SA #5: Marianne Moore

Based on your readings, write a paragraph describing how Moore's style differs from Eliot's.

Register to Vote

My colleague Catherine passes on the following message, which I heartily endorse:

* * *

Make sure you're registered to vote (if you're eligible to do so) for the Presidential Election on November 4. You may register to vote in California if:

- You are a United States citizen
- You are a resident of California
- You are at least 18 years of age (or will be by the date of the next election)
- You are not in prison or on parole for a felony conviction
- You have not been judged by a court to be mentally incompetent

To vote in the Nov. 4 election, your registration form must be postmarked by Oct. 20. You can download a form or request that one be mailed to you at the website of the California Secretary of State: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm . You should also know that any time you move in California you are supposed to re-register to vote.

If you need to register to vote as a resident of another state (perhaps because you're a freshman and don't have residency here yet), doing a Google search for "voter registration" and the state should get you there.

In 2004, only 47% of 18-24 year old citizens voted. (Source:
http://www.civicyouth.org/quick/youth_voting.htm). Let's work to increase that dismally low percentage!

I admit it

English is not my first language, and even after living in the United States, I still have not been able to understand English to a certain level that my fellow comrades have already mastered. Therefore, to put in simple and plain context, my English SUCKS.
So while my English is pretty bad, revision is something that I always loved in class. It provided me a chance to see what my fellow classmates thought about my paper. But even with that, I still have problems. So I admit it. I am one of the student writers described in Nancy Sommers’. Revision to me means changing words that sounds more sophisticated, and correcting all my little grammatical mistakes. I do not really think why am I “revising,” but I just do it because I have been taught to do that ever since high school.

Because of my schooling in Nepal, I was never taught so think critically, but only copy what in a book. That is why I never developed a sense of thinking that students in the US have. And even though I have been in the US for six years, I still have not been able to grasp the full concept on critical thinking or writing. I still make grammatical errors like crazy, and most of the time my thoughts never make any sense.

And now since I am taking this class, I really hope my English gets better not just because I need to have a good understanding of English language, but also because I want to learn. I am trying my best to learn everything that I can possibly learn, but sometimes I feel like it is not enough. Especially when we read articles like Nancy Sommers because the things that she says need work like the freshmen student that she studied, I fit in that same exact category. And I feel bad because I see that I still have a lot of room to cover. But then my whole perspective switches, and I feel good that I have some idea of what I need to fix.

So while articles like this make me feel bad about myself, they still provide me of ideas on how I need to improve my writing to become a better writer. And I am so glad that I am taking this class just because it will help me become a better writer (I hope :D).

Connection to Sommers

The essay/study that we read for today's class contained many relevant and appealing subjects for me. One really funny thing from the reading though was when Sommers first started talking about the students that she used in her experiment and how the majority of them rejected the words revision and rewrite. As I started reading their reasoning I just started laughing because it sounded ridiculous to me. It seemed to me like the process they used instead was shallow and, although necessary, not all there is to writing.

Those beliefs were supported by Sommers' investigation into the editing process of experienced writers. They edited on the sentence and word level, but more importantly they edited on the conceptual level. Making sure their ideas and arguments were well-supported, relevant, and flowing is more important for experienced writers than gramatic details.

This is all very logical to me, I feel that I can edit like this, getting better with time of course. But I realized that I don't feel like I can edit my/others' concepts if I get distracted by the words and sentence mistakes. It's easier for me to focus when I can understand what I am, or another writer is, trying to say in the first place, when the intent is clear. But maybe I'll be able to adapt and look past the grammatical and punctual mistakes in the future... But right now I don't see a problem with editing words and sentences first and worrying about concepts after.

to interpret or not to interpret

On Friday we had peer revisions on our evaluative essays.
What really makes a poem good?
Well my group had contradicting statements
regarding interpretation. Interpretation can be viewed as a good
or bad thing. For example, the poem I chose to write
about was Thomas Traherne’s “Wonder.” So at
the last line it ends with “When I was born.” This
raises many questions and thoughts regarding the
entire poem. Because this poem can be interpreted
in many ways, its intended audience is increased,
thus providing readers with many different perspectives
in interpreting the poem. For example, the last line could
mean a lot of things. It can be related to a spiritual
uplifting or even death. But I believe that poems that
can relate to a large audience have the potential to be good.

Even if I believe interpretations are a good thing,
there many others who disagree with me ;)

Others believe that interpretation can lead a poem to
be too complex for the reader to analyze and become
frustrated. For example, Dickinson’s poems are fairly
simple and clear-to-the-point (death, sadness, dying,
morbidity, you get the point). This allows the reader to have
a clear understanding of the poem and firmly grasp the
underlying meaning. Too much interpretation can result
in confusion and ultimately have a negative experience
on a reader. If the reader has the meaning of the poem
down, he/she can continue analyzing other important
factors of the poem, such as structure and sound patterns.
Maybe AP English time writes have something to do with
this negativity toward interpretation. Don’t get me wrong,
I love to interpret poems; however, only having a certain
amount of time to write an essay about a poem kind of
makes you wish interpretation was clear-cut subject.
However, interpretation can lead into thought provoking
discussions that apply to almost everyone.

