Great Jones Street

I don't have much time to read things that I especially want to read anymore. Which is sad, but that's life in college I guess. But I did manage to get into reading another one of Don DeLillo's books, Great Jones Street. I'm only about halfway through it so far, but I've already formed some opinions about it.

I don't like it nearly as much as I did White Noise. DeLillo's writing style is very much the same in both novels, but there are some things that make the styles different that affect the experience of the reader, and in my opinion, makes White Noise far superior. This novel I'm reading is about an ex-rock star named Bucky Wunderlick, who decides to take a break from, or perhaps permanently leave the business in search of a life away from the insanity. The book explores Bucky's thoughts and relationships while following him in his journey to change. I guess it's a lot about the price of fame, and about the common human desperation we all experience, even the famous. Although, I definitely had a lot more trouble reading closely into this book, as it didn't catch my interest nearly as much as White Noise, so I don't feel like I really understand the deeper meanings in the book yet. But maybe I'll catch on as I read more.

Random Thoughts

So I know this doesn't really have anything to do with stuff we've read and this doesn't have to count as part of my 15 posts, but I'm just wondering if anyone else feels really isolated being an English major at Case? I don't know if it's just the people I surround myself, or if it's the general consensus at this school that if you're not a BME or pre-med you're a complete waste of space... Anyways, I was just curious if anyone else has experienced this...

:)

Suggestions

I'm actually going to miss taking this class. I think I enjoyed it more than I thought I did, because I'm kind of sad about leaving it. I liked the small class and everyone in it. And I looooved the books we read. The only one I can say that I could have done without is the Angela Carter short stories. I had trouble getting into most of them. I thought her writing style was far too wordy for a writer from so recent an era. I liked that her stories were original interpretations of old fairy tales; that was pretty interesting. However, I felt that it was the least interesting text that we read as a class.

I also think the blog idea should be kept for future classes. I really liked having to think about things I wanted to write, and working my way through my thoughts about the works we read. I feel like having to put my thoughts down in writing helped me better understand exactly what conclusions I wanted to form about the books and other things involved in class. So I don't think the blog should be gotten rid of. I do think that it would be more effective for a broader range of students if direct questions were posted first for the students to address specifically. This would also help everyone have something in mind to talk about for discussion the next day, and people wouldn't have an excuse not to speak up because you know they have already put thought into the topic. Just a suggestion...

School Daze (Wrote this one day when I was in a class bored.....not this class though...lol

School Daze
I’m tired,
Sleepy,
Stressed,
But I’m trying to make the best of it.

School is getting boring,
I wanna go home,
But I guess that I am better off,
Than other folks I know.

I hate school sometimes,
On my very bad days,
But today will be okay,
As long as the day passes away.
Tiarra Thomas

In Memory of You

In Memory Of You

Reminiscing on the days that passed,
Back to the time I saw you last,
Remembering what having you was like,
Until that day you lost your life.

I constantly call your name,
But it is to no avail,
I look around corners that wind and curve,
All in hopes of finding what’s not there.

Thinking back, days that have ever since passed,
Trying hard to remember when I saw you last,
Remembering the fun that you never seemed to lack,
Or when I would get in trouble with mom and you always had my back.

The rain and chill of that fateful unhappy day,
Surrounded everyone there,
But that was not the focus of the unhappiness and gloom that day.
It was the last day I saw you, but you are no longer here.

Tiarra Thomas

Expectations (Poem I wrote in my spare time...)

Expectations

Tiarra Thomas


There are 2 kinds of expectations,
Those that you expect of yourself,
And those you expect of others.
It's easy to reach your own expectations,
But expecting something from others can be a waste.
You expect people to reach a certain level of maturity,
Especially as they grow older,
But in the end you finally see,
That expecting something from others was never meant to be.

Finally you grow and learn,
That you can expect what you want only from yourself.
Never rely on others to get what you want,
Because all you have is you and God.
In the end he is the only 1 you can truly expect something from.

Feminist Presentation

The presentation of Danyel, Bethany, and Jocelyn was, I think, the best. The information they presented was very interesting, and the group seemed to have a genuine interest in the topic. I was interested throughout the entire presentation, and I learned a lot about feminism. I liked that they didn't just talk at us, they conversed with us, and they used more than one technique to teach the class. The information on the handout and the powerpoint was interesting, and I really liked watching the Buffy vs. Edward video, as I am personally a huge Buffy fan. The article that went along with the video was also quite humorous. And I liked the trivia questions and the candy and cookies. They were delicious.

