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Since I seem to have written more in the margins of the Auden piece than any other, I suppose I should like to write about that one. I agree with Dj regarding the introduction and the funny notion of the glamourous world of writing.

I quite enjoyed the Enzensberger. That's what I'd like to comment on; it appears that many of my classmates did as well. I also appreciate the excerpts from Kristeva and Genette and their discussion of linguistics. However, I connected with the Enzensberger piece. I have often wondered about poetic interpretation, and grew to dislike reading poetry in school very much. While I wrote gobs of poetry while I was in school, I didn't enjoy the structured readings of the "good stuff" at all.

I enjoyed the readings from PIT this week, especially the selection by Hughes. When I first read the comment, "'I want to be a poet--not a Negro poet,' meaning, I believe, 'I want to write like a white poet'" (139) I initially thought it was unfair of Hughes to interpret the poet's statement as such, and then furthering that to "I want to be white". However, the more I read the more I understood what he was referring to.

I don't know what to say. Reading the introduction, about which I'd like to blog, was a rather trying experience. It took me a long time to decide why it was that we were asked to read this. I finally concluded that this chapter was regarding the way that the form of publication can often alter how a poem is read.

The examples of Dickinson especially made this point. Due to the way that her poetry was edited by others turned it into something that she probably did not originally intend. Of course, what if now the way it is published is not the way she intended either? Can we take her intention into consideration anyway?

While on the whole I did not particularly enjoy this introduction, I did find the discussion of publishing interesting, especially about how writers chose to publish their materials and for what audience. I liked the comment about Stein, who "never imagined that her work was meant for anything but a wide and even popular audience" (19). Perhaps that is how most writers should see their writing, as opposed to something that only has a limited audience or something that might seldom be read.

Well. After first reading the 2 PIT selections, I thought to myself, "What?" So upon further review, I still basically think, "What?" But, I'm going to try and comment nonetheless.

Olson's discussion of the "fundamental elements of poetry--the syllable and the line" (288) was something I found interesting. However, I would disagree with Olson that the syllable is "the smallest particle of all". Rather, I'd say phonemes were the smallest. Changing just one sound changes the syllable, which in turn changes the word which changes the line. I liked his comments on the kinetics of poetry as well, that poetry is energy, which makes it seems like something more than words on a page or interpretation or performance.

I must admit that the Baraka article was quite difficult for me. My initial impression was just that of an angry, ranting black man. Perhaps that's the result of the second half of the excerpt--"the Black Artist must teach the White Eyes their deaths" (389). Can someone help me understand the connection to poetry in these excerpts by Baraka? I get a feeling that his thoughts on poetry are similar to his thoughts on art; "it is at the end, and a shadowy replica, of another operation, thought" (386).

Having studied linguistics, and having an entire semester long course on phonetics, I found this chapter by Tsur quite interesting. If you could see my copy of the article, you'd notice question marks, exclamation points, circles and lots of lines. It was rather difficult for me to read this article, to be honest, because for me vowels are not light or dark; consonants are not aggressive, tender or metallic.

I understand Tsur's comments about sounds having certain qualities and how people can classify sounds into categories. However, I wonder why the original phonetic descriptions cannot be used (i.e., high/low, front/back). Aren't these just different adjectives to explain the same thing?

I also wonder about the cultural specificity of such categorization. Would other languages and other cultures classify things in the same way? I do recall that there was some discussion of Hungarian here. However, I think this 'experiment' could be taken into other languages and other cultures to see if the sounds are classified in similar ways.

One final issue I have (for this blog at least) is regarding Tsur's statements about child language acquisition. He says, "since /pa/ is the first syllable acquired by a child for use as an arbitrary referential sign, and it contains the bilabial /p/, it is not implausible that precisely bilabial stops are more conspicuously associated with these nonemotional moods" (33). First of all, /p/ is acquired first because it is one of the easier sounds for a child to make. And while a child may use it as a referential sign, this is because the caretakers assign it meaning. If it did not have meaning in the language, it would be ignored. In English /pa/ may mean ball, bottle, father, or many other things. In many, many languages, the use of /pa/ because the referent for 'father'; this isn't arbitrary or nonemotional at all.

