The Journey of Growth

It is truly amazing how much growth a college student can experience in just one semester. Looking back at my first blog post, I have realized how much of a stronger writer and student I have become. The epigraph that I chose in the beginning of the semester was, “my job is to notice…and to notice that you can notice” by Dionne Brand, which is the same epigraph I want to end the semester with. I struggled trying to interpret exactly what this epigraph meant and spent hours on my first blog post trying to make sense of it. I settled with, the epigraph means, “that our jobs as human beings is to notice the people around us and recognize that we all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences that have contributed to the person we are today.” After reading and analyzing the amazingly varied literature given to me all semester, I feel as if a lightbulb turned on in my head and I have a more in depth understanding of what the epigraph means. Continue reading “The Journey of Growth”

A New Curve

DESCRIPTION

ReflectING is a very difficult thing to do because we are often given the task to write about almost anything but ourselves. So when we are given the opportunity to reflect, we tend to have a difficult time doing so. After figuring out what I wanted to discuss in my reflection, I want to share one of my many flaws that I came to notice in this process. I doubt myself a lot. I doubt my ability to do what I have already done. Struggling to trust my own instincts, I often find myself asking others for their approval on my work which is not always a bad thing, unless you are by yourself and believe that your work is not worthy which is what happens most of the time for me. And although I have taken the first step in noticing, what do I do now? I reflect! Continue reading “A New Curve”

Noticing How to Doubt

Doubt is the big machine. It grinds up the delusions of women and men.”  Victor LaValle, Big Machine

My job is to notice… and to notice that you can notice. Dionne Brand

Throughout the semester, I’ve been thinking a lot about doubt because of the Big Machine course epigraph. I questioned my own misunderstanding of LaValle’s quote and how important doubt actually is. In two of my blog posts, I navigated through and cycled back to this quote and came to the conclusion that doubt allows for intellectually conscious and independent perspectives. These perspectives are independent of institutions that may fail us. I chose to reproduce the Big Machine epigraph above because this is where my thinking for the semester started. Through thinking about doubt, however, it really made me question how I doubt as a student and where this doubt stems from. This is where the Dionne Brand epigraph comes in. Continue reading “Noticing How to Doubt”

An Other Poem

surely i am able to write poems
celebrating grass and how the blue
in the sky can flow green or red
and the waters lean against the
chesapeake shore like a familiar
poems about nature and landscape
surely but whenever I begin
“the trees wave their knotted branches
and…”           why
is there under that poem always
an other poem?

— Lucille Clifton, “surely i am able to write poems”

 

I am choosing to consider Lucille Clifton’s epigraph partly because I felt challenged by Dr. McCoy’s remark that nobody had really tackled it in their blog posts. In addition, I’m really interested by the question that Clifton raises: “why / is there under that poem always / an other poem?” (9-11). I wonder who Clifton is addressing this question to, and I wonder whether that “other poem” is self-imposed. Is Clifton frustrated that others are assigning a meaning to her poem that she did not intend? Or is she frustrated in her own writing process, where she cannot seem to give words to what, exactly, she means? These questions have a double implication for me, as both a student and a writer. As a student, I want to take care that I am not trapping writers within my expectations of them. As a writer, I find myself worrying about the idea that I cannot control the way others understand my work. Continue reading “An Other Poem”

A Semester in Review: Exploring the Many Sides of Bias

surely i am able to write poems
celebrating grass and how the blue
in the sky can flow green or red
and the waters lean against the
chesapeake shore like a familiar
poems about nature and landscape
surely     but whenever i begin
“the trees wave their knotted branches
and…”     why
is there under that poem always
an other poem?

— Lucille Clifton

When I approached this assignment originally, I felt sure of my choice to use the Toni Morrison epigraph from her 1993 Nobel Lecture.  I’m actively surprising and challenging myself by using an epigraph that to be honest, did not stick out to me until the very morning that I sat down to start this reflective blog post. Continue reading “A Semester in Review: Exploring the Many Sides of Bias”

The Impact of Language

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”— Toni Morrison, 1993 Nobel Lecture

 

One thing we are sure of in this life, if nothing else, is that our life, at some point, will come to an end. Toni Morrison describes death as the meaning of life and language as the measure of our lives in the quote above. Upon first reading this course epigraph, I struggled with how I would tackle this quote. This could be for various reasons such as not feeling like I had the tools to respond to this quote at that certain point in time, or not wanting to search/reach out to find the tools. As the semester comes to the end and I reread the course epigraphs, I am able to recognize the beauty in Toni Morrison’s words. The various readings, discussions, and crafting of several blog posts is part of the reason I am able to finally tackle this quote, but first I am going to define language and meaning to help explain my interpretation of this quote.  Continue reading “The Impact of Language”

Recursion, Feedback, and Friction in Lucille Clifton’s “surely i am able to write poems”

surely i am able to write poems

celebrating grass and how the blue

in the sky can flow green or red

and the waters lean against the

chesapeake shore like a familiar

poems about nature and landscape

surely     but whenever i begin

“the trees wave their knotted branches

and…”     why

is there under that poem always

an other poem?

