Poetry Day!

       For my last post (sob), I thought I'd write about one of my favorite days all term...poetry day! Last week, we decided to spend class sharing aloud our favorite poems and working on our own short proses. I shared a poem by the Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough, while others in the class shared poems by Shakespeare, Frost, and Silverstein. I enjoyed discussing the meaning behind the poems and seeing who was drawn to what kind of poetry. Alex shared his love for the romantic sonnets of Shakespeare; Shannon chose my all-time favorite poem, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost and connected its themes to our current struggles as indecisive college kids; Charlie went for J.R.R. Tolkien and and Kipling, poems about fantasies and gypsies.
        My favorite poem of the day was the one Meghan wrote herself for her friend who committed suicide. I thought it was brave of her to share such an important piece of her life with the class. This one especially touched my heart because one of my good friends from grade school jumped off the Y bridge near my house several weeks ago. We had been friends from a very young age: our moms were in the local "Mothers Together" group and we went to preschool through eighth grade together. I had learned that he had been having some trouble at college in Michigan, but I didn't expect to hear the news my sister told me in April. Apparently, he had been on medication for his depression but because he was so young, the medication triggered a reversal. He was in so much pain and depression that his clouded mind saw death as the only way out. He left behind him his mother, father, and younger brother. I know that the friend I had wouldn't cause his family this much pain if he were able to think straight. He was probably the most intelligent person I had ever known, and the most compassionate soul I had ever encountered.
        I almost didn't go to the funeral-I don't really know how to cope with grief and thought I had done well hiding it away. I kept my face bright to my friends at college and then to my father as he picked me up from school to attend the calling hours and funeral. It wasn't until I reached the calling hours and saw the line that wrapped around the Church twice that I broke down in tears. It was amazing to see how many people this young man had touched, and I am extremely grateful for having known him in my life. I am learning to remember good memories I had with him and trying not to dwell on the tragedy of his gruesome death.
        The poem I chose for class was one I found soon after the death of my friend. Titled, "The Music of the World and of the Soul," I found it referred to two types of music one hears.  One is "Loud and bold and coarse," which I think refers to the noises of everyday life. Sometimes people get so wrapped up in their mundane lives, going from class to class, activity to activity, work to sleep. The other music, "Soft and low, stealing whence we do not know, painfully heard, and easily forgot," is our own voice. Jimmy lost himself in this voice, and he grew unaware of the loud voice of his family and friends who loved him. The poem reminded me that there must be a balance, and that even when I want to curl up in my own thoughts and remember my sadness and grief, I must stop and look around. The world hasn't ended, and my life is not over. I have to grow and take knowledge away from my experiences.
        I found poetry day to be cathartic experience. Our small class shared poems about chairs and time, read aloud our line-by-line poems that turned out great, and even wrote poems that were about mystery objects. Most importantly, we shared our insights, our personalities, our creativity, and our souls. In a way, Poetry Day was not just a day to share the insights of the authors in their works, but it was also a way to share a piece of ourselves.

Jimmy Lyons: You brought so much light into my life. I'll

never forget you or your exceptional character. Love you!

