Monthly Archives: November 2022

Some Observations, in Bettleheim’s oriented reading of there that I have learn and that are relevant to the reading, are, the way how fairy tales are important and should be more taken seriously or read seriously, because they have important readings or messages. For example in the story, where are you going, where have you been,” the messages that it wants to tell us, or talk about is sometimes people are more worry about the importance of how other view them or judge and how these act or way of been brings negative results. Also in the Snow White fairy tale, the message that the author wants us to observe is the good vs evil, or the bad and danger of one self vanity. These are examples of how some of these fairy tales are actually important, or bring important messages for us to see and learn. Even though parents feel, that these are awkward, or bad readings for the kids or a bad influence for everyone it is really not.

“Our good day” stood out to me because friendship is not always based on how much money somebody has, but how people treat you based on your situation in life. Having a bike as well as good friends, which she did it on her own was part of Esperanza’s desire and not having to share with Nenny why it was a “Good day”. Esperanza like the fact that she has a lot in common as sisters with Rachel and Lucy. Although Cathy said “they smell like brooms” but they were similar to Esperanza than cathy, Esperanza was embarrassed to tell her new friends her name and the fact that they didn’t laugh or make fun of it made a big difference to Esperanza. She rode around the block with her new friends playing and sharing and riding the bike and giving them a geography lesson about the neighborhood. I think that Esperanza was longing for her life and home.  Making friends is hard because you sometimes try to avoid the judgement that comes with it.

The vignette on page three, from “The House on Mango Street”, made the strongest impression on me. After I was done reading that page, I automatically wondered if that is how I sound to others when I tell them where I moved from. I always tell them “I was born in Hyattsville, Maryland, and then I loved to Alexandria, Virginia at four years old, and then I moved to Brooklyn, New York at six years old. When I first moved to Brooklyn, New York, we had the second floor, and then our landlord told us to move to the fourth floor, after a couple of years, our landlord told us to move to the third floor, and here we are now.” I find it interesting when people move from place to place, it was really hectic for my family and me but enjoy having our own space, and a different environment. My family and I also used to live with my cousins for a couple of years, our house was jam-packed!

Based on Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading, the child’s presence is what causes parental problems and in Snow White’s story, her stepmother hates her out of jealousy. Bettleheim further explores this idea by mentioning how Snow White being a little girl would only think about her father’s love without a thought to how that might affect her stepmom. I think this relates to Connie from, “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates because in the first paragraph, in Connie’s eyes, her mother is always complaining about her caring so much about her beauty because her looks have faded, and she comes after Connie because of jealousy. Bettleheim also talks about how the hunter/father figure in the story tries to placate both sides and in doing so he fails to take care of both of them. This compares to Connie’s father who is never around resulting in Connie and her mother’s disagreements.

“When the tender, loving care of the parent of the same sex is not strong enough to build up ever more important positive ties in the naturally jealous oedipal child, and with it set the process of identification working against this jealousy, then the latter dominates the child’s emotional life. Since a narcissistic (step)mother is an unsuitable figure to relate to or identify with, Snow White, if she were a real child, could not help being intensely jealous of her mother and all her advantages and powers. If a child cannot permit himself to feel his jealousy of a parent (this is very threatening to his security), he projects his feelings onto this parent. Then “I am jealous of all the advantages and prerogatives of Mother” turns into the wishful thought: “Mother is jealous of me.” The feeling of inferiority is defensively turned into a feeling of superiority.” (Bettleheim 204)   “In “Snow White,” as in “Little Red Riding Hood,” a male who can be viewed as an unconscious representation of the father appears—the hunter who is ordered to kill Snow White, but instead saves her life. Who else but a father substitute would seem to acquiesce to the stepmother’s dominance and nevertheless, for the child’s sake, dare to go against the queen’s will? ” (Bettleheim 204-205)   I found it interesting how Bettleheim highlights the psychological aspect of how inferiority and superiority affect a child and parent relationship and the outcomes from it. In a child-and-parent relationship, a child looks up to their parent for guidance. Parents are there to help raise their children and teach them lessons that will help them grow into well-rounded individuals. Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is an example of a superiority complex between a mother and daughter […]

In Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story many parts come out to me as interesting. For example, in his analysis of the story he didn’t just view it from the children’s point of view but also different parents point of view.  only from a single parent’s prospective but from many prospective. Bettleheim take from parents think negative of the story “Some parents fear that their children may get carried away by their fantasies” then reply to that view with carful research and he not only gave this one fear but many more like “parents fear that a child’s mind may become so overfed by fairy-tale fantasies as to neglect learning to cope with reality.” is another example that he gave these ideas gave very good contredition to the idea that he was getting at that the fairytale is not all bad for children. I personally agree with him because aren’don’t a lot of religious story take part away from fairtale as well?

Some observations I made Between both stories is that they both show the innocence of childhood and having to follow this traditional way of being ladylike, it also goes on to show how much materialism is expected in Snow White specifically it shows thy at material things (the Apple in this case) leads her to wickedness similar to the story of Adam and eve. Both stories seem to have somewhat of a religious connotation to it as well which is shown specifically in Snow White with the Apple.

