Poetry 2110

If Only There Was A Canadian Version

2005-04-17T22:10:00.000-07:00

I took this test online to see what kind of English I spoke; here are the results. It's from the states, so I guess that's why I speak 40% general American English! Someone should make a Canadian version!

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% General American English

30% Yankee

20% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

What'>http://www.blogthings.com/amenglishdialecttest/">What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Let me know how y'all scored!

A Romantic Modernist?

2005-04-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

For these last few blogs, I thought I would post on some more modern (post-modern?) poets. I opened up the Norton to the last few hundred pages and scanned. I came across a poet who has only two entries, the last one really caught my attention, especially after taking the test and talking about Romantic Imagination. The poet is Peter Davison (pgs. 1641-1642), he died last year at the age of 76. The poem I want to talk about is called Peaches. It's a short one so I'll type it out, this way you don't have to lug the Norton to your computer!

Peaches

A mouthful of language to swallow:
stretches of beach, sweet clinches,
breaches in walls, pleached branches;
britches hauled over haunches;
hunched leeches, wrenched teachers.
What English can do: ransack
the warmth that chuckles beneath
fuzzed surfaces, smooth velvet
richness, plashy juices.
I beseech you, peach,
clench me into the sweetness
of your reaches.

Ha! The whole poem is like one big tongue twister! How many of you tripped on the first three lines? I know I did a couple of times. But once you get over the 'tongue-twistiness' and grasp some aspect of it's meaning, you'll realize this poem is not really about peaches at all. It is almost Romantic in that it forces us readers to use our Imagination. It's like Daffodils by Wordsworth, where the poems uses an analogy to make its point.
Davidson is showing us the wonderful ways English can be used. I love the way Davison compares the language to the "warmth that chuckles beneath fuzzed surfaces"; and how he beseeches the peach (that is the English language) to show him (and us) the depth of its reaches. The reason why I gave this blog the title I did was because, although this poem was published in 1989, I feel it's more Romantic than Modern. I really don't see any fragmentation, or any of the things that we talked about it class that make Modernism Modern. But I do see traits of what we talked about in Romantic poetry: Emphasis on Nature, Imagination, etc. Maybe somebody disagrees?
In all, I really liked this poem and if you liked it, you may like the other poem under Peter Davison, Equinox 1980. It's an interesting, kinda pastoral, poem about canoeing on an empty lake.

P.S.: Who's happy the weather's better?

On Seamus Heaney

2005-03-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

Today in tutorial Prof. Kuin read Seamus Heaney's 'Digging.' I don't know what it was, but I really liked it. The poem is very Irish, but I'm not the least bit Irish, but it still moved something in me. Before I give my abstract thoughts on the poem, I would like to give some more concrete observations about it. Like what we'll have to do for our test.
I like the emjambment Heaney uses in the 5th line of the poem; the line falls over to the next stanza. But what makes it interesting is that the lines reads: "My father, digging. I look down/ Till his straining..." When we read the line, we literally have to look down to the next stanza.
Also the repetition of the word 'dig' and 'digging' throughout the poem. This brings attention to the word and what it means, not just the literal meaning of digging, as in for potatoes and peat, but digging in a more metaphysical/abstract way. Digging into the past and looking at ones history; the way Heaney is in his poem.
Finally, as I know we all have other more important things to do than read long blogs right now, I would like to comment on the last stanza. I think in this stanza Heaney is stating that he will continue the Irish traditions, but in a different way. He will write about his people; he will start a literary dig! *I know that was kind of cheesy.

Read the poem, it's on pg 1788. I'm pretty sure he falls under the modernist period.

On Lewis Carroll and Thomas Hardy

2005-02-24T19:47:00.000-08:00

For tutorial next week, we are to find a Victorian poem and read in class. This is to a be an exercise in reading poetry (this being a poetry class, I guess being able to read poetry is important).
The poem I will probably read in class (it's a toss-up between Carroll or Hardy) will be Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky (pg 1032). For any of you that haven't read it, I encourage you to do so; because not only is it the most random, nonsensical poem you will ever read, but I guarantee that by the end of it, you will know what it is about, despite the made-up words and randomness. Let me try to tie Carroll with the Victorians.
Carroll was a Victorian (He was Professor of Math at ChristChurch College at my beloved Oxford!). And this being an age of many new things and new ideas, I will venture to say that, along with all the technological/social advancements and experiments, Carroll was doing the same with language. He was challenging people to see language in a new way. A way that could be manipulated to the fancy of the author. Just like nature was being manipulated by human ingenuity. Jabberwocky does use made-up words, but it has its own logic. In this way, it very Victorian.