The Dead

        The Dead is the final short story in Joyce's collection titled The Dubliners. Dr. Reed mentioned that The Dubliners followed a "short story cycle," because it seems to fit with the rest of Joyce's stories as it deals more with the idea of death. The story focuses on a tragically flawed man named Gabriel who is attending an old fashioned dinner party held by his aging aunts in Ireland. Joyce's third person omniscient point of view and stream of consciousness way of writing showed insight into Gabriel's thoughts. When reading the story, I began to get annoyed with his need or desire to wear his intelligence like a shield-it's like he wanted to sound pretentious and narcissistic to the rest of the dinner party guests. For most of the story, he was focused on what he would say for his speech that night, and he worried whether or not his poetic reference to Robert Browning would be over his audience's head (1948).
        While the dinner party continues on, Gabriel continues to narrate the merriment of the other guests, his confrontation with Miss Ivors, and his fascination with his wife, Gretta (1953). After the party, while he is traveling back to the hotel with his wife, Gabriel conjures thoughts of his wife getting excited about the prospect of becoming intimate with him. He doesn't seem to notice her reserved or distant attitude while they are riding back to their room, and he is surprised when after they kiss she begins to cry. She explains that she had been thinking about an old friend she dated when she was younger who died for her. This is an important moment for the story because Gabriel feels foolish for mistaking her sadness for excitement and begins to feel insecure about his relationship with his wife (1971).
        In class, we noticed that Gretta's dead lover's name was Michael, the name for a strong angel who wielded a sword. Gabriel's name is also a biblical allusion to the messenger angel that delivered God's news to prophets on earth. Here we dissect the characters of Gabriel and Michael. Gabriel is pretentious and insecure: he spent most of the story talking about nonsensical facts and never took action on any of his desires with his wife. Michael traveled to see Gretta even though he was sick and died just to see her: he couldn'y live without her and took control over his life. The two men differed in many ways, and just like their names represented, Michael took action and was brave while Gabriel only delivered speeches or messages containing other people's ideas or needs.

                Angel Gabriel                          Angel Michael
          

Pedro Paramo

        Pedro Paramo is an interesting story by Juan Rulfo that first introduced the idea of "magical realism" to me. While his story is mainly about how the town died after its main source of wealth and food refused to work its fields, Rulfo also uses surreal elements like ghosts and spirits as the voices of the town to explain interrelationships between townspeople.
        I wrote my last term paper on this novel, and I focused on the Marxist view of social stratification in the town, Comala. I found it interesting that Rulfo was born into a family of wealth and prestige, but after the revolts during the Cristero War broke out, his family fled for their lives to the outskirts of town. Since Rulfo experienced both rich and poor upbringings, he had proper insights into the effects of both on a person. Because of this understanding and yet confliction of identity since he didn't truly belong in one category, Rulfo used many different ghosts from all kinds of upbringing in Comala to be the narrators of the story.
        Pedro Paramo was an interesting read for me because I had to really focus on figuring out who was supplying the information at what time. Since Rulfo kept changing who was telling the story and rarely told the reader outright who had taken control over the narrative, I had to reread certain passages in order to understand the plot and conflict resolution. I think I enjoyed it so much because Rulfo left room for interpretation, especially when describing the strange relationship between Pedro and Susana. I like thinking of multiple situations or concepts for a certain story, and this gave plenty of room for the reader to connect the dots and pepper in some imagination to the plot.
        A final fascinating focus of the novel was on Rulfo's fixation with symbolism. Even though he did not introduce each different passage by identifying the voice, Rulfo did use different symbols to represent different characters. For example, he always introduced the perspectives of Pedro and Susana with images of water. In one passage from Pedro, he opens it with the line, "Water dripping from the roof tiles were forming a hole in the sand of the patio" (2630). When townspeople told the story of Pedro's son, Miguel, Rulfo always writes about a horse's gallop or his lonesome neighs.

Things Fall Apart

        Things Fall Apart was an interesting story written by Chinua Achebe, a well-known Nigerian writer. His novel focused mostly on the impact of westernization and western colonization on an eastern, African tribe or community. The main character in the novel was a native named Okonkwo, a tragic hero in the sense that he was masculine to a fault. Affected psychologically by his father's laziness and desire to relax and play music instead of work to feed his family, Okonkwo denied himself any gentle qualities and worked hard to become the opposite of his father. While this made him a warrior and man of great respect, it kept him from understanding his son, Nwoye. Because of this lack of communication, Nwoye left his family and converted to the Christian beliefs of the western colonists, an act that brought shame to Okonkwo. 

