March 6 2009

We're in this 

Great Big City

Neon lights are all on

& I'm talking to the stoners

Who do everything wrong.

We whistle to the moon

Sing our songs of love

There's not much we can do

because

We just can't rise above.

- You tell me you don't know me

So how'd you know I'm lonely? -

This lethal cycle turns again

We've broken bottles at our feet

We drink, we smoke, we fly and fall

We're always sleeping, never eat.

We can say this is the last time

But the last time comes again

We say that we can quit

But we'll abuse until we're dead. 

- You tell me you can save me but

Are you so sure I'm worth saving? - 

My Confession

So I must make a confession... I absolutely love poems, lyrics, any form of art actually that is really really raunchy. I don't know why exactly but I guess it would have to do with the fact that I am quite possibly one of the tiniest, whitest girls I have ever known and I think it is funny to see people's reactions when they realize that the music that is blaring from my headphones is Eminem or Dr. Dre...

Having said this, one of my favourite works we read this J Term was Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds! Even the title was extremely intriguing to me before reading it and I was completely satisfied after reading it.

How do they do it? That's a good question.. how do people have sex without love? Today's society is completely desensitized to the sexual things in life, as we had talked about today during the discussion about Tumblr.

I love love love tumblr and would link you to my personal tumblr but that would just be a poor decision on my part, so I won't.. sorry! But I definitely agree with what was said that tumblr is waaay out there in terms of the content.. so. much. porn.

I have never been exposed to too much porn other than that seen on tumblr really, because it just seems stupid and dirty to me, but I cannot deny that sex is something that kind of fascinates me, which is probably why I listen to some of the dirtiest music and find Eminem's raunchiest lyrics to be his most clever. Sex sells, and whenever I am exposed to a song, show, or advertisement that exploits sex I am totally sold.

Now back to the poem...

The imagery in this poem is really what hooked me in, the ice skaters and the gliding painted a crystal clear picture of two people in a heated embrace and although I feel a bit awkward typing this and thinking about my professor and possibly some of my classmates reading this I can't deny that this poem really sticks out to me. I can perfectly imagine the couple that Olds describes in this poem and cannot help but really consider what Olds is asking in this poem. How do they do it? How do they come to the come to the come - yet at the end of the day they are as alone as they were before they started. It's sad really to think about the two people included in this, how alone Olds describes them despite the seeming great time they are having. Without love sex is just sex - nothing more. That doesn't stop these people, and a lot more people, from participating in sex without love.

I love the "climax" of the poem - come to the come to the come. It stuck out to me almost as lyrical, just like those Eminem and 50 cent songs I love so dearly. I felt this line was extremely clever of Olds, just like I find many rap lyrics to be very clever. Now, obviously, Eminem is a much much dirtier lyricist than Olds but I still find his dirty lyrics to be just as clever (perhaps even a bit more clever.. but that's just me) as Old's climax in "Sex Without Love". A particular line from a song that Eminem is featured in comes to mind when I think of clever dirty lyrics and I was so close to writing it out but I thought about the lyrics and I just can't so I will link the song and you can listen as your leisure.

The part of the song that I am referring to is at 2:20 so feel free to skip to that if you want to hear the lyrics I am referring to . I don't know why but I find Eminem's part in this song so very clever and although very dirty I cannot help but giggle ever ytime I listen to this song.. just like I giggle every time I read "come to the come to the come".

Ok, I'm done being juvenile.

Good luck to all on the final!

Cat

I am SO not a Barbie girl....

I know I am going out of order with the reading according to the syllabus but I just remembered a poem I really really want to discuss: "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy.

Firstly, here is a picture of me with the author of the poem:


Anyway... I want to look at this poem a little differently than I usually do, I kind of want to break it down stanza by stanza so that I can give my very loaded opinion on this poem.

 1]
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs. 

I was brought up much like this girlchild - I had a little pretend kitchen set, and I had all the little makeup kits that girls beg their mothers for, so I guess I had a pretty typical little-girl hood? I never had one of those dolls that peed, but that probably would have freaked me out so I don't feel as though I really missed out on much. Of course, I couldn't avoid puberty (as hard as I tried) and little girls are just downright bitches, right from a young age. That is so irritating to me, because there is really no reason that a little girl should ever tell another little girl who is going through the exact same issues that she is fat or has a big nose. Yet, little girls do and it is disgusting. Not to brag, but I never really came across any little bitches telling me I was fat or had a big nose, because I was always very tiny and I boxed for most of my childhood so the other little girls tended to avoid me.. But that lead to a whole different type of torture! I was, as I said, avoided by most other little girls in my grade school and spent most of my time with icky boys and I was totally ok with that. However, I did notice the cruelty happening around me, all the little girls waging their wars against each other for no reason other than to distract everyone from their own flaws.