Now, if I could change gears for a moment.

Thomas Hardy is another Victorian that interests me. His poem Hap (pg 1049) is another example of the Victorian style. This poem is more in line with the gloomy, meloncholia the Victorians were also known for. But it is, as Prof. Kuin noted in Lecture, straight to the point. I can imagine a Romantic like Wordsworth stretching this poem to many lines and pages. But Hardy gets to point and conveys exactly what he's feeling. Yet, like all great poets, he does this in a profound and moving way. Again, something very Victorian.

There you have it, a brief look at the two sides of Victorianism!

Romantic and Victorian

2005-02-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

In my last post I mistakenly called Matthew Arnold a Romantic poet. In my ignorance, I thought I was right; but Prof. Kuin pointed out:

Actually, it's Victorian, not Romantic. If you read some Keats or Wordsworth, you can tell the difference. Victorians tend to discuss feelings more directly, more "sincerely". Glad you enjoyed it. Wonderful poem.

I now stand corrected!
I even took Prof. Kuin's advice to heart and read some Wordsworth (reading Keats is a work in progress). What he said is true (no surprise here!), Victorians are much more direct in how they express themselves. I'm not saying one is better than the other, and I'm not saying I like one more than the other, but the difference is noticable. Take for example Wordsworth's "Scorn Not the Sonnet" and Arnold's "Shakespeare." They both are poems in praise of someting, but they do it in different ways.
Wordsworth, being a Romantic era poet, uses more metaphores and evokes the past to make his point. He compares the sonnet to a small lute, and tells of how these great poets of the past did such amazing things with it. But he does it in a very "flowery" ornamented way: Instead of just saying the sonnet is great, he says it's a like a soul-animating trumpet!
Arnold, on the other hand, in "Shakespeare" (notice even the simplicity of the title) is more direct. The third stanza is a prime example, he tells you what he thinks. Not to say he was a dim-wit and couldn't write as ornamented as Wordsworth, I'm sure he could. And there are examples in the poem where he makes some stunning metaphores and comparisons. Line 5 is an example: "Planting he stedfast footsteps in the sea..." That is a pretty powerful image: A firm foot steping into the powerful sea. I guess in a lot of ways Shakespeare is like that. He was (and still is), a dramatist who is to be given the utmost respect. What else do we study in high-school that dates back to the Reneisance? Maybe a few arbitrary poems in Writer Craft that we soon forget after the final exam? Maybe some art in Art class? Nothing really to write home about! Matthew Arnold coveys the greatnes of Shakespeare in a much more direct and sincere way than maybe Wordsworth would have.
Both great poems, and not too long! "Scorn Not the Sonnet" can be found on pg. 737 and "Shakespeare" is on 987.

I think is quasi-essay rant is over.
I look foreword to what you all have to say!

P.S.: Is it just me or is Wordsworth's "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" not just one of the most beautiful poems? Read it, it's just 12 lines long and is on pg. 721.

My "Obsession"

2005-02-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

So I just read Matthew Arnold's The Scholar-Gypsy. When Prof. Kuin told us in tutorial that this is a poem about Oxford, and all Oxford students know and love it, my ears pricked up. You see, I have a fascination (it's probably better to call it an obsession) with Oxford University. I was in England this past May and spent some time in Oxford and fell in love. I think this would happen to anyone interested in history (or is a nerd like me, and passionate about education).

This poem tells the interesting story of a student at Oxford who left the school and joined the Gypsies. He promised to tell the world all the wonderful things about the Gypsies (about their powers of imagination and unorthodox way of see the world), but he never came back to tell the story. He was often spotted here and there, but never stayed long in one place. What makes The Scholar-Gypsy so cool is that it names many places and landmarks in Oxford like Godstow Bridge and Christ Church Hall, among others. I guess that's why Oxford students love it so much. I don't feel there is any point in giving quotes from the poem, it's not that long, only 250 lines (that's like a couple of pages from The Iliad). I suggest that you read it, it's a great example of a poem from the Romantic period.

I Digress...

2005-01-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

This often happens to me. I find myself going off on tangents; be it in conversation with people, my writing, or just my own thoughts. This digression comes to you by way of The Iliad. I know, you're thinking: "Sidd should be talking about love poetry, not the stupid Iliad, I haven't looked at that thing in months!" But the passage I want to talk about really makes me want to blog!