My observation in Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story that stroked me as insightful and relevant to “Little Snow White.” was realizing that there is  a pattern of people not being able to let things go. In “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton, and “Little Snow White,” even though they’re the same story one is a lot different for children. the step mother wouldn’t let Snow White live, the step mothers jealousy couldn’t let Snow White live. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, the grandmother refused to shut her mouth and let the serial Killers do what they intended to do but instead she had to prolong it because she couldn’t fathom the fact that they would kill her. that goes to say people don’t know how to accept things for how they are. I would like to include my observation from Bettleheim psychologically oriented reading is “all children are jealous, if not of their parents, then of the privileges the parents enjoy as adults.” I do believe all children are jealous of their parents, I feel like it stems from the children not being able to do what they want to do when they want to do it but they watch their parents do any and everything they want and it can me a little upsetting until you get older and/or have kids of your own then those children start to understand life isn’t what is seems.

Reading Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented story and also reading both of the stories “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, or the poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton have changed my perspective view of fairy tales. Fairy tales are for children, which are meant to bring joy and bring them fantasies with magical and imaginary characters and land. After reading Bettleheim’s stories and being an adult, now I see what message these fairy tales show. Bettleheim basically talks about how fairy-tales help to improve children’s cognitive development. For example Snow White shows how insecurities don’t justify your mean attitude. Also teaches about the dangers of greed and how a young woman goes throughout adulthood, and for the story Where Have You Been it message is for children not to talk to strangers. These are stories and topics I would like to discuss with children and show them how to understand life through fairy tales.

One thing that strikes me as relevant from Bettelheim’s Fear of Fantasy to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs By Anne Sexton’s poem is the nativity and broad imagination of young adults and children. Bettelheim’s in-depth analysis of child psychology goes into the openness of their imagination. How children will accept what you tell them as true and believe in it wholeheartedly. Whereas adults, as they get older, become more jaded and less inclined to believe things. This innocence of the child mind is shown in Snow White. As shown in the poem, when she manages to escape and live with the dwarfs, they tell her to not leave the house and only to trust them. However, when her step-mother tracks her down, she disguises herself on numerous occasions to try to kill Snow White and every time, Snow White falls for her tricks. Just like in Bettelheim’s analysis, Snow White has a very open mind and is accepting of new ideas,

In the poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton, each of the stanzas shows how important it is to be ladylike and follow the rules of chastity. This poem was more centered around being a pure woman and untouched. As well as, being a quiet girl and saying yes to everything. “The virgin is a lovely number” (Sexton). It is good to not have too many sexual partners, and everyone would be more attracted to you and like you more. Rumors won’t is spread around. When she encounters the seven dwarves Sexton specifically says “..walked three times around Snow White, the sleeping virgin” (Sexton). She says this to show how important it is as it was described to her when saying her name. There could have been other characteristics that she could have been addresses with, but she chose virgin, which stood out the most of Snow White.

Something that stood out to me in the analysis by Bruno Bettleheim, when he explained that fairy tales aren’t really about possibilities, they’re more about their desirability.  The connection between the 3 readings, “Where are you going, where have you been?” by Joyce Carol, or the poem ” Snow White and the Seven Dwarf’s” By Anne Sexton, is the desirability.  After reading the analysis, it became the easiest thing to spot because it was my own desires. One was to watch evil fail and good to prevail.  I found myself day dreaming about entering the story to protect snow white too. In the day dreams, I was in full knights uniform ( I like to fit the part) and stood hundreds of feet tall.  But in reality, would I have wanted to be there? absolutely not. Would I have been the knight who took down the witch? no, that’s terrifying.  However, I loved the idea of being in this world of a family of dwarfs who were wholesome and caring and brave enough to offer Snow White sanctuary from her evil step-mother.

It was intriguing to read Bruno Bettleheims comparison of Snow White to Oedipus, but it makes complete sense. It’s interesting how the events of both stories are set into motion by parents who are jealous of their children, one being biological (King Laius Oedipus father) the other being Snow Whites stepmother (The Queen). In the end this becomes the undoing of both. That same narcissism that brings forth the King and Queen of their respective stories’ demises; It also is the obstacle that kills Oedipus and almost kills Snow White as well…Twice! With Oedipus it comes from his disbelief in his fulfillment of the prophecy. Snow Whites narcissism is shown when she opens the door not once but twice after the first time, she is nearly killed by her stepmother and being explicitly forbade from letting anyone in by the Dwarves. It’s interesting that this same narcissism is the driving force in “Where are you going, where have you been?”  Connie (The protagonist) Is vain and narcissistic, we know this because she compares her sister to herself by calling her older sister “plain looking” in comparison, she only looks into the eyes of others to see her own reflection. This Ironically is her undoing as well. Connie is set upon by Arnold Friend because of how she looks. Noticeably she tries to make herself look more “mature” when she goes to the teen diner and is spotted by Arnold. When he appears at her house instead of instinctively going into her home and calling for help when Arnold appears at her home, she instead entertains his presence until it’s too late and the threat of danger becomes more eminent. Snow White does the same. Despite being poisoned the first time she fails to recognize the danger by falling into the […]

