Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Intro and Short Story

Mom

Dad

Billions - intro to you - would you like to write some other intro? Gopher it. 

The Boat - group work, problem solving, symbolism, character analysis, thematic understanding

Poetry

creative writing - a few odd bits of creative whatever

analysing a poem

linked poetry with context/poet/era/race/age/sex/etc

symbolic elements

structural elements (style and structure)

recontextualization

pattern and schema building (analyses structure)

Macbeth

write a good essay in a scholarly style - 1500 words MAX (4 PAGES-ISH)

character analysis and application of critical theory to character

tough reading and out loud reading (reading skills)

self-structured note-taking

dealing with lecture

group work and problem solving

recontextualization

deeper theme work and application of philosophical elements to criticism

appreciation of the history and historical aspects of the reading 

Monday, March 24, 2015

The Poetry Presentation

Biographical info on a poet

multimedia creativity on a theme

writing poetry of some sort on same theme

analysing 2-3 poems by same author

How do we mark these things? 

 - analysis has utilized a plan that has been submitted

 - students are considering richer meaning (connotation)

 - students are utilizing context and “real life” in their analyses

 - students are using creative thinking in recontextualizing

 - students are checking work before submission for simple errors (COMM)

 - students are working together to increase the quality of their analyses

 - students are using their research info in their analysis

 - STUDENTS ARE SUPPORTING THEIR SUPPOSITIONS WITH EVIDENCE/REASONING

Macbeth

Act 1, Sc 1

1. Characters 

a) importance:

2. Plot

a) how push the story

3. Themes and Meanings

4. Setting (helps us follow along)

a) meaning and value

5. Great quotation or reference (you’ll have to write an essay)

Friday, March 13, 2015

Poetry Analysis and Poet Presentation

This assignment has a few moving parts. 

Create a poetry analysis poster to replace the aging monstrosities with which I am forced to work in this living heck.

Find a poet with whom your group can work. 

Choose a poet who has some kind of fame, life story, cultural value or writes from a particularly interesting place. (ie race, politics, sex/gender, etc) (why that one?)

Choose 3-5 poems by that poet and create at least two analysis pieces as per your framework. (why these ones?)

Create a multimedia response to the poet and/or his/her work. 

Each group member will write his/her own poetic response to that poet’s work. 

Each group member will submit a collection of the work we’ve been doing in this unit (list will be forthcoming).

Bio on the poet is nice, in some presentational format (slide show, iMovie, Prezi, etc) (context and BG)

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Emily Dickinson

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Robert Frost

In Flanders Fields

Siegfried Sassoon

Shel Silverstein 

Dr. Suess

1. Find examples of poems wherein the structure of the poem is distracting from the intention, meaning or emotional content. 

Perhaps the poem is written in such a way as to reduce the sense of complexity or humanity. 

Try to explain one that is the worst offender - what is the problem. 

e.g. A poem where the rhyme is so stifling or tight that it becomes childish

2. Find examples o’ poems wherein the structure is utilized properly, or in some way contributes to the meaning or the intensity or the impact or emotionality 

eg the Sassoon poem about the suicide of the soldier in a childish rhyme

3. Find examples of poems wherein all there is is structure. There is precious little else. 

4. Find a child’s poet or poem wherein the meaning is actually fairly intense and layered.  

Tuesday, March 11, 2015

The following three poems give us a look into the character of the poet Charles Bukowski. Enjoy!

cold summer by Charles Bukowski

Posted on May 25, 2014by russellboyle

not as bad as it could be
but bad enough: in and out
of the hospital, in and out of
the doctor’s office, hanging
by a thread: “you’re in
remission, no, wait, 2 new
cells here, and your
platelets are way down.
have you been drinking?
we’ll probably have to take
another bone marrow test
tomorrow.”

the doctor is busy, the
waiting room in the cancer
ward is crowded.

the nurses are pleasant, they
joke with me.
I think that’s nice, joking while in the
valley of the
shadow of death.
my wife is with me.
I am sorry for my wife, I am
sorry for all the
wives.

then we are down in the
parking lot.
she drives sometimes.
I drive sometimes.
I drive now.
it’s been a cold summer.
“maybe you should take a
little swim we get home,”
says my
wife.

it’s a warmer day than
usual.

