice Sebold survive their tragic circumstances? In what ways do their memoirs tell (or not tell) their survival story?

Finally, I'm including a link you may find valuable. This link is an article entitled, "Survivor Guilt in Holocaust Victims and their Children." Although none of our memoirs deal specifically with the holocaust, they do raise the issue of survivor guilt and how it affects the human psyche. I encourage you to take a look at the article; you may find it helpful!

Defining Genre

Genre: "From the French genre for 'kind' or 'type,' the classification of literary works..."
Fiction: "..any writing that relates imagined characters and occurrences rather than recounting real ones." - Bedford Glossary

Nonfiction:??

How do we define the genre of nonfiction? Is it the opposite of fiction...any writing that relates real characters and occrrences rather than imagined ones. Is nonfiction prose? Can it be written in verse? Must it always be true?

What do we know about nonfiction as a genre?

Creative Response: Flannery O'Connor

Want Ad: A Good Man

Wanted: A good man, a man
who dresses like a man: shirt
pressed with collars and cuffs
neatly pinned down. A man
who offers gifts: a watermelon,
Coca-Cola. If he is wealthy,
all the better. I want a man
who knows he's not common, a gentle-
man, a lady-respecting man, a man
not afraid
to discipline children, a man
of whom I am
not afraid.

Critical Response to "A Rose For Emily"

Meanings for the Rose

Some readers might find the title of Faulker’s story, “A Rose for Emily,” ironic. As a Symbol, the rose generally signifies romantic love. According to “Flowerpedia,” a website created to inform flower enthusiasts of historical and cultural connotations associated with flowers, “roses are among the most admired and evocative of flowers.” Red roses, in particular, “are the traditional symbol for love and romance, and a time-honored way to say I love you." The color red holds significance; historically it is a “symbol for life” and a “metaphor for deep emotion.” The red rose can also be seen as a religious symbol; “In Greek and Roman mythology the red rose was closely tied to the goddess of love.” The rose further embodies love, or an everlasting love, due to its prevalent use in wedding ceremonies.

Assuming that Faulker is well aware of the rose’s symbolic meanings, why does he choose to name his story about an ill-fated and perverse love affair, “A Rose for Emily?” One possible reason Faulkner may have chosen this perplexing title is to present an ironic portrayal of the rose’s intended: the female lover. By calling the story “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner causes the reader to assume this is a typical love story. Faulkner then overturns the reader’s expectations by offering an atypical heroine. Generally love stories involve a young woman, pure and beautiful, worthy of receiving love. In this story, however, the heroine is old and decrepit. The narrator explains, “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue” (468). Not simply unattractive, Emily also is considered an “old maid” by the townsfolk. For example, the narrator mentions how the town noticed she “got to be thirty and was still single” and how they considered her “left alone, and a pauper” following her father’s death (470). Due to her unfortunate looks and even more unfortunate fortune, Emily is portrayed as an object of the town’s pity.

In his story, Faulkner not only employs irony in creating its heroine, but also in revealing the type of love she experiences. Not until the story’s climactic ending does the reader discover with whom Emily “shares her rose” or her love. Roses, which typically symbolize an everlasting love, are appropriate for Emily considering how she has loved her fiancé, Homer Barron. When the townsfolk enter Emily’s house, they find a secret room, one that is both “furnished as for a bridal” and one that contains “A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb” (473). Here, Faulkner’s vision of everlasting love is first realized: marriage and death exist entwined. Faulkner, however, does not end here. He then goes on to show the true nature of Emily’s love, an everlasting love that endures after death. By situating the lover’s corpse next to “a long strand of iron-gray hair” belonging to Emily, Faulkner offers a situational irony: love, for Emily, flourishes only after her lover is deceased.

Critical Response to "A Souvenir of Japan"

From an outsider’s point of view

In Japanese, there are two words that, loosely translated, mean “foreigner.” The first word is gaikokugin; the second is simply gaijin. If one studies the individual kanji, or characters, that comprise these words, one learns these two words do not, in fact, hold identical meanings. Gai-koku-jin is composed of three kanji, which literally translated, form the phrase “outside-country-person.” Gaijin, however, contains only two kanji, gai and jin, meaning “outside-person.” In the story, “A Souvenir of Japan,” the narrator admits she is a gaikokujin, a person from another country. She describes herself an English speaking woman, large and blonde, so different from the slight, dark Japanese natives who surround her. This narrator, though, is more than just a foreigner. Through inside/outside imagery and point of view, the narrator stresses how both the Japanese and she see her as an outsider. This perspective leaves no doubt that the reader is meant to view this narrator not as a person from a different country, but as a gaijin, an outside-person.