In addition to this blog about the Tsur article, I'm attaching my proposal for the final paper. Please let me know what you guys think about any or all of this. Thanks.

I found the McLaughlin reading on figurative language to be very informative and easy to follow. I liked the explanation of the different kinds of figures such as metaphor, metonymy, etc; useful for my slowly expanding knowledge about poetry. But even more interesting to me was the discussion of primal figures and figurative history, which is "part of its meaning and is therefore appropriate to a poetic interpretation whether or not the poet was aware or intended it" (85). Therefore, the meaning of a poem is made possible by the language system from which it is constructed.

This brought to my mind the idea of linguistic relativity, aka the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The hypothesis was set forth to explain that a person's world is determined by the structure of the native language. The classic example is the Eskimos' 40 words for snow. The hypothesis now exists in two forms: strong and weak. The original is now known as the strong hypothesis, and has basically been slammed by linguists for being too strong. The weak form says that a person's knowledge of the world is influenced by but not necessarily structured by the native language. The original hypothesis basically said that if the concept did not exist in the native language it could not be learned. The weak form, which is the most acceptable today, says that a concept can be learned whether existent in the native language or not.

This rambling of mine about the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is, I believe, related to ideas in both the McLaughlin and the Forrest-Thompson readings. Both authors seem to be saying that poetry can only take shape through the language. Forrest-Thompson even goes so far as to refer to Whorf at the end of her article. My feeling, like many linguists, is that the belief that the language determines understanding is too strong. That's like saying I cannot understand the concept of the word "ajumma" in Korean just because I don't speak the language natively. However, I do understand the concept, through interaction with the language and the people.

So to end this crazy rant, I don't feel that the authors need to be what I feel is so absolutist regarding their thoughts on language and meaning. I feel that meaning is constructed of more than just language...adding things like context, experience and perception.

I'd like to focus mostly on chapter 4 in this response because I found the explanation of iambic pentameter very interesting. Like Lucas I have a very limited knowledge of poetry; however, I do feel that I have a background in linguistics. All in all I find Easthope pretty easy to read, even if I sometimes can't fully follow the author's own preferences.

I am not sure whether or not Easthope likes the idea of iambic pentameter or not...? He thoroughly explains the background of iambic pentameter and how it is actually "culturally explicit and institutionalized" (59), and that it is not exactly 'natural'. This was also with a discussion of transformational grammar and how it was used by the formalists to determine acceptable vs unacceptable lines of pentameter. However, because of the discussion that followed I was not sure of Easthope's own opinion of iambic pentameter. Any thoughts?

I was confused about the idea of counterpoint, which was first mentioned, I believe, on p. 60. I get what the term means, but was unable to fully follow the examples given. All in all I understood the reading to explain that iambic pentameter was perceived by the upper class to be more correct (e.g., promoting RP). And, that because of this (among other reasons), it has been seen as the correct form of meter in poetry. I question though, whether this is still the case? Perhaps those who have a fuller understanding of trends in poetry can help me out.

One thought for this posting regarding "Poetry as Discourse": having a bachelor's degree in linguistics made this reading quite enjoyable for me, even though I don't necessarily agree with all that is being said. I have a much better connection with this reading that with some in the past due to my background in linguistics and TESOL.

Now on to what I want to discuss: "Poetry as a Spoken Art". I agree with Lowell that poetry needs to be spoken. I also agree that most people don't speak poetry...because that is not how they were introduced to it, myself included. I seldom speak poetry aloud. And often, when I hear it read aloud, I think to myself, "that's not how I would do it". Is that why I'd rather read it than hear it? Or is this a product of my schooling or my learning styles?