“sure,” I say and pull out of
the parking lot.

she’s a brave woman, she
acts like everything is
as usual.

but now I’ve got to pay for all
those profligate years;
there were so many of
them.
the bill has come due
and they’ll accept only
one final
payment.

I might as well take a
swim.

Charles Bukowski
1920-1994

a 340 dollar horse and a hundred dollar whore

BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me

at the racetrack any day half drunk

betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,

but let me tell you, there are some women there

who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you

look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores

you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke

dealing out so much breast and ass and the way

it’s all hung together, you look and you look and

you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women

and then there is something else that wants to make you

tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven

across the back of the john; anyhow, the season

was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,

all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,

the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners

themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:

a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;

he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly

and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.

the driver broke him wide

took him out by the fence where he’d be alone

even if he had to travel four times as far,

and that’s the way he went it

all the way by the outer fence

traveling two miles in one

and he won like he was mad as hell

and he wasn’t even tired,

and the biggest blonde of all

all ass and breast, hardly anything else

went to the payoff window with me.

that night I couldn’t destroy her

although the springs shot sparks

and they pounded on the walls.

later she sat there in her slip

drinking Old Grandad

and she said

what’s a guy like you doing

living in a dump like this?

and I said

I’m a poet

and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.

you? you . . . a poet?

I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.

but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,

and all thanks to an ugly horse

who wrote this poem.

"a 340 dollar horse and a hundred dollar whore" by Charles Bukowski, from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973. Copyright © 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1974 by Charles Bukowski. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, www.harpercollins.com.

Source: Burning in Water Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (Black Sparrow Press, 1996)

About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter

BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

he lives in a house with a swimming pool

and says the job is

killing him.

he is 27. I am 44. I can’t seem to

get rid of

him. his novels keep coming

back. “what do you expect me to do?” he screams

“go to New York and pump the hands of the

publishers?”

“no,” I tell him, “but quit your job, go into a

small room and do the

thing.”

“but I need ASSURANCE, I need something to

go by, some word, some sign!”

“some men did not think that way:

Van Gogh, Wagner—”

“oh hell, Van Gogh had a brother who gave him

paints whenever he

needed them!”

“look,” he said, “I’m over at this broad’s house today and

this guy walks in. a salesman. you know

how they talk. drove up in this new

car. talked about his vacation. said he went to

Frisco—saw Fidelio up there but forgot who

wrote it. now this guy is 54 years

old. so I told him: ‘Fidelio is Beethoven’s only

opera.’ and then I told

him: ‘you’re a jerk!’ ‘whatcha mean?’ he

asked. ‘I mean, you’re a jerk, you’re 54 years old and

you don’t know anything!’”

“what happened

then?”

“I walked out.”

“you mean you left him there with

her?”

“yes.”

“I can’t quit my job,” he said. “I always have trouble getting a

job. I walk in, they look at me, listen to me talk and

they think right away, ah ha! he’s too intelligent for

this job, he won’t stay

so there’s really no sense in hiring

him.

now, YOU walk into a place and you don’t have any trouble:

you look like an old wino, you look like a guy who needs a

job and they look at you and they think:

ah ha!: now here’s a guy who really needs work! if we hire

him he’ll stay a long time and work

HARD!”

“do any of those people,” he asks “know you are a

writer, that you write poetry?”

“no.”

“you never talk about

it. not even to

me! if I hadn’t seen you in that magazine I’d

have never known.”

“that’s right.”

“still, I’d like to tell these people that you are a

writer.”

“I’d still like to

tell them.”

“why?”

“well, they talk about you. they think you are just a

horseplayer and a drunk.”

“I am both of those.”

“well, they talk about you. you have odd ways. you travel alone.

I’m the only friend you

have.”

“yes.”

“they talk you down. I’d like to defend you. I’d like to tell

them you write

poetry.”

“leave it alone. I work here like they

do. we’re all the same.”

“well, I’d like to do it for myself then. I want them to know why

I travel with

you. I speak 7 languages, I know my music—”

“forget it.”

