Some Things Are Just Easier to Appreciate

Before I took this class, it was in my mind to start reading and stop watching so much TV. Of course that thought didn't stick long, because I just got cable for the first time. Seriously, I think a lot of people would like to pick up a good book, or read some poetry and be able to like it. For a minority of people, reading complex works of art is a cinch. For me, and most others, it's work. Not only does it take work, but it takes concentration. Multitasking while reading is out of the question. After going through the introductory process of learning to read and appreciate “difficult” material, I am more willing to drop my multitasking ways for an hour or so and just enjoy the process of reading. I didn't so much learn to appreciate literature, as I learned how to appreciate literature.

Over the course of the quarter we were required to write blog posts making connections between what we were learning in class and our lives. The first blog post was a great chance for me to vent, “In this blog I will be analyzing, in great detail, the less than epic story of my on-campus parking ticket. I will show, through several different criticism styles, that the story, "Ticket" is underdeveloped, ill-researched, overly concise, trite and lacking depth or explanation“. I enjoyed being able to bemoan my hapless state while reviewing the different criticism styles. At the time I was not aware how valuable learning the criticism styles would be, but looking back, I see how I was starting to read stories and poems through a much broader lens.

After learning about critical reading, “close” reading was introduced. I think for me, that was the most profound thing I learned in the class and maybe in my whole college career so far. I am an index junky (the second most profound thing I learned in college). I do not enjoy tangents, speeches, or meandering sidewalks. I like to get to the point. Close reading is very much the opposite of that. Through close reading (and I'm still not quite adept at it), I've learned how to stop and grapple with text that is confusing or strange. Instead of just reading on and either figuring it out down the road or just dropping it altogether as superfluous fill, I'm learning to stick it out and let my brain work on it a while before moving on.

That skill is especially helpful with literature that doesn't exactly have a black and white “point”. Like the short story “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” by Leslie Marmon Silko. The story didn't have much of a beginning or ending. It was like being transported into somebody else's life and then getting transported back out. There was a series of events, but so much was unknown. The closer I read the story, the more I appreciated it. In my second blog post I wrote, “I can identify with the Priest in the story. He not only had to adjust to a different culture, he had to try to relate and make relationships. Silko did a good job pulling me into the Priest's discomfort and disconnect”. The story didn't give me direction, or tell me what to think. It just was. Close reading gave me tools to enjoy the story and make relevant connections. Even if there aren't relevant connections to my own life, with close reading, I can still dig in and get a deeper meaning from all sorts of literature.

My favorite blog was “Borosody, it's a play on words”. I had a ball writing that, because I was amazed that I could intelligently read poetry. Honestly, while the instructor was talking about poetry, I was writing in my notes, “why would anyone want to waste their time on this?”(10/22) As he picked apart the poem, I thought that it was the driest, most tedious thing I had yet been subjected to in college. I hated all the technical terms ascribed to a few pitiful lines of prose. I couldn't believe all the bother over it. The idea of marveling at poetry was getting on my nerves. By the time we got to “rhythm and versification” and the word “prosody” I was ready to put an ice pick through my mind's eye. My frustration reached its peak when of all the poems in chapter 14, the instructor chose to focus on “The Red Wheelbarrow”, an eight line, 16 word, puny little poem. But then, something clicked. As the instructor was making his connections, I found myself making some of my own. As he deftly worked his way through the little poem, I couldn't help but appreciate it. Now, I don't really believe that all poems are as cleaver as we make them out to be. I have my doubts that authors are conscious of creating of even half of the word play we dig out of their poems, but I do find it incredible how much can be unpacked out of a few succinct lines of prose.