The passage comes in Book 16 ('A Ship Fired, A Tide Turned') and it starts at about line 845 and goes to 861. It happens right before Patroklos gets killed. A brief synopsis: Pat takes a special stone that he has been saving and throws it at Hektor's chariot, it hits his driver Kebriones. Keb quickly dies and tumbles out of the chariot; Pat makes fun of him as he tumbles on to the ground, dead. Here's the description of Keb getting killed.

...He [Pat] aimed and braced himself and threw the stone
and scored a direct hit on Hektor's driver,
Kebriones, a bastard son of Priam,
smashing his forehead with the jagged stone.
Both brows were hit at once, the frontal bone
gave way, and both his eyes burst from their sockets
dropping into the dust before his feet,
as like a diver from the handsome car
he plummeted, and life ebbed from his bones.

Man this poem is graphically violent!
Now, before you all think I'm sick for thinking this part of the story amusing, you must read what Pat says to the dying Keb. He's the sick one for saying this!

"God, what a nimble fellow, somersaulting!
If he were out at sea in the fishing grounds
this man could feed a crew, diving for oysters,
going overboard even in rough water,
the way he took that earth-dive from his car.
The Trojans have their acrobats, I see."

Wow! Pat thinks this is the most amusing thing in the world! Watching a man who just got his eyes smashed tumble to his death. Besides being ridiculously facetious, violent and kinda funny, Pat does use some interesting metaphors. Like comparing the way Kebriones falls to a fisherman diving for oysters. We've all seen (and/or tried) diving (of some kind or another), at least once in our lives. This metaphor paints a clear image of a man diving, head first, into the ground. The other metaphor I like is the way Pat compares the battlefield to rough water. One can imagine the battlefield looking like a choppy sea, and it is just as perilous. And with all the hewn bodies around them, the battlefield may literally look like a sea of blood.
I'll leave you all with that image in your mind!

Out Of Love Song/Poem

2005-01-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

Speaking about love poetry these last two weeks I feel like commenting on an example of out-of-love poetry (along the lines of doom and gloom).
One of my favourite bands right now is Muse. If you don't know who Muse is, I suggest you find out and listen. If you enjoy them, great, if not, great as well; just don't tell me they sound like Radiohead! Anyway...They have a song called "Falling Away with You." When I first read the title, I thought it was going to be a love ballad, or some other kind of slow song. When the song started playing, I heard it was in a major key (the major keys are generally associated with happiness and other positive things), and had a pretty sounding melody; I thought for sure I was in for a cheesy love song.
Boy was I wrong!
Here are the lyrics, reading them without the music does not take away from the melancholiness that Matthew Bellamy (singer and songwriter of this song) is telling us about in the song.

Falling Away With You
I can’t remember when it was good,
Moments of happiness elude,
Maybe I just misunderstood.

All of the love we left behind,
Watching the flash backs intertwine.
Memories I will never find.

So I'll love whatever you've become.
Forget the reckless things we've done,
I think our lives have just begun;
I think our lives have just begun

And I’ll feel my world crumbling
I'll Feel my life crumbling now.
I'll Feel my soul crumbling away,
Falling away...
Falling away with you.

Staying awake to chase the dream.
Tasting the air you’re breathing in,
I hope I won’t forget a thing.

Promise to hold you close and pray,
Watching the fantasy decay.
Nothing will ever stay the same.
Nothing will ever stay the same.

And all of the love we threw away;
And all of the hopes we’ve cherished fade.
Making the same mistakes again,
Making the same mistakes again.

Memories I will never find,
Memories I will never find.

It's pretty sad and melancholic (and pretty poetic too, no?). I feel for the guy. When I hear this song or read the lyrics, I imagine a guy in a relationship who wants to work things out with his sweetie, but knows, at the end of the day, the relationship must end. It was good while it lasted, but now both parties have changed too much to continue. Having said that, the first line is very interesting: "I can't remember when it was good..." Maybe this was a relationship of infatuation, that was lust driven and never anything more. Also, looking at the technical aspects, it is very rhythmic as well. You might not be able to see that when reading the poem, but when you hear the song, you'll hear how Bellamy annunciates almost every syllable; you'll also hear how the music follows that same rhythmic pattern of the syllables.
Listen to the song; how it's sung and how the music helps to create meaning.

Let me know what ya'll think?

P.S.: To all my fellow music geeks: The juxtaposition of the major key signature and the dark lyrics make for one very interesting musical experience. Listen to the synthy-guitar and bass lines in the chorus...Delay anyone?

Love, Love, Love

2005-01-03T18:18:00.000-08:00

Softly falling into your hands,

I care not to care.

There!
My stab at a love poem!