        Gender is very prevalent in this novel, and Achebe uses the faults of the protagonist to further the plot. Because of Okonkwo's masculinity, he causes unrest in his family. He accidentally kills Ezeudu's son at Ezeudu's funeral and must leave town for seven years for committing a "female," or inadvertent crime. While living temporarily in the land where his mother's family lived, Okonkwo constantly thought about how he would regain his respect when he was allowed to live with his clan again. Achebe peppers the plot with masculine and feminine actions: he killed a man when his cannon shot off in an unlucky direction, a phallic symbol, he was charged with a feminine crime and forced to live in the land of his mother. The novel ended with the clan's general acceptance of the colonists. Okonkwo decided to take a stand by killing the colonist's head messenger, thinking his fellow brothers would follow suit. When they reacted poorly to the death, Okonkwo couldn't take their "femininity" and killed himself instead of conforming with the western influences. In a way, his death was not weak or a sign of submission- I think he died along with his ancient clan's beliefs and values.

 

Snow White and Blood Red

        It seems that the colors of white and red have been used in many instances to signify opposites: the Disney movie Snow White, for example, represents purity and innocence. When the evil queen disguised as an old woman gives her a blood red apple, Snow White is compromised by the poison inside and falls into a coma. Another example is in the story, Snow Country. Shimamura often noted that Komako's kimono was deep red on the inside, a contrasting color to her pale white skin. He also sees beauty in her scrubbed, flushed skin after she removes her powdered makeup.
        In Japanese culture, I found information on a symbiotic relationship between the colors "red" and "white." Even though the colors are opposites in many ways, they share some common symbolism. The following is from a website about color symbolism:
        According to Henry Dreyfus, the word for red and white, Kohaku, is pronounced as one word in Japanese. Ko means red, while haku translates as white. Their use together immediately signifies happiness and celebration to the Japanese viewer. The combination of red and white in the decorative ornaments used on wedding or engagement presents -noshi or kaishi- has a compelling quality that suggests man's urge to create a bond between his own life and that of the gods.  Red and white are also the colors of the uniforms that shrine maidens wear (denoting these colors divine nature.)
Red and white are the colors of the Japanese flag; the red signifies the sun.
As shown here, together the colors share important symbolism. In the story, Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari, there are many images of white and red reflected together. While some hold obvious emotions of beauty or love, Yasunari also gives the reader room to reflect on the meaning of some examples. The author spends a majority of the novel pointing out contrasts between the burgundy autumn leaves and the crisp white snow, the rising and setting of the colorful sun against the snow-covered mountains, and other scenic images containing the colors white and red. Near the end of the novel when Komako and Shimamura run to the fire, Shimamura is startled when he saw the clear white Milky Way. As they ran towards the fire, he could "feel the red over the starlit." In this way, he ties together the characters of Yoko and Komako with the red and white images. Yoko is steady and blends into the background, much like the simple white, while Komako is loud, conflicted, and passionate like the emotional color, red. As they race to the fire where Yoko has perished, Yasunari is connecting the identities of Yoko and Komako by having Komako bathed in the white light of the Milky Way and the quiet Yoko killed in a fiery red and traumatic accident.
        Amidst all of the images of red and white, Yasunari demonstrates that despite their clashes and differences, like Komako and Yoko in Snow Country, the colors are symbiotic and can fit together happily.

This is an image of a kohaku koi fish, a representation of the stark red and white constrasts.