A perfect example is Lynette's blog post. When I was looking at blog posts to comment on, I came across a poem that she had written in back in the day when she was a teenager. It was in memory of her dog that had died. The last stanza read, “Alone together we will stand/ Carrying on with our heritage brand/ Here we rome and always free/ My little lovable pup and me!”. I commented, “..that is a special poem. It fits with the quote from Shikibu Murasaki "...that it seems so important they cannot bear to let it pass into oblivion"”. Lynette's blog post got several comments and it all stemmed from a tiny little poem by Robert Frost, “The old dog, barks backward without getting up,/ I can remember when he was a pup.”(44)


While it's doubtful that I will devote my life to the study of poetry, I am happy to be able to read a poem and enjoy nuances that previously were invisible to me. As I wrote in my “Borosody” blog post, “Poems are not just filled with a jumbled mess of random words, there is design, order, meaning, meanings and intelligence. After dissecting a few, my brain and eyes have found a new connection. I now find myself looking out at the poetry all around me. I even found the freedom to enjoy poetry that lacks rhyming and balanced rhythms! It's amazing how much more I enjoy the outside now that I've seen the inside”.


Being able to appreciate poetry is one thing. Being able to appreciate Shakespeare's poetry, is an altogether different animal. Talk about “making language strange”. Shakespeare wasn't content with just messing around with meter, verse, punctuation and the order of sentences, he made up words! I did not for a second enjoy reading Hamlet in it's entirety. The only reason I did more than gloss over it was because we had to take quizzes on the subject. Writing a blog about Hamlet was very difficult. I thought it would be fun to try to write my blog in iambic pentameter and end it with a rhyming couplet. The rhyming couplet was easy. Writing in iambic pentameter was far from easy. My iambic pentameter was rough and awkward. When I went back later to re-read parts of Hamlet for my essay, I saw how skillfully he wrote in that meter. He could pour over into the next line with ease. My lines were mostly one sentence. It was very hard to pour a sentence over to the next line and still hold on to the meter. That is how we learn to appreciate other people, when we take some steps in their shoes. One thing I've learned in life; if someone does something that looks so easy it seems like anyone can do it, it's probably an incredibly difficult thing to do. Shakespeare's work is just like that. He plays with words and ideas with such dexterity and in so cavalier a manner, that it at first glance, it doesn't really look like anything. After reading and re-reading, however, it becomes apparent that there is an unbelievable amount of mastery behind it.


While learning how to appreciate literature, I realized that it is the key to being a good writer. One of my best friends is an avid reader. He reads about anything and everything. He's one of the few people who don't need a college class to force him to struggle through difficult text. He is also an amazing (unpublished) writer. I now know that one of the things that makes him such a good writer is the fact that he is so well read. Even though I now get nearly one hundred channels of informative, entertaining and brain numbing TV, I'm looking forward to reading more often. I have a feeling that without the instructor walking me through every line, I will struggle a bit more than I'd care to, but that's okay. Now I know how to struggle through it. With the new found reading skills I've acquired, I think I'll take a cue from my buddy and become a better writer by being a better reader.

Works Cited

Barnet, Sylvan, et al., eds Literature for Composition, 7th ed. New York: Longman, 2005

Znetko, Robin English 111 Notes

Life Without A Man
http://dazedartist-lifewithoutaman.blogspot.com/

Robin Z
http://robinzn.blogspot.com/

Never forget the classics!

Hair's the Rub

Today I was thinking about a conversation I had with a coworker a couple weeks ago. (Ha Ha, that word looks like “Cow worker”) I work at a church that is trying to incorporate a more “modern” feel into its worship service. This is not my first ride on the “make church more relevant” train.... rollercoaster.... thingy. It's a slippery slope taking beloved hymns and strapping electric guitars and drumsets to them. I've experienced a wide range of reactions to “modernized” hymns. A particular reaction popped into my head when I checked out the movie “Hamlet” today. I choose a “modernized” version and as I stared at the shiny hollywood cover, that overused protest, which comes when the tradition bucket gets upsot, shrieked in my head, “The author is rolling over in his grave”.