The story of Snow White is a story we all know very well. From a young age, we are exposed to this story of a beautiful young lady living out in a hut with dwarves. Following them as the story goes along the dwarves take her in as a part of their own. The story till I read Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story was the innocent and rather light-hearted story. One of the best examples that Bettleheim talks about in the beginning is “Here the problems the story sets out to solve are intimated: sexual innocence, whiteness, is contrasted with sexual desire, symbolized by the red blood. Fairy tales prepare the child to accept what is otherwise a most upsetting event: sexual bleeding, as in menstruation”. I had never thought about Snow White in such a way where sexual innuendos would come to mind. As a kid, I did not have that active of imagination but as people get older and learn of these things I can see how these stories become significantly less innocent.

Renown psychologist Bruno Bettelheim has implied that Disney’s work is nothing more than, “empty minded entertainment” , and fully expresses that “children now meet fairy tales only in prettified and simplified versions which subdue their meaning and rob them of deeper significance”. Bettelheim is very adamant that fairy tales are nothing short of quintessential for a child’s development. However, despite Disney’s vast array of fairy tale interpretations, Bettelheim argues that the only way for these stories to truly inspire a child’s imagination it must be told from the direct source: “The true meaning and impact of a fairy tale can be appreciated, its enchantment can be experienced, only from the story in its original form”.   In Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” By Joyce Carol Oates both stories have the similarities which is quite noticeable. For example in both stories the authors empathize on parental complexes and how it affects the main characters. One of the most interesting thing I noticed between those stories is how the role of father is entirely cut from the story and they don’t hold any power.

The observation in Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading I find insightful and relevant to “Littie Snow White” was “before a child can come to grips with reality, he must have some frame of reference to evaluate it” this is relevant because Snow White didn’t have that frame of reference to evaluate before coming to grips with reality which made her have a lack of sense of danger. This led to snow white continously falling for her stepmother traps.

What specific observations in Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story strike you as insightful and relevant to “Little Snow White,” “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, or the poem “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by Anne Sexton? In Bettleheim’s psychologically oriented reading of the story and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” By Joyce Carol Oates both stories touch on parental complexes and how they affect the main protagonist in both stories. In Bettleheim’s psychological reading of Snow White, he touches on the Oedipus complex the stepmom imagines is going on between Snow White and her father which creates this jealousy and motive to get rid of Snow White. The father does nothing even though traditionally and culturally the father is supposed to be the head of the household and is supposed to protect their children, especially their little girls. Snow White’s father is nowhere to be found and very absent in all the cruel things that are happening to Snow White, just like with Connie in “Where are you going, where have you been?” where Connie’s father chooses to be absent and Connie’s mother is jealous of Connie’s looks perhaps also a nod to an Oedipus complex where Connie’s mother thinks if Connie is too attractive it might attract her husband as well.

The psychoanalytic view on this story plainly addresses the dangers of narcissism not only in children, but adults as well. This was one of the more prominent themes between both Snow White (Grimm’s Fairytale Version) and Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment. The paragraph that stood out to me as a theme between the two follows as: “The story of Snow White warns of the evil consequences of narcissism for both parent and child. Snow White’s narcissism nearly undoes her as she gives in twice to the disguised queen’s enticements to make her look more beautiful, while the queen is destroyed by her own narcissism” In this quote, Bettelheim connects the queen’s successful attempt to entice Snow White to the fact that Snow White fell for it because she was blinded by her own narcissism.

Bettelheim states, “The answer to the puzzle may be found in the fact that psychoanalysis also revealed the child’s ambivalent feelings about his parents. It is perturbing to parents to realize that the child’s mind is filled not only with deep love but also with a strong hatred of his parents. Wishing to be loved by their child, parents shrink from exposing him to tales which might encourage him to think of parents as bad or rejecting.” I want to compare Bettelheim’s quote to Connie in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, the tension between Connie and her mother. Although Connie’s mother tried to look out for her, she also insulted Connie in ways that distanced each other instead of building a friendly relationship. Connie’s mother saying, “Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” is showing the mother’s jealousy towards her own child and Connie knows this so she tries to distance herself from her mother in order to be independent and do what she pleases. Connie completely ignores her mother’s criticism but importantly ignores her mother trying to protect her from getting into trouble with boys at such a young age. Connie doesn’t realize the reality and she lives in her own fantasy based on her attitude if she had just listened to her mother, her turnout wouldn’t have happened. 