Child's Play

        Child's Play was one of my favorite expressions of a poet that I have read in class. I call it an expression because it really was a part of Ichiyo's life. Ichiyo was a young woman who lived on the edge of a "red-light" district or prostitutional district in Japan. She used her surroundings and observations as inspirations for her short story. In Child's Play, Ichiyo spun the tale of a typical love triangle with dynamic twists. While one boy, Shota,  was too young to understand the emotional toll Midori dealt with because of her sister's occupation and her family's dependency on the income, the other was too introverted and embarrassed to share his feelings of love with her. While I was reading the story, I often forgot how young the characters were because they dealt with "adult-like" situations. Nobu was a reserved scholar who saw his religious father as a hypocrite because he was so interested in material possessions and making money, he lost sight of the importance of religion. He decided he was going back to the traditional way of living and left for the seminary at the end of the play. Shota, a boy of only thirteen, was consumed by looking older and trying to grow up faster. He used Midori as arm candy and enjoyed it when she looked beautiful like her older sister who the reader assumes is a geisha character, or a beautiful woman who has many customers and ends up marrying a rich politician. His grandmother was a tough old loan shark, and he was thought to be stingy like her because he would soon be taking over the business. The person who struggles the most through this age in her life is Midori, a young girl of about fifteen or sixteen who is sassy, strong, and outspoken in the beginning of the play. She is a beautiful young girl who goes through a change in her life where she loses her innocence of childhood and becomes a wistful young woman who is not happy with her situation in life. Because her sister is such a prominent geisha or high-class prostitute, Midori sees no way out and realizes she is destined to follow the same path. The unrequited love between Nobu and Midori further deepens the plot and Ichiyo shows how young children can be tethered by the standards and statuses of adulthood. 

        One of the most important symbols in this play comes at the very end of the story when Midori finds a paper narcissus inside of the gate. I think that Nobu gave the flower to Midori as a token of his undying love for her. When I looked up the meaning of the Narcissus flower however, I received mixed results. It can represent rebirth and new beginnings, which makes sense to the story because Nobu was leaving for the seminary. It can also mean chivalry and singular love which makes sense because Nobu clearly had feelings for Midori and because he is going to the seminary, he isn't supposed to be romantically involved again. The conflicting view is that if given a single paper narcissus, it can represent misfortune. Ichiyo could have done this on purpose because Midori had already lost her life and spirit to her occupation and Nobu may have sensed this and sent the flower to remind her of what she has chosen. Overall, I thought the story was beautifully written and found the symbolism of the paper narcissus very intriguing. 

Death and the King's Horseman

        While traveling back home this weekend with my father for dentist appointments and quality time with the family, I began the play, Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka. At first, I found the play difficult to comprehend because it was not only written in the style of Shakespeare (his plays are known to contain odd sentence structure and antique words that cause most students to just use Sparknotes for class), but it also incorporated Eastern and  African concepts and words that were so far from my culture. I began to get frustrated with my lack of focus but just as I was about to put Norton (my name for the Norton Anthology of World Literature textbook) down, I stumbled upon Elesin's tale of the Not-I bird. In his tale, the King's horseman spoke of a bird who failed his duty to Death. All of the people that heard Death knocking made excuses to stay alive and evade his icy grasp, but Elesin proudly said he accepted his duty to die that night. He said he is not like the "Not-I" bird because he was ready to fulfill his duty and die that night because of the King's passing.
        Elesin's tale of the "Not-I" bird made me reflect on whether or not I am evading responsibilities or alluding people in my life. According to the ancient religious cult, the King's Horseman was supposed to take his own life once the King had died. Elesin was prepared to "meet his forebears" and boasted of his confidence and determination to follow through with his duty. How many times do I act like the "fearless" hunter who lies to avoid death but only finds himself frozen in fear, unable to make a decision? I know that it is not good to lie or avoid responsibility simply because I am feeling tired or lazy, but there are times when I don't feel like pushing myself and I settle in complacency. Elesin's boast reminded me of those times in life when I am stagnant. I will make a concentrated effort to keep pushing myself to make the next move and make my life more meaningful.

Virginia Woolf

        Ever since we read a couple chapters of A Room of One's Own, I have not been able to get her words out of my head. I really connected with the honesty she put into her words. Because I felt so strongly about the chapters, I decided to check out the book at the library. I enjoy it even more than the sections we read in class. I think what I like most about her is that most of her writing in the book is her frank commentary about her life. She seems to allude to her feelings about a certain person or place by the way she describes it in the book. As Prof. Reed mentioned in class, the first chapter was hilarious when she compared the two colleges where she was a speaker. At times, she used satirical wit and humor to describe the men at the male-only college who seemed almost nervous of her wisdom as a woman. Woolf has this certain charm about her writing that makes me want to keep reading, yet I can tell that she is a strong, individual women.