Like we talked about in tutorial, a very difficult thing to do; this simple two line poem took me the better part of an hour. I tried other longer pieces, blank verse, free verse, haiku, but eventually settled on this simple two-liner. It best captures how I feel about my sweetie; besides the longer pieces I was quickly encountering the enemies of love poetry (for those of you reading this who are not in Prof. Kuin's tutorial, they are: Sincerity, cliche, vocabulary, history and shyness).
Let me know what you all think; the good, the bad and the ugly!

Nature and Book 11

2005-01-02T09:44:00.000-08:00

So here is my obligatory blog on nature and 'The Iliad.' I say obligatory because I was browsing around other blogs and see that many people have posted on the correlation between nature and the events, dialogue and narration in 'The Iliad.' So without further adieu, here are my thoughts:

I found that Book 11 had more than the usual allusions to nature. Take the stanza starting at line 73 and continuing for 10 lines. The narrator compares reaping wheat to the action on the battle field. I don't know if any of you have seen wheat being harvested by hand, but basically, people walk through the field with a big hooked knife (the scythe), and mow the wheat down. This paints a pretty gruesome picture if you replace the wheat with people. Imagine, a big open field where the battle is taking place, warriors are being mowed down, neither side retreating nor giving way and Strife looking on from the clouds, with a big grin on its face. Not very pretty.
Another example comes in 334th line when Hektor is rallying his troops; he is compared a hunter sending hounds to catch a lion or boar (see Prof. Kuin's Livejournal entry on boars and the new year) . The stanza continues by comparing the way Hektor's kills to an ocean gale! I haven't been caught in an ocean gale, but according to my uncle, who captains ocean going ships, I wouldn't want to.
There are many more examples, of course, but I think I will stop with these two.
I think the ancients were so concerned about nature because it was such a big part of their lives. They were at the mercy of weather. They didn't have central heating, they didn't drive their chariots to the local grocery store to buy food -- they may have gone to market, but they could only get was available locally. Many people, including great commanders and kings like Agamemnon, had their own flocks of sheep. In short, it was a do it/grow it yourself culture. This means that nature and its effects was the biggest factor in the ancients' lives. So no wonder the poem is filled with so many allusions and comparisons to nature!

P.S.: Hope Santa was good to everyone!

Some South Asian Poems

2004-12-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

These are from Prof. Arun Mukherjee's Course kit from her "Post-Colonial Literature: South Asia" class (En 2372, if anyone's interested; it's a great class!) from the 2003-2004 year.

This poem is called "The Patriot" and is by Nissim Ezekiel, it is from his anthology titled: "Very Indian Poems in Indian English."
When reading this poem, read with your best Apu impersonation. The South Asians in the class might get the subtleties in this, but it's still funny by any standards!

The Patriot

I am standing for peace and non-violence.
Why world is fighting fighting
Why all people of world
Are not following Mahatma Gandhi,
I am simply not understanding.
Ancient Indian Wisdom is 100% correct,
I should say even 200% correct,
But modern generation is neglecting-
Too much going for fashion and foreign thing.

Other day I'm reading newspaper
(Every day I'm reading Times of India
To improve my English Language)
How one goonda fellow
Threw stone at Indirabehn.
Must be student unrest fellow, I am thinking.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I am saying (to myself)
Lend me the ears.
Everything is coming -
Regeneration, Remuneration, Contraception.
Be patiently, brothers and sisters.

You want one glass lassi?
Very good for digestion.
With little salt, lovely drink,
Better than wine;
Not that I am ever tasting the wine.
I'm the total teetotaller, completely total,
But I say
Wine is for the drunkards only.

What you think of prospects of world peace?
Pakistan behaving like this,
China behaving like that,
It is making me really sad, I am telling you.
Really, most harassing me.
All men are brothers, no?
In India also
Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, Hindiwallahs
All brothers -
Though some are having funny habits.
Still, you tolerate me,
I tolerate you,
One day Ram Rajya is surely coming.

You are going?
But you will visit again
Any time, any day,
I am not believing in ceremony
Always I am enjoying your company.

This next poem is keeping in line with the doom and gloom theme of the week, but it also ties in with what Prof. Kuin's blog "Not a Digression" is talking about. The persona is struggling to find itself, it is working through its suffering. Imtiaz Dharker's "Minority."

Minority

I was born a foreigner.
I carried on from there
to become a foreigner everywhere
I went, even in the place
planted with my relatives,
six-foot tubers sprouting roots,
their fingers and faces pushing up
new shoots of maize and sugar cane.

All kinds of places and groups
of people who have an admirable
history would, almost certainly,
distance themselves from me.

