Reading Notes

Sometimes, I will read any style if the subject is what I want.

Or, I will read any subject if the style is what I want.

Best practices, right?

Story-Board

Layering Instruction: Text Selection

ENGLISH 1A: Non-Fiction Reading and Writing
Fall 2020 Readings/Viewings:

All of the texts feature models of effective writing and present learning as a key theme. As the students are reading about rowing solo across an ocean or about octopuses and shellfish navigation, they are also reading about learning. Resilience (through preparation and practice) is another underlying theme. Four layers of instruction through text selection.

And I haven't started talking yet.

Martin Wells, Civilization and the Limpet

Tori Murden McClure, A Pearl in the Storm

Tim Severin, The Brendan Voyage

Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival

Films: Heart of the Sea and Fish People

and a collection of short essays on related topics.

Eye, Aye: A Medley

Rough Drafts For Laughs

Wailing mermaid: rough draft / clay play.

Elemental Visions: The Druid Meets The Sea

Lady of the Marsh

 Venus, A Study: sculpture mix; celadon or light jade, transparent brown, and floating blue glazing.

Art class exercise from a few years back: 40 minute session with model.  Practicing, both sculpting and glazing.  I look at her, and I think of what I have learned, what I can learn.

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?

Face Time: Wet Clay

Practice session. 

Practice Session: "A Hazy Vision"

A HAZY VISION

Foot, bare; hand, inked;
Tongue, Latin and Greek;
Books, piled; treasure, child;
Fountain, Irish; wishes, so fair;
Song, sublime; wildness, rhymed --

Her measure, untapped;
And the course, unmapped.

--MD


An exercise in verse; an exercise in vision.
Composed/posted 12/23/12;
Revised 1/10/13.

"Hail Muse, Etc.": Poems as Prompts II

Here are a few of the poems I have in mind for that introduction to how poetry works. Read aloud, of course, and with appropriate emotion and emphasis. (It's a little like karaoke, but better.)

EPIGRAM. Engraved on the Collar of a Dog

Which I Gave to His Royal Highness

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew:

Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?

--Alexander Pope (1737)

(Kew= one of the royal palaces)

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

--Ezra Pound (1916)

YOU FIT INTO ME

you fit into me

like a hook into an eye

a fish hook

an open eye

--Margaret Atwood (1971)

CONQUEROR

Huge leaps. Epic soarings of the head.

He glowed within, without. Born to conquer.

“You look fragile,” she said.

--Brendan Kenneally (1999)

THIS LIVING HAND

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calmed. See here it is—

I hold it towards you.

--John Keats (1820)

MARKS

My husband give me an A

for last night’s supper,

an incomplete for my ironing,

a B plus in bed.

My son says that I am average,

an average mother, but if

I put my mind to it

I could improve.

My daughter believes

in Pass/Fail and tells me

I pass. Wait ‘til they learn

I’m dropping out.

--Linda Pastan (1978)

I'm also considering getting into how poetry works by using and abusing some pieces from various rock & roll songs:

Love is a rose, but you better not pick it;

It only grows when it’s on the vine.

A handful of thorns and you’ll know you've missed it:

Lose your love when you say the word “mine.”

--Neil Young

She calls me baby

She calls everybody baby

It’s a lonely old night

Ain’t they all?

--John Mellencamp

When I said that I was lying I might have been lying.

--Elvis Costello

“What is your destiny?” the policewoman said.

--Elvis Costello

And finally . . .

I light your cigarettes

I bring you apples from the vine

How quickly you forget

I run the bath and pour the wine

I bring you everything that floats into your mind

But you don’t’ bring me anything but down . . . .

--Sheryl Crow

P.S. I'll probably only have 30 minutes to spare for this "introduction," so I'm just going to do what I can with what feels best in the moment. I may start from the last of these pieces and work upwards, emphasizing voice, characters, and the dramatic situations that are unfolding. (And, actually, I have another two or three pages of handouts, just in case I need them. Frankly, I'm hoping to start some conversations that will continue beyond the official meetings . . . . Oh, and do apples even grow on vines? Sheryl Crow, c'mon. A favorite mistake? I enjoy your music, but how can I believe the speaker of "Anything But Down"?)

A Favorite View

Looking from the water toward the land.

Can you see the edge of the wave, the crest, that's just passed me heading for the shore? I've ridden the elevator up for the view.

You can see the wave beginnning to break there to the right. I don't recall if any of the three or four surfers out there caught this one or not.

The swell action: another reason to get in the water. Good exercise; good fun.

Good practice for rough water entries up north or anywhere, frankly. Abalone diving at Salt Point and Kruse Ranch gave me the taste for lively water. On this day, for the practice, I entered the water from the rocky little beach on the west side of Lover's Point; the waves were breaking at the foot of the steps from the parking lot (for those who know the spot). I waited for a lull, shuffled sideways down the speck of beach with my fins on, and dove into the water, swimming strongly to avoid the next set of waves. Then, I swam just beyond and amongst the rocks on that west side, playing with the surge.

Playing cautiously with the surge, I'll note. I was free diving solo, something I've been doing for about 15 years, and the swell was quite strong. A lot of energy out there, which is why I was out there too. Not to be a hero, not to be a fool, but to be a diver, to dive and swim with all that liveliness, the shove and lift of these waves. Then, I swam around to the east, staying well off the rocks, for the most part, and looking for the surfers riding the break on the point itself. (I stay out of their way, of course.) I spent some time watching the surfers, noting where and when they were taking off, thinking about how to take good photos without getting hammered on the rocks below. I left that venture for another day and continued swimming and diving.

The visibility was generally poor, of course, with all that churning, but it was still fun to explore underwater, searching for fish and other creatures. I swam further around to check the exits on the two beaches there. Despite the waves hitting the breakwater itself, there was an exit waiting for me--I'd checked before getting in--on the easternmost beach, the one by the kayak and board rental booth. Somewhat surprisingly, children were even playing in the shelter of the breakwater; I hope their parents or older siblings were at hand.

If that exit hadn't been waiting? If the swell had shifted so that waves were hammering that beach?

I would still have options. I could swim back around to the west and exit at my original entry point. For, if the swell had shifted to hit the beach behind the breakwater, then the speck of beach by the steps would be fairly calm, sheltered from the swell by the point itself.

Or, I could wait for a lull. Watch for a rhythm in the waves coming in, time the sets, and bet on picking a good break between sets. Just like picking waves to surf, but switching the last move to catch the lull instead of the lift.

In the worst case, no lulls and a building swell, I'd pick my wave and head for the soft landing of the sandy beach. (Up north on the Sonoma Coast, while abalone diving, sandy landings are a luxury or merely a myth.) Here, in that worst case, I'd pick my wave, power into it, ride it in, and then try my hardest to pull back into the wave itself, away from the breaking lip, to wash up on the sand with the back of the wave. However I hit the sand, with the lip or the back, I'd then crawl as quickly as possible away from the breaking surf and up onto the dry sand. I wouldn't be stopping to take off my fins or my mask until well beyond the water's reach.

But that's all basic training for diving, right? If you enter the water, have plans for getting out. And practice in different conditions, not merely on the calmest of days.

Scuba divers, if you practice without the tanks, you enjoy the glory of free diving and you'll be that much better navigating amongst rocks and surge even with your tanks. Then, practice with the tanks on too, for those times when the conditions turn a lot rougher than you anticipated. (Or, practice for those rougher days when you'll leave the tanks in the trunk and still get wet.)

But free dive first, and then again. Free dive.