I found the following observation by Bruno Bettelheim interesting and relatable for both “Snow White” and specifically “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates : “A weak father is as little use to Snow White as he was to Hansel and Gretel. The frequent appearance of such figures in fairy tales suggests that wife-dominated husbands are not exactly new to this world. More to the point, it is such fathers who either create unmanageable difficulties in the child or fail to help him solve them.This is another example of the important messages fairy tales contain for parents.” (207). I think it’s a very relatable issue for Connie’s upbringing and how she practically had no father figure growing up. It was made pretty clear that her father chose to stay out of her life for the most part and just ask mechanical questions. He neither was genuinely interested in his daughter’s life nor was he involved in educating her and sharing his wisdom as a parent. From the story we get a sense that he was just living under the same roof and being a breadwinner, leaving it up to his wife to be the educator. Unfortunately for Connie her mother’s character has a strong resemblance with the Quinn’s  narcissistic tendencies, where as a parent she showed a clear preference to Connie’s older sister who was less pretty. Which in itself is very odd as no parent should differentiate the amount of love they have for their children.

There were many observations that I found insightful to “Little Snow White” but the ones that I thought were very insightful were the use of the colors red and white and what the animals who visit snow white when she is in the coffin represent Although, I know that white is usually put hand in hand with innocence I didn’t know what red was supposed to symbolize. So when I saw that red represented Snow White and her sexual desire I didn’t believe it until I read more. The step mother showing how she eats specifically the white part of the apple had new meaning to me and it showed the step mother taking away Snow Whites innocence. This can be taken further with the animals who visit and the order they do so, The owl being wisdom then the raven being a consciousness that is mature and finally the dove being love. With Snow White eating the red part of the apple and awakening her sexual desire the animals showed how Snow White while in the coffin was maturing by becoming smarter, then having a more mature mindset, and finally she was ready for love which would not be possible in the romantic sense if innocence was still around.

In the analysis of “Snow White,” Bruno Bettleheim refers to the hunter as the father character in the story. He writes that “a male who can be viewed as an unconscious representation of the father appears—the hunter who is ordered to kill Snow White, but instead saves her life”. The hunter obeys the queen’s order and takes snow white to the woods to kill her. He decided not to do that and let her go but didn’t try to save her (he thought that if he’s not going to kill her, she would probably get eaten by a wild animal in the woods). According to Bettleheim’s interpretation, the hunter comes out as a weak character, or as he claims a weak father figure. He’s not trying to save the kid from death in the woods, and also bringing back a dead animal’s lungs and liver instead, so the queen would think he killed snow white. This observation reminds me of the story from last week’s reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates. In both stories, the father captures as weak, and as he “fails to take a strong and definite stand” character, while the wife has the power and is more present in the story, and the child’s life. Also, both stories put a strong emphasis on beauty and it has a connection to the mother’s love. Bettleheim states that kids who don’t have strong, protective parents have to find a way to manage on their own in life, unfortunately, in the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Connie, the child couldn’t save herself.

The specific observation in Bettelheim psychologically oriented reading of the story that stroked me as insightful and relevant to “Little Snow White, by Brothers Grimm was, “The readiness with which Snow White repeatedly permits herself to be tempted by the stepmother, despite the warnings of the dwarfs, suggests how close the stepmother’s temptations are to Snow White’s inner desires” I also found this observation insightful to “Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates. Snow White desire for the material things set forth to her by the evil queen and wanting to be around people led her to her attempted murder three times. The shiny apple led her to be foolish, although being warned multiple times already that there was nothing good for her in the world. The look of how appetizing the apple looked and the evil stepmother who was disguised, words deceived her. Just like Connie. She loved attention, and unfortunately, she fell prey to evil because of the attention she was receiving from a guy, ignoring the previous warning signs.

Hello prof Conway, In my opinion of the, story, “where are you going, where have you been” I feel that it’s more of a story of how overtime the girls generations are changing, which is feminist allegory. I think this for the same reason how many many think the woman’s should be this and that and how they belive woman, had no rights. But as we see in the story Arnold I like a guy who Is feminist. We can see he is like the type of person who thinks he can be with this and that girl, with any girl and that are younger than him. He is a psycho. But also we can interpret that, the way connie is, is also how the girls generation is changing. I say this because the way she is, Many girls over the recent years act like connie, the way they think they have to be in the best look and well being for them to find the best man or boy for them, which is not true, because the one who loves you, will care and love you in any way.

Although Snow-white is a familiar fairy tale, there was some different parts in it. This read was interesting, Walt Disney’s version was very cute for children, but this version was more for adults. The evil stepmother tries to kill snow-white because she was jealous and vain, the evil stepmother went as far and told the hunter to bring snow-white into the woods and kill her and to return with her heart as proof. She wanted to eat her heart because she wanted the power of immortality. The queen was tricked with a wild animal’s heart instead. When the step mother found out that snow-white was indeed alive she disguised herself as an old woman, a peasant woman to trick and killed snow-white, the poisoned comb and the poisoned apple were what she used to kill her or so she taught, but snow-white had help by the seven dwarf who was her protector. I think snow- white was very kind and trusting why she believed  the evil step mother disguised as the old woman.