I don't fit,
like a clumsily-translated poem;

like food cooked in milk of coconut
where you expected ghee or cream,
the unexpected aftertaste
of cardamom or neem.

There's always that point where
the language flips
into an unfamiliar taste;
where words tumble over
a cunning tripwire on the tongue;
where the frame slips,
the reception of an image
not quite tuned, ghost-outlined,
that signals, in their midst,
an alien.

And so I scratch, scratch
through the night, at this
growing scab on black on white.
Everyone has the right
to infiltrate a piece of paper.
A page dosen't fight back.
And, who knows, these lines
may scratch their way
into your head
through all the chatter of community,
family, clattering spoons,
children being fed
immigrate into your bed,
squat in your home,
and in a corner, eat your bread,

until, one day, you meet
the stranger sidling down your street,
realise you know the face
simplified to bone,
look into its outcast eyes
and recognise it as your own.

Wow! The first time I read that I was blown away. It's alot like Plath's "Daddy." Powerful stuff!

The last poem I will leave you with is bit a lighter: It is by reknown professor, writer and poet, Tabish Khair. It is about the Mohenjodaro civilization that inhabited the Indus valley at about 2900BCE. Archaeologists and historians don't really know what happened to them, they can't even decipher the script and language they used; they just disappeared one day!

Mohenjoddaro: Bric-a-brac

what happened
did buildings once tall now
holes in the ground bricks bracketing
your unreadable hieroglyph on the page of time
bead shard bearded terracotta man with a chipped nose
everything that says we were here before you but look look no hands
what happened
couldn't you balance
did you overlook a pebble
something careened off the well-laid roads
it is easy to see there was a master plan somewhere
did it get mislaid or was it laid so well that it stifled what was not
brick bracketing
the unruliness of life
and daily the buildings grew taller
and nightly the women and men grew smaller
until you had your backs to one another as in a failing marriage
and drank coffee and looked at the watch and walked away with a nod
what happened
when you saw the sky disappear
your buildings swell like gods and seek false believers
who came sonner or later from north and spread like roots
of the peepul tree into your creeping cracks breaking you into bits
and pieces
beads
and shards
terracotta
idol with the nose chipped off

Hard to read without any punctuation or capitals, eh?
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed a little taste of South Asian poetry, if your interested in more, just let me know (I have a full course kit of it), or google it!

Back to Doom and Gloom!

2004-12-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

Our lecture on Doom and Gloom poems was one I enjoyed. Not that I'm the type of person that likes brooding, or likes being depressed. But there is a part of me that is fascinated by the way some people express their grief and suffering. Call me a morbid existentialist, but reading some of the poems Prof. Kuin suggested in his blog really moved me. They depict an aspect of life that we all, have gone through, are going through, or will go through at some point in our lives; many times. Loss, grief and sadness are such profound feelings, and these poets show us that in a raw and powerful way. Anyone in Prof. Kuin's tutorial knows what I'm talking about; Sylvia Plath's Daddy is one hell of a poem (probably my favourite one we've studied this year)! Quoting sections won't do it justice, I seriously recommend reading all of it, it's not that long (Norton, pg. 1732).
As I write this, I thinking of how grief, loss and suffering can be tied in with insanity. Insanity is another topic that I find interesting. I think it was Einstein who said: "The line between genius and insanity is a thin one." I bring up insanity because William Cowper's Lines Written During a Period of Insanity, is a poem that ties in with the theme of suffering. The persona in this poem is going through a tremendous period of suffering, that is, suffering of the mind (which is often worse than suffering of the body). But the suffering is of a particular kind, this person is going through a crisis of faith. I think this is probably one of the most frightening experiences a person can go through. Faith is something that we can take solace in when we feel vulnerable and scared, to have that questioned and cast into doubt must be quite disconcerting. I think a lot of us university students have questioned what we believe at least once in our life times. I know I have! Lines Written During a Period of Insanity, captures this crisis in quite a dramatic way. What with Cowper's allusions to the bible, images of hell's hungry mouth and the vindictive rod of an angry God. Very doom oriented, I would say!
But like Prof. Kuin said in lecture, writing poems like this (or writing anything for that matter), helps a person work through their suffering (be it suffering grief, or whatever else). By working through their feelings they can come to some sense of closure. It's a form of venting and the poets in the Norton do this in a very profound way.

Some food for consideration!
-Sidd

We Could be Heroes!