It is evident this narrator is an outsider by the physical boundaries laid between her and the “Japanese world” that surrounds her. For example, the story opens with the narrator saying, “When I went outside to see if he was coming home…” (266). This opening image, then, shows the narrator emerging from an interior, secluded world into the raucous, public one where children play with sparklers in the street (266). Such an image might, at first glance seem innocuous - perhaps the narrator was only inside for a moment; perhaps she feels comfortable outside and spends much of her time in the company of her Japanese neighbors. However, five paragraphs later, the narrator offers a more detailed explanation as to why she is first placed in this story within the confines of her home. In describing her relationship with her Japanese lover, she admits to having “…often appeared to be his wife” (267). This pseudo-wife role takes on significance when she offers this cultural background: “The word for wife, okusan, means the person who occupies the inner room and rarely, if ever, comes out of it” (267). This role is reiterated when the narrator describes her daily life as, “Once I was home, however, it was as if I occupied the inner room and he did not expect me to go out of it…” (269). The narrator, then, assumes the role that is assigned to her as an okusan; she lives in the interior, separated physically from the outside world. Ironically, it is the very nature of her physical separation that also causes her to be an outsider for the “real” Japanese world exists not in her secluded apartment, but in the streets and neighborhood she does not venture to experience.

The narrator further distinguishes herself as an outsider through her point of view. By carefully choosing pronouns, the narrator establishes four distinct perspectives. First, the Japanese people, in general, are referred to as “they.” For example, when citing a specific word, the narrator explains, “In their language, fireworks are called hannabi…” (266). Later, the narrator describes how her Japanese neighbors so diligently keep their streets tidy by stating, “…they all behaved so well, kept everything so well, and lived with such rigorous civility” (271). Contrasted to the “they” is the “we” in this story. The narrator only invokes “we” to represent herself and her lover together. For example, she states, “…and once we rode the train out of Shinjuku…” and “By the time we arrived at our destination…” (266). The first person pronoun, “I,” is reserved for occasions when the narrator refers to herself. When describing her place in the neighborhood, she says, “The entire street politely disapproved of me. Perhaps they thought I was contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile for he was obviously younger than I” (267). Finally, the narrator occasionally addresses the reader directly as “you.” For instance, when trying to explain her relationship with her lover, she confesses, “Well, then, you must realize that I was suffering from love and I knew him as intimately as I knew my own image in a mirror” (270). By sharing such “secret” thoughts directly with “you,” the reader, the narrator is creates another interior world. This is the world where she and the reader are separated from the “we” and “they” characters who inhabit this story.

No conclusion…yet…

Creative Response to Lorrie Moore's "How"

How to Wake

Open one eye. Then the other. Reach for the clock that is always just beyond a stretch of fingers. Pull back covers. Fast. Warmth will rise from your body. Chilled, dark air - face and neck, any bare skin, cool.

Reach again for the clock. You do not need it now. Perhaps you never did. You always wake. Day after day. The death of dreams. This wake.

Critical Response to “Roman Fever”

The following is a sample critical response...

Moonlight as Metaphor

In “Roman Fever,” Edith Wharton employs “moonlight” as a metaphor for romance, danger, and ultimately, to symbolize one of the story’s main characters. That moonlight should represent romance is not surprising. After all, light from the moon can only be seen during the night, a time typically associated with lovers. Wharton uses the moonlight metaphor in relationship with lovers three times in this story. First, the young daughters are reported to be on dates with Italian aviators; Mrs. Ansley speculates, “I suppose they’ll want to wait and fly back by moonlight” (111). Next, Mrs. Slade recalls a story Mrs. Ansley used to tell her involving a great-aunt who dies from malaria. According to the story, this aunt is sent out in the drafty moonlight by her sister “…because they were in love with the same man” (115). Finally, Mrs. Ansley reveals her own moonlight experience, a lover’s tryst with Mrs. Slade’s husband (118).

Moonlight is also associated with danger. Mrs. Slade explains the various types of dangers in saying, “’what different things Rome stands for to each generation of travelers. To our grandmothers, Roman fever; to our mothers, sentimental dangers’” (114). Here, Wharton uses moonlight to represent both the physical risk associated with nighttime excursions (e.g. catching malaria) as well as the possible societal risks (i.e. illicit affairs, tainting one’s reputation).

Ultimately, however, moonlight can be seen as a symbol describing one of the main characters in “Roman Fever,” Mrs. Ansley. Described as “Good-looking, irreproachable, exemplary,” Mrs. Ansley is not a striking individual (112). In fact, compared with her friend, who is “brilliant” and “vivid,” Mrs. Slade is called “the smaller and paler one” of the pair (110). Like moonlight, Mrs. Slade seems dull and understated compared to her brighter, sun-like friend, Mrs. Slade. Though Mrs. Slade is certainly the more outspoken and energetic character throughout the story, she does not hold the most power. In the story’s conclusion, Wharton subverts the two main characters roles by allowing the “paler” character to outwit and outshine her friend. That Mrs. Ansley answers the theoretical love letter and has living proof of the illicit relationship’s consummation proves moonlight serves as a powerful metaphor for romance, danger, and those who take part in both.

Class introduction

Hi and welcome! If you've made it this far, you're realizing just how easy it is to become a blogger! For our first posting for English 1100, why don't we do some brief introductions...Who are you? What are you into doing? What do you think the class should know about you? I look forward to "meeting" you all!

P.S. Once you've created your blog, be sure to email the url address to me at erinn.j.bentley@wmich.edu. I will then link your blog to mine; soon we'll all be connected!