“all right, I’ll respect your

wishes. but there’s something else—”

“what?”

“I’ve been thinking about getting a

piano. but then I’ve been thinking about getting a

violin too but I can’t make up my

mind!”

“buy a piano.”

“you think

so?”

“yes.”

he walks away

thinking about

it.

I was thinking about it

too: I figure he can always come over with his

violin and more

sad music.

"About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter" by Charles Bukowski, from The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1988 by Charles Bukowski. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, www.harpercollins.com.

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966 (Black Sparrow Press, 1988)

Creative Response: 

Write a character analysis of Peter. Who is he? How does he think? Why is he so tortured? What is Peter's problem? Try to figure this poor guy out. 

Trapped 

in the winter on my 

ceiling my eyes the size of street- 

lamps. 

I have 4 feet like a mouse but 

wash my own underwear-bearded and 

hungover and a hard-on and no lawyer. 

I have a face like a washrag. 

I sing 

love songs and carry steel. 

I would rather die than cry. 

I can't 

stand hounds can't live without them. 

I hang my head against the white 

refrigerator and want to scream like

the last weeping of life forever but

 I am bigger then the mountains.

Sway With Me 

sway with me, everything sad -- 

madmen in stone houses 

without doors, 

lepers steaming love and song 

frogs trying to figure 

the sky; 

sway with me, sad things -- 

fingers split on a forge 

old age like breakfast shell 

used books, used people 

used flowers, used love 

I need you 

I need you 

I need you: 

it has run away 

like a horse or a dog, 

dead or lost 

or unforgiving.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

(Gary Snyder - from a cycle called Four Poems for Robin)

An autumn morning in Shokoku-ji 

Last night watching the Pleiades,   

Breath smoking in the moonlight,   

Bitter memory like vomit   

Choked my throat.

I unrolled a sleeping bag   

On mats on the porch   

Under thick autumn stars.   

In dream you appeared   

(Three times in nine years)   

Wild, cold, and accusing.   

I woke shamed and angry:

The pointless wars of the heart.   

Almost dawn. Venus and Jupiter.   

The first time I have   

Ever seen them close.

Many of the analyses that we will do require that you spend time researching the poet, the title and references throughout. 

In particular, this poem might need some of that. It is very specific. 

Practise that skill for the wider analysis by applying those first steps here.

December at Yase

You said, that October,

In the tall dry grass by the orchard   

When you chose to be free,

“Again someday, maybe ten years.”

After college I saw you

One time. You were strange.   

And I was obsessed with a plan.

Now ten years and more have   

Gone by: I’ve always known

          where you were—

I might have gone to you   

Hoping to win your love back.   

You still are single.

I didn’t.

I thought I must make it alone. I   

Have done that.

Only in dream, like this dawn,   

Does the grave, awed intensity   

Of our young love

Return to my mind, to my flesh.

We had what the others   

All crave and seek for;

We left it behind at nineteen.

I feel ancient, as though I had   

Lived many lives.

And may never now know   

If I am a fool

Or have done what my   

       karma demands.

Below, find an analysis from a teacher who posted his work online some five years ago. Note: This was a random Google, but he makes some excellent points. 

Recently I was speaking at a conference and I heard one of the fellow speakers mention that he didn't believe in fate or destiny. I'm passing this example along not to be critical of my colleague's beliefs, but to provide a beginning point for an interesting philosophical discussion. Are we fated or destined for certain things in our lives? Where we work, where we live, and who we love---are these all predetermined? If so, then there are two distinctly different outlooks. First, there is great comfort in knowing that no matter what you do or how you do it fate will play a role in your life. If it is meant to be it will be. Others look at this revelation and shudder with fear. With everything being predetermined, why should I even bother living? It's not like anything I do will make a difference anyways. If fate does not exist there is an equally contentious argument that comes into play. The same people who were excited by the prospect of fate are now left disappointed and feeling an empty hopelessness. Those who were terrified by the prospect of fate making their daily lives pointless are relieved to know that they have free will to make decisions without any cosmic interference. I'm not sure it's fair to summarize this complex argument into generalizations, but I see it as the romantic idealist versus the pragmatic realist. When I read and reread Gary Snyder's poem December At Yase I'm overcome by the mystery of fate. What might have been right at one point in life could be completely wrong at another point. You hear it so often, the timing just wasn't right. For such a fickle and interconnected thing, timing, or fate, can exert the ultimate influence over the most essential elements of our lives.

