My Favorite Poem in the class (at least as of now)

My favorite poem in the class so far has to be Edward Taylor’s “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly.” No, it’s not just because I am able to understand it—however, it does help a lot since it is maybe only one of a handful that I did really understand. It is my favorite poem because it certainly relates to me as a seeking Christian. I call myself a seeking Christian because even though I’ve had a strong foundation at a church, an education at a Catholic school, and beliefs and morals that match many of Jesus’ teachings, I am still seeking as to exactly who I am.

At times, I would feel like the fly, trapped and hopeless, and even dead to society. Other times, I would feel some kind of supernatural strength helping me fight through tough times in school or with family. Taylor presents the poem really well with the different scenarios of a wasp and a fly being caught in the spider’s web. The poem helps to create visual images that can be disturbing—“And hind the head/Bite dead”—but also revealing and hopeful—“Thy grace to break the cord, afford” (Taylor 24-25, 43).

Another reason as to why I like Taylor’s poem is because it is familiar to what I am used to seeing in poetry. I know this may be because I am very narrow-minded in the field of poetry, but I like how there is a specific structure to the poem. There are 5-line stanzas with the rhyme scheme of ABACC in each stanza and the syllable counts as well (I observed these myself!).

I’ve learned to appreciate this poem a lot more as we progressed in this class because we got into the more modernist poetry and lots of poems that I just could not understand. I would ask myself, “Why would O’Hara write these poems?” Honestly, I’d try to fool myself into an answer that is somewhat satisfactory, but I still have no idea. Moreover, Marianne Moore and Harryette Mullen are two other examples of poets who I still have no idea as to what the purpose was in their writing. As for Taylor, I understand that he is trying to glorify God’s grace and almighty power to the world. In his poetry, Taylor praises God as the one who can help you out of the vicious deaths in meaningless activities on earth. “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly” certainly holds a lot of meaning in its short lines and I certainly do like this poem.

I really do hope that I continue to read poetry, even though I was discouraged a lot this semester by all the complex poems we read. I also hope that you, as well, will continue to read poetry.

Coping with the Waste

After studying for the final exam, I realized how Wendy Cope's name is so fitting for her poetry. For example, the first poem we read is called "Engineers' Corner" and it describes the harsh life of an engineer when the poets seem to have such a grand time. It is as if she is trying to help engineers by recognizing their hardships and helping them cope with the problems. Moreover, she points out specific differences between the lives of poets and the lives of engineers such as a "statue in the Abbey" and "must be hell" (Cope 12, 15). It's funny how Cope would point out these differences when she herself is a poet.

In the second poem, "Waste Land Limericks,” Cope helped me cope with trying to understand what Eliot’s “The Waste Land” was all about. She follows the five section patterns, but very briefly describes the sections. At first, it may seem like it's just a parody and there really is of no importance to her poem in relation to Eliot's poem. When I read it over again, I see how accurate her sections are to the actual "The Waste Land." She points out the death in the fourth section, the typist's encounter in the third section, the two couples in the second section, and the different speakers in the first section.

Although Cope’s poems are in a way mocking and fun, her points do get across. I would not be surprised in the Renaissance if there were many engineers who lived unnoticed because they were overshadowed by the writings of poets. I would not be surprised if people were able to understand Eliot’s poem just a tad better because Cope explains it with more pedestrian language. In addition, the parody format helps to lighten up the mood and not make it seem like an assignment.

Why do I bring up Cope? Well, she brings me hope to the final. Her style of poetry is kind of the life that I want to be able to live: Recognizing the hardships in life, but being able to live through them by poking fun at them. As finals week dawns upon us, may we be able to see some of the humorous aspects of our lives rather than just slaving over the textbooks.