Fairy Tales

I must say, I'm glad that we had to read the fairy tales along with The Bloody Chamber. When you are young, you hear about these fairy tales all the time, and I never even read them until now. The original fairy tales and their other renditions were great reads!

Danyel, Bethany, and Jocelyn's Presentation

Today's presentation was VERY insightful; I had no idea that Feminism occurred in such a large span of time. I also never knew that feminism was divided into "waves". This gave a very thorough explanation of Feminism; we talk about Feminism in my Language and Gender all the time, but I don't think I really got a clear understanding of what it was until I listened to this presentation. These guys touched on the basics, while adding more, all the while not making the presentation harder to understand than it needed to be. Great job!

ps-Jocelyn, did you make those cookies? They were SOO good... :)

Angela Carter, feminism... why the, ergh, sex?

I haven't read alot of fairy tale stories that are 'twisted' like Carter's, the only other instance is when I read Neil Gaiman's books where he usually uses Norse and Greek gods to create a wholly different story (usually deriving away from the original stories and putting the gods into his stories as characters with different personalities based on their lore). The common thing that I noticed in the two is the use of sexual intimacy to describe some part of their story.
Well, it would be interesting and smart if I pulled up sources of studies regarding the implications of sex in literature, but I'm a lazy guy so I'll just come up with my own theory regarding to the use of sex in these stories.
Fairy tales are about innocence; all the Grimm fairy tales describe in one way or another of an instance where an innocence of a character is glorified and triumphs over the evil 'crone' of the story (sometimes in really brutal manners), even more modern 'myths' like "Count Dracula" shows the innocence of the wife of the main character and in the end the evil who tries to corrupt such innocence is defeated.
Carter strips away this idea, she wants to depict the bare-bone society that she saw in her time by emphasizing the pure idiocy in the concept of innocence, she gave the fairy tales... 'reality' by implementing sex. Sex is, well, impure and wrong in many eyes, so Carter puts it in every one of her stories to show the true colors of what-it-would-have-been-like-if-it-happened-today. The biggest shocker and most weird instance where sex is used is probably in "The Company of Wolves" where the little red riding hood seduces the pinnacle of masculine object (in the story), the wolf, and survives her consumation. Carter uses the 'consumation' in different term (instead of literally devouring) by using the wolf (the male figure) consuming the woman (the feminine) by taking away her virgin innocence. Is carter saying that womens today can only survive by offering their innocence? by seducing? Personally I believe Carter is trying to say how ridiculous the women's survival mechanic in the society was; Carter uses fairy tales, a world also portrayed with innocence, and stains it with blood, violence, ambiguity, and other extreme methods to show her message.

On a side note: I also think Carter wasn't exactly an avid Christian, as I mentioned in class, the parallism between the original bloody chamber story and the eve story is broken by the rationality of the woman's decision, and in the case of "the company of wolves" the grandmother who gets consumed is seen as a very very devout christian (I laughed abit when the red riding hood finds it surprising the grandmother/wolf-in-disguise didn't have the bible in his hands).

Bababa, says the sheep.

Silly Antiques

I find antiques fun to own.
They rather shine the room
they can be old or new
for no one will ever know.
I drop by the antique shop
to enquire on a new product
new, they do say they have
delighted, merchandise I seek
I see a beautiful vase
sitting on the window sill
I enquire, oh i do enquire
'what is that' I ask
they say they know
and look for a price tag they do
not finding they panic
manager to the rescue
And lo, he says,
'I do not know, how strange.'
I purchase the vase despite
and ponder its beauty two times
I put it on my window sill
fitting it was
almost too fitting it was
blend it did, to the world outside
the world blend it tried too
and was it so to say
the beauty beheld i say
I was tired of day forgone
and replaced it with a lamp
And cry did the world
I almost heard it cry.