Snyder begins the poem with a breakup scene. It is not overly contentious or emotional, rather he is stoic in his analysis and description, probably because he's had years to think about it and hash through his feelings. The girl's decision is described as "deciding to be free" and she offers the consolation of "Again someday, maybe in ten years." Inherently human beings are selfish so asking for a decade of patience when it comes to love is ridiculous. It's her attempt at softening the blow when in reality it only does more damage by stoking a tiny slice of hope that the poet holds onto. Although he doesn't bluntly say it, the poet clings to the belief that if the timing is right and they are fated to be together that it will happen. But when they run into each other down the line there is no spark, no remnants of what they once had. "After college I saw you / One time. You were strange. / And I was obsessed with a plan." That's certainly the opposite of a pleasant reunion, showing how time, space and life experiences can drastically change people. The most damning evidence that this young love will never be rekindled comes in the following stanza. Snyder points out that the ten year sentence she imposed upon him has expired and while he "might have gone to you / Hoping to win your love back. / You are still single." What is stopping him? She is not attached or married and they once had an intimate connection, a connection that still haunts him today. Could it be his pride? Could he be afraid? Snyder gives us a half answer: "I thought I must make it alone. I / Have done that."

The language in this poem is stripped down even though the emotions being explored are complex and powerful. Notice how the diction and syntax are often simple, but occasionally a line break with pop up that throws us for a loop. Snyder's hard enjambments at the beginning of the second and third stanzas allow the lines to drop into the next, mirroring the dropping feeling that comes with remembering a lost love. This technique is cleverly executed, as is the enjambment on the answering line mentioned in the previous paragraph. When Snyder tells us why he hasn't made the courageous motion to win her back he is focused on himself and this is particularly apparent in his line break: "I thought I must make it alone. I / Have done that." It once was about them, but at some point he turned inward and it became about him, about the "I" instead of the "you" or the "we." Maybe his fate was to live on in the shadow of what could have been. Perhaps "the grave, awed intensity / Of our young love" is fueling and pushing him. Or it could be that all that he had and "left behind at nineteen" is a constant tormentor. Snyder feels "ancient" and is ultimately unsure if the path he's following is the right one. This isn't a poem that unravels the complex riddle of fate and destiny, but in the life experiences the poem reveals we gain a better understanding of how individuals react when faced with fateful challenges. Snyder ends the poem with a question of fate, wondering if he is "a fool / Or (has he) done what my / karma demands." I'm not sure Synder expects an answer...at least in this life.

Creative Writing!

Think back to something from your own past and try to consider it in a way that takes the negative emotion out (or maybe the positive) and replaces it with the knowledge and "entertainment" you can see in it now. Write it out in some way. 

Monday, March 9, 2015

Daddy - Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do   

Any more, black shoe

In which I have lived like a foot   

For thirty years, poor and white,   

Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.   

You died before I had time——

Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,   

Ghastly statue with one gray toe   

Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic   

Where it pours bean green over blue   

In the waters off beautiful Nauset.   

I used to pray to recover you.

Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town   

Scraped flat by the roller

Of wars, wars, wars.

But the name of the town is common.   

My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.   

So I never could tell where you   

Put your foot, your root,

I never could talk to you.

The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.   

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.

I thought every German was you.   

And the language obscene

An engine, an engine

Chuffing me off like a Jew.

A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.   

I began to talk like a Jew.

I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna   

Are not very pure or true.

With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck   

And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,

With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.   

And your neat mustache

And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——

Not God but a swastika

So black no sky could squeak through.   

Every woman adores a Fascist,   

The boot in the face, the brute   

Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,   

In the picture I have of you,

A cleft in your chin instead of your foot   

But no less a devil for that, no not   

Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.

I was ten when they buried you.   

