Multiple Intelligences & Poetry

I was digging around a bit today trying to find out more creative approaches for homeschooling my sixth grader and one of the suggestions was to pay attention to a child's "multiple intelligences" so that they have a greater chance of success (and also to make sure that the child is getting the support they need to balance out their "weaker" intelligences.)

Out of curiosity, I took one of the web's tests to identify my strengths, and the results were a bit surprising--I actually scored highest in Musical rather than Linguistic ability although the actual difference was rather small. It would be intriguing to find out if other poets (as a group) scored in a similar manner. (I also scored surprisingly high in Naturalist--but I attribute this to gardening and a grandmother who insisted I learn the names of the birds and trees around us.)

I'm not sure that the questions are terribly accurate-- and perhaps this would be a good tool to help an adult bring more "roundedness" to his or her life--knowing for instance that I am poor at spatial ability --might be a good prompt to work to develop this skill more fully in my life. (In case I decide to take up sewing or quilting in the future, this would come in handy.)

On the last trip to my local library, I found an interesting little book, Wisdom of the Plain Folk, on the Mennonites and Amish life --beautiful photography paired with hymns and sayings. I've been working my way through some theology recently, I began with Bonhoffer's Life Together, and now I've picked up The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis in a translation by William Griffin. The wily introduction is by Richard J. Foster and contains those little comments in Latin that used to annoy me, but now pique my interest.

Latin has been showing up everywhere--in my son's book on Shakespeare, for example--and of course in my older son's vocabulary course. I have often thought if I just looked at Latin long enough it would begin to make sense. I am thrilled to know that there is always another subject to try, another project to undertake, and more books, and books!

In garden news, the pot holding last year's stalks of basil has suddenly sprouted a few young plants, long after I'd ceased to hope. But two leaves become four, become eight and so forth.
The thought of fresh pesto tempts. And many years after I first made pesto at home and after quite a few years of frustrated searching, pine-nuts are easy enough to acquire at the local grocery. Perhaps this summer, I'll try making the pasta myself. Small as a marble: the season's first tomato, and like a small furry caterpillar the zucchini inch into the world.

Comforted by Home

One of my favorite authors is Willa Cather. She loved to write about place and the idea of home. I've recently finished her Shadows on the Rock which is a snapshot of a young girl's life during the late 1600's in Quebec. Her attention to place is amazing as always. I feel as if I'd like to visit Quebec to see if anything of the world she describes still exists:

Directly under his feet was the French stronghold,--scattered spires and slated roofs flashing in the rich autumnal sunlight . . . Divest your mind of Oriental colour, and you saw here very much such a mountain rock, cunningly built over with churches, convents, fortifications, gardens, following the natural irregularities of the headland on which they stood; some high, some low, some thrust up on a spur, some nestling in a hollow, some sprawling unevenly along a declivity. (4-5)

The detail in which she describes the Apothecary's home, is rich in such detail as well. There is a love of sensual detail, a way of evoking even the smallest item to demonstrate that the house is more than mere lodging but a home-place which echoes the traveler's original home in the heart of France. Even in the wildness of the primitive settlement of Quebec, with the right reminders of a more gentle life, home is created.

Shadows is a tale of diaspora, the Father always longing for the home left behind; the daughter looking forward to a life created in the land where she's grown into a woman. Hope and despair are the two faces of the coin; the old and the new, where we've been and where we are . In Willa Cather's novel, the best of the old life completes the new through patterns of actions, through simple household objects, "all the little shades of feeling which make the common fine," "le persil" on the windowsill, the rug on the floor, tradition: what we cannot help but carry with us.

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See also:
Willa Cather Archive at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Blogs & Charles Dickens

As regular visitors might notice (Hi Glenn!) I've recently updated the blog's look and added the tags. This update made me aware of the blog's serialization of my life. And I noticed that I am always reading other people's blogs as mini-autobiographies or fictions. I follow several blogs quite regularly and it is interesting to watch the "lives" unfold there. (However "mediated" these may be, some strive for more fictionalization than others.) Which reminds me of Charles Dickens and raises questions about the writing life. So, a theory to discuss.

Dickens wrote a great deal of quality work. Is it possible that the actual process of serialization helps a writer develop? I can think of these benefits (even if Dickens didn't do these):

• You have to show up to write, but you don't have to write it all today.
  
• You have to have something exciting/important/gripping happen in regular intervals to keep the reader's attention so they'll buy the next version, but doesn't this help maintain interest in the long (novel) form too?
  