Moving along...

2]
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs. 

I agree with what was said in class about this stanza, that the little girl is kind of being sized up much like a horse would be. She is healthy, intelligent, and has all the proper qualities of a fine human being - however, no matter all the great qualities she has the girl was still forced by her peers to apologize for her nose and legs. This is truly heart breaking, especially for someone like me who has never been a beauty queen but is still a generally ok person. Why should this smart, normal girl have to apologize for anything? She should be allowed to be proud of who she is and to be accepted for all of the great qualities she possesses despite the size or her nose or legs! Society is so focused on looks that we tend to lose touch with what is really important, who a person is.

3]
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up. 

This stanza is particularly distturbing to me, because she feeds into everyone's ridicule. She diets her good nature away, and looses touch with who she is, and eventually gives up completely and conforms to what everyone wants her to be. I would never, ever allow myself to be "barbied" by anyone else, no matter what they say about any of my physical flaws. At the end of the day, what really matters is what is inside, and I can guarantee that those people who are forcing this girl to cut off her nose and legs aren't half the person she is.

4]
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending. 

I hate this stanza with everything in me, especially the line "Consummation at last". To me, this means that she has finally achieved what everyone else wanted for her, she was finally called pretty and was that all she wanted? How empty was her life if all she hoped for was to be told that her looks were pleasing, is that all that matters? Also, the last line makes me vomit a little in my mouth - "To every woman a happy ending". Excuse my language here, but bullshit! Is that all we as women are to look forward to? I couldn't care less what I look like in my casket, as long as my life was exactly what I had hoped for. No amount of makeup or compliments could make up for giving up who I am for everyone else.

So.. that is how I feel about that.. I enjoyed this poem, but do not accept this philosophy of the Barbie doll culture. Let's look at a Barbie doll:

Isn't she lovely? So pretty and petite, long legs and gorgeous platinum blonde hair! Every girl's dream look! Again, I call bullshit, because let us now think about what Barbie would be like as an actual human being. Barbie in real life, according to Jessica Czeck for Visual News, would be about 5'9", weigh about 110 lbs and her body mass index would be so low that she wouldn't be able to menstruate. Chances are if Barbie wanted to maintain this look, she would be riddled with health issues and definitely suffer from one or more eating disorders. Sounds like fun, no? Barbie would miss out on a lot of life to look the way she does, she probably couldn't have kids, in fact her boyfriend would probably break several bones if he even went for a hug! She would also definitely have a hard time participating in physical activity, and would be so sick all the time that she most likely could not achieve all the amazing things Barbie does, like becoming a doctor, going to space, being a tennis star,and don't forget her impressive NASCAR career (which in reality if she so much as slammed on her breaks too hard she would go flying and die on impact). So why is this society's ideal for women? Why should we be compared to this disgrace to womanhood?

Down with Barbie!

xoxo Cat

Yet again, Heaney knows me so well...

Allow me another opportunity to gush over Seamus Heaney, please. I can relate to this man on several levels: from our similar heritage, our shared home county, and our both being poets.

I have always wanted to be a writer, if you asked my eight year old self what I wanted to be when I grew up without skipping a single beat she would respond "an awtha" (I had a lisp). I have finally begun the path of being a writer, although I have strayed from wanting to be an awtha and am much more interested in screen writing and poetry. I digress.. I've always wanted to write but my parents had a different idea in mind for me. That is why I was originally going to Mercyhurst for Biochemistry - gag - because my mother had her heart set on me becoming a doctor of some sort - gag again - which totally was NOT for me.

So I can relate to Heaney's poem "Digging" because I see that my parents have worked very hard their entire lives to provide a great life for me, and I would love nothing more than to be able to pay them back ten-fold, which was originally why I was going to be a doctor of some sort ($$$$). However, that path is not for me, and I will only be happy with my life if I am spending it writing. I know that Heaney is talking about not being able to do manual labor, and digging with spades and such, but I am loosely relating myself to his situation, give me some slack!