Puss-In-Boots

I have never heard the real story of Puss-In-Boots, so I really have nothing to compare this story to, but wow. This might have been one of the most obscure tales I've ever read. Firstly, I was extremely confused as to who the speaker was at the beginning, and it took me rather a long time to figure out what was going on at all. The blatant sexual content in the story was a bit surprising, as well. It was, to say the least, more than a little risqué... anyways, I'm curious as to what exactly the author's intentions were in writing such explicit versions of the original fairy tales. I'm still forming conclusions on that topic myself, but so far I haven't got too many ideas. But I will keep reading...

Chris' dream and our perception

In chapter 229 of Mark Haddon's book, we are introduced to Christopher's dream.
It is a world where nobody but people 'like' him exist. He describes it as a world where "special people like me" (pg 199) are the only ones left in the world and the people who have emotions (described with an array of faces displaying emotion) are gone.
This chapter made me feel very disconnected from Chris' world. The world Chris described is an envisionment of a post-apoacalyptic world, to us that is. This is the difference between me and Chris, we have different dreams in life (literal and figurative).
The funny thing I observed about Chris' world is that his 'dream' world would also be a sort of reality in terms of achieving utopia: people without emotion or 'wrong' judgements is the only case in which, I believe, a utopian society could work.
The fact that I judged Chris instinctively upon reading about his dreams shows how flawed our minds can be. Just when I thought I was figuring out Chris' persona and his humanly qualities, we are introduced with this chapter then again puts us out of Chris' 'shoe'. In fact, I find it a relief that I can't see through Chris' eyes, it's still a horrible thought to find an apocalyptic world as 'heaven'.
This is what I reflected from this short chapter.
On a side note... I had a question that got stuck in my head: is Chris' mind an evolution of humanity's flaws? I mean, if nature saw it fit... Wouldn't Chris' almost primal and alien mind be the answer to the problems we, as humanity, caused on the world?

The Tiger's Bride

Okay, so I changed my mind about Angela Carter.
Not about the Bloody Chamber, I really think she overdid the whole imagery thing in that one.
But I really enjoyed the Tiger's Bride, which I just finished (I'm a tad behind...). I think her descriptions actually work quite well in the context of this story. I was actually pretty surprised by the ending, when the girl becomes some sort of animal, at least figuratively. And unlike in the Bloody Chamber, I found myself very intrigued by the events that took place, and wanting to read on and on. I found it particularly interesting that at one point in the story the girl actually becomes aware of her innate inferiority that being a woman gives her. In traditional fairy tales, women are portrayed as sort of limp, weak beings, there simply to please the men in their lives, to be saved by a prince or something. While the female in this version of the story is indeed portrayed as being something of an object, at least to the men in her life (as her father loses her in a card game...) she becomes aware of her femininity and what that means to her.
"I certainly meditated on the nature of my own state, how I had been bought and sold, passed from hand to hand. That clockwork girl who had powdered my cheeks for me; had I not been allotted only the same kind of imitative life amongst men that the doll-maker had given her?"
Here she experiences a moment of self-aware recognition of her inherent state as a human woman. While she does not appear to continue thinking on the subject, or noting any particular unfairnesses with the situation, the fact that Angela Carter puts this realization in her text is somewhat momentous, and rather changes the focus and point of view of this classic fairy tale. It also colors the perspective of the girl throughout the rest of the story.
I found it really interesting. And now looking back at the other two stories, I can definitely see that the role of females is something that is discreetly highlighted throughout each... Hmm...

Question for everyone...

Those of you who are/plan to be English majors... what is it that you plan on doing with your degree?

The Bloody Chamber

After finishing the first of Angela Carter's short stories, I'm not sure I like her writing style very much. The plot of the story was very interesting and rather horrific, which held me in suspense. In that sense, I think Carter has some talent for suspenseful writing. However, I noticed that contrary to Mark Haddon's A Curious Incident, Carter uses an excess of adjectives and descriptive words in the telling of her story, and while some people may appreciate this style of writing, I find it highly unnecessary. Her use of similes and metaphors is well done, yet it seems like a lot of overkill.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed the story itself. It had my heart racing at some points, which takes some skill. The highly descriptive way in which Carter describes the torture chamber is rather disturbing in a wonderfully chilling way. Carter clearly has a skill for horror writing, however verbose her style may be.

Short ... story?