• The possibility of feedback? If you have a bad episode, the readers might complain! But you have a chance to fix it before the printers set the type for the long version!
  
• Offers a chance to let the characters develop as they will, instead of having to map out an entire book at once. (I don't know enough about Dickens to know if he did write this way, but it seems like it might be a positive thing. Any Dickens scholars out there?)
• The possibility to use/exploit current events in your story line. ( the news in poetry?)

I feel as if the blog helps me formulate ideas that I might otherwise let slip into oblivion. It helps me keep a record of what I'm doing and thinking about for future reference. It helps to have a real readership to think of, rather than some abstract vague audience. I realize that having a reader to think of makes be be more accurate when I write and try to fill in specifics and details. When I go back and read old entries, I am amazed at how much detail I don't recall of those moments. I'm greedy, I don't want to lose a single thought.

I came across a Latin quote that seems to sum the idea up nicely: Sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes the glory of the world). I don't know the source or context of this quote yet (a grave inscription?), so allow me to put it in a context for myself for today: There is glory (truth, beauty, things to be grateful for, love, learning, pleasure) in each of the moments passing through our lives. It is there, in the quotidian, waiting for us to acknowledge it.

Post-Colonial Life

I've been reading some critical essays on life in the post-colonial world. There have been some difficult questions raised about both political and personal identity; and if these are necessarily connected to the patch of ground/nation/region to which a person belongs. The other question is if these "roots" are severed what is the impact on the personal identity? Is it beneficial to retain the cultural roots of a home that you no longer occupy?

One of the critic-poets argues that yes, you can remain true to "your roots" and still make changes. But the solution offered is very difficult; it basically calls for people to not allow themselves to be pulled into the conflict. A "leave the past behind" attitude. While you don't have to forget the people who died, you shouldn't fight on in their name.

This sounds good in theory, doesn't it? But, can it really apply to places like Rwanda? (or Ireland, or practically anywhere that there has been conflict between cultures, which is exactly the entire globe.) Basically, the critic would be telling the people who suffered the most: ok, just move on. (of course, this is a gross simplification) I'm not sure practically how that would work on a grand scale. On a small scale, it's possible. It is possible on an individual level to forgive and move on. But on a large scale? I don't have faith that this would work.

Another argues that the trying to cling to these "pasts" is damaging, especially for the second generation who might end up lost in the limbo between two cultures and often two languages.
Another claims that living "without roots" is, in fact, a self-imposed silence. That's dangerous too, right?

The most popular option for navigating this seems to be "hybridity," which seems great if you're from the dominant culture: I'll appreciate some of your culture and you can appreciate some of mine. But how long will it before the other culture is so watered down that it disappears?

Even though I've lived in the same country my entire life, I still think about these ideas as applicable to my own life. I like the thought of being connected to a history, a heritage. But, I haven't inherited many traditions from my family's country of origin. Our family has been here too many generations and by my parent's time they are all gone. Occasionally, one of my folks will mention their grandparents doing this or that, baking a particular treat, eating a certain food. But all the tradition (how & why) of these has been lost to time. And we move, a lot. Probably more than the "average American," although it seems our culture is getting more adept with the moving boxes every year.

And of course, the post-colonial theory is very applicable to the US today. I've lived across the country where there are some traditions left; and we've known many people from a myriad of cultural backgrounds. (One of our family's favorite meals is a Japanese type of curry that a friend from Hawaii shared with us. Another is a particular (regional) way of making pinto beans that is so much better than any other Mexican-style I'd had, taught to me by a friend from Mexico.) I try to make some 1st generation traditions for my boys, too. (Chinese food on Halloween, anyone?) (Yes, most of these traditions *are* involving food here, because they're the quickest to describe & relate to. [I guess I get a little frustrated too with how many of our American traditions are dictated to us by the corporate world through super-saturation in advertising. Chex Mix, anyone? But that's probably a topic better left for another day.])

Perhaps an effective thing to do, instead of demanding that people mold themselves to one American ideal is just to live and let be. But can this work politically, as well? Doesn't it still lead people to an us vs. them mindset? What does America want? appears to be the question on all the politicians' tongues. What America are they talking about? There must be a million versions of America and each of them wants something different. Good luck answering that question.

So, I'm left to consider how to go about living the best I can in this complicated world and hoping that we each can individually discover a way to go about living peacefully and interacting one with another.

Stewing. . .

