Of Wanderings & Such

The Venerable Portfolio

Here bygynneth the weblog porfolio (I've attended one Chaucer class too many). For all intents and purposes, this weblog entry is no more than a compilation of the blog entries required to be presented in my portfolio, which is a class assignment. For all the unmonitered people reading this blog out there, I hope you enjoy your visit.

The Cover Entry

Re-reading Poetry - I love poetry. In all ways, shapes, and forms, and this is my deeply thought out treatise on everything poetic.

Themes and Styles of the Great Gatsby - I'm the born rebel. People in Literature classes talk about plot analysis, character development, symbolic gestures and the like. Me? I talk about themes, styles, and literary techniques. I know this is blasphemous, but I really think that Fitzgerald wrote cookie cutter literature.

The Lean Mean Unthinking Machine - Machinal has been one of my favorite readings thus far into the semester because of its intense focus on the effects of capitalism. Give me the picket lines anyday.

Coffee Spoons and Peaches - I love this poem, but its really hard to read it when you're starving in the middle of the night. One line of this poem encapsulates an entire philosophy on life - I have measured out my life in coffee spoons...beautiful...

Doomed Daddy - Sylvia Plath's Daddy and e.e.cumming's My Father Moved Through the Dooms of Love present the quintessential juxtaposition of the yin and yang. Good and evil. Personally, both poems bring a lot of wasted time into perspective. Besides, I naturally tend to lean towards the Holocaust.

The Extra Collection

Coverage

Re-Reading Poetry

The Lean Mean Unthinking Machine

Themes & Styles of the Great Gatsby

Depth

The Lean Meach Unthinking Machine

Interaction

Themes and Styles of the Great Gatsby

The Lean Mean Unthinking Machine

Coffee Spoons and Peaches

Frost & Leman

Discussion

Themes and Styles of the Great Gatsby

The Lean Mean Unthinking Machine

Coffee Spoons and Peaches

Frost & Leman

Timeliness

Themes and Styles of the Great Gatsby

Xenoblogging

The Comment Primo

Daddy, on Mary Anderson's blog

Re-Reading Poetry

I've always liked poetry but I've only begun to take it seriously in the past year and a half. More so because I've been more prolific with my writing in the past year. Of course, taking Dr. Arnzen's poetry writing class helped a lot, only because we were made to write verses of all sorts. Honestly though, there are plenty of reasons why I find poetry fascinating. However, analysing characters and plots to death aren't it. People, in my opinion, would enjoy reading poetry a lot more if they found new ways to read and talk about it. Poetry is more than a bunch of multi-syllabic words bunched together in rhymes - it's human communication, just like any other prose that you might read. In fact, if you think about it, poetry isn't very different from condensed prose, but I'll come back to that later.

It's always easier to start at the beginning, and what better place to look at than the title? If you're not sure about the meaning of a poem, then take a closer look at the title. Traditionally, the title encapsulates the essence of a literary work in five words or less. The title is basis for the plot - what it's all "about" as we like to say. For instance, the poem Beowulf is about the life of knight called Beowulf. Frost's poem "Mending Wall" is a metaphor for dissolving differences in our lives. Taking a look at the title also urges the readers to re-read a poem with a closer look, which incidentally is the mark of good literature. If it makes you think, feel confused, and brings you back to read it all over again, then chances are that it's actually worth it.

Since we're still talking about beginnings, it's worthy to note that poetry was the earliest form of written communication. Homer's Odyssey is a HUGE poem. Ever read Chaucer? Pages and pages of verses. More importantly, they rhyme. When people were required to recall hundreds of verses from memory, it was easier to do so if the verses rhymed. Psychologists term memory aids mnemonic devices (m silent).

Size really doesn't matter all that much in poetry. In fact, poetry is my favorite literary form because there is unlimited scope to deliver depth in the least amount of words possible. In our readings for this class, Pound and Frost deliver pages of interpretation with effortless ease and brevity. A short poem doesn't have to be devoid of all meaning. It just means that the poet has the ability to engage the reader with the subtext - what exactly lies behind all the words, the purpose, and the meaning of the stories? Why do I call them stories? Because a poem is just another form of the traditional narrative. It has a rising beginning, and a falling ending.

Imagery is very important to poetry. At this point I should distinguish between images and imagery. While images are snapshots of the world as we see it, imagery evokes the five senses of taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight. We think in imagery, but we communicate in images. In Leman's poem, the towers "dissolve into white skies." In Medusa, we "see" a landscape of "stony mouth-plugs." Note the texture here - how would we know what stony felt like if we hadn't touched it?

Poetry brings to light cultural contexts and influences buried deep withing the poet. In our class, as we read poems written by American authors, we become acquainted with American images. I'm pretty sure there's only one Brooklyn Bridge in New York. In Robert Frost's poetry, we see a repetition of classic rustic New England scenery like apple trees, winding roads, snow covered forests, and brown brambly branches. Interestingly enough, Frost lived in Connecticut. If you ever drive through CT, be sure to take a look at the landscape. You'll feel like you've been transposed to a living, breathing Frost poem. I'm serious -- the state smells like Mom's apple pie!

As far as imagery goes, it's nothing more than a literary technique. Others would include metaphors, similes, alliterations, rhyme, and structure. All of this is done to give the poem a sense of rhythm and music. There's a reason why songs and images get along so well together.