The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a story composed of a few major problems; lack of love from Connie’s mother, superficial and vainness, and too much trust. Connie only cared about her looks and what was deemed perfect, as the story described that she would look at peoples faces to make sure she was perfect. Her focus on the superficial things in life put her life in danger. Connie trusted Arnold and it was hard not to trust him, he was sweet and swept her off her feet and that was the biggest manipulation tactic he used to trick her and make her vulnerable enough to attack her.

In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Joyce Carol Oates’s work makes me feel uneasy. I do agree with Korb as it’s an inverted fairytale. Connie hated her family and acted differently around them. Because she did this, she had 2 different personalities she took on in different situations. There was one she favored more which was when she was away from her family. She specifically hated her mother and wanted her so badly to be gone because she didn’t fit her idealized version of herself that her friends knew. Arnold Friend represents a skewed version of all her desires. Someone infatuated with her gives her an escape into becoming her idealized self completely. In return for this, she had to give up her family, especially her mother. I think she comes to for a second when Arnold Friend tells her that her mother was dead when all she wanted to do was call her mother for help to protect her. The uncertainty of the ending leads me to believe the story is about the grooming and objectification of young girls. She felt like she needed to have a more mature adult nightlife but later we see her breakdown like a child, being naive and not being able to tell if Arnold and Ellie were trustworthy or even around her age. It’s a distorted version of a fairytale that the reader knows in a real-world situation will have very scary dangerous consequences, implied by the ominous ending.

Regarding the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, I understand why Rena Korb interprets it as an “inverted fairytale”. It highlights a teenage girl, Connie’s, naivety and vanity as she grows into a young woman, craving independence (her family-life doesn’t exactly help with that either). She soon became familiar with Arnold Friend and Ellie who had seemingly been stalking her and had learned things about her she never revealed. Unknown to Connie, Arnold is manipulating her, faking this folksy persona to a degree that you suspect he’d spent years perfecting. Personally, around this time, it’s getting hard for me to contain my emotions as I can understand the physical jolt she implies from her bubbling anxiety as she finally sees what the man in the backseat looks like. To relate back to the inverted fairytale angle, I would say the typical prince charming is alluring and persistent (somehow not seen as creepy) as where Arnold Friend can be interpreted as the embodiment of evil as the implication at the end of the story is spoken for.

This week’s reading “Where are you going? Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates brought up a lot of mixed emotions. For starters, the author’s writing style which was compared to Fyodor Dostoevsky as Rena Korb pointed out in her overview, is very intriguing with its elements of gothic horror and chilling effect that sucks you right in. The story unfolded very naturally and I couldn’t foresee such a plot development quite frankly. One of the things that stroke me is the contrast of how the author emphasized the superficiality of the characters and their everyday life until Arnold Friend appeared in Connie’s driveway. From that point on the intensity and grotesque of the terror and break down Connie goes through escalates quickly. One of the things that was very clear from the narrative is a complete lack of moral guidance from Connie’s family. It’s pretty normal for a teenage girl being self absorbed and pay so much attention to one’s looks as she is growing into a young woman and learning. On the other side her mother and Connie’s older sister seem to be on the same emotional level as her despite their age and instead of worrying herself with being a supportive parent her mother argues with Connie “over something of little value to either of them”. “Inverted fairy tale” is a twisted but accurate take on interpretation of this complex story where as per Korb “Connie’s adolescent dream turned into a nightmare”.

The short story “where are you going, where have you been?” is very dark and sad. To my understanding this reading is life from Connies perspective and explaining the relationship between her and her mother which wasn’t a healthy one at all. Connie expressed herself through her clothing being as she felt like she was hated at home her mom, and her father wasn’t  always there when he was around so she had no support. Connies choice of clothing.seems to have caused her to end up in this horrible situation since she had a stalker that she did not know about. her stalker is a grown man preying on a little girl. I really wish the story didn’t end the way it did i was hoping she would have gotten away from them. but unfortunately they stabbed her and I know she most likely dies since they didn’t plan on taking her to a hospital.

The story “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a good reflection of the evil that is present in society with Connie being an average teenager and ignorant to the evil of the world around her. I like the comparison that Rena Korb made in her critical review comparing Arnold Friend to the devil as well as mentioning the vampire aspect of him not entering the house. Both have strong connotations to darkness and evil. Connie starts out as this shallow person who only cared about her looks which is evident throughout the story with her mentioning how she looks and being conscious of her beauty. She uses her beauty to her advantage by frequenting places where older guys hang out probably as a way to cope with the neglect of her parents who don’t sound like they are really there for her. She is able to form two different personalities one for her home life and the other for when she is outside. When she goes to Arnold, she is giving into sin as he represents the evil and darker parts of life.

