Let's Head for the Land of Poetry . . . .

Annotation From The Back Page

Rereading the last section of David Corbett's The Mercy of the Night helped me to realize -- to remember -- the integrity of the reader and of independent / literary thought -- and how THAT was salvation, was refuge, whatever, in the chaos of my home life while growing up.

You have to --you get to -- you must -- figure it all out for yourself, like everyone else, and those absolutes set you free.

Reading properly sets you free. You have to earn it, but who expects freedom to come cheaply?

--Thoughts on finishing The Mercy of the Night -- 1/5/16

Hurly-Burly: Poetry in Motion

This was a last-day hurly-burly of What-Poetry-Can-Be-And-Do and How-You-Can-Enjoy-The-Ride. Some of the following works were treated fully, but the others received glancing treatment, mere introductions or excerpts or highlighted singular effects: sacrifices on the altars of poetic efficacy and exuberant aesthetic trail-guiding.  Voice and story, voice and story.  What and how, what and how.

Hughes' "Suicide's Note"
        (body of the poem first, then the title revealed);
Auden's "The Shield of Achilles"
        (for we've read The Iliad this term);
Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel" paraphrased to set up
Gluck's "Gretel in Darkness"
       (trauma and serious poetic conversations);
two quotations matched and set
       from Auden's "September 1, 1939"
       and Shelley's "Julian and Maddalo"
             (mere bits in parallel and contradiction);
a foray into Jackie Leven's lyrics
       from "Classic Northern Diversions"
(to read mood even if you don't know what the song is about, to find signs);
close-reading exercises
       with Frost's "Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening"
       and Wyatt's "They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek"
       and Keats' "When I have fears that I may cease to be";
then, Frost's apocalyptic "Fire and Ice";
Spenser's logical/romantic playing with "My Love is Like to Ice, and I to Fire";
Donne's twisty-fun "Woman's Inconstancy";
a quick look at Dante Gabriel Rossetti's artwork to set up
       Christina Rossetti's beautiful and incisive "In An Artist's Studio";
and finally Herrick's playful "Cherry-ripe" -----------

(I had some Elvis Costello one-liners for flavor and effect in my back pocket, but I ended up not having time to use them appropriately and so held back.)

a very full 75-minute class.

Oh, I also quoted with context that venerable bumper sticker "Question Authority" and that mug I saw at Pegasus On Solano with "Birds have wings / Humans have books".

Burton Raffel's How To Read A Poem -- along with a slew of handouts -- was the textbook at hand.

Star Quality

Practical Reading: Poetry in Motion -- McKay, Teasdale, and Wroth

Poetry Study Notes

--1.  Turn to Claude McKay’s “The Tropics in New York”:
What’s the story?
Who are the characters that we get?
What’s the scene, the physical scene?
What happens?  Is there action? Interior or exterior action?
What’s the mood? How can you tell?
What questions do you have about this poem?  Ask me.
There are three stanzas here: what should we notice about that?
How many sentences are there in this poem?
How do the number of sentences relate to the flow of the poem?
What would happen to the poem if we just had the last stanza?
Or, what if we had stanzas 1 & 2, but not 3?
Do you like this poem? Does it work for you?  Why or why not?


--2.  Turn to Sara Teasdale’s “Night Song at Amalfi”:
How does this poem feel different from McKay’s poem?
What or where is “Amalfi”? Do you know? Can you guess? Does it matter?
What’s the story?
Characters? Scene? Action?
What’s the mood? How can you tell?
What questions do you have about this poem? Ask me.
There are three stanzas in this poem: what should we notice about that?
Do the sentences end with each stanza or flow into the next stanza?
What would happen if we changed all the “night” and “dark” references to “day” and “light” references?
What would happen if we changed all the “I” references to “he” or “she” or even “they”?  What about “we”?  How would this be a different poem?

--3.  Turn to Mary Wroth’s  Sonnet # 1 from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus:
What’s the story?
Who are the characters that we get?
Who is the son of Venus?  Who or what is Venus, by the way?
What seems to be motivating Venus?
Or, what's with all the burning ?  What burns? What does this burning mean?
What’s the situation?  The physical scene if we were making a video?
What questions do you have about the poem?  Ask me.
A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, but notice how the units of the poem work:  1-4; 5-8; 9-14.
          How can I tell that these are the units here?
Does it help to read the poem in those units, pausing after each part to check what it seems to mean?  (I hope so.)
What is a “martyr”?  How is the speaker’s heart “martyred”?
What is the tone of the last three lines?  How can we tell?
Is this love, this being a lover a good thing to the speaker?
We have a dream vision in the poem: why use a dream to express what’s going on?