Authors

I noticed that Andrew came up with a list of the poems we studied in class this semester with his summaries next to them so I thought I could post a list of authors and some of the things that help me remember who wrote what.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
-rhyming at the end of each line
-some alliteration
-religious poetry

Emily Dickinson
-lots of dashes, ones in the middle of the line or at the end
-weird capitalization, capitalization of the first word of each line, and capitalization of nouns
-something about death
-short lines
-slant rhyme

William Cullen Bryant
-medium length lines
-some dashes
-talks about nature and how nature is a comforting figure
-capitalization of the first word in each line

Thomas Traherne
-angels
-describing a world someone first enters
-about birth/rebirth/afterlife

Edward Taylor
-about spiders
-very short lines with a specific format (indentation)
-
Christopher Smart
-the line starts with the word “For”
-talks about cats

T.S. Eliot
-dialogue
-foreign languages
-references to foreign places
-
Wendy Cope
-short
-easy to understand
-talks about the wasteland (the few parts I understood)

Marianne Moore
-animals, using specific scientific names
-not much punctuation
-complex sentence structures, very long sentences
-quotes that you won’t notice are quotes unless they are quoted
-things about nature
-things about humans and their relationship to nature

William Carlos Williams
-some poems have very short lines, like a few words short
-some poems have middle length lines
-almost no punctuation (except dashes and commas, sometimes there are periods)

Kenneth Koch
-long lines, sentences
-humorous
-reminds me of the plum poem

Langston Hughes
-about Harlem,
-examples of dreams deferred
-African Americans
-italics
-some onomatopoeia
-short lines

Frank O’Hara
-food
-lunchtime
-seemingly trivial activities
-New York
-foreign places
-vulgar language

John Donne
-love and the lover’s world
-“thou”, “thee”
-Shakespeare-ish language (I forgot what it’s called, Middle English?)

Robert Duncan
-complete sentences
-describes a place (the meadow)
-talks about writing (Structure of Rime)

Lorine Niedecker (I don’t have much to say)
-very short poems
-a little random

Harryette Mullen
-incomprehensible
-sometimes paragraph form
-specific patterns (ex. Sentences start out the same way, lines start with same letter of the alphabet)

Review

Since we have not studied any new work in the past week and the final is coming up, I’m sure everyone cares more about the final than anything else connected to poetry. Here’s a list of the works and authors we have studied. The summaries are not to be taken seriously, just a mnemonic device to help me remember what they are.

Hopkins
God’s Grandeur- even as light of the world disappears, it will always return, as God Is eternal.
The Windhover- talks about how mighty and beautiful that bird is.
Pied Beauty- praise God for all things, regular and exotic, generic and specific.
Spring and Fall- addressing Margaret, comforting her from the grief of a departing friend.

Dickinson
After Great Pain- After the grieving period, the person take cares of chores in a mechanical manner.
Twas Like a Maelstrom- some dreadful imageries—pain, torture, and the likes.
I heard a fly buzz- narrator dies, but is constantly annoyed by a buzzing fly.
Because I could not stop for death- death comes and ferries the narrator away.

Traherne
Wonder- The guy on shrooms thinking how like an angel he came down. Also seeing many colors.

Taylor
Upon a spider catching a fly- Fly gets caught, wasp escapes—referring to level of religious devotion.

Smart
Jubilate Agno—the cat poem.


Bryant
Thanatopsis—land of the dead. People return to nature once they die.

Eliot
The Waste Land—people become mechanical. Loss of individuality. Lots of rape. Lots of quotes.

Cope
Waste Land Limericks—parody of the Waste Land.
Engineers’ Corner—parody of engineers—engineers have it hard whereas English majors seem to have it easy

Moore- A bunch of stuff about observable phenomena particular concerning nature. The following are her poems:
The Jerboa
The Monkeys
Critics and Connoisseurs
An Octopus
Poetry
He ‘Digesteth Harde Yron

Williams
Spring and All—defy convention—“plagiarism” and create new things from personal imagination.

Koch
Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams—parody of Williams and how everything seem to be so frivolous and mean-spirited.

O’hara
Lunch Poems- bunch of poems that does not seem to particularly bear much weight.

Hughes
Montage of a Dream Deferred- Black people. White people. Beats.

Donne
The Good Morrow- addresses the lover. Compare their love to the world.
The Sun Rising- Sun, don’t bother my mistress/wife/lover and let us enjoy our morning.
The Canonization- some more lover’s stuff. Particular interested in imagery of sexual climax.

Duncan
Often I am Permitted to return to a meadow- some guy who wants a piece of mind.
The structure of Rime I- A guy talking to a woman who epitomizes sentence.
The structure of Rime II-A guy disguised as a lion talking to a lion.

Niedecker
(A bunch of poems we never analyzed and of which I hope isn’t on the final)

Hass
Skipped

Mullen
Sleeping with the dictionary- trying to be incomprehensible.