The woman knew the risk, and she savored on the knowledge that the risk was soon approaching. The woman’s hunger was unquenchable; she covered her mouth as to stop her salivating. She had delicate hands, with frail thin fingers and beautifully rounded nails. Pale as bone her skin, as if the sun was too humble to touch her bare skin. A footstep is heard. The woman bows now, a courtesy, saliva escapes between her teeth, the translucent liquid splashes to the ground. The woman gasps, and gurgles as she tries to apologize, her pale small face suddenly covered by apple red embarrassment. She stops her eager shaking; she grasps her host to apologize. The host merely smiles and lifts her bowed head, and looks into her eyes. He whispers gently into her hears, and the woman… the girl couldn’t help but shake again, for joy overcame her. She replies, “I am yours.” The host nods and smiles, its smile ever burned into the woman-child’s mind; it was salvation.

note: I know it sounds dirty.. kinda... but I had in mind a more mystical setting when I was writing it...

Poem..

Tinkling shards

A tearful cry

Far reaching hands

Cradling soft tearful hands

A thousand shards, sound resonates

Crashing below

the broken sigh

Tis a wonder

The sound echoed

Almost soft

to bend one's ear

to twitch his nose

a careful melody

ascending lullaby

descending tears

oh

tis a wonder

the crystals shone.

Twelfth Night, the play.

It is kind of late to really say anything about it, but here comes my review from recollection.

I have never watched a Shakespearean comedy before, and I am grateful that it was Twelfth Night that allowed me to explore the writer's creativity in his plays. The first thing I had noticed when watching the first few scenes was that it was related to a movie I had watched before, allowing me to understand the play's overall plot in a less confusing manner. I laughed alot.
The point when one of the people on stage stated that it was the mystical land of Illyria, I thought it was a pretty cheap way of creating a world where a culture can be very alien- thus allowing the writer to create whatever he wanted... I was wrong. Illyria becomes a setting in which all these different characters are able to express the power of the play freely. We can relate, we can see the total ridiculousness of the whole story, but we can relate. The question of love, perception and the defining qualities of genders becomes a blur in the play- thus allowing us to enjoy a perfectly weird play without really being offended somewhat (unless you were French). I personally loved the Fool, who played with words with a quick silver-tongue, and did not hesitate to take sides on both sides of ambiguity; he knew love, but he did not know it- he knew what was happening, but yet he did not really acknowledge it.
The play left me with a good mood and a postive view on everything, it was a good way to spend a night and I'm eager to catch more plays if possible in the future.

The Bloody Chamber

Carter's first story, 'The Bloody Chamber' was an interpretation of the original 'Blue-beard' tale. The original tale talks about the antagonist as a man who was characterized by his blue beard, and people avoided him because all the women he married never came back out again. So after his newest victim, he goes out into the town and tries to take in one of the two sisters of a lowly house to be his bride, and the younger one reluctantly agrees and goes to the castle as his new bride. The bride discovers the bloody chamber, the key is dropped, the stain doesn't dissapear, 'Blue-beard' finds out and swears to kill the bride, the bride goes onto the highest tower, locks herself in and calls for help, blue beard breaks down door with sword and when he's about to kill the woman the woman's two brothers come in and save the day and all the money gets passed to the woman and they live happily ever after.

uh huh


It's not the best tale, and it has a sour-note to reading it (as does most tales in the past), it's as if the writers wanted other authors to create their own version of the fairy tale.

I am a personal fan of authors who can twist old legends, fairy-tales and myths into a world that has these character's evolved into a fully fledged human being with emotions. Carter, Instead of putting us at a distance and letting us read the story with a very shallow perspective, allows us to see through the perspective of these characters. Being able to feel the bride's almost desperate state of confusion between the loyalty to her husband and with her own instincts, the horror of discovering the corpses of the husband's previous wives; it all comes alive with much more poignancy and I loved that. Being able to put in character's or shift character's to create a symbolism of the feminant and the realistic, but preserving the mystic with the blood-stained key... I could go on about it, but all I can say is that Carter's work was a very fun read.