Traherne wanted everyone to enjoy his poems by making
this poem “interpret friendly.” The more we interpret,
the more we can get out of a poem. Take The Wasteland.
I know for a fact that with one read the whole meaning
of the poem is not obtained. With frequent discussions
in class we are able to break down the complexity of
the daunting poem and have a chance to understand the meaning of the poem.

In high school, interpretation was just a way to avoid answering concrete answers about the poem and get away with not reading the assigned material. But now as a professional college student, I believe that interpretation is a way to open new doors and grasp new perspectives of meaningful poems.

Response to Revision Strategies

After reading Nancy Sommers’ research monograph, I noticed how I have developed as a writer. In middle school and at the beginning of high school, I was what Sommers called a “student writer”. My version of revising was to replace words I used often with something else I found in a thesaurus and editing for typos and grammar mistakes. But after I started writing analytically, I looked more at my sentence structures and sometimes even at my arguments. My papers started becoming better and my ideas developed more.

There are some parts of the reading I don’t completely agree with. Sommers argues that student writers often find that there is “something larger” wrong with their papers but do not seek to correct it because they do not have a means to. This is true but when I was a student writer, I didn’t seek to develop ideas more not only because I did not know how to but also because I was lazy. Furthermore, as a student, after I am done writing an essay, I tend to print it without proof reading it. The thought of “I’m finally done and I never want to see it again” takes over and I just turn in the assignment. (But that was when I was still in high school. I’m a little better now.)

Lastly, I especially like the comment by the writer who said “I feel like Con Edison cutting off certain states to keep the generators going. In first and second drafts, I try to cut off as much as I can of my editing generator, and in a third draft, I try to cut off some of my idea generators, so I can make sure that I will actually finish the essay.” If writers keep adding new ideas to their papers, they may deviate from original prompt and end up writing about something completely different from what they wanted to. For example, a paper that was supposed to be about why the sky is blue may turn into a paper about how the sky looks pretty. Luckily, this hasn’t happened to me yet because I reread the prompt almost every time I add something to my essays.

After reading this article, I think that I can be considered a semi-experienced writer. :)

Parody of "Thanatopsis"

So this turned out a little more grim than I anticipated... but I felt like Bryant only addressed a small proportion of humanity with the description "To him who in the love of nature holds/ Communion with her visible forms," so I wrote a poem for the rest of humanity:

In him who the love of nature is lost,
There is no response to when she speaks.
For in his destructive hours, she weeps,
And in the aftermath, examines the cost,
In his moments of suffering,
She wants to help but can only try,
Forced to stand by, she can only sigh.
And wince when she feels the sting,
The egregious, biting sores
Of his manipulative days,
When his Evil has its way
And her winds are changed; hurricanes roar,
He who seeks not the source,
Blames nature for the sin,
And thinks he will win,
When he stops her with force,
But while the war is waged
He isolates himself in fear,
And her who was once held dear,
Is now trapped outside his cage,
For when the day comes that he must die,
He shies away from the comfortable soil,
And nature’s tomb for which she toiled,
Instead encased in formaldehyde.

Ranting. I'm Compelled to Bash Eliot

In my diagnostic essay (our first essay), I wrote that poems are merely consequences from the evolution of storytelling. They are used simply because it was easier to remember than prose and are appreciated for their aesthetics. With the invention of the printing press, poems become less practical and would eventually die out. Of course, I was playing devil’s advocate, inspired by dystopias like the artless, pleasure-less world in the movie Equilibrium.

The Waste Land transcends my argument.

Certainly, there’s nothing more enjoyable than to flip pages to read a note, go back and reread the lines, stumble across another reference, flip more pages to read more notes, reread for the context, and forget what the entire passage is about in the first place. Eliot truly captures the essence of ambiguity in poetry. He lets the reader interpret almost all of his lines (via his notes) bringing so much depths that only the true intellectuals can understand his point. He is free from the bonds of structure; Eliot needs no rhythm, no pattern, and certainly no meter.

Not only is he a genius writer, he is also well-versed in German, has studied the eastern culture, and knows everything that is within 50-mile-radius of London. We need to dedicate ourselves to truly understand the brilliance of his work and the message he is trying to deliver.

--what was his point again?

Something about death, I recall. Eliot has already made a much greater impression on me than my dinner yesterday—greater than a meal that nourished and sustained me1. I am truly ashamed that I got distracted while reading his work. My apartment-mate needed a favor from me; he seemed lonely playing Mario kart2 by himself. I’m trying to be a nice guy, after all, and I’m sure Master3 will forgive me.4

Note 1: Referring to the biblical manna bread.
Note 2: Mario kart is a popular racing game series by Nintendo.
Note 3: Andrew is trying to mimic how Dante calls Virgil in the Inferno.
Note 4: Andrew is going on a series of digression like Eliot’s The Waste Land.

Really, now, I don’t know whether Eliot was exceedingly arrogant and wanted to show-off his “vast” knowledge or that he really thought it was a good idea to throw an allusion every three lines. But it’s frustrating to read The Waste Land. I really wish Eliot had written it in prose. Then maybe, just maybe, I won't have to scratch my head every minute trying to make sense of what he is saying.

are we really evaluating the poem?