The conversation I had with my coworker (who's a youth leader and has no personal affiliations with cows .... that I know of... I mean, he could, of course, own cows. It's not like I have a problem with that. Cow people rule. Totally. ... ... it's just that I don't believe he has any bovine connections). So, this guy I work with and I were talking about people's reactions to having their hymns messed with. We were in agreement that there's a very good chance that the authors would be delighted that their words are still relevant and that people still care about things they wrote hundreds of years ago. As an aspiring writer, I think it would be an honor to have some futuristic band with cool hair and shiny outfits attempt to work through my words using their personal art form. Of course, the downside is that some creepy group could get a hold of my work, mess it up royally and from that point on, my brilliant work of art will be soiled by its connection to those goof-balls.

This subject is a timely one for me personally. There are positive and negative sides to taking something that was written hundreds of years ago and inserting it into the current culture of our times. I'm not sure what my thesis will be, but it probably will have little to do with cows and more about the pros and cons of converting old prose. So now, I don my multicolored headband, turn up my “Hair” album, and settle into my thinking chair with the hope that a workable thesis will soon be forthcoming.

To Post or Not to Post

To learn Shakespeare is just like pulling teeth

It takes much time and even more patience.

I'd rather use those hours to write a song

or exercise and wear off all my fat.

Good thing he wrote in lots of dirty jokes
Or what would we've t' say about this bloke.


Next quarter I will've forg'ten all I know
Of couplets and iambic pente'mer
But making words up just to make it fit
Is clever knowl'ge to trick out any blog
E'vn though this post is most 'freshingly brief,
It is now over to my great relief!!!!!!

BOROSODY---- IT'S A PLAY ON WORDS

Well, I have finally found something that I despise learning even more than music theory (my chosen major). It's called “prosody”. I don't even care for the word. It takes poetry and turns it into a formaldehyde soaked, spread eagle, frog in science class. The instructor stands in front of us with his literary scalpels, pins, and magnifying glass and doesn't even bother to ask if we abhor the idea of this ghastly dissection. What's the gag? Can't we just let the little rhetorical buggers loose in the swamp of incomprehension where they belong? Why subject them and us to the horror?.... or bore? What could we possibly get out of peering into the inner-workings of these egregious, lifeless, specimens?

I'm going to answer my own question. It seems that as my initial distaste for prosody wore off, my curiosity did kick in. I found myself gingerly taking the scalpel and doubtfully cutting into the thick, pulpous material. After the first incision (and once I wiped off the formaldehyde and other fluids that sprayed me when I started cutting... blick...), I began to marvel at the inner working of these tiny bits of prose. Poems are not just filled with a jumbled mess of random words, there is design, order, meaning, meanings and intelligence. After dissecting a few, my brain and eyes have found a new connection. I now find myself looking out at the poetry all around me. I even found the freedom to enjoy poetry that lacks rhyming and balanced rhythms! It's amazing how much more I enjoy the outside now that I've seen the inside.

No, you probably won't find me pouring over a book of poems intermittently oohing and awing over the intricacies of them (Probably... heck... no, there isn't a chance!), but, I am pleasantly surprised by the lack of trauma I sustained and the wealth of appreciation I have amassed. While I still think there should be a warning label placed at the beginning of any study of poetry, it's not nearly as horrible as its academic title (prosody) implies.

To mark this moment in history, I give you my “ebenezer” (chew on that). It's a poem that popped out when I was looking at the unfortunate painting “Two Chained Monkeys” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. My goal was to prove that my poem was better than the poem matched with it, but after thoroughly studying the poem by Wislawa Szymborska I just appreciated it too darn much to even give that thesis a try.

Trapped in a machine
with a view
The cog takes, holds,
despises
They see every day
what
People pay dearly to
own
After a while there's
no
Reason to even
look.


Here's to you Wislawa and all your fellow wordsmiths!

