Hamill and Forche

These authors’ ideas related to “Poetry of Witness” in several ways.  Forche talks about poems that don’t quite fit into either the political or personal category and nearly all the “Poetry of Witness” poems fit into this third category.  The poems deal with subjects ranging from Vietnam, to the World Trade Center attack, to hate crimes.  All these topics are politically charged, even though the writers seldom, if ever, pursued any agenda directly.  Fundamentally, however, they are also about very personal experiences.  Hamill focuses on violence and war as subjects of poetry and how writers have an obligation to educate on these topics.  All the poems in “Poetry of Witness” did this in some way.

Both clearly espouse activism and a certain general political ideology, but they seem to strongly agree on and encourage the idea that poetry should include political and social ideas.  I would say that Forche seems to have a much more analytical approach to her thesis and Hamill seems to have more of an informal and emotional approach to his.  Forche focuses on definitions and categories in her articles, whereas Hamill never really discusses these differences. 

I agree with Forche’s assertion that to term certain poetry “political” is limiting and certainly does usually carry a negative connotation.  I also agree that there is some poetry that is on the cusp of the political and personal classifications.  She makes the comment that these poems “have to be judged, as Ludwig Wittgenstein said of confession, by its consequences, not by our ability to verify its truth. In fact, the poem might be our only evidence that an event has occurred” (Forche).  However, this view is nonsensical if the reader uses this kind of poetry to establish any kind of political ideology or world view.  In those circumstances, “our ability to verify its truth” (Forche) would be pivotal.  I’m not sure that she makes this distinction clear, or even recognizes this point, although she touches on the point more than once.

Hamill’s essay has a simple thesis, but Hamill carries his arguments way past their breaking points.  Hamill makes it clear that he, as a true poet, has “give[n] up the self” (Hamill 551) like a modern version of Siddhartha, and has ascended the base need for violence to become a beacon of social awareness through his artistry as a poet and his recognition that society is to blame for everything.  If only society could make that basic connection I’m sure that we would instantly defeat all social ills.  Real solutions are not that simple, which is possibly why he concentrates more of his thesis on properly placing blame, since we all know that if blame is properly placed the problem goes away.  In this way, Hamill subtly weaves a steady thread of guilt and pure narcissism all the way through his very basic and essentially true thesis.  No one would argue that we shouldn’t speak out against social ills, but the applications that he makes leave much more room for argument than his thesis.   

The logic used in his essay is filled with unsupported reasoning and statistics of dubious accuracy.  He blames the parent who spanks their child for teaching the roots of all evil and violence in society (548-549).  If your daughter is raped it is apparently partly your responsibility for not being able to “readily discuss rape” (553).  To equate spanking your child to beating your child with a baseball bat as he does is pure folly (549). It’s not just a difference of degree, but of intent.  And, radical as it might seem, why not blame the rapist for rape?  The murderer for murder?  And so on?  Hamill says “the writer accepts responsibility for every implication derived from what is stated” (549), yet he places blame recklessly and without regard, more like a true “batterer” than a poet.  Imagine how you would feel to be told you’re responsible for your child’s rape because you didn’t educate them enough.  On the flip side, I suppose, it is a very nice absolution if you happen to be a rapist or a murderer.

Hamill talks about accountability several times throughout his essay, but I think his sanctimonious prose entirely misunderstands what accountability actually means.  He recites it twice, but never took it to heart when he quotes Kunf-fu Tze as saying, “All wisdom is rooted in learning to call things by the right name” (549).

Test your narcissism here

Works Cited

Forche, Carolyn.  "The Poetry of Witness." The Writer in Politics. Ed. William H. Gass and Lorin Cuoco. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1996. Print.

Hamill, Sam.  "The Necessity to Speak." Writing as Re-Vision. Eds. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. 546-553. Print.

Image

Dali, Salvador.  “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus.”  From http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/7/798/GAXI000Z/art-print/salvador-dal%C3%AD-the-metamorphosis-of-narcissus-c-1937.jpg 

Descent and Letter

             I responded to the poem “Charlie Howard’s Descent” by Mark Doty because of the excellent use of meter and the way the subject matter is revealed throughout the poem. 

The first three stanzas of the poem each end with an incomplete thought that is finished in the next stanza.  This pausing forces the reader to think and reflect.  The first stanza ends with the line “it is not as if falling” and the next stanza begins “is something new”.  Having the first stanza end with the term falling creates the physical impression of falling on the page and the next line creates a rhyme with “through” in the middle of the first stanza and “knew” in the middle of this stanza.  There are few lines in this poem, but they connect these first two stanzas with regular frequency, creating a contrast between the remainder of the poem.

The termination of the second stanza uses a similar style.  The separation of the lines “What others wanted” and “opened like an abyss” has two effects.  First it creates a pause after talking about the expectations of others, allowing the reader to reflect on the heaviness of those expectations.  Second, it creates a very physical empty, abyssal space for those expectations.

At the end of the fifth stanza the style of the poem changes.  It is the first stanza to actually end with a complete thought and it comes with a change in subject matter.  The poem begins to talk about the subject of the poem’s response to the treatment of the town and the slurs used against him. 

