Checking In. :)

I think that this semester I have had the most trouble making sure my format for my essays is done properly! I can't seem to get it completely down. As far as my writing goes, I think that I have absorbed the overall concepts withing each story. I feel as though this semester has had a lot of powerful reading assignments, and that they have all actually been enjoyable. They didn't feel as though I was reading something because I had to, I actually was interested tho see what was next. Out of our readings this semester, I really enjoyed Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. I enjoyed all of the stories and his style of writing, and his topics stuck with me. I especially enjoyed The Lives of the Dead;I actually repeated that story to friends and family.  Ideally, for the rest of the semester, I can stay more on top of my blogs and papers and not keep doing things at the last minute! And I would also like to spend more time reading other student's blogs to see their perspectives on the writing. I think that us doing assignments here on Blogger is a great idea, because it allows us to explore what everyone else is thinking, where as in a classroom, most students wouldn't be comfortable sharing their thoughts.

SandStorm

http://minusthe-x.blogspot.com/2010/09/sandstorm-this-week-we-read-play.html

I think the strongest emotion I felt while reading was when the soldiers were discussing the death of all of those innocent people with such casualness. I was instantly frustrated by the idea of war and of the innocent people who die for no good reason. After I continued reading, and realized that the soldiers did indeed feel a sense of guilt and shame, they just had to let the adrenaline and anger disperse so their real emotions over what had happened could truly hit them. Soldiers learn to numb out the pain and go through the actions without the emotions, so when they are out of the war, those things hit them that much harder, because they have yet to fully deal with it. It  made me so sad to read about how the men felt as though they weren't human, they had no empathy or sense of emotion when they encountered death so many times. 

The monologues were all VERY emotional and intense, and I do think that I gained a better outlook about those who do risk their lives for their country.The men and women who fight for our country are the ones at war, and the ones who will have to deal with the emotional consequences. They will be the ones with the memories and the images they can't erase. I think that regardless of political opinions or views, we should support our soldiers because they are fighting for our rights, and our freedoms. I think that these monologues showed the hardships and emotional agony our soldiers go through, rather than glorifying it like so many war stories do.

The monologue style of writing helped me to understand more of what the characters were feeling, but the numerous stage directions and other details thrown in kept taking me out of the story. Overall I find it difficult to fully appreciate that style of writing when reading it to myself because it distracts me from the real emotions of the story. It doesn't feel like a story or something you can imagine in your head and properly connect with.

Connecting to the Poetry...

"Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out... Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure." A.E. Houseman

I was most drawn to the poems, "Immigrants in Our Own Land" by Jimmy Santiago Baca, and "Letters Composed in a Lull in the Fighting" by Kevin Powers. I feel as though they have little in common, though they do share a mutual sense of disappointment. This seemed fairly obvious in the first poem, the realization that your dreams and aspirations won't stop you from being labeled. In the second poem, I felt that 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," (Lines 1-4, 3rd Stanza) reveals that there is a sense of disappointment in the soldier. I interpreted it that the solidier was feeling as though what he was fighting for wasn't what he imagined, there was no glory, it wasn't what he was expecting. I think this poem stuck out to me because of its simple description of such a horrible thing. I can't imagine having to sacrifice what solidiers sacrifice, and the idea of someone jotting this down, thinking of who they love, and what their loved one will think when they open the letter, that it will have the stink of war, stuck with me. If the poem had had more to it, I think it would have taken away from it overall. The simplicity is what makes it.

 "Immigrants in Our Own Land" was my favorite of all of the poems from this section. I loved the look into how no matter how much hope you have, or how strong of a work ethic, you can be labeled and left to fade away. The line, "The administration says this is right, no mixing of cultures, let them stay apart, like in the old neighborhoods we came from," (Lines 15-17, 2nd Stanza) was a strong point in the poem for me. I felt as though it showed how strongly people are instantly judged, how scared we are of change. If change isn't reinforced, how can things get better? This poem left me thinking how people are left without options to improve their quality of life, to be able to acheive what they are capable of. The poem has its moments of optimism, of dreams and hopes, but shows how difficult it is to maintain that enthusiasm for life when you have so many things holding you down. Anyone can relate to this, but I think it stuck out to me because that is absolutely how the system works. I've worked with families new to the country, new to English. Rather than having options and chances, they are forced to scrape by, doing what they can. Making sure that communities have cultural resources is so crucial. People need a chance, they need to be able to show they are willing to work hard for the life they deserve. For race or status or orgin of birth to matter more than what someone has in their heart is a sad thing.

Love this poetry blog! 

 http://poetry.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=poetry&cdn=education&tm=12&gps=204_156_1003_576&f=10&tt=14&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//ofkells.blogspot.com/

Image from http://www.haggardandhalloo.com/2011/01/29/poetry-2/

Ignorance is NOT Bliss.

The world is a mess. It really is, we are slowly losing any sense of compassion or hope. People think that if they turn a blind eye to what is going wrong in the world, that they can hide from it and it wont affect them. I like how Sam Hamill viewed writing as an outlet for people to voice their tragedies, as a way for people to get their stories across. We stay away from the ugly truths of the world because we have been raised in society to do so. Reading a great poem or a great novel gives us the oppertunity to, at least in some way, put ourselves in someone else's shoes. All of the poemss in this section were based on something sad, something tragic. We all need a good dose of sadness to make us a little more proactive. Witnessing the sad can help inspire hope and a sense of change. We are all born into varying circumstances, and if we aren't exposed to way others live, we can remain ignorant and without that sense of compassion. Sometimes we need to absorb whats so sad just to make us appreciate the small things we can do to make it better. My favorite poem from the Poetry of Witness selection was "Immigrants in Our Land". People who make mistakes need our help. If you have been lucky enough to be raised with an open mind, with chances to better yourself, then it is your job to pass on that knowledge. I personally feel as though how inmates spend their time is the biggest waste. We send these people, who most likely have had few choices or oppertunities, to rot away with their own miserable memories, and then we seem confused when they return. Why not take advantage that you have this chance to rehabilitate them? Educate, open their minds. People can change, especially if they have been shown the errors of their ways and a way to fix what mistakes they have made. If we ignore those who suffer, we are leaving such a significant portion of people behind, we arent bettering anything. We dont have to be the ones beating our wives and children, or the ones making racial slurs. Being indifferent to what is awful in this world is just as bad as contributing to it.

I found the image above on http://www.n8w.com/image/art/ghandi/. :)

And here is small way to help save the world. http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=1

Let your mind wander... Just not too far!

Good Readers and Good Writers

I personally feel like the main aspect to being a good reader and writer is balance; the balance between being able to absorb what it is you are reading without it being completely laid out to you. Nabokov worded it as knowing when to curb your imagination and let the author take over. You have to have an imagination, yet the intelligence to comprehend where it is the author is going. The most crucial part of reading would have to be that ability to get lost in the story you are reading; however, in reading, it is also just as important that you are absorbing enough of what you reading to keep your imagination in line with the direction of the new world you are being shown. Going into a book with a pre conceived notion is dangerous, yet you do need some general idea of what is taking place. If it is a sci fi novel, your imagination needs to remain somewhere within that realm. If it is a factual based novel, you need to maintain some realistic notions of what is going to happen.
 

This also incorporates into being a good author, because you have to have the skill to keep the readers somewhat contained in the possibilities of the story. Yes, create this new world for them, but it has to make sense. They have to have faith in your consistency of writing. If things are sporadically changing and straying away from the original point, a readers imagination is going to wander, and the author will have lost control of his own story. :)

Found this article orginally on The Huffington Post. :)

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/25/us-japan-poet-idUSTRE70O0NQ20110125