Each ——————- Break is a new assignment!
Ars Poetica
A poem that explains the “art of poetry,” or a meditation on poetry using the form and techniques of a poem. Horace’s Ars Poetica is an early example, and the foundation for the tradition. While Horace writes of the importance of delighting and instructing audiences, modernist ars poetica poets argue that poems should be written for their own sake, as art for the sake of art. Archibald MacLeish’s famous “Ars Poetica” sums up the argument: “A poem should not mean / But be.” See also Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism,” William Wordsworth’s Prelude, and Wallace Stevens’s “Of Modern Poetry.”
Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ars-poetica
The poem focuses on the immigrant experience of leaving one culture and not quite assimilated into another, and presiding is the Patroness of Exiles, as people enter this poem-like deli. (Note the third-person usage and the specific details provided.)
Consider the above definition. How does it apply to Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica”? Why would she title her poem this way?
T.S. Eliot
If modernist poet T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” has you scratching your head and wondering about coffee spoons and ladies who “come and go/Talking of Michelangelo” (Eliot 35-36), let’s try to clear that up. Watch this video by Heather Greene, an instructor in the English Department at Jacksonville State University in Gadsden, Alabama, which gives you a total perspective on this influential poem. “Let us go then, you and I” (Eliot 1) and explore this well-loved poem of the modern age:
Video link: https://youtu.be/anC13fD8sAc
For this assignment, select one message, idea, explanation provided by Greene. Now take that and explain it in a paragraph or so that you would share with a fellow student who might be struggling with this poem.
Consider this:
The frequently anthologized “In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day” (1961) conveys the themes of disappointment and disillusionment, the recognition of both the American dream gone awry and the ravages of time, through the humorous self-portrait of a woman who attempts, with bravado, to assuage the pain of a rough life by bragging about her experiences, dispensing wisdom all the while. The form here acts to solidify the poem’s final adage, the rhyme actually making it memorable as adage, as Kennedy describes the consequence of one’s attempt to subjugate time: “And [you’ll] be left by the roadside for all your good deeds / Two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds.”
Source: Woznicki, John R. “Kennedy, X. J.” Encyclopedia of American Poetry, 2-Volume Set, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2013. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=97333&itemid=WE54&articleId=8281. Accessed 22 Mar. 2020.
Describe what you think is the main social criticism in this poem — the woman’s character (remember, this was published in1961), the American Dream lost, a patriarchal society’s disdain for aging women, or another social issue. Then, find lines from the poem that are associated with your choice. (Choose at least three.)
Sympathy
After reading “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, consider the idea that being trapped creates a greater psychological pain than a physical pain. Please read the attached bio of Dunbar who was one of the first major African American writers. Some critics after his death thought he used too many stereotypes in his characterizations and didn’t fight hard enough against racism in his writings, but in reality, how easy do you think it was for a black man in 1893 to become published, to earn a place in the literary canon? Take a close look at the beautiful language and control in this work. Explain why you think he titled this “Sympathy” and how does Dunbar’s caged bird gain your own sympathy?
Source of attached bio: Werlock, Abby H. P. “Dunbar, Paul Laurence.” Encyclopedia of the American Novel, 3-Volume Set, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2013. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=97333&itemid=WE54&articleId=7621. Accessed 3 Apr. 2020.
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a44a45dbeb24/4157376?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Dunbar%2520Paul%2520Laurence%2520%2528Bloom%2529%2520bio.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200414T020954Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20200414%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=52f2a5c6f60ee7688ce52bcfaa9cac34cd77af8ee47afa4c72bbaee3c7d42cf0
“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
Published in 1981 in Atlantic Monthly, this quickly became a classic of American fiction. It combines the compressed and understated qualities of Minimalism with the lyrical emotionalism of realists such as Sherwood Anderson.
It also portrays in a credible way a positive transformation of character. Initially a man of petty prejudice and small world view, the narrator grows in humanity and understanding as the story develops.
What details in “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver make clear the narrator’s initial attitude towards blind people? What hints does the author give about the reasons for this attitude? At what point in the story do the narrator’s preconceptions about blind people start to change? (Please use examples from the text of the story.)