Many times, my evaluation of a poem is based my mood or my personal beliefs; reading “The Waste Land” while mentally fatigued wore me out and gave me a horrible first impression of the poem, but upon re-reading in the morning and discussing the poem in class, I found myself intrigued. The idea of relative meaning, based not on the text but on the reader’s unique mindset, with all its transient circumstantial variations, really chips at the concept of an absolute standard against which to measure the true quality of a poem. Not to say my evaluation is so biased as to be useless in an absolute sense, but I can understand how someone else, under different circumstances, could have a radically different yet equally valid take on any given poem.

The problem then becomes how I justify my own criteria of evaluation; structural variants cannot have an impact on whether the poem is “good” or “bad,” because the length of a poem, the presence or absence of punctuation, defined meter, or rhyme scheme, the theme, and the imagery are all simply icing on the cake; the quality of the grammar or structure is not what we have been asked to evaluate – we don’t care whether the poem is well-written. We care whether the poem is “good,” and to a reader that is a purely subjective idea. There cannot be objective criteria, or absolute criteria, for this evaluation. Objective criteria can be used to show how the author develops his point, and can describe the basic theme itself, but the reader’s interpretation of that theme is what defines the quality of the poem.

I can appreciate the style with which many poems are written; that does not mean I think they are good. I will only re-read those poems I like, in the sense that just being ‘well-written’ is not enough to make me pick up a poem again; therefore, when I attempt to describe what makes a good poem, I should refrain from defining my criteria based on an absolute standard. I felt a poem like “Thanatopsis” read well because just before starting my essay I was looking through “The Waste Land”; i.e. I was really in the mood to have things laid out clearly – being sick and tired of the constant allusion, constant metaphorical reference, and constant vagueness – that’s what made “Thanatopsis” a good poem.

If there are no absolute criteria that I can use to define what makes a good poem, and the assignment is to define what I believe is a good poem and evaluate a given writer’s work based on my definition, then maybe the best way to define my preferences is to consider a wider sample set; I might be subjective and biased, but if I consider not just one poem, but many, then maybe it will become clear (to me and to the reader of my essay) what my average criteria are. Considering the page limit, however, it seems I might have to make do with reading the poem with as many different mindsets as possible; eventually, I should have enough sets of “good” and “bad” elements to allow me to consider only the overlap, which should be those qualitative factors not impacted by the specific circumstance of my reading.

Effectively, when I have been asked to assess what is good and bad about a poem, I am forced to evaluate my own values and biases to ensure I do not superimpose these biases into the assessment itself.

Questions about The Waste Land

Here is a list of questions that people in the class posed about The Waste Land (sometimes edited for brevity/clarity).

General

• What is the poem’s overall meaning and theme?



• How are the five sections of the poem connected?



• What was the use of the many speakers and personae?



• Why does Eliot use so many quotations? So many languages?



• There are many references to Dante; is there plot significance?



• How does the rhyme scheme, or lack thereof, affect the meaning of the poem?



• Each section seems like a new story with different narrators; I wonder if the poem could possibly be modeled after the Canterbury Tales.



• Were the five sections meant to be one poem or five poems that just have similar themes?



• What does the title mean? What exactly is the Waste Land?



• Why does he talk about water and rocks?



• What purpose do all the sexual references serve?



• Is death the central theme? Or does each section have its own theme or idea and they all tie in together somehow?



• Why and how are death and sexuality connected? Why is sexuality portrayed as such a horrid thing?

I. The Burial of the Dead

• I don’t understand the point of the girl Marie’s memories in the beginning.

II. A Game of Chess

• In ll. 111-123, is there a dialogue occurring? How many people are speaking? In the first stanza, it seems like the speaker is alone.



• Why does the narrator interject with “HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME”?

III. The Fire Sermon

• Who is Mrs. Porter?



• I wish to know if the typist was raped or not. This puzzles me because the typist felt indifferent toward the sexual act.



• Is “The Fire Sermon” connected to other aspects of the poem because it deals with the end of summer?



• I’m still unsure about the Tiresias passage; what is an old Greek wise man doing peeking in on the couple?



• In “The Fire Sermon,” what is going on after the scene with the typist being raped?

IV. Death by Water

• What is the significance of “death by water”?



• What is the purpose of this section?

V. What the Thunder Said

• The ending of the poem has quotes in two different languages; what is the significance of their juxtaposition?



• What is “What the Thunder Said” about?



• Why is section 5 considered the best part of Eliot’s work?



• What is the significance of the end?

Biographical questions

• What audience did Eliot have in mind while writing the poem?



• What inspired Eliot to write this poem?



• Was Eliot a sadist or a nihilist?

SA #4: The Waste Land continued

Choose a passage of 4 to 6 lines from The Waste Land.

1. List as many observations about your passage as you can.

2. From among your observations, choose a few that seem related. Explain how those observations are related to one another. Be specific!

