Welcome back, class! 2021, finally. Changes are happening: new year, new president, vaccines. As a nod to the hope that comes with a new year, especially this new year, we'll take a short but deserved break from honing our analytical skills to a razor's edge, which imho frankly the best defense against a crazy world. Critical analysis + mindfulness = better world. We'll temporarily focus more on the mindfulness part. Instead of analyzing the poems we look at for Unit 5, we'll reflect on them. As I discussed in synchronous class, this whole reflection business began when my friend Cynthia asked our book club the question, "But what are we supposed to get from this?" Which reminded me of something I'm surprised I needed to be reminded of: literature, including poetry, just like all other forms of art is a service to humanity. We don't exist to just interpret the art, the art also exists to give us something. Maybe it teaches us, maybe it widens the scope of our experience, maybe it makes us feel, increases our capacity for empathy, or whatever. But this much is true: good art gives us something back. (PS- In addition to being a lawyer, Cynthia's also a successful abstract artist. So she knows a thing or two about how the fine arts can enrich our lives.) So, now we reflect. Our reflections can include interpretations of the poems, but we have to go one more step and see if an aspect of ourselves rises to the surface in response to the poem. You know: reflection. Something that became clear to me during our Teams class is that this is harder for us than I thought it would be. Stands to reason, I guess. The study of literature typically boxes out the experience of the reader. It's just kind of how it's always been done. Time to relearn how to approach poems selfishly. I believe we are all up to the task, but to help us along, I'll lead the way with some good, old-fashioned, pedologically-sound model texts. How can I ask you to be selfish without being selfish first? "I celebrate myself, and sing myself" by Walt WhitmanI remember reading the Barnes and Noble edition of Leaves of Grass in my childhood bedroom back in Nesbit, Mississippi. The walls were painted butter yellow, "Queen Anne's Lace" the paint color was called. Somehow, somewhere, my imagination had gotten ahold of Walt Whitman back in my high school days and it never really let him go. Back then, the idea of celebrating myself was completely foreign and antithetical to everything I thought was true. Back then, (and still periodically, let's be real) I struggled with ideas of self-worth. These were big, gargantuan struggles that happened inside of me back in high school, and Whitman's words were like a balm. They still are sometimes. But what about this part: I invite my soul? How does a person invite their soul to look at the grass? Old school paper invitations? Does the soul RVSP? "Dear Human Home, Thank your for your invitation to look at the grass on Saturday, January the 9th. Unfortunately, the weather forecast includes rain, plus all the Saint Augustine grass has turned brown for the winter. Can we reschedule the grass-viewing for April? Thank you for thinking of me." Sincerely, Your Soul "I wandered lonely as a cloud" by William WordsworthI've definitely got a strong personal connection to this piece. I've been in Wordsworth's house in the Lake District. It's a museum now, and the curators had picked a bouquet of daffodils for the sitting room out of respect to this very poem. Cottage core is a thing now, and Wordsworth's house justifies it. The Lake District has all the sublime that a Romantic poet could ever wish for: temperamental weather, stone cliffs jutting against gray skies, fog, and mountains, which the locals refer to as "hills." If you "hill walk" to the top of one of these peaks ("hill walk" is British speak for mountain climb, btw), you find another world the locals refer to as "the fell." I'm still delighted when I think of the past tense irregular verb "fell" transmuted into a noun. What I get out of this poem is another way to consider the idea of wealth. "The wealth the show" brought to Wordsworth was the beauty of nature etched inside his memory. Just as the fell is etched inside my memory. I can call it upon when I need it or want it for whatever reason, which is usually when I need to be reassured that wild places still exist on this earth. I am rich. "'Out, Out'" by Robert FrostFrom this poem I take away the bluntness and the inevitability of death, the way that death is knitted together with life. How boy's death is taken in stride, with the same casualness that the rising of the sun elicits. Shrug, acknowledgment, adaptation. In the olden days, like the European Renaissance days, people had memento moris: reminders of death. Human skulls posed on top of books, skeleton paintings and medallions. We hide from death and shroud it in meat packing facilities and funeral homes; they met death head-on. It's the very definition of morbid, but I find it useful. For me, this poem (um, and the coronavirus) is a memento mori. When I go for a run, I think to myself, "I'm running because I can. At this very moment, my ankle isn't sprained, my lungs aren't riddled with holes, and my mind and my body still listen to one another." When I drink hot chocolate, I think, "This might be the last thing I taste before Covid symptoms kick in." And then I really taste it. To remember that I'm not promised anything more than what I have now, in this moment, and that everything I have is ephemeral, shifts my perspective and teaches me how to enjoy the present moment.
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AuthorI'm a Houston high school teacher. Welcome to my adapted, socially-distanced, quarantined AP English Literature and Composition classroom. Archives
May 2021
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