Note: In her introduction to Carver Country, Carver’s widow, the poet Tess Gallagher, makes it clear that a great many of the details of “Cathedral” were rooted in an actual experience. Carver was uneasy when a blind man Gallagher knew came for a visit, and Carver became jealous of the man’s relationship with her. What is your opinion: Does this matter? Does what happens in an author’s life enhance or interfere with the artistic process? Should we consider this when studying a writer’s work? Why or why not?
Who is Raymond Carver? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/raymond-carver
“Barbie Doll”
Take a second look at the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy. Is this “To every woman a happy ending) (Piercy 25)? Next, examine the attached files. One is a literary criticism piece about the poem, one is a chart (scroll to the bottom of the page) that compares Barbie to a real woman as well as a store mannequin, and the last article is celebrating 60 years of Barbie.
After taking a look at these, answer this question: If you had (or you may have) a young girl or a young niece, would you buy her a Barbie doll? You still may or may not. But now justify your reasoning. (There is no correct answer here. Just a rhetorical question.)
Source for Barbie Doll chart: “By the Numbers: Body Image and Eating Disorders.” Counseling Today, vol. 48, no. 2, Aug. 2005, p. 3. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=oih&AN=17778826&site=eds-live.
Source for 60th anniversary: DELUCA, PATRICIA. “CELEBRATING 60 YEARS OF Barbie.” License! Global, vol. 22, no. 1, Feb. 2019, p. 68. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=134814272&site=eds-live.
What do you think happens at the end of “A Wall of Fire Rising” by Edwidge Danticat? Is Guy’s plunge to the earth a deliberate suicide or an accident? What are some symbolic interpretations of both possibilities?
Source of attached article:
Danticat, Edwidge, and Renée H. Shea. “An interview.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Brigham Narins and Deborah A. Stanley, vol. 94, Gale, 1997. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://link-gale-com.libprox.northampton.edu/apps/doc/H1420002076/LitRC?u=ncc_paul&sid=LitRC&xid=1baa613c. Accessed 6 Feb. 2020. Originally published in Belles Letters: A Review of Books by Women, vol. 10, no. 3, Summer 1995, pp. 12-15.
Many of us feel distance from poetry, but I’d like to change that feeling. Please read the following essay: “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch. ( https://poets.org/text/how-read-poem-0 )
Pick out two elements from the essay that you have learned and explain how you might feel better equipped to tackle a few poems, armed with this knowledge.
Next, use these ideas to discuss the poem: “Introduction to Poetry”
Poem: https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html
Nebraska
Now that you know about spree killer Charles Starkweather and have heard and read the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska,” how does this change the meaning of this lyric for you as a reader? Springsteen’s lyrics are from Starkweather’s point of view. What is your reaction to a pop rock star committing such a horrific piece of history to music?
Also, we’ve been asking the question about literature still mattering in modern life. Does this lyric help or hinder literature’s place in culture? Why or why not?
Link: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/brucespringsteen/nebraska.html
What is your opinion of an author using art, whether it is literature, sculpture, music, dance, etc., to forward his or her personal beliefs? Some artists are blatant about their beliefs and others use more subtle means to achieve this end. What do you think of Flannery O’Connor’s work that isn’t didactic but still has intense religious underpinnings to it?
Consider this discussion about the idea of prison according to Etheridge Knight:
“That Knight means for his prison experiences to serve as a microcosm of the freedomless void that his people are experiencing is made clear in the “Preface” to his anthology Black Voices from Prison:
From the time the first of our fathers were bound and shackled and herded into the dark hold of a “Christian” slaveship—right on up to the present day, the whole experience of the black man in America can be summed up in one word: prison … and it is all too clear that there is a direct relationship between men behind prison walls and men behind myriad walls that permeate society.
While Knight was “inside” prison, he was constantly aware that other Blacks resided in the “larger prison outside.” The “inside” and “outside” prison experiences become interchangeable within the structure of Knight’s poems by means of his concrete references and temporal/spatial movements. These references and movements allow the poet to lead his reader, via the heightened experience of good poetry, to a mythic consciousness in which all space is “the violent space” and all time is eternal. Knight imparts this consciousness, its time and its space, to his people as a unifying force. The human being’s particular way of experiencing time and space is his only way of knowing life itself. It is life for him, it is vital. If this conception of time and space is held in common by a people, they achieve a group identity.”