Fun reading vs. 'Serious' reading

The first English book that I read that was over a hundred pages was a fantasy book called, "Dragon Lance". It was a series type book with several different stories that intertwined and created a very enjoyable read. Ofcourse, that was then. Being the first book that I read seriously, I was hooked onto the fantasy genre for a long time- I read series that ranged from the more dark and serious (Dragon Lance was abit dark, and other fantasy that tend to kill off its protagonists more than giving them a good ending was considered dark to me, especially the 'Assassin's Disciple' series) to the more lighter fantasies (Pratchett's discworld is a brilliant example).
The first English literature book was probably a Tom Sawyer book, ofcourse back then I really had no desire to finish the book and mostly skimmed across the content with little interest. The first literature that I really took interest in reading was Amy Tan's "Joy Luck Club", which I read quite late into my middle school years, it was THE book that inspired me to discover the depth as which these books that are considered 'literature' went. I proceeded to read "Catcher in the Rye", "The Great Expectation", "Death of a Salesman", and so on.

The fundamental difference between a 'pick-up' book and a literature is length, the immersion factor, and the depth.

'Pick-up' books are easy reads, it's ability to quickly immerse you into the character's world and deliver a quick punch into a world totally alien or relatable, is very very fun. You do not need to decipher the author's intention or message in these books, there probably is a scarce amount of it- if not any (with exceptions). The length of these books can also vary greatly: we can pick up a book that has only one book in the total 'series', or it could be spread out into several books that can expand generations of the characters within the story (even Narnia books do this).

'Serious reading' is abrupt and sometimes it's a cold shoe that you have to step into. The characters can be stale, or perhaps too realistic, and it destroys the 'fun', at least for me, in reading. But it does something more brilliant than the generic plot-device existent in alot of lighter reads. For example, I dreaded reading "Madame Bovary". I hated the characters: the woman was a dream-chasing lady in 'distress' who couldn't look at what was given to her, the main 'man' was a coward who was ignorant to his wife's dredge and lived in an illusion of a perfect life. But int the end... It works! Although it was a terrible feeling, I could relate to Madame Bovary's fantasy-filled world where she day-dreamt more than pursueing what was more realistic, I can relate to Charles Bovary's cowardice to accept reality, and the author had a very clever use of shifting perspective that brought all these different characters into reality.

Fun reading, serious reading... who cares? Drop books that are supposed to be 'fun' if they don't fit with you, read the 'serious' literatures with a pencil in hand and try to interpret the messages the author writes down. I personally love both types, although sometimes biased against some books, I still acknowledge the power each writing possesses.

-Yoon

Bethany, Bryden, and Kristen's Presentation

Today's presentation regarding Deconstruction and Postmodernism was very interesting and beneficial because it clearly explained the concepts of postmodernism and deconstruction in literature. Their presentation especially gave me a better understanding of postmodernism, and helped me to see that more often than not, I participate in what can be considered postmodernism. I form my own beliefs about a story according to what I have experienced or what I believe, and sometimes that does go against whatever the author may have intended. I like that they ended with the Hansel and Gretel story. It pulled everything learned from the presentation together, and you could see deconstruction and postmodernism pulled together before your very eyes. I enjoyed their presentation.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

This is a VERY fun book to read. Christopher tells the story well, giving details so that the reader can have their own interpretation of what is going on. He states his opinion, but he also realizes that everyone does not think the same way he does. He is determine to find out what happened to Wellington, but along the way he discovers a lot of information that he had no clue about, such as his mother's affair with Mr. Shears (I also find it intriguing that he does not use periods after prefixes such as Mr). In his search for the person who murdered Wellington, he finds out a lot about his own life along the way. While I do not blame his father for some of his actions, there are some actions that he must take responsibility for, like killing Wellington. I'm not sure if I'm too fond of him keeping Christopher from his mother either. That is not fair to Christopher. Otherwise, good read!

Twelfth Night

So, after seeing Twelfth Night, I found that it was much easier to read the play after seeing it first. Yes, the first two scenes are switched, but other than that knowing what happened in the play made the book much easier to follow, especially with all the Shakespearian language. The play was fun and lively, and remembering how fun and lively the play was probably helped me to get a better grasp on the actual text. It was a fun play and a fun story, and the play can definitely be done well if you have creative individuals to star in it.

