Everyday Use by Alice Walker

Fiction Second Workshop Notes & Impressions

Regarding the idea of the mimetic sense of a piece, or, for example, writing something in a confusing manner to suggest how confused or confusing was a situation to a character tends to backfire. When a reader is confused, the sense of credibility that would assure her/him that the sense of bewilderment is being engineered is troubled. A reader just feels as if the narrative is not clear, not as well-written and crisp as it might be. To establish a sense of the swirling confusion for the reader, you would want a good sense of what is happening that might contain a passage or paragraph or shift in perspective where some of the narrative gets foggy. Check out how it works in The Yellow Wallpaper (online) and you can see how unreliability gets established.


Consider "thisness" the idea of this love, this eating disorder, this day when this event happened as opposed to the larger, general catch phrases that make it easy for a reader to "relate." Readers "relate" best to that which is so specific, so detailed, so textured, so sensorily-rich that it makes it seem as if no other could be telling THIS story and that this time, this illness, this love are being told because they are so particular, unique and unusual. Because we feel this way when we are experiencing anything profound, the reader will often "relate" more to that sense, that intriguing telling than to the large, broad, general telling.


Imitations: The big question to ask is "how well can this function without the original text?" One way of handling this is to consider a new setting and one that perhaps provides a really informed perspective. EX: Here are the kilns and there is the slip.

Another way to tackle this is to "speak back" with information that is so voice-driven and original that it can apply without any "original text." Example: "I get it. The paperclips are alphabetized according to the minute variations in the way that they are bent. The soup is labeled with the soup-eater's first and last name, from this we are given to understand that the soup is someone's and that someone is not us. From this we gather too, that if someone other than Soup Eater opens this soup and consumes it, there will be event referred ever after as "The Chicken & Stars Incident." Soup is king in days that end with y as in Why this job? Why kill days with the steel edge of a full can of soup? Why leave them bleeding and hungry on the ground like that? But it's only Tuesday anyway."

As to Ands and other grammatical debates, check this out. Beware that you might still have to adhere to the rules as many people understand them. (Professors, etc.)

ATTENTION POETRY (NATALIE ONLY)

Hi there,

I am going to leave the official roll sheet in my mailbox in the main Liberal Arts Office.

The boxes are stacked on a file cabinet to the right of the door in the main lobby. Mine is about four down. There is a form for the roll sheet that I would like to have filled out (back) and delivered to One Stop after class (or as you leave for the museum.)

Thanks so much.
Sophia

WRITING POETRY EKPHRASIS ASSIGNMENT FOR FRIDAY

1. Make sure you sign in with Natalie.
2. Go to the museum or any of the galleries and find a piece of art that you would like to write a poem about.
3. Select any aspect of the piece: a character, the landscape, the artist and write from or to any part of the piece. You can use the letter form or you could write as if say, the woman from Woman from an Aquarium (just an example). Be sure to get the name of the piece.

For inspiration check out the following poems:

Musee des Beaux Arts

The Starry Night

Why I Can't Cook for Your Self-Centered Architect Cousin

Because to me a dinner table's like a bed--
without love, it's all appetite and stains. Let's buy
take-out for your cousin, or order pizza--his toppings--

but I can't lift a spatula to serve him what I am.
Instead, invite our favorite misfits over: I'll feed
shaggy Otis, who after filet mignon, raised his plate

and sipped merlot sauce with such pleasure
my ego pardoned his manners. Or I'll call Mimi,
the chubby librarian, who paused over tiramisu--

"I haven't felt so satisfied since..." then cried
into its curls of chocolate. Or Randolph might stop by,
who once, celebrating his break-up with the vegetarian,

so packed the purse seine of his wiry body with shrimp
he unbuttoned his jeans and spent the evening
couched, "waiting for the swelling to go down."

Or maybe I'll cook for us. I'll crush the pine nuts
unhinged from the cones prickly shingles.
I'll whittle the parmesan, and if I grate a knuckle

it's just more of me in my cooking. I'll disrobe
garlic cloves of rosy sheaths, thresh the basil
till moist and liberate the oil. Then I'll dance

that green joy through the fettucine, a tumbling,
leggy dishy we'll imitate, after dessert.
If my embrace detects the five pounds you win

each year, you will merely seem a generous
portion. And if you bring my hand to your lips
and smell the garlic that lingers, that scents

the sweat you lick from the hollows of my clavicles,
you're tasting the reason that I can't cook
for your cousin--my saucy, my strongly seasoned love.

--Beth Ann Fennelly

POETRY WORKSHOP HOMEWORK

Friday 09/17/10 Workshops Negation poem
Homework:
Write a poem following these steps:

1. Ask someone for a word and include it.
2. Find a foreign word or phrase and work it in.
3. A specific breed of animal and one bit of trivia about it.
4. The name of a city or country.
5. A flavor of ice cream or sherbet
6. A song phrase misheard.
7. One fact or figure from the news.

Use this in any order regarding any topic. Bring in one copy typed and ready on Wed.


Friday 09/24/10 Gallery poems assignment

Contemporary Literature

Thursday 09/16/10
Dickinson video.
Homework: Considering any of the poets we've discussed, write a one page manifesto in the spirit of Whitman or Ginsberg's America or Howl, Langston Hughes' Let America Be... or I, too, Sing America that directs a present-day command to America.


This should be a full page, single-spaced, not under 300 words.

Your upcoming larger reading assignment will include Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin and White Angel by Michael Cunningham.