Some staggling thoughts on the Waste Land discussion

First I would like to say I am probably 1/2 feminist so I hope this blog does not come off "she's still thinking about that?" I wanted to mention it in class today but we didn't talk about the Waste Land so I will blog my thoughts.

So I guess it all comes back to, for me, the whole discussion about the second passage, was the woman described raped or just unhappy? I personally think that the woman in the passage "A Game of Chess" from "The Waste Land" was raped, and to say but she had no will, that it was not rape, than we are making excuses for the man. He does not need our defense I am sure that he can come up with it all on his own. I think that woman are all going to react differently to different situation, not all woman are going to fight back. Especially if this is not the first time, as we all suspect from the poem, of course after 2 or 3 time he spirit is broken. She will not have any will left, in order to live she must become mechanic. The poem does seem to describe the woman as having no will and becoming mechanic in this situation. But I think that is from the emotional rape that has happened over and over in the physical sense but likely in her mind it is replaying, especially the first time. The poem won't mention the phycological effects of being raped over and over, where would it start, how could it begin to describe what that kind of situation does to a woman. And where would this description that cannot possibly be summed up fit into the poem. I think T.S. Eliot did well in trying to describe the emotional and phycological effects just by hinting, that this isn't the first time, and describing the woman's reactions and movements. He seems to not just touch on sexuality in this section, but also death. The death of the woman's will, the death of her spirit, the death of the feminine soul. She has no spirit, no will, she lives as a machine, or that is to say, her body lives but she does not.

That is just my opinion and interpretation of that scene in the poem. The reasons for it being in the poem, I am not quite sure. I have tried to understand Eliot's thought process, organization, and intentions. But I found the poem as a whole very confusing because I felt that it jumped from subject to subject. Like several poems in one section (sometimes) and many sections in the poem. But as you break each part down, it becomes easier to relate, for example there seems to be the underlying theme of sexuality and death. And when examined even closer as we did with section 2, you begin to gather meaning from the poem and suddenly, the different topics and the jumping around doesn't matter anymore, suddenly it begins to connect itself to gather. I still cannot tell how this section connects except though its themes of sexuality and death. I also think that there are many interpretations to each part of the poem and to try as one person to link them together, is hard, not impossible, but hard. And I am sure we would each link the poem and its meanings differently, so who am I to say what is right, all I can do is give my thoughts, my opinion, my interpretation and let you digest them how you will.

"Good" Poetry

Our next assignment is an evaluative essay based on poetry. This topic raises many questions, and one of the more important ones was brought up for class. What first started off as a ten minute free-write quickly turned into a chalkboard full of ideas or, rather criteria of what we may consider "good" poetry. The question was “what is ‘good’ poetry?” At first I thought to write down that criteria for the judgment of poetry, or even literature in general, would be difficult because it varies from person to person. I proceeded with my free-write by jotting down characteristics that I look for when reading poetry.

Poems to me, do not seem like something that can be judged as “good” or “bad.” Poetry is a form of expression. With this in consideration, the ideas are likely to not be judged. Everybody looks for different aspects, some may be structure, others could be rhyme schemes, and many are looking for ones with strong meanings. Some people look for clever poems that are more complex than simply stating a matter and expressing it plainly. Relativity is something that plays an important role in determining some people’s criteria on “good” poetry. At times, even the impression on memory is important to how strong a poem is. When it appeals to the senses, a poem is remembered. This point is significant because it leads to another idea brought up in class. Even when one does not enjoy a poem because of a certain topic or something, for instance death, a poem can still be “good.” I tend to look for how well a poem effectively stimulates intellectual discussion and how well a theme is conveyed. What a poem says to one person is different from what it says to another. These varying interpretations seem to be a poet’s goal. It was also brought up during class that whether someone thinks of a poem as “good” or not could depend on what subject or topic of poetry we enjoy. A poem’s success also lies in its ability to convey a central idea. However, to judge something as complex as a poem with simply “good” or “bad” does not seem sufficient.
Many things must be considered posed with a question like this. In class, we have already had the chance to discuss many of them thoroughly. With each idea, people brought up opposing ideas that would narrow down the criterion on “good” poetry.

The Wasteland Thoughts

“The Wasteland” was definitely one of the more difficult poems read so far in this class. One thing that would have helped me out a great deal would have been knowing that the explanatory notes on this poem were not only directly following the poem, but also in an entirely different section near the end of the book. What I found so confusing while reading was the fact that Eliot would mix his writings with different languages, and I would have no idea what they meant because the interpretations were not in the notes following the poem. There were actually three sections of notes. The first titled, “Notes on the Wasteland”, the second, “Textual Notes”, and the third, “Explanatory Notes”. I’m not sure if it easier for the reader to actually flip through all three sections to find exactly what he or she is looking for than to fit all the notes for a certain piece of writing directly after it.

Now that my complaints on how the book was structured is over with, I can say that the only section of “The Wasteland” that I even faintly understood was the shortest of all the sections consisting of three stanzas.

However, going through them together in class was incredibly helpful to me, not only because of the converging of interpretations among all of the students and the guidance from the instructor but because I found out about the explanatory notes.