2004-11-16T18:42:00.000-08:00

I listen to the radio before I go to bed every night (I know...I'm a nerd). This past Monday (oddly enough the day we have class!) I was listening to ESPN Overnight on the FAN 590. The host of the show was talking about athletes as heroes. He was reiterating what Prof. Kuin was saying, but applying it to athletes: Sport's heroes are connected to glory, the glory of sport; ceremony, the best athletes get inducted into Hall of Fames with great pomp and circumstance; and, most importantly, athletes connect to something larger than life. The average person can never to do the things athletes do, just like the average person can not come close to Achilles' military prowess.
It was interesting to hear because during class, I was finding it hard to apply the criteria of a hero to any modern day figure. I thought about what I heard and it struck me that athletes really are modern day heroes in the Homeric sense. Sure they get paid way too much, but they still are associated with glory, honour and ceremony.
Because I'm missing hockey so much, I will use an example of our own Wayne Gretzky. He is the greatest hockey player that ever played the game; Gretzky's glory came when he won the Stanley Cup with the Edmonton Oilers for the first time; he was connected to honour, they way he conducted himself on and off the ice; he connected to ceremony when he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame with all the bells and whistles that one would expect when a great player gets inducted; finally, he is definitely connected to something larger than life; the passes he made and the goals he scored looked seemingly impossible. But beyond that, countless of parents take there kids to hockey practice with the dream that little Billy or Joey will be the next Gretzky, countless young hockey players want to be like Gretzky and countless more call Gretzky there hero!

I knew I could incorporate sports with my blogs, I just had to figure out a way how!!

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2004-11-11T16:10:00.000-08:00

I recently watched this movie. I liked it. When it first came out, I thought it was a strange name for a movie. Only after watching the movie did I find out the title is a line from an Alexander Pope poem: "Eloisa and Abelard." http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1630.html It is a long poem, but its rhyming couplets makes for a quick read (and re-read). For those of you that have seen the movie, read the poem, it'll give you an idea of the head space Walter Kaufman was in when writing the script.
It's about a woman who is torn between her love for a man, and her love of God. Which doesn't really have anything to do with the movie, but the poem talks about that unknown reason why we love the people we love. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is a movie that deals with this same theme, albeit in a strange and twisted way...With a dash of psychology thrown in for good measure. If anyone is interested, there is a great article on what inspired Pope to write the poem. It's a fascinating story of scandal in the 1100s!http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5408

Just a short blog today!

T.S Eliot Was Wrong!

2004-11-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

T.S. Eliot, in his "The Waste Land", says April is the cruelest month. I beg to differ! I would say (for the university student):

November is the cruelest month, breeding
Essays and mid-terms from teacher's minds, only
to confuse and worry us, make
us pull our hair from their roots.

I won't go on, this parody is bad enough!
If anyone is interested, the English Undergraduate Students association is holding a pre-exam party. It will be a great opportunity to let some school related stress out. It'll be at Stong College room 201 on Nov. 16th at 7:00 PM. There will be FREE FOOD, music and prizes, so come out, have some fun; then go home and get back to studying for exams and/or writing essays!

My First Poetry

2004-10-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

So in tutorial yesterday, Prof. Kuin suggested that we blog on our first experience with poetry. After some thought, reflection and remembering, I came to the conclusion that poetry for me began on a birthday of mine.
It was probably my ninth or tenth birthday when I got a gift from my godparents in India: It was a book of poetry. It was by an Indian author named Vikram Seth and it was called "Beastly Tales: From Here and There" (I later found out that Seth was a famous writer in India and the world and "beastly Tales" was one of best works). The book contained fables that we all know and belong to the general canon of fable literature, 'The Tortoise and the Hare' and 'The Crocodile and the Monkey' for example. But Seth had adapted these stories into a simple free verse AA BB CC DD rhyming scheme. As an English student I now know Seth is using certain literary devices to make these poems easy to read, but as I child, I didn't know what a 'rhyme scheme' meant, or that 'enjambement' gave a poem foreword momentum. I was just amused by the rhyming. Actually, when I first got the book, I read all ten stories in one setting, I couldn't get over the easy, flowy rhyme pattern. It made the book so easy to read.
Here's an example from the "The Tortoise and the Hare." It comes when the hare and tortoise first meet and challenge each other to a race:

"Darling Tortoise," drawled the hare,
"I would thrash you anywhere-
Marsh or mountain, hill or dale,
Field or forest, rain or hail!"
Snapped the tortoise slow and steady:
"Choose your place, and I'll be ready.
Choose your time, and make it soon."
"Here!" the hare said: "Sunday at noon."

