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!