I spent the blackout reading by candlelight some of Barbara Kingsolver's work. I had read The Poisonwood Bible some time ago, but finally read The Prodigal Summer and was really intrigued by the themes running through it. I also read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle during the blackout. Now I've checked out a few more of her books to read over break.

I go for awhile and don't miss academic life too much and then it hits again: an almost painful need to get back to work (work defined as reading, critical conversation, critical thought and writing.) But no one says that I must be enrolled to do these things; I'm perfectly capable on my own.

Not amusing

With having to give up teaching this semester, I've also lost my access to the library resources and databases. No more OED, no more MLA research, no more reading journals stored electronically. And perhaps, most disappointing, no more inter library loan. Of course, I can go sign up for a community user card and use the library itself and my hope is that some of these resources will be available then. I've also lost the hours of work I'd put into my "online" sites for each of the classes I've taught. Yes, I backed up the documents that were vital. But it still takes hours to upload and tidy and tweak those sites.

On a more amusing note, I recently finished Teacher Man. It was quite an enjoyable read. I especially liked this bit:

They (students) don't like it when Mr. McCourt says, Why was Hamlet mean to
his mother, or why didn't he kill the king when he had the chance.
It's all right to spend the rest of the period going round and round
discussing this, but you'd like to know the answer before the goddam bell
rings. Not with McCourt, man. He's asking questions, throwing out
suggestions, causing confusion,and you know the warning bell is about to
ring and and you get this feeling in your gut. Come on, come on, what's the
answer? and he keeps saying What do you think? What do you
think?

--From Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

I think that next time I step in front of a literature class I'm going to hand them this quote and spend the first day of the semester discussing it. Literature is no fun when other people make the discoveries. I hate cliff notes for this very reason. I like to puzzle it out on my own; I like to leave the class thinking about why.

With treatments every other week, I'm starting to understand a bit what it might be like to be manic-depressive. Last week, I was incredibly depressed and couldn't see my way to this week. This week, I'm wondering how the hell I even had half of the thoughts that went through my brain last week. It's going to get worse before it gets better, but I have to remember that the bad weeks will too pass.

Spring is arriving. The robins are flapping around in huge groups. I'm on the lookout for the pair that nests in the ceder tree.

Be well.

New Stack

I've bought a few new books from the local booksellers:

The Darkness Around Us is Deep Selected Poems of William Stafford
The Names of the Rapids by Jonathan Holden
Mystery, So Long by Stephen Dobyns
Now that my Father Lies Down Beside Me by Stanley Plumly
A New Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell
The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees
Trans by Hilda Raz
New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver
Silence in the Snowy Fields by Robert Bly
Ten Russian Poets: Surviving the 20th Century

I catch whispers of them talking together on the shelf: "my only swerving," "that urge towards more life," "announcing your place/in the family of things," "what the full moon portends--/nothing," "the ways of dying, the ways of sleep."


Awake and listening, I pay attention.

On "Self-Reliance"

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.
R.W.E, American


My, my, was he smart or what? And what he was saying way back then, still shimmers today. Possibly shimmers even more today than back then. Listen to yourself, he says. Don't just follow blindly along, learn the language of the masters so you can speak with them. Don't rely on all that junk you're collecting in your house. Find your own compass; tack your ship to your own coordinates. Who you are is not in the big moments but in the little ones.

and that hobgoblins line is delicious.

They stared back blankly.

This is America. Does he still speak for us?

I am still listening.

Wind & Walking

. . . and we went out into the cold and wind, so we could remember that we are a part of nature. The epiphany came just six steps out of the building; there's a little weeping tree about 5 foot tall. We stopped and looked at the way the branches curled and twisted and cascaded. None of them could remember ever seeing the tree before; even though we have been passing by for months. Under the old oaks, a gift, an impromptu lesson from D. on how to use acorn caps for whistles. If you are ever lost, he said, now you will know how to call for help. Back in the room the heated air felt too warm. They wrote what they saw as they walked : the way periwinkle catches a blanket of leaves; the swirling carvings on the buildings; a cardinal in the tree with his tuft; the single hedge apple, poison, and fallen; the scrap of fine fur, the drop of blood, which hinted at the death of the rabbit.

If we had world enough and time, the poet said;
but this is the only world, this is our only time.

What I wanted to ask. . .

but didn't. If music is the food of love, as Mr. S. would say, what does it mean that Othello has the musicians stop playing? Is it that he's so uncultured that he doesn't appreciate music? Is it that Cyprus has such different music that it is unpleasant? Or is the "Wedding Band" just that bad? (Oh, the choices that a director gets to make! It could be comic! Tragic! Strange!)