At twenty I tried to die

And get back, back, back to you.

I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,   

And they stuck me together with glue.   

And then I knew what to do.

I made a model of you,

A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.   

And I said I do, I do.

So daddy, I’m finally through.

The black telephone’s off at the root,   

The voices just can’t worm through.

If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——

The vampire who said he was you   

And drank my blood for a year,

Seven years, if you want to know.

Daddy, you can lie back now.

There’s a stake in your fat black heart   

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.   

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

Read “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath

1. Pull out words and phrases that you think are LOADED or POWERFUL and be prepared to explain why those choices

2. Note any poetic devices that you see - 

3. Seek out any references to explain and note

4. Point out anything you DON’T understand and try to guess what it could mean. 

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Thursday, Mar 5, 2015

I am going to give you TWO periods to do completion work. 

The Boat - foundational - other stuff is built on it

Catch up from short story work (blog, email to Lobb, mom, dad, billion)

Poetry (object desc, 1958 transposed to 2014, music lyrics presentation)

Monday, March 2, 2015

Poetry - AND Poultry

Poetry does not suck (new findings have come in and they tell us that you actually like poetry)

Analysing is interesting

reading poetry is not an exercise in historical white man studies

What is a poem all about? 

Remember the brain? 

your poor little brain doesn’t see an objective reality

it makes a subjective

poetry is an exercise in messing with this

The way we can look at poetry is through the lens of a “child’s mind”. 

What is the difference between what we actually perceive and what we think we perceive? 

Remember the brain? 

YOU ARE NOT LOOKING AT A REAL WORLD!

it is all your own invention

We are so tied up in our invention and the associations and the assumptions and the imagery that we think, we forget to actually observe and participate in reality.

The way we can look at poetry is through the lens of a “child’s mind”.

What is the difference between what we THINK and what we actually SEE? 

Comedy uses this all the time. 

Jerry Seinfeld - “scroll contact list like a gay french king”

recontextualized an action we all know - he’s invested a new association in it and that is the reason it is a “joke” 

poetry does the same thing - it recontextualizes - it;s building a new way of looking at things that we always assume without actually observing (or it could be)

Good poetry is like good comedy - it recontextualizes, it makes us reconsider the things we take for granted, it can be a way of rediscovering what’s being “discussed” in the poem

it tries to show the angles and aspects that we miss - it zooms on some things and enhances them 

I Met A Genius

I met a genius on the train

today

about 6 years old,

he sat beside me

and as the train 

ran down along the coast

we came to the ocean

and then he looked at me

and said,

it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd 

realized 

that.

there is something freaky about breaking away from the assumptions

We are comfortable if we “believe the lie” 

Poetry is one approach to trying to show what things are like with description and using the senses without always resorting to the assumption

Assignment - A Creative Description of something that you take for granted

ONLY look at the descriptive aspects - what does it REALLY look like? 

Things have a formal aspect - the way it is

why does your hand stop growing, but your fingernails don’t? 

We suffer from Magical Thinking

For this part of Poetry Analysis, we need to try and think about only the formal elements of things we see. 

The Dress Thing - this IS THE SAME THING!

The “there is no history of the colour blue” is in the same area - 

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2

What is this area? 

Words and thoughts are pretty much the same. 

Our brain uses a language to talk to itself. 

We are manipulating, and being manipulated by the very thing that we use to think about manipulating things.

Poetry can be a way of boiling some of this “stuff” down into a few words

Textbook - page 2 - “Poetry” by Pablo Neruda

Read this poem. 

Read it again. 

Get into a team of ANY sort. 

Answer questions from page 14 - #1, 2, 6

(number six is considering some of the formal elements of some other activity and describing them in a sense of your feelings)

What would you do analyst this poem? What pieces might you look at? What approach would you take? Consider how you’ve been taught prior.

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind. 

Pablo Neruda

This poem appears to be autobiographical

Neruda started writing poetry very young and was famous for it very young

This poem appears to be about that actual moment when he became a poet - it's about a powerful EPIPHANY that hit him and “opened up the universe”

What does that mean? 

How does that happen? 

How does he address it with poetry?