As with much of Oates’s fiction, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” uses the technique of psychological realism, funneling the narrative through Connie’s consciousness, along with elements of gothic horror, to chilling effect. The story has been subject to differing interpretations by various critics. It has been seen as an inverted fairy tale in which Connie is joined not with Prince Charming but with the Prince of Darkness.  These readers have pointed out similarities between Arnold Friend and the devil: his disguise, his supernatural knowledge of the whereabouts of Connie’s family, his ability to lure Connie to him against her will, even his very name, which is by no coincidence close to ”Arch Fiend.” Others see it as a tale of initiation into evil, with the end depicting Connie’s acceptance of the depraved American culture. Here Connie inhabits a world of moral impoverishment in which only the false and tawdry are revered. The loss of Connie to Arnold Friend is thus not only the story of one girl’s fatal misperception of appearances but also a representation of a loss of innocence.  There are still others who read the story as a feminist allegory which suggests that young women of today, like the generations that have come before them, are headed into sexual bondage.  In addition to reading ”Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” for its critical interpretation, it can also be enjoyed as a finely crafted story. Oates’s control over her narrative is clearly evident as she introduces a protagonist who is familiar enough to earn the reader’s empathy, yet still able to surprise.

William Carlos Williams believes that “the reader must complete what the poet has begun” since the poet often times depends on readers to put effort into it. I find so much beauty in the idea that poetry is somewhat subjective since William Carlos shares that the “act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem”. I understood that poetry can be what readers want it to be by sharing ideas and experiences that might not have been the first impression. In the poem “The Lake of Isle of Innisfree” by W.B Yeats, he writes “Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow”, I immediately imagined a man running away from the busy city life, tired and exhausted and finally being able to embrace his new calm life with nature surrounding him. He started really taking in the beehive, the structure of his new home, the lake. I picture myself there, and seeing and feeling what he feels, everlasting peace.  

Rena Korbs’ article states that “The loss of Connie to Arnold Friend is thus not only the story of one girl’s fatal misperception of appearances but also a representation of a loss of innocence.” I could not agree more. Our protagonist (Connie) is described as a vein 15-year-old. Through the story, we learn that she is a little boy crazy as well (Frequenting the drive-thru of the older kids eagerly leaving her friend to spend time with a boy she felt attracted to, even spending time with him in his car in an alley {possibly engaging in promiscuous activity} spending her summer thinking/dreaming about the boys she met). We also learn that she displays two separate personalities depending on where she is. At home, she shies away to avoid her mother’s criticism. When out in the world her demeanor is one that garners attention, even her style of dress differs (“She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home.”). She is teetering on the cusp of maturity, hiding behind the guise of innocence at home. To me, Arnold Friends arrival marks the collision of the two worlds she attempts to keep separate. Arnolds’ request for her to come outside can be seen as a metaphorical representation of temptation (mature desires), beckoning her to leave behind her innocence (represented by her home and the personality she shows her family) to embrace her “womanhood” (the personality she exhibits to the world). Arnold speaks in a way that is supposed to sound comforting but is threatening. This can be viewed as a warning to Connie about the falsehoods that exist in the world she’ll embrace if she chooses to go with Arnold aka the embodiment of Maturity/loss of […]

In the text “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, I really thought that it was interesting because I thought of it as her parents at home doesn’t see Connie’s real self just the part that Connie puts for them to see. If as a child growing up, your parents are constantly comparing you with someone else, especially a sibling, sure to them it could be a motivation but to any child in the long run is bad for mental health. Before COVID-19 in China, there were always stories on the news about children going suicidal because of too much pressure from parents. Which I connected with Connie having home behavior and outdoor behavior this could be like a mental coping system for her. From my understanding of the text Arnold is bringing out the outdoor part of her. Thus that part at the end that Connie seems to be unable to control her self.

This weeks read “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates was chilling and uncomfortable. My own understanding of the story was that Connie was your average pretty high school girl who had a rough home life being scrutinized by her mother, compared too much to her sister and ignored too much by her father. All of this leads to Connie living her life knowing her beauty is something that can get her the attention she is missing at home. That beauty only gets her so far when Arnold comes into the story and completely strips that attitude away from her. As Korb says in her analysis, Arnold gets past Connie’s “at home” persona, he is able to psychologically capture her. The story was so creepy to me because Arnold knows exactly what he is doing to the young girl. It made me wonder how many other innocent girls he must have done this to. The stalking, the showing up unannounced and the way he speaks to her to rattle her out of her “I’m above you” persona is truly demented.

First, I would like to say that the story “Where Are You Going, Where have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates has my pressure through the roof. This was a very chilling story. Arnold Friend used Connie’s insecurities to get to her. He knew everything about her, and one of the things he knew was the lack of attention she received because of her beautiful sister Joan. He was able to pretend to be a teenager, and Connie didn’t pay attention to the truth, until things started getting really creepy. Rena Korb article gives different interpretations of the story, in which I can agree with certain perspectives, such as Connie being joined with the “Prince of Darkness”. Arnold used his charming ways for Connie to have some sort of infatuation with him, and just like that, he turned into an older creep that she tried to get away from, but it was too late. One’s perspective also stated that Arnold was the devil. Which I can also say is my perspective on the story as well. Arnold has telepathic vision, in which he can see what Connie family is doing. He also was able to take control of Connie’s mind body and soul. She doesn’t realize where she is, he was able to continuously stab her without stepping foot into the house, and at the end she willingly went outside to him into a green field, assuming that’s where the dead go.