–– Lucille Clifton

Continue reading “Recursion, Feedback, and Friction in Lucille Clifton’s “surely i am able to write poems””

Final Reflection

“Word-work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference–the way in which we are like not other life. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” -Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s epigraph led me to think about this experience of writing and reading blog posts when she says, “Word-work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference–the way in which we are like not other life. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” Much like how each member of our class came up with different ideas for blog posts while completing the same task, this quote means to me that humans as a whole share connections and together make up a unique species. Although each individual person is different with a unique path, we all have similarities that make us human. As humans, we have a voice, and the way we use our voice can determine the importance of our lives. The literature we have read in this class comes back to the theme that having a voice is important and that things or people can be diverse while sharing connections, which makes them human. Continue reading “Final Reflection”

Final Reflection

 

My job is to notice…and to notice that you can notice.” 

–Dionne Brand

When looking back over the last few months, I am noticing a positive shift in how I read, write, and observe. In my very first blog post, I wrote that I wanted to become more attentive to the details found in the texts that we read over the semester, as opposed to the more obvious narratives that stretched through them. To put it metaphorically, I wanted–and continue to want–to look beyond the color of the house and more into the structure of the building. This is not to discount the narratives, of course. In poetry, I don’t find this as difficult; unless you are dealing with an epic poem, there is usually less text to work with. I can read a line in a poem and stop, figure it out, and move to the next line. That method works with poems, but not as well with novels, especially one as meticulously crafted as Big Machine. Because we read the novel in sections, I had to read very carefully, knowing that I couldn’t use the dump truck method with this text: reading as fast as I can and then dumping what little I retained into the discussion portion of the next class, and moving on to the next text. The chapters that we read had to be read slowly and thoughtfully because I had to REMEMBER the material for later class discussions and or blog posts. Not only remembered, but the material had to be retained. By looking at the syllabus, I could see that the material in this class was going to recur and recur again and again, just like the fractals in Ron Eglash’s book.

Continue reading “Final Reflection”

“under that poem always an other poem” Can we as readers really find the true meaning of the author?

Lucille thinks that poems don’t need to be as black and white;

“Surely I am able to write poems celebrating grass and how the blue in the sky can flow green or red and the waters lean against the Chesapeake shore like a familiar poems about nature and landscape surely but whenever I begin ‘the trees wave their knotted branches and…’  Why is there under that poem always an other poem?” — Lucille Clifton(English 337 syllabus)

Anyone can write a poem but what makes the poem or whatever was written matter is the words that are chosen to say within the poem. The way that nature is absorbed within the society can be harmful and helpful. The group blog post we talked about having to SEE (Social, Environmental and Economical) ways that we all impact the way the world works.Having seen this it is our job as humans to reflect on the way things are done in order to fix or adapt to have a better lifestyle,“The goal of sustainability, derived from the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), is to,‘create and maintain conditions, under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations’”(EPA Sustainability Primer). There is only one earth that we live on and must take care of it in order to live successfully together.

 

The idea of consent may come to mind when thinking of what people may think of when they hear the word take care of earth. There are people and organizations that work together in order to take care of the environment because nature isn’t able to verbally speak for itself.Nature doesn’t give consent to what the people have done or will do to Earth next in the future. Some people may say that the weather being able to give us as humans signs that something is wrong,

“For example, when we first came to this land, we were very excited about the potential for renovating an existing overgrown swamp into a pond for swimming and irrigation. Intuitively, we could tell that the swamp held a concentration of spiritual energy, so we felt that we needed to ask permission before moving earth and disturbing the ecosystem” (Chapter 3,Penniman’s Farming While Black).

Showing that some people appreciate what the land is able to provide and respecting it while considering the possibilities that could help benefit both themselves and the land. The practice of wanting to learn more about ways to help makes watching feel like being watched. I’ve never noticed that while watching tv I am being watched by the people on tv watching the cameras allowing me to notice things that some of the writers have written for the actors/ TV “news” people to tell me.

 

However what I’m watching and listening to can be misinterpreted by the way shown or represented.The thought of consent isn’t always clear because when most people think of consent it is referred to as physical consent like asking to be touched in a way that may be considered sexual activity or an act of hugging or kissing. Within Big Machine consent is mentioned when orders are given to do something to someone,“Did you really want to kill Solomon clay? I asked myself as I dressed. Just because the dean and Mrs.henry told you to? When I reached the empty lobby, I saw the clock hanging inside the motel clerk’s cage. It read ten-fifteen, and I assumed the gray lady had left without me,” (Big Machine, 129-130). There are several ways to look at this… one way is that sometimes when a person’s life becomes threatened or someone “knows too much” they would be better off dead. Questioning if someone told you to do something may seem wrong sometimes but you almost always have the last say so. Showing in light that death can be both positive and negative even if it wasn’t done by accident, “She said ‘doubt is the big machine. It grinds up the delusions of women and men,”(Big Machine,pg 205).Making it seem as if doubt is what drives humans to the conclusions of what should and shouldn’t happen similar to common sense, although it may not feel right knowing it is the right thing to do because sometimes the brain and your gut feeling don’t always agree.

 

This English 337 class has made me notice some things that I have taken for granted not only life itself but also the nature around me. I have noticed that somethings aren’t meant to be clear and laid out like a poem it can be messy and full of hidden messages that were not thought of before. From this class I have recycled more because I have realized that when it snows one day and then two days later its warmer outside then switches back to cold that the climate is changing because of the humans that don’t take the time to reflect and care about what’s happening. Lucille asks “why is there always a poem under a poem” is what stood out to me the most because it shows that a class is not only a class and a grade is not only a grade but it is based on how well you tried to understand a concept and how well you have grown over time.