This tiny excerpt doesn't do justice to the whole poem of course, but it shows what I mean.
On more of a tangential note, reading these poems now, I find that they really a) challenge stereo types and b) deal with mature subject matter. Seth's adaptations are quite graphic (and sometimes even violent). "The Eagle and the Beetle" is a Grecian fable and one of the more graphic ones:

One day, alas, an eagle flew
Above them, and before they knew
What cloud had shadowed them, the hare
Hung from her [the eagle's] talons in mid-air.
"Please spare my friend," the beetle cried.
But the great eagle sneered with pride:
"You puny, servile, cloddish bug-
Go off and hide your ugly mug.
How do you dare assume the right
To meddle with my appetite?
This hares' my snack. Have you not heard
I am the great god Zeus's bird?
Nothing can harm me, least of all
A slow, pathetic, droning ball.
Here keep your friend's head-" And she tore
The hare's head off, and swiftly bore
His bleeding torso to her nest,
Ripped off his tale, and ate the rest.

Wow! That's a healthy dosage of ultra-violence if your ask me. I was a kid when I first read that! I remember my mom getting a bit uncomfortable when she heard me read this poem to her for the first time.

As for challenging stereotypes, Seth genders the character is his adaptations. For example, the hare, from "The Hare and The Tortoise," is a female. I remember reading that story as a child in school and seeing, in the illustrations, that both characters were made out to be male. Also, when I think of an eagle, I always think of a male. I know it's bad and I shouldn't arbitrarily assign gender to animals, but looking over these poems (after all this time) has challenged me to think in nongendered ways.

So there you have it:
A little history,
About me!

-Sidd

P.S.: If anyone is interested, "Beastly Tales" is in the library, you can find it here:
PR 9499.3 S39 B43 1992.

Good Poetry...Not So Good Poetry

2004-10-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

Again, this is arbitrary, abstract question that has no real answer. But - and this is a pretty big but - I feel a poet (or any writer, for that matter) must have some talent in wordsmithing. For example, I love watching sports, but never in a million years would I be able to slam dunk a basketball, throw a strike, or pick a corner of a hockey net; no matter how much I practice. Now, there are certain things a poet can do to make her or his poem good/better, but if the basic wordsmithing ability is lacking, then, I feel, a poem can't be good.
Now I see all of you reading this and saying: "Well, what is 'good?' That's so subjective!" [We English students just love that word, don't we?!] Let me illustrate what I mean by 'good' with an example (being a musician, I often compare things to music, and will do the same here):
I am a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due. One may not like a certain type of music or musician, but the fact that you are hearing it means that somebody (at least one person) likes it. What I mean is, it's pretty arrogant to say something sucks. You may not like it, but somebody might. I think it's cool when people disagree about something and then discuss it. I once had a conversation with someone about Queen's "Boheimien Rhapsody," he said the song was "garbage" and "too artsy-fartsy." First, I told him he was an idiot for saying that, then we a long disscussion about it. We didn't change each other's opinion, but I got him to take back his garbage" and "too artsy-fartsy" comments. In the same vein, I don't like 50 cent, but I won't say he sucks. I don't like him for many reasons, but there are the same amount of reasons why he is a very succesful and popular entertainer right now.

As for the examples Prof. Kuin gave us, only Ogden Nash is in the anthology. I found all the poems in his section funny. Now these aren't the greatest poems I've read, but they're good for a laugh. I entertained my parents with a reading of "Columbus;" they too thought it funny. But like all good comics, Nash creates a layer of intelligence and information in "Columbus." It gives a comical view of Columbus' life prior to his sailing in search of India, even though the poem insinuates that Columbus was looking to finince a trip to America. It adds to the irony of the poem. My favourite line is 18: "All he said was, I am Columbus, the 15th century Admiral Byrd." Nash's Columbus has the ability to see some 500 years into the future!

The other "poets" are a whole other story! Solyman Brown's poems are on dentistry! It would have cool if they were good poems, but they are really bad. I couldn't help smelling the cheese off my computer screen; I will say no more, look for yourself! http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nick.page1/worst/Brown/brown.html

Now I would have thought a reverend, being an educated man, would have some ability to write poetry. I'm sure many of them can, but Rev. McGonigall is a painful exception. You only have to read "An address to Rev. George Gilfillan." I'm not saying I could do much better, but this poem is pretty bad. I guess his heart was in the right place, but this passage will tell you what I mean: "He has written the life of Sir Walter Scott, / And while he lives he will never be forgot, / Nor when he is dead. / Because by his admirers it will be often read;" Again, more cheese wafting from my screen! http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/bad/McGonagall.Gilfillan.html

I guess this goes back to my original point: If you haven't got the basic talent/gift of wordsmithing, it is really hard to stay out of bad poetry anthologies. After all, it's where I found Solyman Brown and Rev. McGonigall.