       I never thought of myself as a feminist before, not that it's a bad thing. I feel like in our age, if a woman is strong and doesn't like when other people go out of their way to help her, she is pidgeonholed into the term, "feminist." On the flip side of this, if a woman likes the attention she gets when men try to help her all the time and acts dumb or flirts constantly to keep the attention going, other women say she's "against her own kind!" Personally, I don't think I fit into either category. Like Woolf in A Room of One's Own, I am constantly searching for answers to difficult questions, ones that really don't exist. The narrator spent time in the library researching questions like, "Why are women poor?" and "Why are there shelves of books about women written by men and barely any books by women?" I feel like I am constantly looking for answers to tough questions just like her, and both of us are finding that there really is no one answer.
       While I am happy that the feminist movement took off and got women the right to vote and made them equal to men (at least on government paper. . .not that these rights are always enforced), I don't feel like I'm still striving to "fight the man." I think women and men should get paid the same amount for performing the same job, but I'm not going to yell at a man if he opens a door for me because he's "taking away my power." I'm usually a bit of a loner because I like to be alone with my thoughts, so I'm used to doing things myself and for myself. I won't lie and say I don't appreciate being in a relationship and having a boyfriend occasionally pick up the tab at a restaurant or open the car door for me for a date. I don't think he's belittling my ability to pay for food or open a door, I think he's doing it out of love or to show that he cares for me, and I find absolutely nothing wrong with that. All in all, I think it's the thought process behind the action that really counts.

Hunger and Thirst for Justice

        This past weekend, I went on an immersion trip with my college's campus ministry to downtown Erie. We were there Friday until midday Saturday volunteering at various homeless shelters and soup kitchens and engaging with the homeless people that stop into the establishments to get some warmth. While I was there, conversing with many people who have a very difficult life and spend most of their time worrying about where they will sleep or when they will eat again, I had a moment of clarity. I realized that these people needed a voice that could be heard through the masses. I can recall countless times when I have been in Church and the petitions said, "For the homeless, sick, and hungry in our community, we pray to the Lord," and I would respond, "Lord, hear our prayer" without even giving it a second thought. The concept of being homeless used to be so abstract to me, but after hearing testimonies of many who live on the streets just minutes from Mercyhurst College, I can picture the alleyways where they sleep to avoid the wind and the doorsteps where they sit to rest their aching feet. 

        My short experience ignited a fire inside me. I'm itching to learn more about this epidemic, figure out how to fight it, and bring it to people's attention. Just as I begin to think about a way to get the word out about injustices, I remembered that so far, every poet we studied in class has done the very thing I'm aiming to do. Tagore worked to foster humanism during a time of struggle between India and the invading British, Storni used her poetry to increase awareness of the feminism movement, and Neruda, another Latin American political poet, used his status to expand the knowledge of the innocent people harmed by the Spanish Civil War. Just as these events needed a voice to speak out against the injustices, people today are needed to stand up for those who have nowhere to sleep at night. 
       After looking back at the poems by Neruda, I came across, "I'm Explaining a Few Things." I read it again and was struck with the compassion expressed in Neruda's words and his deep involvement with the injustice of a crumbling suburb. Not only did Neruda write about the situation during the Spanish Civil War, he conveyed pain, suffering, hopelessness, and destitution. In lines 51-54, he wrote, "Face to face with you I have seen the blood / of Spain tower like a tide / to drown you in one wave / of pride and knives!" Here, I can feel Neruda's pain and exhaustion with seeing the destruction of a place he once loved. He is trying to gain the public's sympathy for the innocent children and families affected by the war and make them understand that there are real issues in Spain that need to be resolved. This poem was a change of pace from some of his previous poetry, so at the beginning of this poem, Neruda referenced it saying, "You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? / and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?" He was trying to explain that people write what they know, and recently all he knows is the unfortunate effects of war and anger. 
        Just like Neruda writes about what he knows, I realize too that this is something I must do after my experience with some of Erie's homeless population. I saw their struggles and their poverty. I know that many of them work full time trying to save up to rent a place to stay, but life gets in the way: Children get sick, husbands get fired, cars break down. Many of our nation live from paycheck to paycheck and are one bad day away from being out on the streets. Our campus minister asked our group to reflect on a brief prayer during our time in service, and it goes as follows: Dear Lord, give those who are hungry and thirsty food and drink, and give those who are not hungry or thirsty a hunger and thirst for justice. Amen. I have been awakened to the plight of hundreds of hungry people just minutes away from where I live. I realize that I need to be a voice for those that don't have the strength to help themselves, and a person that hungers and thirsts for their justice.