The Curious Incident

So. I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. And let me just say, that is a phenomenal book. I really enjoyed it, largely in part to the fact that I've never read anything like it before, and I'm always down for some innovative writing. In class today we discussed what Christopher's idea of a "proper novel" is. And while he doesn't specifically talk about it, I noticed some other things about the book compared to "proper novels". I suppose it is implied that "proper novels" are supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In this sense, The Curious Incident could be considered proper. While Christopher himself does not seem to notice the various segments of his story (beginning, middle, climax, resolution, etc.) as they are happening, or even afterwords, they are definitely identifiable to the reader. Christopher writes what he does and sees happening around him. Yet he does not divide up his story or describe the events that happen in ways which suggest that they are meant to be the beginning, middle, end, etc. In this way, the readers are not told what happens, but rather they are shown. I don't mean this in the typical way that writers show readers, for example using large quantities of descriptive words and lots of metaphors and wordplay and such. Rather, while Christopher is literally telling us what is happening around him, he does not tell us or even imply that these events are part of something bigger, because he cannot notice this. Thus, we can infer our own meanings from the story by being shown what happens.

This is probably very confusing but it was on my mind a lot while reading this... =]

Caskets at Walmart?

Thought the fact that Walmart is now selling caskets online sounds like it comes directly from White Noise.

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_constraint=0&ic=48_0&search_query=caskets&Find.x=0&Find.y=0&Find=Find

Listen to White Noise

Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on "white noise." There is a ten-second clip where you can hear it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise

A Link to an Old Review of White Noise

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,956269-1,00.html

White Noise

This week's reading, White Noise, is very interesting because the author uses simple and nonchalant language all the while being very descriptive. The author is also random; there are different spurts of random information everywhere. I like how the author wrote the text; I like that he wrote from the viewpoint of a man who seems nonchalant about life. I believe that this is the best text that we have read in the class so far.

The Galloping Cat

The first poem I first chose to explicate was Smith's "The Galloping Cat." The audience gets a feel for the enormous respect the writer has for cats. In using the adjective 'galloping' to describe a cat, one imagines a animal that is regal, fearless, and purposeful.

The cat uses contemporary language by calling his assailant an ass and in using words like 'orf' and 'cuff.' 'Cuff' is a British verb, which means to pummel or wallop. 'Orf' is a British word for a sore mouth, but there seems to be some play between the words 'orf' and 'off' in the poem. The poet also adds levity to the piece by having the cat slip on a banana peel, which slows him down enough that he is harmed by a person.

In the poem, the cat dies and can be found among the angels. It's a beautiful sentiment. I understand from this work that applying an description to one animal or item, that is generally applied to another, provides a fresh perspective for the audience.

I really enjoyed this work, but I ended up writing a paper on a different Stevie Smith poem.



The Galloping Cat

Oh I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
One day when I was
Galloping about doing good, I saw
A figure in the path; I said
Get off! (Be-
cause
I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good)
But he did not move, instead
He raised his hand as if
To land me a cuff
So I made to dodge so as to
Prevent him bringing it orf,
Un-for-tune-ately I slid
On a banana skin
Some Ass had left instead
Of putting in the bin. So
His hand caught me on the cheek
I tried
To lay his arm open from wrist to elbow
With my sharp teeth
Because I am
A cat that likes to gallop about doing good.
Would you believe it?
He wasn’t there
My teeth met nothing but air,
But a Voice said: Poor Cat,
(Meaning me) and a soft stroke
Came on me head
Since when
I have been bald.
I regard myself as
A martyr to doing good
Also I heard a swoosh
As of wings, and saw
A halo shining at the height of
Mrs Gubbins’s backyard fence,
So I thought: What’s the good
Of galloping about doing good
When angels stand in the path
And do not do as they should
Such as having an arm to be bitten off
All the same I
Intend to go on being
A cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
Now with my bald head I go,
Chopping the untidy flowers down, to
and fro,
An’ scooping up the grass to show
Underneath
The cinder path of wrath
Ha ha ha ha, ho,
Angels aren’t the only ones who do
not know
What’s what and that
Galloping about doing good
Is a full time job
That needs
An experienced eye of earthly
Sharpness, worth I dare say
(if you’ll forgive a personal note)
A good deal more
Than all that skyey stuff
Of angels that make so bold as
To pity a cat like me that
Gallops about doing good.

-Stevie Smith

alternative poem choice.

Before deciding on "i like my body when it is with your" by e.e. cummings for my close reading essay, I planned on writing about "Pioneers! O Pioneers" by Walt Whitman. Here's a quick excerpt from the first five stanzas:

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Found Poem. At last.