Kaplah!
-Sidd

Rhyme and Reason

2004-09-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

So I was reading for my Children's Lit. class (EN 2251), and came across some children's stories in verse. They were by the famous Jean De La Fontaine (although, I hadn't heard of La Fontaine before this class).
I always thought that children's verse should have some obvious rhyme scheme, to keep the child amused and interested. I remember as a child, nursery rhymes were so much fun because of the rhyme and rhythm they had.

But these La Fontaine fables had no regular rhythm at all. In fact, at times, I found it hard to read because the rhyme scheme and metre were either non existant, or inconsistant (although the majority of lines were Alexendrine e.i., having 12 syllables). So I said to myself: "Self, if you, a third year English student, is having trouble with this poem, then how will a child enjoy this poem? A child who is reading not for some academic purpose, but for fun.

I think this would be a good place to give you an example:

The Dove and the Ant
(from Fall 2004 Course Kit for Eng 2251. Course Directer Alison Halsall)

Near a pure rivulet a dove came down and drank;
Then a thirsty ant fell forward, almost sank,
And one might have seen the midget struggling helplessly,
Too frustrated each time, to reach what it desired.
The dove's quick action proved that mercy was not dead
When she bore and loosed a straw from overhead
To act as an earthword whenever her friend tired.
It was a successful ruse.
But a churl by chance had crept up without shoes,
And carried a crossbow to bag birds for his pot.
Venus' bird then tempted its use;
His eye grew bright at the thought of the dainty dove he'd caught
And he was about to bring it down - hard-hearted sot -
When upon the ant pinched his heel; whereupon
The lout turned his head before he shot;
The pigeon had heard and then was gone,
So no supper for churl as a result of his toil.
"No penny, no pigeon possible."

I bet you got tricked by the first two lines, they have a nice, simple rhyme scheme and, I bet you thought the rest of the poem was going to be like this. Nice and simple AA BB CC. But alas! it is not. The third line does not rhyme with the fourth! Overall, I think, a pretty choppy poem.

I know...I'm exgerating; there are some rhyming lines scattered thoughout the piece. I even found an internal rhyme :"His eye grew bright at the thought of the dainty dove he'd caught..."

But, it took me a couple of reads to remember that this is an English translation of a French poem. So, by the currpting nature of translation, the orginal rhyme and rhythm was lost. Bothered by this, I employed the power of google.ca and found the original french version! And lo! it rhymes a heck of lot better than the English translation!

La Colombe et la Fourmi.
(from http://www.jdlf.com/lesfables/livreii/lacolombeetlafourmi)

Le long d'un clair ruisseau buvait une Colombe,
Quand sur l'eau se penchant une Fourmi y tombe.
Et dans cet océan l'on eût vu la Fourmi
S'efforcer, mais en vain, de regagner la rive.
La Colombe aussitôt usa de charité:
Un brin d'herbe dans l'eau par elle étant jeté,
Ce fut un promontoire où la Fourmi arrive.
Elle se sauve; et là-dessus
Passe un certain Croquant qui marchait les pieds nus.
Ce Croquant, par hasard, avait une arbalète.
Dès qu'il voit l'Oiseau de Vénus
Il le croit en son pot, et déjà lui fait fête.
Tandis qu'à le tuer mon Villageois s'apprête,
La Fourmi le pique au talon.
Le Vilain retourne la tête:
La Colombe l'entend, part, et tire de long.
Le soupé du Croquant avec elle s'envole:
Point de Pigeon pour une obole.

See! There is a much better rhyme and rhythm in the orginal french. So I hope you all enjoyed this comparison.

Moral: Always remember, translations are the epitome of entrope.

-Sidd Rawte

What is Poetry?

2004-09-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

I have often wondered what poetry really is. Yeah, I know generically we talk about rhyme, syllables and the like, but these are technicalities; they do not give us the answer to the $64,000 question.
Some people say that poetry is way of expression; but can't prose be way of expression too? At the end of the day, I feel poetry can be whatever the writer wants it to be. Sure, collectivly, we can make general rules about syllable, rhyme and metre to differentiate between prose and poetry, but I still feel that this is skirting the issue...poetry and prose share a thin line of distinction!
By the way, I am not bashing poetry. I love it. I often make futile attemps at writing it, but I'm just a 'prosey' kind of guy.

-Sidd

P.P.:Don't hate me because I'm 'prosey!'