Now on more of a serious note, away from the fact that I couldn’t find the notes, one thing that I found interesting about Eliot’s style of writing was how he used so many references to other “things”. As you can see my vocabulary is lacking incredibly, but what I mean by this, more specifically, is how he alludes to other pieces of literature and authors including but not limited to Shakespeare and Dante. This adds to the difficulty of his poems because without an in depth knowledge of all these other writings you would not understand to what Eliot was referring to.

Moreover I noticed that there is a lot of shifts in his poetry even in his references. In one line he may bring up a Shakespearean allusion, but in the line immediately following it, he may add one from Dante.

Also, in comparison to a lot of the other poems we read so far in class I feel as though his writing is dissimilar in many aspects. First of all, it is not as “spiritual” because a lot of the other poems we read seem to have a very spiritual theme talking about religion and its aspects such as giving glory to God. However, though having a sort of dark mood in his poems does not mean it is not “spiritual”, I definitely notice that there is a theme of sexuality and death.

I’m not quite sure how I should finish this blog post other than to say that I feel Eliot was a very intelligent man, and that I would probably never be able to interpret his poems if it were not for this class.

Some commentary on "The Waste Land"

The shortest section of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" titled Death by Water I found interesting, maybe mainly because I felt I could understand it, but also because I think it has an interesting message. As I understand it, the poem tells of Phlebas who has been dead for a fortnight, two weeks?
In his death he has "forgotten the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell," which I take to mean that in death he no longer has the ability to remember the deep ocean.
The mention of "profit and loss" implies that he worked on the sea and made his living from it.

The second stanza describes Phlebas's bones under the sea, tossing and turning in the ocean current. It also describes how he "passed the stages of his youth" on the sea, meaning that he spent most of his life on the ocean. As a final note, Eliot wants the reader to think about Phlebas and consider his fate. In the last stanza Eliot seems to be warning other sailors to examine the story or Phlebas and to be reminded that youth eventually comes to an end and death is inevitable.

It's possible that this section is included in "The Waste Land" because being a sailor is another way to live a machine-like life; another form of living just to survive, which seems to be a recurring theme throughout "The Waste Land." Death by Water might also be included because the man who has died is an example of a common death. Besides a name, this character has no distinctions from any other person who has died at sea, much less on earth.

Reading The Waste Land

When I first looked at the poem "The Waste Land" I saw that it was about fifteen pages, which allowed me to assume that I would easily understand the poem. From my prior experience with poetry I assumed that typically the longer the poem, the more developed the ideas are. I thought that fifteen pages was definitely long enough for me to develop a solid understanding of the poem.

My first reading of the poem literally left me squinting my eyes at the pages with a very confused expression on my face. I have never read any of Eliot's work, and I was very, very confused. I think my first mistake was assuming that the poem was being spoken by the same narrator; then I realized that even each section wasn't being spoken by the same narrator. After I realized that there is more than one speaker in each section, things started to become a tiny bit clearer; not much, mind you.

Section 1 seems to be one of the less confusing parts of Section 1. I believe that the narrator is the woman named Marie. My first thought of when she says "Bin gar keine Russin, stamm; aus Litauen, echt deutsch"(Lines 12-130), is that it may have something to do with a war going on. I thought that the only reason why someone would claim to be a different race would be because a war is underway and one does not want to be associated with the wrong side. I think this would also explain why Marie is reminescing about her carefree childhood with her cousins, now she is under stress because of political turmoil. There are also many references to soldiers and war throughout the rest of the poem, which causes me to think this.

The theme that I find interesting in the poem is that of sex, which in this poem seems like a sad, detached act rather than a passionate act of love. In "A Game of Chess" sex is almost made into something that is expected of a wife; love, or even an emotional connection doesn't necessarily come along with that, and Lil is mocked by the other women for not being able to provide her husband with that because of her deteriorating appearance. Sex is also made into something that is required of a woman to give to her partner in Section 3, when the man proceeds to have sex with the typist although she is clearly uninterested. We discussed in class whether or not this could be considered rape, and I believe that although this doesn't exactly consitute the technical definition of rape, to me it seems obvious that this encounter was not the first of its kind. It seems to me that maybe in the beginning it was more aggressive and violent, and the smug attitude of the man makes me think that he believes he has conquered her because she no longer fights back.

So far these are the only thoughts that I have that actually have some evidence to back them up, maybe with further discussion I can understand the poem better.

