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Hi All--

You've reached the class blog for English 42. Always check here for announcements and updates.

Always read my posts before writing essays.

You may also add your own voice, by either posting a blog of your own, or choosing a blog from one of your fellow bloggers (list to right; more names will appear as blog URLs are submitted) and adding your two cents (or two bucks--adjusted for inflation--)

Remember: if you are writing a blog, post only blog comments on the blogs; exercises should be emailed, and journals uploaded to TII

BTW--please don't leave comments for me here--though you can email w/questions...

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Bishop and Williams:

See my comments on More Blogs from Previous Classes at right (second set). For those of you blogging on Bishop, esp. Richard Capozzi's, Stephen Martinez's, and Michael Curro's blogs in blogs from previous classes. Although most writers blogged on Bishop, Constanza Rehren and William Lane wrote blogs on WCW on which I briefly commented (comment on Constanza's blog most pertinent).  My comments are posted under "tl."

The last few lines of "Full of Sound..." also make a useful point about "The Fish," taken in context of the poem's overall conflict (see study sheets); Bobby Grazi's blog makes in interesting personal connection to the same poem.

To access older posts on the blogs from previous classes, scroll down to and click on the year, appearing either in the right or left frame. Clicking on "2010," for eg., will bring up all the posts for the year; then, scroll down to find earlier posts.

Also, be sure to review the study sheet for Bishop and Williams, posted to Blackboard, for insights into the themes/concerns of poems for both poets. The quotes on the study sheets are excerpted from articles on MAP and LRC (see course syllabus); search for the complete articles in these databases.

Look over the exercises on Blackboard, as well, which can provide additional guidance and practice in literary analysis.

Katie Ford's essay on Bishop, "Visibility Is Poor..." (Poets.org), is also insightful (esp pars. 4, beginning "According to Bishop..." through 8, beginning "Bishop's challenge...)

Again, for all poets we read this semester, always review my opening blog comments, as well as my comments on current and previous blogs before writing journals; the combination of blogs, study sheets, exercises and critical articles will provide an analytical framework for your journals.

Ready? Good blogging...or at least, reading....

Wakoski

"The Red Bandana"

Consider the ambiguity of the red bandanna as a symbol; it helps characterize the speaker's sense of herself, as distinguished from the male addressee (the red takes on different meanings in these contexts) and also helps characterize their relationship (the nexus/pattern--red bandanna, bull fight, blood sport,etc, you are noticing --what other images fall into this pattern and how, specifically, do they characterize the addressee and the relationship between him and the speaker? The imagery of stanza 5 takes us beyond that relationship). Note the image contrasts, and difference in tone/attitude, in the speaker's descriptions of herself and the addressee, and how that tempers the final stanza

"The Hitchhikers"

Stanzas 2 and 3 provide the personal/emotional foregrounding for the what the hitchhikers--it's really their heads that is the focus--and the berries "mean"; what role they play in the speaker's psychology. The imagery of the long stanzas 2 & 4 should also help explain why these berries, and the ash, can be at once beautiful and painful(stanza 6)--"ash" (the name of the tree) is suggestive as well. Note these various image patterns: the color red, the it's connection go flame/burning, the hitchhikers' sun-burned heads, the berries, ash, blood, the Phoenix (an allusion that suggests a psychological movement contrary to what the speaker is going through); the different senses of "burning"; the contrasting imagery of diamonds and gold (stanza 4); how all this leads to the imagery of the emotional sacrifice of the second-to-last stanza--how stanzas 2 & 4 ground all this, as I say--and the irony and humor of the last stanza--i.e., the berries, the ash tree, the hitchhikers have a deeply psychological, rather than simply objective, existence for the speaker--someone getting in the car with her would certainly not know what he was getting into... also, see the exercise on BB

The hitchhikers suggest the speaker's own needs and feelings of failure, as well as whatever caused that relationship to fail, which the speaker blames herself for, and not being able to understand that--the hitchhikers, then, as representing the unknown she fears in herself, and not wanting to inflict that on someone else, could be read in the final lines...the berries again are certainly ambiguous, since they suggest both the beauty and pain that is the emotional remnant of that relationship (note the contrasting images of the diamonds and gold).

Why she doesn't pick up the hitchhikers is really all about the role they play, unwittingly (the humor of the last 2 lines), in her own psycho-drama--what lies beneath all those superficial "excuses." The car, of course, at 60, 70, etc. mph--no matter how fast--is no escape--she carries the sacrificial alter with her... (can't run away from your self...can't out run the hitchhikers who are, of course, always still--psychologically, imaginatively--there).

"The Photos"

The intriguing line "I have killed my children" refers to the myth of Medea, which has a rather complex relation to the poem, somewhat flipping the reality of the mother's situation, but then, there is always this dissociation, dis-parity, between reality and art--consider looking into the myth a bit more. The relationship of mother-daughter is the thing, how it haunts, and the emptiness which is a "destiny" for us all.