Now that I can finally post on our blog...here is my found poem. It was composed from one of those "Cover your Cough" posters with the fun little stick figure drawings. However, it became kind of morbid when I separated the words. I tried to be like MacLeish and go with "word tensions" but it was harder than I expected. I am no Archibald.

Cover your cough

and with your surgical hands

help us to smear

what’s left of this Antibiotic waste

into the minds

of those who await, whom desperation has made careless.

And for those who await,

with their dirty white mouths

and eyes bleached clean

laying down to a collaborative project of disease;

a Resistance of lies.

Gagging in disinfected hallways

and choking behind masks,

covering the smell of disgust,

of contamination

from those who await and have waited,

only to be thrown out.

Revised Poem Stanza: The Southern Scourge by Julia A. Moore

Original Stanza:
Some people in delirium,
Have wandered from their home;
Have wandered to a vacant house,
And there have died alone,
With no kind friend to care for them,
Or close their dying eyes.
Oh God! In horrid misery
Hundreds of people died.

HORRIBLE right?

Now, on to the new and improved stanza....
Some people in delirium,
Have wandered from their home;
They've found themselves a vacant home,
A final resting place to die alone,
With no friends or family to sit with them as they depart,
Or close their eyes eerily open wide.
As families watched miserably,
Hundreds of people died.

-Tiarra, Peter, Yoon

The Tay Bridge Revision

McGonagall's Stanza

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seemed to frown,
And the Demon of the air sem'd to say--
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."


Revised Stanza:

A moon that blotted out the blood red sun,
A wind that mangled and twisted itself within the trees,
A rain that battered down all the dared to stand,
Accompanied a thunderhead, as messengers of catastrophe.
Then a stealthy menance that screeched to all,
"Tonight the Bridge of Tay will fall."


--Bethany S., Danyel, Jocelyn

Editing Bad Poetry

Julia A. Moore’s version:

On that pleasant evening, the moon shone clear and bright,
And every heart among the crowd was filled with great delight.
It was a merry party, for lady Dell was there
Her merry laugh above the rest was heard by all, so fair.

Our version:

The moon beamed through the evening air
Illuminating the impatience
Of every heart longing for lady Dell.
A single laugh sounded above the rest.

-- Bethany W., Bryden, Kristen, Maura

Found Poem

Die Young, Stay Pretty

Cinematheque cinema talk

Killed the cinephiles,

and then reanimated, restructured

Newly restored the illustrious

Nature, scale, and scope.

$9.99 matinee premiere

Through the rear door of

the Room.

An independent renegade

Silent running to a city

Of Sadness.... And God

Created women or et dieu

Créa la femme died young,

Stayed pretty.

Programs subject to change.

All the words I used were found. I wasn't sure if we could use other words, but this is what I got out of it.

A New Begining

This world of enchantment brings smiles to many

Friends and family joined by the most everlasting of love.

Bound like chains, vows simply unbreakable, undeniable.

Lush flowers of all hues cluster all around

Purity and change emerge from the senses of violets and hydrangeas

While childlike excitement fills those who wait in anxiousness

For the exquisite bride to awaken in her elegant and stunning attire.

Watchful eyes stare as her beauty erupts leaving her lover speechless at the end of their path

She floats to the crowd like a new found spirit shining for all to see

Her stunning attraction brings all to gaze in amazement.

Old emotions are rekindled with a new exotic sense of adventure

Two hearts thrive, ready to embark on this journey of wonder and renewal.

*** bold words are found in pamphlet

Found Poem

High above my head I See

That bright Star who is my Queen.

She Winks and Smiles at me all night

And she is the one who warms my Heart.

but soon I learn, when I am all alone,

That she is truly made of Ice and Stone.

For with the morning comes a bitter End.

She has Vanished. To me she is Dead.

The bold words are the words I found in a pamphlet.

Found Poem

Life in the Universe

Life,
Coming soon to a planet near you.
Living things moving,
Surrounding each object,
Helping it to grow and prosper.

Brightly glowing embers
Shine all above,
Bringing joy and life to each planet.
It's inhabitants can always look up,
and be presented with something divine.

Life in the Universe,
what more could one ask?
With beauty and life that's sure to arrive,
Who has the whole world to treat as its flourishing beehive.