How to study...well

I was looking for interesting articles online a couple days ago when I stumbled upon one dealing with efficient and inefficient study methods. I usually don’t bother with these kind of articles because they’re not very effective and just seem bland and moot, without any real substance.
The article I read, however, struck a cord.
I spent years in middle and high school trying to figure out how I study best. All those all-nighters at my desk, bent over a chemistry book or my math homework with what was probably an empty cup of coffee to my side are all more than familiar. Battling fatigue and praying that the infamous second wing’s going to come and save you (and taking in large doses of coffee until then) was something my body got very used to. There were nights were you wouldn’t be able to distinguish me from a ghost, apart from my red, blood-shot eyes that always gave me away to my classmates the next day at school.
I like to think that all that effort was payed off. The fact is, that method of studying was not only inefficient but also detrimental to my health.
As I was reading this article, I was thinking, “this is what I like to do.” So I thought I should share. The article was a list of tips and their explanations. Here are some of them that I would recommend to anyone.
1. When you decide that it’s time to study, do so in short, but frequent sessions. The whole study-until-four AM thing it outdated and over-rated. Give yourself twenty, thirty minute sessions where you study and memorize and then go and make lunch or play basketball (what I used to do). Your brain needs time to let the information sink in. If you throw a whole bunch of facts or concepts at it all at once, chances are only a small proportion will absorb, if any at all.
2. Make sure you study when you feel you’d be productive. If you’re angry or upset, you probably shouldn’t waste your time. When you’re relaxed and in the mood for learning, the learning will be best.
3. Always review. I remember AP biology class in high school; I would read something quickly and move on, not always paying full attention to my reading. Then I would remember that I read something but couldn’t quite remember what it was. Right then and there, I would look it up. That’s how the human brain works; it can’t be fully attentive all the time.
4. Prepare your study environment. Find the place where you study best, whether it be the kitchen or at your desk. Have a pack of cheez-its by your side or any snack you like. Being in the right environment is half the battle, so they say. Also, it’s been proven that chewing on something while your studying boosts concentration.
These all seem like they should be intuitive to every student, but they’ve evaded me for a long time. Hopefully they’ll be of some help.

Palindrome Poem and Constrained Writing

(EDIT: ok, I used firefox and it worked fine)

I was doing some random searches on Wikipedia when I found an article about "constrained writing," which I found very interesting. I discovered some palindromic poems (they read the same backwards or forwards), and then decided to make my own. I soon realized how difficult a task it would be:

I tried to keep it focused on a specific meaning, but the poem seemed to evolve and develop off its own accord as I worked through it. But that is what I found so interesting about this kind of poetry, and about constrained writing in general: you no longer have complete control over the language. An element of chance is introduced, and this can produce something quite profound.
It took me a good chunk of time, after I had finished the semantics of the poem, to get the punctuation and spacing just right.

Without further ado, here is "Was I Lost," By Alistair McGregor:

Was I lost?

Salt a sea.
R&B de-filed: noise.
Lewder, wont lover,
Mood to bore.

Trap a wolf,
Rats live and teem.

O genome! deliver drone,
True mutter,
Rut.
Drab liar, frail bard,
Turret.
Tu meurt en ordre!*

(Vile demon,) Ego,
Meet DNA.

Evil star, flow apart.
E-Robot doom, revolt now!
Red, we lesion,
De-life'd braes.

At last, Sol I saw.

*"You die in order!"

If anyone wants to try and analyze the poem, please do! I would be really interested to know what meaning you can glean from my palindrome.

Dickinson & Eliot Part I, Death?

After class Wednesday, I remembered how my thoughts constantly referred back to Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death." The clear similarity between the two is the topic of death, but the differences catch my attention even more.

Dickinson describes the coming of death as a casual meeting with an acquaintance. Death comes for the speaker and then they ride a carriage through various scenes until the speaker's grave. The physical structure of Dickinson's poem is relatively organized with six quartets and an 8-6 syllable pattern. Eliot, however, uses no distinct structure and a lot of enjambment. In the first section of The Waste Land, there seems to be about four narrators, and many different stories as well. Moreover, Eliot lacks a metrical scheme and little organization except for the breaks between lines 18-19 and 42-43. Even these breaks are ambiguous. Along with the different styles of writing, both poets have different views on death in their respective poems.

Dickinson's perspective on death is very calm. She acts as though death is not only inevitable, but perhaps even a privilege. There is Death who "kindly stop[s] for [her]" on line 2 and the casualness of their carriage trip unnerves me a bit. I would like to say I have no fear of death, but I know that when death does arrive on my doorstep, I will be brutally frightened. Dickinson's speaker acts nonchalant and the reading flow of the poem creates an ambient air of indifference. It was like the speaker was waiting for death.

Unlike Dickinson, Eliot describes multiple outlooks of death in his first section of The Waste Land. Actually, let's look at the title of the poem itself: The Waste Land. Instantly, I am inclined to relate death as bodies in a dumpster aka graveyard. It is important to note in the first stanza the speaker being frightened and the cruelty of April. It is the reminder of death of our loved ones--the time when snow is melted and no longer covers their graves. The second stanza refers to other dead things such as trees and stones and how useless these items can be when no longer living. Then the third stanza goes on to talk about "Death by water" in line 55 and how it should be feared. Even though it is just a gypsy act of tarot cards, Eliot portrays death is evil and certainly not something to be accepted as Dickinson portrays in her poem.

In these two poems, it is evident how death can be seen in various ways. The way these two poems vary in death can also be attributed to the poets themselves. Dickinson writes "Because I could not stop for Death" about 60 years earlier than Eliot's The Waste Land. Another qualitative difference is their gender: Dickinson is a female while Eliot is a male. It is from their gender that I have come to make many assumptions in their poetry. As a female in the mid 1800's, Dickinson did not have as much freedom in her life; thus her view on death is one of acceptance because she may see dying as more noble than having to live restricted in society's chains. As for Eliot, a male had more opportunities to place out his ideas, especially in the 1920's. His life is probably filled with so many fulfilling events that he has so much more to live for and fears death because it would shorten his time of life on earth.