Tuba City

I enjoyed the story “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” by Leslie Marmon Silko. She skillfully emoted the flavor of reservation life. The depiction of the stoic but steady progression of events was beautifully related. The story brought back my memories of Tuba City, Arizona. It took me to that little dusty town with pot holes bigger than our van, to the smell of fire and rotting carcasses, to the powdery 100 degree heat that produced random, meandering dust devils that weaved across the sparse landscape. It took me to the painted desert and the far off multi-colored jagged mesas . It took me to that place where capitalism was shaken off and the raw stuff of life sat unashamedly bare upon the dry, red soil that our forefathers so graciously gave them.
The summer of my Junior and Senior years in High School, I worked at a Navajo Reservation with my Christian youth group. Now, we didn't get in our Bible Bus with our Bible shoes and set out to go Bible thumpin'. We were invited by the Native Believers there in Tuba City. Once a year they have their “Camp Meetings”. It's a big deal and Navajos from towns all around the reservation show up for it. Our job was to occupy 70+ kids while there parents were in the camp meetings. It was the most, by far, profound experience I had ever had in my young life. At first the kids were quite wary of us, but after the first 100 or so horsey back rides... we started to bond. The memory of those kids is one of my most precious to this day. I also remember being taught by the women how to make fry bread and how they laughed at me like I was built upside down or something. I remember that I cried like I was being ripped apart when we left.
I can identify with the Priest in the story. He not only had to adjust to a different culture, he had to try to relate and make relationships. Silko did a good job pulling me into the Priest's discomfort and disconnect. When I first got to Tuba City, everything was just a notch different. Things were askew to my norm just enough to give me the fish in outer space kind of feeling. As the week progressed, I got to know the people there and really came to love them a lot. Still, I never completely lost that off kilter feeling. We spoke, but never with absolute ease. There was always something missing or missed. That's exactly what I felt when I read “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”.

"Ticket" author unknown

In this blog I will be analyzing, in great detail, the less than epic story of my on-campus parking ticket. I will show, through several different criticism styles, that the story, "Ticket" is underdeveloped, ill-researched, overly concise, trite and lacking depth or explanation.

Using "New Criticism", it can be clearly shown that the plot of "Ticket" lacks any realism. "Ticket" starts with a stark, abrupt statement that can not be substantiated. This work was passed off as non-fiction, but the author gives no evidence to its authenticity. For "Ticket" to be believable, it needs to be based on reality. It is not. For this reason, I find it completely unbelievable and ill fitting its seemingly authoritative title.

Now, as I look at this piece of work through "Deconstrucion", I find unsettling underlying truths . The author of "Ticket" writes that I do not have a valid parking pass, but what he's really saying is that campus security does not have a vision package in their insurance benefits. The ticket claims the driver of the car has violated a rule, while really it's the reader being violated. This "Ticket" points to a wrong doing on the driver's behalf, but it in fact, in slapstick irony, points to the author's own fallacy and inability to look beyond himself.

Reader Response criticism enables me, the reader, to respond to the work. And as an "Informed, competent reader (Literature for Composition 7th ed. 626)" my response is annoyance. The writer was masterful in eliciting a quick and negative response through his unsubstantiated statements. While writing for shock value might have momentary success, the end result is alienation from his readers.

I can speak with great authority from a historical standpoint. I am acquainted with the works of other campus security authors. Campus security authors have a long history of writing tickets, holding transcripts hostage and otherwise hassling over-worked, brain fried academicians who have a hard enough time trying to work, raise kids, learn something of value, wear matching shoes every day, and avoid walking into restrooms of the opposite sex. From this historical perspective, one can only see "Ticket" as over done, extremely cliche and tired.

Now let's throw some good old Marxist Criticism at this bugger. "Ticket" is a wonderful example why the masses want to stick it to The Man. The author knows that there is a valid parking pass hanging there, but issuing a bogus ticket leaves the reader subject to the aggravating, unpalatable and time consuming repercussions that follow. This short work contributes to the long legacy of distrust and animosity between ticket writers and their readers.

Lastly, I'll end with "Gender Criticism". "Ticket" is a written against a female who drives a powerful automobile. It is obvious that the writer of "Ticket" blinded himself to the purple parking pass placed precisely as prescribed by the patriarchs. Because of this obvious omission of the facts, this reader finds herself disconnected to and unrepresented by this work of fiction.

In closing I'd just like to say that I adore campus security and dearly hope that my car is not covered in citations after the posting of this slightly critical review of "Ticket".