Rubén Darío

Darío. The first poet we read in class. 
        When I read about his life as a Spanish poet and political figure for Spain and Latin America, I was instantly drawn to his powerful passion for love: his love for his country, his people, and the words. I could tell he had traveled around the world as it was prevalent in his work. He infused European elements into his poetry like the Venus de Milo and the Greek mythological tale where Zeus, in the form of a swan, raped Leda, a water nymph.

This is the image Google cooked up when I typed in "Leda and the Swan." Poem:beautiful. This:creepy.

        The most remarkable thing about him for me is his fascination with swans. In almost every

poem in our text, Darío used the swan as a motif for questions, love, and power. Like in the poem, "I Seek a Form," Darío seemed to be wrestling with a case of writer's block. He compared his search for words to describe his innermost thoughts to a "bud of thought that wants to be a rose."

I felt that Darío's poem, by dancing around the exact form and using metaphors, conveyed exactly what he was trying to say. His thoughts were so fluent and continuous like "the melodious introduction that flows from the flute," that it was too hard for him to confine into words. At 

the end of the poem, holding true to his character, Darío mentioned how the neck of the swan seemed to be questioning him. Perhaps he felt the swan was questioning not only his lack of 

words, but also his whole existence?

        Like Darío, I can't always confine my imaginative and ever-shifting thoughts into structured sentences, but I'll try to explain here how I feel. I think that it is important and therapeutic to let your mind wander at least once every hour. In fact, I do it at last once every few minutes. I find myself listening to my friend talk, extracting one thought from their conversation, and continuing it until I have exhausted every single possibility out of it. Not only does this lead to some explaining when my friend asks why I haven't paid attention to them, but it also gives me interesting ideas and creative new scenarios that I can think about in my mind. 

        As you may notice, I love to think and I believe it's one of my most redeeming qualities. My mind never stops working, and while not all ideas are winners, I enjoy brainstorming experimental infomercial products on my way to the gym or new hybrid words to explain my current emotions (excired). There are times when too much thinking isn't so good. When I have a particularly grueling day, I wonder if it even matters or if I'm really making an impact on this earth. Sometimes I feel like Darío, where I question my existence. I think the swan in that poem acts as a mirror that reflects our souls and our true emotions. Like Darío wrestled with his incompetence with spitting out his thoughts, I struggle to block out my deep thoughts. It is then that I think the only way I can make a difference is if I keep doing things and stay busy all the time. So I join clubs, offer to help people with their problems, and volunteer to do service whenever I find the opportunity. I avoid having free time because I know I'll just start thinking and psych myself out. Once I have run out of things to do and find myself alone with my thoughts, I have to remind myself of all of my good features. I can juggle, make a mean omelette, use right-handed scissors even thought I am a lefty, and love my family and friends completely and incessantly. Once I walk myself through this routine, which honestly occurs about once a month, I begin the cycle all over again. 

        Darío taught my a valuable thing through his poetry: he showed me that is okay...no, necessary to question ideas and try to explain how you feel. In his poetry, I see the beauty of his human nature that questions his ideas and tries to paint a picture of himself with his words. Hopefully, through this blog I will be able to paint a picture of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the day.