Cat

Rage, Rage!

I had to read Dylan Thomas' poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" a few times before the meaning really hit me. Once it hit me, though, I could not get the words out of my head. This poem really speaks to me because I agree with what Thomas is saying full stop. Don't you dare go gently into that good night, don't die without a fight!

I have always strongly believed that one should live their life to the fullest at all times, and after reading this poem I must add "die to the fullest" to that philosophy. Death is an inevitable part of life - a part that many people fear and do not easily accept. I have come to terms a long time ago with the fact that death is coming but that will never stop me from raging right into that light.

As for the poem itself, I really like how it is kind of split up into a few parts: wise  men, good men, wild men, and the grave men. Each of these different types of men have definitely lived very different lives, but in the end there is the same outcome and they all must face that outcome the same, as Thomas begs, to rage against the dying of the light and to not go gently into the good night. This is a universal message and I really appreciate that.

The ending really stuck out to me - the part about his father - because it reminded me of the Atmosphere song "Yesterday". I don't want to ruin the beauty of this song so you can listen to it here:

Keep reading once you have finished the song please (listen to it all the way through because you won't get the song's full effect until the end....)


Sean Daley, the lead rapper in Atmosphere, remembers his relationship with his father in this song and thinks of the hardships the two of them experienced in their lives and the difficult relationship they had. This reminds me much of the end of "Do not go gentle into that good night" because at the end Thomas asks his father, despite their relationship, to not go gentle into the good night and to fight against death and leave his life by raging against the dying of the light. I feel the two (Daley and Thomas) are much alike in their relationships with their fathers - although they had a hard time during their fathers' lives, they both felt the same love and shared the same hopes for their fathers during and after their deaths.

All in all this poem is very good, and I am ever so grateful that I have been exposed to it because I can now add it to the collection of poems that I really love and truly agree with!

Thanks so much!
Cat ~ meow

Trouble Trouble

I grew up reading Seamus Heaney - he was my granny's very favourite poem. He was and will remain in the top five for me as well, how could he not? He is from the same county in Northern Ireland that me and my family are from, Derry. I have always had an automatic connection with him due to that, and my whole family and I have always connected with the content of a lot of him poems. Many of my family members are farmers, and every single one of them had lived through and experienced first hand the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The Troubles, long story short, were a period of conflict in mostly Northern Ireland between the Unionists, protenstant loyalists to the queen and the Catholic republicans who fought for a united Ireland. Not to get political or anything, but I am Roman Catholic, and a die hard Irish nationalist- I advocate for a united Ireland completely.

I grew up hearing about these Troubles and have experienced the prejudices that still exist today. So Seamus Heaney's work really hits home for me.

"Punishment" has long been a poem that I have loved, the imagery is solid and the story behind the poem is actually super interesting. If you have never heard about the "bog bodies" that were found you can read all about them here:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/bog-bodies/bog-bodies-text

Heaney wrote this particular poem about Windeby, a young boy found in Germany - who originally, at the time Heaney wrote the poem, was thought to be an asulteress young woman. Here's what he/she looks like:



Cool, huh? So, the reason Windeby was thought to be an adultress was because as you can see in the picture all the hair had been shaved off. However, in recent developments to the investigations, archeologists believe that the hair was scraped off by excavating trowels... oops! But the poem isn't just about Windeby - he uses the bog body to reflect on the experiences he had during the troubles. Women were tarred and feathered by the IRA - a very extreme terrorist organization in Northern Ireland that has always gone to some extremes to fight for a united  Ireland. These boys were bad news, what they stood for was good but how they went about their fight was completely wrong. But on the other hand, Heaney is also calling out the British Army as well as the IRA, because they were just as bad back to the Irish (Bloody Sunday...) - they tortured the Irish in Belfast. Neither side was more just than the other, and neither had any right to do anything they ever did, and Heaney uses "Punishment" to talk about being between the two terrible groups.

I absolutely love this poem !
Cat

Some Quick Notes

Just a few notes on the reading for Thursday:

I absolutely love A Rose for Emily, I read that in high school all those years ago and loved it then as well. The surprise ending got me the first time and totally chilled me to the bone, and even now after a few years rereading the story is still very eerie. I like that Emily is referred to as a "fallen monument" upon her death, giving her a sense of importance that may have been forgotten over time, which is exactly what Emily is.