General announcements/reminders

1. The exam is in 20 Wheeler (in the basement, lucky us!) on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2 pm.

2. If you haven't picked up your marked-up draft yet, it's in my mailbox in 322 Wheeler, which is open M-F 9am-noon and 1-4pm.

3. Optional exam review is on Friday 9-10 am in 400 Wheeler, where I hold my regular office hours. If you're longing to know what your colleagues would say about a Williams poem, this is the time and the place.

What is the meaning?

I've been thinking, with all that we critique and analyze in class, we come up with a lot of possible explanations to answer why a piece of work is the way it is. And at times we come to really good and valid conclusions, and at other times we fumble around in the dark.

But I've been thinking, is there always an intention or a meaning behind everything that the author or creator makes? Two recent examples that got me to considering this are of Frank O'Hara and Harriette Mullen. Much of O'Hara's writing seems to be merely portraying a particular incident or observation of his on that given lunch day. Mullen creates her poetry through the ispiration of dictionary games.

In analyzing these poems, we come up with many key points and ideas behind them. But is it possible that they could have been written just for the sake of putting pen to paper? Maybe there were no thoughts or underlying reasons for doing so, but they were just created, perhaps aimlessly.

One instance that brought this to my attention was during pin-ups for Environmental Design 1, where we showcase our work on the wall. The reviewers (professor and GSIs) interpretted various works and possible reasons for why the collages were a certain way, and sounded very astute in their observations.

One comment was, "the hint of pink used throughout this collage perfectly accents the dimmed lights within the museum, and it really carries across well to the viewer. We get a sense of colors blending in together due to the lighting." It was something to this extent. "Was this why you chose to include this color?"

"No... my printer was just running low on ink..."

And this GSI stood there, stumped, with many annonymous giggles to highlight the embarrassment. And this happened on numerous occasions, with similar responses, such as "No... I ran out of cardboard" or "I didn't have anymore photos to include." We all found this hilarious :]

So my question is, is it always necessary to find meanings behind everything (especially for Mullen) ? It seems like sometimes we may just be swinging in the dark.

treatment of machines in the waste land

In the tale of the typist, in The Waste Land, Eliot makes clear that the typist has no will; she is “indifferent,” and “hardly aware,” and the two seem connected to her “automatic” motion. More interesting to me, however, is the action of the lover, the man the majority of our class felt was a rapist.


He is “patronising” upon leaving, which would indicate that although he is aware of her lack of desire – that he knows her “indifference” is not in his favor. The typist never resists, though. She never makes a negative motion; indeed, she makes no motion at all. She never exercises her will, never seeks to control her circumstances. Her actions are automatic, robotic, machine-like, and he treats her as such.


The question I would raise, and which I believe Eliot is raising through this passage, is whether the atrophy of will is simultaneously the atrophy of humanity. On the basest level, it is necessary to show consideration for the impact an individual’s actions will have on others. If those others are not capable of feeling, of being affected by one’s actions, or at the very least not capable of voicing their concerns, do they still deserve consideration? Do their desires, their preferences, still matter, at least in the context of how their preferences impact our decisions?


Eliot does not deign to answer this question directly; rather, his example of the typist points out that whether or not the lover is morally in the wrong for caressing the typist with the knowledge that his “caresses” are “undesired,” the action is still carried through. This is a key point – the lover continues to act. Where are the repercussions for his violation? Where are the checks to his desires? If she would speak, the typist would say no, but she does not speak, and so he continues – and this is no one-time occurrence, for he is an “expected guest.”


There can be no morality in this new world because although all of us are humans, not all of us have that intangible quality of the will. Those of us who do can hold our own, can speak out, but those who do not are indistinguishable in the “crowd”; these machines walk, talk, and look like us, but they are susceptible to the same violation as the typist – their preferences effectively mean nothing for they cannot express their will upon reality.


In a sense, this de-humanization speaks more about those who do have will than those who do not. How do we treat our machines? How do we, who have the ability to make and carry through decisions, treat those lesser than us, who cannot speak up for themselves? From the point of view of absolute morality, we rape them. But in reality, if an issue is intangible, without visible symptoms, and its sufferers do not voice their pain, the healthy cannot be blamed for failing to take the appropriate action.