I know it's weird to try and guess what a poet is like from their poems, but I think of it as a pretty fun game. Instead of knowing the background of the poet before reading the poem, I try to make my own assumptions and see how close I am... or how different my assumptions can be than the facts.

More on The Waste Land

I remember when I first learned of the reading assignment on The Waste Land. My initial reaction was somewhere in the vicinity of, "We gotta read that entire book by Wednesday!"

This shock only lasted for a few short moments, thankfully, as it was pointed out to me that The Waste Land is in fact only a mere fifteen pages long. This number was quite misleading, as I thought this assignment to be a simple, quick read that I could nail down in matter of minutes. But that wasn't the case. No, I was not the case at all.

Upon first reading The Waste Land, the poem had little meaning to me. I mean, other than a few simple observations of the references to death and sexuality, I had no understanding of the poems. They were just a collection of oddly compiled poems; I couldn't draw any relations between the sections.

As I thought about what I had just read, I went as far to recognize the recurring use of the word "unreal" always in direct reference to a city. This brought to attention, a correlation between the five sections of the work, but one that I couldn't quite put together. It got my mind to thinking, however, which was a start.

Getting into our discussion, I learned of several aspects that I hadn't even begun to realize before. The bulk of the discussion was about the first section, "Burial of the Dead."

While reading, I recall noticing how several different perspectives were being packed into the poem. During discussion, this was compared to an almost dreamlike state of narration, where all these different thoughts and points of view were being streamlined through a single outlet. I couldn't come to a conclusion, whether or not this writing style was intentional in order to get a particular point across, or merely characteristic of T. S. Eliot's time in the insane asylum (most likely the former, now that I think about: genius over insanity.)

The most eye-opening interpretations were those describing the first eight lines. I found it particularly intriguing in seeing it as a lilac field fertilized by the corpses of the dead, especially as the year 1922 was in the era of World War I. In addition, the arguement for "memory and desire" grounded ideas for me as well, as the month of April usually is clear of snow and ripe with vegetation. The desire for greenery clashes with the desire to forget the memory of the dead, who fertilize these healthy fields.

And here is where the genius (or insanity perhaps) comes into play. As this first stanza could be a credible introduction to a post WWI-era narrative, Eliot jumps to another narrator and subject, again, and again, and again...

But that's as far as my understanding goes for now. Yeah.. Not very far.

The Waste Land

We started reading "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot today in class. However, when I looked at our syllabus a couple nights ago, and saw that we had to read the entire poem, I was worried. I usually do not read very deep and critical thinking poems. I like everything sweet and simple (I wish the world would work like that). However, when I started reading all the lines in the poem, I realized this is far beyond my brain. How can someone think like this? Either T.S. Eliot is a genius to write a poem in such a way that everything connects to each other. On the other hand, he could possibly be a total lunatic who came up with the most random things to talk about in a poem.

Nevertheless, when we discussed the first part, The Burial of the Dead, I actually comprehended a lot more in class than on reading on my own. What my fellow classmates said made the first part somewhat clear. I understood that there were four different speakers in the first part, and I felt like they were all trying to find something, some kind of answer. This made sense for the last two speakers, the tarot card reader and the London bridge scene because in both of those parts, there were people who were looking for some kind of answer. However, that theory does not fit well with the first two parts.

Then, I remembered the whole concept of memory and desire, and tried to see if that is how all the four parts in the first section were connected. The first two are a good example of memory because the speaker in the first one remembers her childhood memories about playing with her cousin when she was younger. The second part also seems like the narrator is remembering a woman from his past that he possibly could have loved. The fourth one could also be considered in the memory category because the narrator is recollecting his memory about the dead person buried, and wanting to know what happened to it. However, the third part did not seem to have any memory connection as all.

So things I am not sure about in the first part of The Waste Land are

1. How are all four parts in The Burial of the Dead connected?

2. Why does everything so random?

3. Why are there random languages in various parts?

4. Is Death the main theme of the first section or not?

Nonetheless, I just hope that this poem would be a lot easier as we read further into it.

SA #3: The Waste Land

Choose one section of The Waste Land. Summarize it in three sentences or fewer.

Response to William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis"

When I looked at this poem, the first thing that crossed my head was its length and the amount of time I would have to spend to analyze it. In the beginning, I really would have liked to read another Emily Dickinson poem for homework since her poems are mostly very short. But as I read more and more, I found that this poem, despite its length, is actually very interesting and easy to understand. Upon finishing my assignment, I interpreted and translated the contents of this poem into Bryant’s way to comfort those who are afraid of death.