Evaluating a poem is not very different from analyzing a painting. The first reading usually tells us about what exactly is happening in the poem and what it's all about. The second reading probably highlights the structure. Subsequent readings often give readers insights into the true working of the poem, and, if we're aware of them, we come to see how our cultural influences come to determine our interpretations. A man in China could probably imagine the Great Wall, but not necessarily the Brooklyn Bridge.

Structure is important to note, because it determines whether we're reading poetry or prose. Line arrangements (syntax) are usually the distinguishing criteria.

The best part about reading literature is realizing that there are as many interpretations of a given text as there are numbers of readings. The more you read, the more you'll "get out of it."

We often see constructs of memory in poems that appeal to us. Memory is important to poetry because it lends to the work an element of movement. Sometimes all the poet or protagonist wants to do is return to a happier time, or move away from difficult experiences, e.g. Sylvia Plaths insistence to snip away the strings of her past.

That's all I have folks. I know this is a lengthy entry, but I tried to cover as much as I could. I hope it helped.

Frost & Leman

There's nothing like simple poetry that packs a punch beneath the surface. Have I ever said that Robert Frost is my favorite poet? The reason is that he uses very simple language, combines it with very simple imagery, writes in a very quiet voice, but the message that lies in between the lies speaks to generation after generation. "Miles to go before I sleep," is a well known line that is quoted often.

Frost's poem, Never Again Would Birds' Song be the Same, captures one moment and frames it timelessly for his readers. It takes him no more than 14 lines to deliver a poem filled with depth, imagery, structure, and meaning. He apparently wasn't always a free verse guy. How simple can poetry get?

"Never again would birds' song be the same
And to do that to birds was why she came."

There isn't a single word in there that's longer than three syllables. The subtext, however, is where all the meaning is hidden. After the song is taken away, nothing in the garden will ever be the same.

Speaking of change, Leman's poem has a similar, quiet overtone to it, and he also uses simple phrasing to construct his work. "They lacked the details the ornament the character/ Of the Empire State Building." If it weren't for its structure, the poem would read like prose. Note the complete lack of punctuation in the original poem. I thought that was done deliberately to create a sense of urgency to deliver the message with some speed.

As far as the change goes, it's clear that everything in peoples lives drastically changes once the Trade Center gets bombed. The world moves from having a million critics to suddenly realizing the enormity of their loss.

"I began to like the way/ It comes into view as you reach Sixth Avenue," says Leman. Notice the tense shift. The Trade Center is still coming into view, even though it is no longer there, conveying a sense of overwhelming loss and shock at the same time.

Both poets offer transition from one moment to the next effortlessly here. This is what makes good poetry, folks. Just the ability to connect with the readers at a level that is so personal, it makes them read and re-read time and time again.

Doomed Daddy

Everytime I read Sylvia Plath, I walk away with a sense of wonder. As a poet, I'm always looking for ways to add depth to my poetry. Believe me, the more you write, the more you realize that stories aren't "just stories." e.e. cummings doesn't fall too far behind with depth either. There's an element in these poems that pulls you in, makes you want to swim around with the words in the faint hope that you'll discover how deep it is exactly that they go.

It's evident that the Holocaust deeply affected Plath, because she walks away with a description that nailed the Nazis.

"I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--"

I'm not entirely sure of what "Panzer-man" signifies, but it's apparent that the image has been burned into her memory. Daddy apparently was a Nazi soldier with a "fat black heart" whom the villagers "never liked."

What I found interesting was the ties that are cut off with the past right at the beginning, and then at the very end.

She goes from "You do not do... any more, black shoe," to "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through." Very abruptly she slices away the links that bind her together with her father and every memory.

e.e.cummings, however, stands diametrically across this spectrum. My favorite lines are when he says, "Lifting the calleys of the sea/ my father moed through griefs of joy." It is often said that the man who makes others laugh has a deep sadness buried within him. However, "dad' here, keeps pursuing, making light out of his darkness, spreading love and joy all around.

"his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow."

How do you fight with a man like that? Does anyone remember that old saying from the 60's that's been heard a lot lately? Killing for peace is like making love for war. What matters in the end? I read once that if a person remembers your suit, but not your smile, then you didn't smile honestly enough.

"because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all."

We'd be so much happier if we just loved unconditionally.

Old Souls

Did you ever sense a feeling of impending doom and want to do something worthwhile right before the hammer struck? It's all about the one defining moment that changes your life. That's how I felt about In the Old Age of the Soul."

"There cometh on me/ Some strange old lust for deeds," (1-2) he says. Seems as though he's recollecting a time from his past where he wanted to show the world that he could be somebody. Time changes, and now his feet are like lead, slowing down - almost halting - with age. With passed time, his youthfulness also leaves him.

"Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray,/ Grown old with many hither-coming and hence-going," (7-8). The soul, now, is old...it is tired from fighting the long fight, but he wants to continue living. How hard it must be to want to fight when you know you're broken. This is when all things come to significance - the last dying breath, the culmination of your entire life that explodes in one dazzling firework and then just simply fades away, leaving behind nothing but an impression in the mind. This is when time runs out, and you have to squeeze every last drop into one moment.