Plants and animals sprout like little babies grown old,
The inhabitants of each planet look at and smell the plants that grow.
Up, up, up, and away they go,
Growing until they can no longer grow.

Life in the Universe,
What a sight to see,
Full of all types of prosperous life,
What a beautiful sight to see.

-Tiarra Thomas
9/16/09

Found poem

THE QUEEN

They remember
the Queen of dreams
on her shoulders
a giant
a crystal
a beauty
her odd works
her truth
so numerous
exhiliarating to witness
a god amongst gods
magic and miracle
millions remember
the Queen of dreams
intellectuals envied
nations battled
in her name
th best of the best
her elliptical presence
they remember
the Queen of dreams
horrific her rueful work
impassioned with blood
deteremined to rule
her nation a graveyard
we remember
the Queen of dreams
we escape
the sandman's magic
survive the dream
her grim wild dreams
we remember
the Queen of dreams

Found Poem

A Minority Affair (Folk Music is Alive and Well)

Or is it?

Monotonous, backward, old-fashioned –

A blond boy in knickers

Shouting from the hilltops.

Echoing.

“Ewigi Liebi.” And no amount of

Telegenic yodeling or

Hip hop fiddling is going to change it.

It echoes still.

Today, tomorrow – Yodeling is enjoying

A pop revival. It is

Flinging itself into the cool Swiss air,

Over the hilltops,

No longer echoing.

It is prized by

Connoisseurs and aficionados.

Banished by the radio.

It is gone.

And rightly so, since that allows it to

Preserve its craggy authenticity

Instead of whoring

After fickle

Popular taste.

--Maura Roth

Poetry Submission:

The Mythical Trickster

Clever, immortal fool,
Using cunning to deceive the righteous.
Freed from Social and Moral restraints,
always the Duper, never the Duped.
Sacred and Profane, Creator and Destroyer,
Rules by Appetites and Passions.
Across time and space, using unprincipled
wit to make the wiser seem lesser.
Be gone false idol!

[the bolded words and phrases were taken from my found advertisement, a poster for Religion 312.]

Poetry Submission

A Matter of Time

Is it really
On our side?
Just when it seems,
I've got some to kill,
I am surprised to realize
That I have been its slave
And it is slowly killing me.
Fortunate are we that
In quantities large enough
It heals all wounds.
So why
Can't I
Turn it back?
If I could
Take a little
Of it,
To figure out
How to stop it
In its tracks...

I don't believe it!
Times up.

Jamaica Kincaid At CWRU

Jamaica Kincaid, author of My Garden (Book) and Autobiography of My Mother, will give the annual Anisfield-Wolf/SAGES Lecture at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 22, in Amasa Stone Chapel. The free, public event is presented by the humanities center, the Cleveland Public Library and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Online registration is encouraged. To register, go to this page http://artsci.case.edu/bakernord/ and find the posting under upcoming events.

Your Manifesto?

As we discussed last week, "poetry" can mean a lot of things to different people. Wordsworth, Wilde, Marinetti, and MacLeish all had different views about what poetry is and what its purpose should be. Now that you have the beginnings of a manifesto from the group activity, I would like for you to create your own manifesto about how you define what poetry is. Keep in mind the three categories we used to discuss the other manifestos: author, reader, and text. Try to develop at least one idea for each of those categories. Hope you had a great weekend!

Welcome to the Blog for ENGL 200 at Case Western Reserve University!

This course introduces students to the reading of literature in the English language and is intended to give English majors the skills necessary to succeed in more advanced literature courses and those students in other disciplines an additional critical consciousness crucial to any major. These include familiarity with literary terms and concepts; close reading skills; awareness of the sorts of questions raised by literary texts and addressed by literary scholars; and practice writing literary analysis papers that defend an arguable thesis based on a close reading of texts. In our discussions, we will focus on defining three genres of writing: poetry, prose fiction, and drama. Additionally, we will examine several examples that challenge prevailing definitions of these three genres. Finally, the course is intended to enhance students’ ability to appreciate and enjoy literature. In our pursuit of these objectives, we will ask ourselves some of the most basic (yet most complicated) questions about literature: What is the role of an author, and what is the role of a reader? How does a reader’s interaction with a text change among different genres? How do we make meaning when we read? Why should we study literature critically?