In the beginning of the poem, Bryant describes how nature is able to take away the “sharpness” of your “darker musings” and lighten your spirits even when you think of death. He also says that nature will be there to hear you “list” your fears to her and that once you die you will be one with nature. And after comforting the reader with nature, Bryant moves on to say how once you die, you are buried with the most acknowledgeable and “powerful of the earth” thereby glorifying the eternal resting place of man. (Now, to one of my favorite parts of the poem) Bryant adds humor to this poem when he says “…what if thou shalt fall/ Unheeded by the living—and no fried/ Take note of thy departure? All that breathe/ Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh/ when thou art gone…yet all these shall leave…and shall come,/ and make their bed with thee” (58-66). Bryant is saying that even if you die alone without others sympathy, and even if others rejoice about your death, they will eventually join you in death. (I found this really funny, almost like the dead are saying “In your face for laughing at me, now you have to join me.”) Bryant ends the poem with how everyone dies and that death is like “[lying] down to pleasant dreams” (81).

After I read the poem and figured out the message it was trying to send, this poem became one of the best ones I’ve read this year. Unlike Dickinson, who generally describes death and the process of dying, Bryant took measures to comfort those who are afraid of death. He made it seem as if dying is a chance to stand at the same level as other great leaders of the past. Personally, I think it is harder to comfort than to describe. What do you think?

Reflection on "The Novice as Expert: Writing the Freshman Year"

As I read this article, I remembered thinking to myself: "My gosh this is a deathly long article. Why is this the first entry in our reader?" Fortunately, it was a relatively fast read. My favorite section was the relation made between writing and the race between the tortoise and the hare. It seems as though we are all tortoises and hares in various areas of our lives. I, for one, still don't know exactly which one to call myself in the area of writing.

With a strong background in mathematics and a penchant towards the life sciences, I easily identify myself as a hare in writing--I just wanted to get the essay done as fast and as painless as possible. As Nancy Sommers mentions, however, the opportunity to write has allowed many students to place their own ideas in the essays and even acquire a better sense of learning. And as it is with me, the past couple of years in high school, I scribbled my own thoughts and became a much stronger writer. I was no longer fearful of the new Microsoft Word Document waiting for my sentences.

Although the fear of writing declined, I don't know if I can consider myself a tortoise. I spend time on writing my essays, but I certainly do not see myself becoming a prolific writer in the future. On the other hand, I have learned to enjoy writing more than I see most hares experience. It is the dilemma between writing more or writing less that questions my identity as a writer. As I continue the English class of poetry, I hope to understand the beauty of poems and call myself a tortoise: a person who dives into the subject and spends time on the writing. Moreover, I hope as students we are able to help each other identify each others as potential writers.

The Onion: National Endowment For The Arts Funds Construction Of $1.3 Billion Poem

WASHINGTON—The National Endowment for the Arts announced Monday that it has begun construction on a $1.3 billion, 14-line lyric poem—its largest investment in the nation's aesthetic- industrial complex since the $850 million interpretive-dance budget of 1985. [more]

What is being made fun of here, and why?

Thomas Traherne

Our discussion about Thomas Traherne’s “Wonder” was cut short due to the time limit of the class. However, Sushant brought up a new perspective that was both farfetched and strangely amusing. He remarked—probably with sarcasm-- that the narrator is undergoing midlife crisis. As a result, I was laughing: it was simply too difficult to take the poem seriously. By no means am I intentionally trying to insult people’s beliefs; it is just my temperament that caused me to view such religious zeal with cynicism.

The image I have in mind was not that of a man going through a panic attack. Instead, I see the narrator as someone who is undergoing a mushroom trip. I do not believe a man is capable of spontaneously bursting into such happiness. Instead, prior to such joy, he was under depression that prompted him to consume hallucinogenic mushrooms. The narrator mentions that “Harsh ragged objects were concealed; oppressions, tears, and cries… were hid” (ln.25-28). Similarly, he reiterated the disappearance of all unpleasant worldly troubles in the following passage: “Cursed and devised proprieties, with envy, avarice… flew from the splendor of mine eyes… I dreamed not aught of those” (ln.49-54). He does not dream (dream!) of these pains. Mushrooms induce hallucinations; they provide these “dreams.” Of course, the narrator could simply mean wishful thinking, but all his other senses betray this notion.

It seems that all things considered good just magically appear before the narrator. He claims that “Rich diamond and pearl and gold in every place was seen” (ln.41-42). Yet, not only do these valuable good appear before him, he claims that “proprieties themselves were mine” (ln.57). He repeats this notion by saying, “Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed my joys by others worn” (ln.61-62). To sum it up, he suddenly becomes very rich and very generous. In return, he is praised. Fame, wealth, and power are sought after by men. He was able to obtain two, and only relinquishes one to God who is supposed to be the most powerful anyway. Surely he can’t be dreaming.

Yet, the most telling sign is the characteristic of mushroom consumption: he saw colors—lots of different colors. He described, with vivid details—“Rare splendors, yellow, blue, red, white, and green, mine eyes did everything behold” (ln.43-44). Excluding white-- which is every color combined—the remaining colors: red, blue, and green form the primary colors of light and red, blue, yellow form the primary color palette of artists. Needless to say, he was seeing a lot of different colors.

We can conclude, satirically, that the narrator is indeed high on mushroom. All evident, however distorted or taken out of context, points to the same verdict. So what now, Mr. I-am-happier-than-the-jovial-friars, ready to admit to eating hallucinogenic shrooms?