Source: Hill, Patricia Liggins. “‘The Violent Space’: The Function of the New Black Aesthetic in Etheridge Knight’s Prison Poetry (Excerpt).” Modern and Contemporary African-American Poets and Dramatists, Chelsea House, 2018. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=97333&itemid=WE54&articleId=557356. Accessed 2 Apr. 2020.
Take a second look at “Hard Rock Returns from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” through the eyes of the above discussion. How does it apply to this poem?
For information about Etheridge Knight, visit: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/etheridge-knight
A Pair of Tickets
“A Pair of Tickets” by Amy Tan is a story of self-discovery — born in pain but eventually resolved in joy. Pain unites characters from different countries and decades. The narrator’s still-fresh sorrow at her mother’s death, the mother’s abiding despair at losing her twin daughters on the war-torn road to Chungking, and the daughters’ ache at losing their mother not once, but twice (first as babies in 1944 and then again as adults after they learn their mother is dead) are all caused by the same tragic historical circumstance and its far-reaching consequences. Joy, however, eventually links June with her two half-sisters. Acknowledging what they have lost, they find that much remains.
Read the attached critical essay, and reflect on Tan’s representation of the mother-daughter relationship. Jing-mei says, “My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese” (186). Can you find two examples of this in the text and explain why this revelation is so important to the story?
Source for attached file: Stoeckl, Sarah. “‘A Pair of Tickets.’” Student’s Encyclopedia of Great American Writers, Volume 5, Facts On File, 2010. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=97333&itemid=WE54&articleId=479155. Accessed 6 Feb. 2020.
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a44a45dbeb24/3901870?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Pair%2520of%2520Tickets.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200414T022939Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20200414%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=ebdd50229d8002a7788041673b68f19773f214bd19d7056ff521bbc4212a9406
We Real Cool
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks is considered jazz poetry — a form developed earlier by Langston Hughes — reflecting on an oft-ignored segment of society: young black men whose lives are fueled by limited opportunities. The collective identity of the seven unnamed young men is a mirror of how these young men are seen by society: adolescents who are a collective “other” without their own identity.
Consider this critical approach:
Adding to the pathos of the poem is its jazz style. Instead of using strong rhyming couplets, Brooks improvises: She syncopates the lines by ending on “We,” a move that creates a halting, variable rhythm. The use of strong rhyme and alliteration, the forceful spondaic beat of single-syllable words, and the staccato effect of three-word sentences contrast with the enjambment to evoke psychological nuance. “The ending WEs in ‘We Real Cool’ are tiny, wispy, weakly argumentative ‘Kilroy-is-here’ announcements,” Brooks notes. “Say the ‘We’ softly” (185).
Source: Layng, George W. “‘We Real Cool.’” Encyclopedia of American Poetry, 2-Volume Set, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2013. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=97333&itemid=WE54&articleId=9017. Accessed 22 Mar. 2020.
My question to you is this: After this explanation, do you hear the music? Does it help you understand the poem? Why do you think that Brooks decided to use this technique to get her message across to the reader?
In “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, we find two brothers who are opposites and unable to communicate. However, they begin to discover common ground because of the tragedies in their lives. Discuss the relationship of these siblings and how they come to terms with their differences. Please cite a quotation from the text that relates to your discussion.
Next, read the Cain and Abel story below. How is “Sonny’s Blues” a retelling of this biblical story?
Link: http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/4/
What do you think happens at the end of “A Wall of Fire Rising” by Edwidge Danticat? Is Guy’s plunge to the earth a deliberate suicide or an accident? What are some symbolic interpretations of both possibilities?
Source of attached article:
Danticat, Edwidge, and Renée H. Shea. “An interview.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Brigham Narins and Deborah A. Stanley, vol. 94, Gale, 1997. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://link-gale-com.libprox.northampton.edu/apps/doc/H1420002076/LitRC?u=ncc_paul&sid=LitRC&xid=1baa613c. Accessed 6 Feb. 2020. Originally published in Belles Letters: A Review of Books by Women, vol. 10, no. 3, Summer 1995, pp. 12-15.
Link: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a44a45dbeb24/3901896?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27An_interview.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200414T023326Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20200414%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=6f201718d59cc7e9ebdf92f4fb6006f677c911e38bec7344d3cc2d6f7141a468
There are more! Message me if you want me to include them!