Hills Like White Elephants was very confusing at first, as with most Hemingway works I had to reread it a dozen times before I could sift through his ridiculous symbols and through all the dialogue with nothing supporting it to realize what was actually happening in the story. The second read through reminded me of the surgery, which during the first read I had forgotten about half way through the story and was very confused as to what they meant when they were talking about doing something that will be simple. All over, though, I found this Hemingway piece not entirely too dreadful to read, so I will add it to the short pile of Hemingway works I enjoy (the only other being A Farewell to Arms).

The cricket story was a little strange to me, I did not quite understand the whole point of the names being in Christmas colours across the two children's chests. I did like that the little girl corrected the little boy about the insect and then they felt as though they were connected. The lanterns also sound extremely cute, and I would like to try to make one.

I had quite a long and busy day so I am going to leave it at this and save some of my opinions of the works for class discussion!

Cat

What's Cooler than Being Cool? Ice Cold.

I wanted to use this post to address the poem by Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool -

This poem drives me absolutely crazy with how many possible meanings each line could have. 

Let's look at the beginning: Why are there seven guys playing pool? You can fit up to about four people on one table in order to have a good game of pool, so there is an odd man out - why is the odd man out even present? After listening to the reading by Brooks on poets.org, I found that there were actually seven people she passed. Also the Golden Shovel really stands out to me, as I said in class, because of the simplicity of an item like a shovel being golden, making it worth so much more than it actually is worth. 

Then there is the rest of the poem. I like the idea of the emphasis being put the other words except for 'we'. When Brooks reads her poem, the word we is almost inaudible - this gives me the idea that the boys are not so much concerned about who they are but what they do, which goes perfectly with the stereotype of the 'rebel' or 'cool' personality. These boys are "real cool" according to Brooks, who skip school and thin gin. Thinning gin is also thought provoking - are they drinking a lot of gin or are they thinning it with water in order to peddle it, perhaps sell some quick gin in order to make a few bucks to support other habits?

Jazzing June really gave me a laugh in class, because I had no idea that jazz had at one point a sexual connotation, but thinking about it now I suppose that is not much of a surprise considering the whole "jazz scene" which is very much sexually charged. 

My favourite line from the poem is definitely "We sing sin" because it reminds me for some reason of the song "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel. The line that comes to mind is "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saint" following that up with "sinners have much more fun". That song contradicts the last line of the poem because "only the good die young" according to Billy, but to Brooks "We die soon" after such sinning.

THE POOL PLAYERS. 

SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. 

We real cool. We 

Left school. We 

Lurk late. We 

Strike straight. We 

Sing sin. We 

Thin gin. We 

Jazz June. We 

Die soon. 

The reading of the poem can be found here : 

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15433

Lastly I cannot help but comment on how strikingly similar Gwendolyn Brooks is to Bill Cosby

      

Can't you see it?

Happy Wednesday! 

Cat

 

We Should All Learn What "Feminism" Means

I am going to attempt to explain some personal views that relate to the story A&P by John Updike, but I am probably going to get lost in my thoughts and contradict myself a ton so hang in there, I will make sense eventually.

My favourite kind of literature is British classics, especially Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. I am indeed a feminist in the traditional sense of believing in the economic, political, and social equality of men and women, however, I am not a "feminist" according to today's connotation of the word making a feminist a women who yells and screams about how women are treated poorly. I do not believe that women can be equal to men in many areas, just as men are not equal to women in many areas. We are two different genders, therefore we will not be equal. When it comes to human rights, sure we are equal in that we are all human, but women and men have different strengths that need to highlighted by those genders instead of trying to force the two genders to be the same. I believe in the strength of man, and the power of the female advantage. Girls can do anything that icky boys do, we just do it differently. A man can lift a heavy box on his own and carry it up to his apartment just as well as a girl can bat her eyelashes and get a man to do that for her.

I am not against feminism, okay maybe I am against the radical feminists who instead of going on about the strength of women they decide to act as though women are superior to men, that is not okay in my book. I do not believe that either sex is superior to the other, I just do not feel like women need to get all in uproar about men treating them certain ways.

