What's-the-Story?

Story: characters in action in a setting through time.

That's how I process everything.

Give me a poem, any poem, and I look for the story in the lines, behind the lines, and/or after the lines. Give me a photo, and where some see a static tablieau, I see dynamism, before-and-after, presence-and-absence. Give me a problem, personal or societal, and I look for the story in the same way.

On the upside, I look for motivation and context and nuance. On the downside, some people think I am wasting my--or their--time with this approach, with my concern for accuracy and understanding of plot, POV, and narrative shading.

I'll be 59 soon, but that mostly means I've had a lot of practice with stories and story-telling; I think I am (still) in tune most of the time. Yet I know I may be wrong in my emphasis in certain circumstances and with certain texts, and that encourages me to be humble, which is always good.

Still, what's the story is my favorite question.

Expressive--of What?

Old clay.

Dear Lord Byron . . . Postscript

Friend:  What was it? Do you know now?

Me:  I wanted to be able to say that I knew what Byron thought and felt and meant in any given moment and any given text, but since I didn't mean to write the next biography all of that did not serve me well. I failed to digest much of what I was consuming and I didn't know how to stop except by teaching other people.

Me:  Though, you know, there were times when I did know. But that was mysticism and not academically allowed.

Friend: Matt, so the obsession was mastery--and you achieved it, just not in the exact way you envisioned.

Me:  Mastery is an illusion, but I once believed in that illusion.

What Nisus Said

Nisus ait: 'dine hunc ardorem mentibus addunt,
Euryale, an sua cuique deus fit dira cupido?'


Nisus said, Do the gods add this heat to the mind,
Euryalus, or does a man's own dire desire become a god to him?

-- Virgil's Aeneid IX, 184-185
(my translation)

What I Have Learned

English 1B: two questions.

How does X serve the story?
And, what does the story serve?

English 1A?
Shift "story" to "argument".

Encouraging Apt Engagement?

When I encounter art of any sort, 
I find myself with these questions: 

What am I feeling now?
What is the piece saying?
What's the story (and backstory)?

[Oh, and how is it made?
--among many, many others.]

Now, my students usually want to start with "What does it mean?"

(A fine, though often
misleading or reductive
question to get to know
something, someone,
anything at all.
Where to begin,
then?)

Artists (and fellow audience-members), 
what responses 
and what responsive questions 
would you encourage 
me to encourage 
in my students?

The Journey

Sculpture mix, unfired.

I am yearning for kelp.

Double Trouble: Recurring Dreams in Tweed (a bit threadbare) and Iron (a bit rusty)

Strange dreams last night: two different recurring threads as I slept and woke, slept and woke, slept and woke, over and over.

The first thread? Classic teaching dream: final exam time, but I've printed out, copied, and distributed the wrong semester's exam to the wrong class. Good students: they tried to answer the questions, tried to grapple with the topics, until someone came forward to point out that they hadn't read this material at all. I try to salvage something from the situation as I return over and over to this situation in the night.

The second thread? Much more heroic, no less anxious: I'm the squad leader of a band of soldiers, garbed in wool and leather and iron, armed with swords or axes, as we move through ruined battlements, a ruined city, at nightfall, seeking some sort of goal, seeking not to be ambushed in the deepening fog and shadow.  Light comes from the moon and from burning buildings.  Smoke chokes the throat, obscuring that moon and those flames.  Something is hunting us, a troop of men? a monster? The anxiety level is high as I struggle, here too, not to make mistakes, struggle to salvage something from the night's foray, even though in the dream I don't quite know, can't quite grasp the things I know I should know, and there is absolutely no one to ask . . . .

"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"?)

Annotations: Bascom, Bentos, Berrill & Berrill

As part of a research project, I have produced an annotated bibliography of 129 nonfiction texts, all associated with aquatic subjects.

Here are three more entries:

Bascom, Willard. The Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography. New York: Anchor, 1990.

Great book. If I had been able to read this book at age twelve, I'd probably be an oceanographer. Bascom has led a vital, varied professional life within that general rubric of oceanographer, and he obviously relishes challenges and learning from challenges. Bascom's narrative lives up to its title, since he was a forerunner in many oceanographic fields. An excellent book to show the advances of technology through the hands-on efforts of actual scientists. I can imagine using excerpts in my English 1A classes along with other essays on practical scientific topics.

P.S. I love the chapter in which Bascom and a fellow scientist use the most modern tool at the time for measuring the ascending depths of the beaches in Washington and Oregon: lead and line. One man drove the amphibious craft from deep water through the surf and up unto the beach, and the other man heaved and retrieved the lead-weighted line, calling out specific depths as they careened through whitewater and onto the sand. Then, Bascom and company hit surf and sand again and yet again. (After such labor, Bascom went on to birth Waves and Beaches, the standard academic text on the subject for many years.)


Bentos, Carlos. A Crew of One: The Odyssey of a Solo Marlin Fisherman. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2002.

Bentos tells a good story, and he has the experience to back it up. Most marlin fishermen work in teams. Bentos does it all--solo. A good book to set beside Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, though Hemingway is still the better writer and tells the better story.


Berrill, N.J., and Jacquelyn Berrill. 1001 Questions Answered About the Seashore. New York: Dover, 1957.

The title tells you all, or pretty much. Some of the material is outdated, but the ambition of this book and the practicality of approaching science through reasonable Q & A predates the Frequently Asked Questions so common, and rightly so, today. I like to browse in this book, and I am planning to offer sections to students to model inquiry, response, and habits of organization.