I appreciated the imagery used in the eleventh stanza.  After talking about the killers throwing him into the river it states they are “really boys now, afraid”, creating a contrast between the violence found in the previous lines.  Here is a link to the story that inspired the poem.

I also appreciated the poem “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” by Kevin C. Powers.  It is a small poem but I loved the imagery of the last stanza:

“I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand, 

that war is just us  

making little pieces of metal 

pass through each other.”

            This stanza trivialized the act of killing someone else in a way that the writer obviously does not believe from the previous stanzas.  It is because of this trivializing and the casual, “offhand” way that it is said that it makes such an impact.

 Works Cited

Doty, Mark. “Charlie Howard’s Descent.” Angelfire.com.  Angelfire,

2011.  Web.  16 June 2011.

Powers, Kevin C.  “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting.”  Poetryfoundations.org.  Poetry Foundation, 2011.  Web.  16 June 2011

Image of “Katyn Medallion” by Stanislav Szukalski from http://varnishfineart.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=685&StartRow=25&ThisPage=3&UniMediumType=

Summary v. Analysis

Summary v. Analysis

            Summary is a method of condensing the main points of a literary piece into a briefer form.  Analysis is an in-depth look at one or more aspects of a literary piece.  For instance, an analysis might look at the motive of an author in writing on a certain subject matter, or how accurately an author portrays a certain historical period.  There are several reasons that literary analysis is preferable to summary when writing about literature.  One of the primary reasons that this is true is because it demands that the reader truly analyze and absorb the details of a piece as opposed to simply regurgitating information.

            Analyzing a piece of literature requires that the reader think critically about the details and imagery as he reads.  Also when the reader goes to write his analysis, he is required to choose and support an argument that makes an assertion about the piece of literature.  First, this requires that the reader understand the piece well enough to actually support an argument about it.  This can be difficult because when the argument is compared with the whole of the piece contradictions can arise, so the reader must choose his argument carefully and check it repeatedly against the text. 

Second, to do a thorough analysis the reader might have to take a look at several different criteria.  If the reader is making an argument about the motive of an author he might have to take in the historical views of the time.  Reading a Charles Dickens book or a Mark Twain book would require the reader to adopt a slightly different perspective.  For instance, if the reader were to assert that Mark Twain was trying to change the racial perceptions of the time when writing “Huckleberry Finn”, they would first have to analyze what those perceptions were at that time.  The reader might find that themes in the story that seem racially charged might only have been incidental to the story to Mark Twain. 

Basically, we prefer analyzing because it is interesting.  It tells us something new about the story and attempts to make it accessible.  Some stories speak for themselves, but others benefit greatly from being analyzed.

           I found this link interesting reading.  Is the term being removed because it was used hatefully against a group or because it's an uncomfortable reminder of the way some people still feel?

Huckleberry Finn

Image and link:

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/opinionzone/2011/01/07/change-original-language-in-huckleberry-finn/

The Good Reader

According to Nabokov, “the good reader is one who has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense” (615).  He also believes a good reader is one who does not identify with any of the characters so heavily that he loses focus.

I agree with parts of Nabokov’s definition, although I seldom have a dictionary on me as I read.  However, I do believe that a good reader should have imagination, memory and artistic sense.  I would add that a good reader is one who understands human nature.  A reader who understands human nature does not need emotions to be implicitly stated and can pick up subtext, allowing the writer to write more naturally and stylistically.

I disagree with Nabokov’s assessment that a good reader doesn’t identify with the characters in a book.  He refers to this as “the worst thing a reader can do” and calls it a “lowly variety” of imagination (616).  In addition to making Nabokov seem a little bit like a literary chauvinist, I think this misses the entire point of reading fiction. Nabokov seems to be confused about the distinction between a reader and a critic.  I feel that Nabokov, both in his definition of good writers and his definition of good readers, fails to recognize that the themes and characters that make the deepest impact are those that resonate with us.  A good writer can spin themes that will allow us to empathize with a serial killer or a madman or the devil, but only if he first establishes a common ground that allows you to relate to the character. Because we disagree on this point, I fear that Nabokov might not consider me a good reader.  I consider myself a good reader precisely because I have this ability to become engrossed in a character.

This link shows a slightly different view of what makes a good reader.

Work cited

Nabokov,Vladimir. “Good Readers and Good Writers.” The Norton Reader An Anthology of Nonfiction. Ed.Linda H. Peterson, John C. Brereton. Shorter 11th ed. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company. 613-617. Print.


Image from http://www.humst.com/bid-tv/home-textiles/fairytale-storyteller-with-pointy-ears/4462588.html

English 102 Introduction

Hi, my name is Lorin Pritts. I'm taking this class to get my Associate's and go on to study Languages. I've lived in the Prescott area for 6 years and I'm originally from Oceanside, California. I enjoy rock climbing, canyoneering, running and reading.

I'm an avid reader and I enjoy reading about cosmology, philosophy and nature. I also enjoy reading science fiction, historical fiction, and anything well-written.