Wow this story is dark and very triggering for me. The story starts with Connie who is always compared to her older sister June who in Connie’s opinion is fat, plain, and boring. Connie is a bit egotistic and is aware that she is very pretty which is something expected of someone her age. Her mother seems to give off narcissistic tendencies and constantly picks on Connie while praising Connie’s sister. Perhaps Connie reminds her mother of how her mother used to be when the mother was young and now the mother is bitter. Connie meets this guy “Eddie” who is actually Arnold Friend which name is ironic since he is not friendly at all. Arnold Friend grooms Connie by taking her to a restaurant for some burgers and they might have possibly fooled around in his car in the alley which implicates alot. When Arnold Friend pulls up at Connie’s house knowing she is all alone and did his research on her and bought a friend this gave off alarming red flags. It is also implied that Arnold and his friend might be under the influence of drugs. Arnold did his research on Connie and tells her to go with him, threatening her. Arnold is definitely a predator and has done this before in the past, Connie realized that Arnold is older than he seems possibly in his thirties. Connie leaves with Arnold in the end but she imagined this wailing while she hangs up the phone planning to call the police, I believe the wailing is in her head and is a sign of her wailing in her despair and realizing this is her reality. This is her life. She thought nothing of just hanging with her girl friends in the plaza and maybe talking to some boys, […]

I found this observation quite insightful: “We are all expelled eventually from the original paradise of infancy, where all our wishes were fulfilled without any effort on our part. Learning about good and evil—gaining knowledge—seems to split our personality in two: the red chaos of unbridled emotions, the id; and the white purity of our conscience, the superego. As we grow up, we vacillate between being overcome by the turmoil of the first and the rigidity of the second (the tight lacing, and the immobility enforced by the coffin). Adulthood can be reached only when these inner contradictions are resolved and a new awakening of the mature ego is achieved, in which red and white coexist harmoniously.” (Bettelheim 214)   I find it insightful because a lot of fairy tales tend to have some underlying context involving coming-of-age, maturing into adulthood and the perils of naivety. Snow white was given multiple chances to avoid danger as instructed by the seven dwarves, but she fell victim to the tricks and lies from her evil stepmother. The story serves the purpose of providing valuable lessons. The idea that one must overcome their idealistic and dewy-eyed outlook on the world because the world is designed to be chaotic and that nothing is at it seems so one should be prepared to defend from forces that wish harm especially those who you can consider family and/or friend. The other lesson is that jealousy rarely ends well for the person who is feeling it such as the stepmother who later was punished and was sentence to wear iron shoes with hot coal inside them and was ordered to dance until she died. 

In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, the beginning makes me think that Connie is at the edge of adulthood. Just like any teenager, she sneaks out, wants to meet boys, and compulsively checks her reflection in the mirror. I’m pointing out Connie’s obsession with her reflection because of its emphasis on her beauty which gives her a sense of power. Having a bad relationship with her mother and being criticized for being obsessed with her appearance, lying where she goes, and being very interested in boys at fifteen years old is showing Connie being vulnerable and the mother wanting to protect her. To me, Rena Korb’s interpretation of “feminist allegory” best describes this story because Connie identifies herself heavily through music and films of romance. Compulsively checking her reflection in the mirror is only a reflection of how people see her, Connie knew she was pretty and it was everything to her. Arnold staring at her and his sunglasses is a reflection of Connie being vulnerable and not being able to stand up to him. He controls who she is and she obeys him sadly in the end, walking down the path to the car and images her not coming back. 

My understanding of the story “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is very basic. I see a story of a normal American girl and her normal everyday life until she is caught in the sights of someone. The story which seemed innocent at first had become a tale of horror the moment a car that Connie didn’t know showed up on her driveway. Rena Korb saying that it can be seen as an inverse fairy tale was something I didn’t even think about but it made my understanding a bit better. The story which starts off innocently about a superficial girl and her day to day life as she tries to find love is very fairy tale like. However, Arnold, while he might have seemed like a charming prince at first on the surface, was everything but a prince. It reminds me of the original stories of fairy tales like Snow white or Cinderella where the original stories were much darker. In that sense this story could be seen not as an inverse fairy tale but more alike with the original stories.

I think this story is a story about a girl who has to deal with the traditionalist and Christian worldview that her parents and those around her have while trying to navigate talking to a boy and growing up while those around her are continuously judgemental and doesn’t seem like they want the best for her. I also agree that it is kind of like a fairytale in a way kind of similar to Romeo And Juliet where her parents don’t really want her to be talking to boys or doing what she is doing but because as the boy states “your father is at the barbecue” but she is still hesitant about going for a ride with him and seeing where things will go because she is scared what her father would say or do if she saw the two of them. Eventually when Arnold starts getting aggressive and insults Connie’s sister she threatens to call the police and eventually leaves. I think this story is a fairytale that ends up not being able to work out because of the patriarchal and religious beliefs that are going on around her which she doesn’t seem to want to follow which in the end leads to her leaving and not trying to work it out with the boy because of the worries she has of how she will be perceived.