Or is it as in Twelfth Night, that Othello doesn't want to have an "excess" of it?

"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."
--From Twelfth Night (I, i,1-3)

And then there's the "swan song" that Desdemona sings. Questions & more questions.

For the stage director, music adds dimension to a performance and helps showcase the talents of the actors. But what does it do for meaning? I know that emotional content and experiences are often tied to music. But what does the "Willow" song really add to the play?

I should go to the MLA and see what critics have said about the music. So many research projects, so little time.

What happens in Middle School?

What happens in Middle School that kids stop being readers? What happens in High School that makes them want to turn their backs on poetry forever? I am trying to win readers back. They are silent in class, but when I read what they write they do know what they refuse to say in front of their peers. Every once in awhile, I see a twinkle in an eye, and know that at least someone has felt a poem speaking.

Make much of time.

Amy

He says this as if it's a BAD thing. . .

“The language of the poetic genre is a unitary and singular Ptolemaic world outside of which nothing else exists and nothing else is needed. The concept of many worlds of language, all equal in their ability to conceptualize and to be expressive, is organically denied to poetic style.”
-- Mikhail M. Bakhtin

Elemental

The poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.

T.S. Eliot

Exhortations!

Every once in a while, the whole business of poetry starts to wear on me: the worry about publication, the worry about if it's worthwhile, the conflict between wanting to create and wanting to "matter" as a poet. But then I find a moment of exhortation like this one and all of that falls away leaving the desire to create, to speak of this world, as my essential desire.

Doubt not, O Poet, but persist. Say "It is in me, and shall out." Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of then that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

In & For Itself

What I learned from Kant today:

How liberating is the idea that art does not need to "do" something? It doesn't have to teach something; it doesn't have to fit some pre-conceived notion; it doesn't have to have some value as a product. We strive to create, even if what we create never achieves "beauty," we can at least be inspired by beauty to aim for the ideal. Its value does not lie in what it is used for, but rather in & for itself.

Do I believe all this? Is art in itself & for itself enough?

Why Metaphor?

Now the sources of all poetic locution are two: poverty of language and need to explain and be understood. [. . .] What Aristotle said of the individual man is therefore true of the race in general: Nihil est in intellectu quin prius fuerit in sensu. That is, the human mind does not understand anything of which it has no previous impression from the senses.
--Giambattista Vico, 1668-1744, The New Science

I understand what Vico is saying to mean that since we don't have the language to convey some experiences and because others cannot understand what they have not experienced (observed, touched, tasted, heard, smelled) that the best we can do is to use poetic language.

I like this argument for metaphor; that it can help us portray what language otherwise prevents us from conveying. Metaphor then helps us enact an experience by drawing on our previous experienced sensual data. I believe this is why blood, bone, moon and the like show up in so many poems, because these are concepts about which we all can quickly relate sensual data. It is more risky therefore (risking failure of communication) to use a metaphor with a vehicle which may be less familiar to the reader.

What do you believe?

In a recent conversation someone mentioned that they didn't believe that books could make a difference or changes in people's lives. I found this rather shocking, actually, because I feel that books and stories and poems and songs help to shape our views of the world.

I offer up Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry as a way of seeing how if the fairytales of our youth were different, so might be our perspective on the world. I read poems and see ways to live more completely, more responsibly, and more in tune with the world around me. And if you see the world through the perspective of a holy text, how much more are you shaped by what you read?

I heard a few years ago that medical students were being asked to read humanities texts that detail suffering and the experiences of being sick. The hope was that this would make the students more sensitive to their patients' ordeals. I don't know if it works, but it sounds plausible.

How will we know what others know and have known if we don't read? Unlike reality TV, literature has already been proven to pass the test of time.

The Powers of Poetry

The very interesting essay by Bly "What the Image Can Do" lists several "powers of poetry" or traits that make poetry work.

1. the image.
2. Frost's "Sentence Sound"
3. psychic weight
4. sound
5. drumbeat ( or Hall's "goatfoot")
6. the narrative

I am always interested in lists like these as while they seem to capture important elements of poetry writing, they rarely seem complete to me. There are other aspects that seem important that are not on the list. What about the visual / page placement / line breaks /stanza breaks?
Since I spent many years as a musician, I know that the rests are as important as the notes and they need to be heeded for the music to conform to what was composed. I feel that the same goes for poetry. To me the written page works as a score for the aural / oral experience of the poem. What else should be added to the list?

Read some Bly on-line.