Take A&P for example, when Sammy was thinking those things about Queenie as she struts her half  clothes body around the store. She deliberately went into that store in a bikini, which she knows is not proper shopping etiquette, calling attention to herself - so we should not be appalled when Sammy takes notice of her. If Sammy pressed the issue further and made Queenie uncomfortable by coming onto her unwelcome or trying to cop a feel - then by all means throw some stones at Sammy. All he did was appreciate the body that she was putting on display in the middle of a supermarket. No one is to blame, it is not a "creepy" situation, but one that happens every single day and one that tons of people will look at and act as though Sammy has committed some kind of hanous crime.

The story was very enjoyable all together, I had read it in highschool and completely forgot what it was until I looked at it in class after I read the wrong short story (instead of reading A&P, I read Kafka.. oops) for homework. Even way back in junior year of high school, I stood firmly by Sammy and his thoughts. He did nothing wrong, he is not a creep, he is just a typical person, not even a typical boy, just a person who can think whatever he wishes about whoever he wishes.

That is all, going to take a nap before I blog more about literature and such,

Cat

A Message to Humanity

I have just finished furiously reading Cathedral by Raymond Carter, although it seemed more like I was eating the text than reading it. I absolutely loved this short story about a very cynical man who befriends, to his great surprise, the blind friend of his wife. Throughout the story I could not get over just how rude the narrator was being when describing his apprehensions of having his wife's friend visit because the man is blind. I am a very accepting person who has seen just about every walk of life in my short but exciting twenty years here on earth, and sometimes cannot grasp exactly where people are coming from with their prejudices. The narrator has never met this man before and his wife, who I assume the narrator loves, has spoken so highly of this man for years and still he did not like the man solely because he was blind and apparently blind people make the narrator uncomfortable.

Having never actually MET a blind person before, he jumped to outrageous conclusions about blind people based solely on films, and the opinions of others. I did not appreciate his attitude until the climax of the story, when the two work together to blindly draw a cathedral. This story melted my heart - the image of the two very different men sitting together, stoned, drawing was not by any means expected and revived my faith for the narrator, and for people in general. The author is not very far off with how easily a perception of someone can change, and how easily we can connect if all we do is open up to one another. As Whitman talks of in Song of Myself, we are all from the same dirt, the same air and atoms and earth - why are we so quick to judge and so quick to lock out those we feel are different than us? If you keep pushing away everyone without a chance, you will end up a very lonely, bitter old maid, but that is very much my own opinion.

I would, and have already recommended this short story to anyone to read, because there is not a small audience for the message of this story. The audience in fact is all of humanity!

I am going to get back to reading now,

Cat

This is J-Term!

I have always been a very avid blogger and being assigned to write a blog for class was one of the best moments in my college career so far. The point of this blog is to comment on the reading I have done for class and to elaborate on that reading, which I hope to do successfully.

I was a little weary about J-Term over Christmas break, because this is the start of my English career and I want to start out on a great foot - this is, after all, what I wish to do for the rest of my life. I have been happily surprised with the readings so far. I am typically a very picky reader (my tastes lean towards classic British literature and I do not tend to really enjoy a lot else) but the pieces that we have read so far have being very pleasant.

I am a screen writer by trade and a poet by nature, so starting off the term by analyzing a ton of poetry is just peachy! My favourite of the poems read for Tuesdays class was hard to choose, but I must admit that the piece that stuck out the most to me was William Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" to my great surprise. I have never been a very big Wordsworth fan, yet there is something about a poem as light as this one. The images he describes are simple, but vivid - the daffodils dancing took me a moment to comprehend for my mind must have been somewhere else, with the first note I took for that line reading, "It must be pretty windy out because the daffodils keep moving". I pushed past that subjective view of the poem, as the text encouraged me so, and my mind was filled with images of daffodils dancing in their fields and how truly beautiful that must seem.

I worked in a flower store for about a year in high school, and daffodils were a very popular potted plant during the Easter season, grandmothers really got excited about buying twenty potted daffodils for every relative they could list. I had never liked the looks of those daffodils, probably because I was surrounded by them daily, but also because they are not exactly the prettiest flower of the bunch. I had not seen a daffodil in some time, so I googled them and found this image which I actually find quite pretty, and somewhat calming:



After looking at this photo, I can really see what Wordsworth was describing, and really hope that I stumble upon a field of dancing daffodils someday soon (if this snow will ever melt).

I cannot wait to read more!

Cat