In addition, I found interesting and thought provoking her comment that we really have a harder time imagining what we hear that what we read. Is this really true? This had me thinking about the books on tape that I listen to when I'm on a long trip: do I imagine less effectively when listening as when reading? Or is this perhaps another issue of poetry versus prose?

I loved Lowell's discussion of the 'bad traditions' of poetry, and that the first and seemingly most important is the mispronouncing of words. Shame on the read-alouders, is what I got out of her comments regarding the bad traditions. Overall I enjoyed Lowell's essay, even though she seemed at times to be a bit totalitarian with her statements.

I have to say that I enjoyed reading the Leavis article. I liked his writing style, and his ability to say exactly what he wanted to. I don't agree with him necessarily, but appreciate the way he said what he did.

I question Leavis' notion that basically no one is able to truly appreciate poetry, along with what appears to be his very limited canon. His apparent contempt for many of the poets simply serves, I would think, to do nothing but alienate his audience. However, I also think that he probably doesn't care.

On Leavis' comments about Eliot, I was struck by the following: "the poem in any case exists, and can exist, only for an extremely limited public equipped with special knowledge" (200). This goes back to Leavis' idea that no one is truly able to appreciate poetry. If the poem can only exist for those of us who have special knowledge, then what would be the true point in writing the poem? In addition, what is this special knowledge that one needs? Every reader is going to have their own specialized 'community of practice' that produces specific experiences and knowledge. Is Leavis referring to a peom being written for an individual 'community of practice' so that only that group can appreciate it? I think this limited thinking and lack of belief in an audience is actually quite unfortunate.

Well, I have to admit that I don't know exactly what I want to say. Having just a vague understanding of new criticism I feel like I have a lot of issues with what I read. But with that said, I am unsure of where to start. Upon reading the "Well Wrought Urn" I thought to myself, this is what I know about studying poetry. But I also know that the last time I studied poetry was sometime in high school, where my teacher was more than likely blissfully unaware of the different ways in which one could study poetry. So while the idea of explicitly studying a poem and trying to explain the meaning is more what I know of studying poetry, that doesn't necessarily mean that I think it's a good idea.

Most of my questions about the WWU came in chapter 7 with the discussion of Wordsworth and paradox. Brooks says that Wordsworth was "probably not aware,...of the extent to which he was employing paradox" (125). Okay...well, how does Brooks know that? I know that Wordsworth thought his poetry to be simple and straightforward, but that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't know what he was writing. I had the same reaction several pages later when Brooks points out that Wordsworth probably didn't know he was making a pun in his poem. Again, how can Brooks be sure? My problem with this is that there is a neglect for context and the personal.

The sociolinguist in me is in a snit right now with the idea of ignoring the poet or the historical context or even the current context and just reading a poem as Brooks did of Wordsworth, "it may be interesting to consider the 'Ode' as a poem, as an independent structure" (124). I don't believe that one can understand a poem without knowing the context in which it was written. In fact, I don't know that one can truly know what the poet meant unless one is privileged enough to be able to ask the poet him/herself. I believe that there are valid points to be made in reading a poem just for the poem's sake; however, it's not how I would necessarily choose to do it.

I think find myself feeling the opposite of how Alison felt towards Hollander's work! I felt that the poetic examples made it a lot easier for me to understand the various forms that were being defined. I quite enjoyed reading "Rhyme's Reason", and felt it was a good introduction for someone like me, who has never taken any type of poetry class (or literature class for that matter) before.

I was especially struck by the reminder from Hollander that "all poetry was originally oral" (p. 4). I think that many people, myself included, tend to think of poetry as something too personal, something that should be read to oneself and interpreted within the reader's mind, not something shared. I'm trying to get used to the idea of performing poetry and looking at it out loud, with others, in order to gain a deeper understanding.

I'd like to make one final comment regarding RR. As an ESL teacher who was once asked to teach poetry in a creative writing class in Korea for English language majors, I wish I had had something like RR in which to do this.