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