The story reads to me as a psychological coming-of-age story with Christianity under tones. The story begins with Connie just living her life like any other teenager. Going out to the mall with her friends, meeting boys, etc. The story seems like the kind where we watch her journey that may include love, heartbreak, and self-discovery. Except Connie is extremely vain and only values outward appearance. Immediately, my impression of Connie is that despite that she is simply an “innocent lamb” she is committing a sin in her case is vanity while Arnold Friend could be seen as “The Devil.” Based on his demeanor and approach to Connie. He talks sweetly to her and somehow knows her name despite Connie never meeting this man. He appears unexpectedly at her house and drives a conspicous vehicle along with a friend. Two strange men who want Connie to come with them. They never expressed what their intentions were, yet Connie feared for her life. Ultimately, giving in to the threats and the harassing, Connie gives in and is lured outside, never to be seen again. This is also referenced in Paragraph 10 of Korb’s Essay: “Connie, of course, does not recognize the story’s demonic elements when the reader does. These references quickly add up: her utterances of “hell” and “Christ” when Arnold shows up; his supernatural awareness of the details of Connie’s life, particularly his ability to “see” the family barbecue; his vampiric inability to enter Connie’s house” 

In the article, “how to read a poem”,  from the poets.org, by Edward Hirsch, The author helps me read poetry by showing us some points and how they are important, He also states some mistakes that readers do when reading a poem. Some mistakes that he pointed out was that, when reading, is that they should understand what they encounter on the first reading. The second thing is that the poem is some kind of code, and that each code has a specific idea and they need to crack this code. One last thing is that the poem can mean anything readers want it to mean. Now the ways he help us to read the poems are by saying that how by reading the title of a poem can give you a hint and idea or imagination of what the poem can be about sometimes. He says this in the paragraph titled, reading a poem aloud. Another thing is he also says  his lines are often difficult . but states, This act of competition begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem. brining t it your experience and the point of view. Another thing is in that paragraph he states that reading poetry progresses overtime and that it takes time and skills. In the paragraph getting started, the author says, reading poetry is a challenge, but like so many other things, it takes practices and your skills and insight. improves as you progress. These are some ways that author teaches us and help us to read poetry.

At the beginning of the story, it developed as typical teenage experiences.  She liked boys and wanted their attention. I know a ton of ways how that can lead to something bad at the same time I knew it wasn’t uncommon for developing girls.  I didn’t feel as though that contributed as much as someone might think, to the events that took place at her home.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize a child acting like a woman doesn’t make her a woman. A predator will want to pursue her either way.  In this case, Arnold Friend, was the predator. A charming predator. It almost seemed as though he could’ve been a professional predator with how he knew Connie’s parents weren’t home and weren’t coming back during the time of his arrival. His confidence showed me he’s done it before.  When he began to describe what the family was doing in the moment, it came across more like a psychic ability. Even my daughter mentioned how his name was similar to Arch-fiend, which is some sort of demon lord in their Yu-Gi-Oh game, however I can’t imagine assuming that this man had powers. But for a child? Im sure manipulation in that fashion is quite simple. He made her believe he knew so much that she wouldn’t be able to outsmart him.  He was able to send her into an entire panic of fear simply by talking to her.  He maintained her curiosity with childish conversation about the design to his car and joking around about his friend.  Unless the story tells of the car floating away in midair or creating a portal to her parents to show what they’re doing, I would never have believed it was supernatural.  She was a young simple girl and with that premise […]

The story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates was definitely not what I was expected to read. I thought this story is going to be light and funny by the begging of it. A story about family matters, or a love story maybe. Surprisingly I discovered that this story is very dark, and although in American stories you expect a happy ending, this one was a scary and sad one (since we anticipate what’s going to happen to Connie after she went with Arnold). Reading the critical overview of the story written by Rena Korb, the interpretation that touched me the most was “feminist allegory”. I find it true and very sad. The way Korb describes it in the article was very powerful: “When Connie, the innocent female, walks out of the house to meet what may be her demise, she also represents the spiritual death of women at the moment they give up their independence to the desire of the sexually threatening male”. Although there is much more awareness of it nowadays, there are still a lot of young girls and grown women who try to satisfy men’s desires, even if it’s not what they want. When men use their power over women in sexual situations to get what they want, many females feel weak and as if they need to obey. We see women get raped on the news all the time, and people blame them for being too sexual and highly maintained. As Connie in this story. She does put a lot of attention to physical appearance, but that is what she cares about as a young girl, and shouldn’t get punished for it.

This story is about young love. Connie explains throughout the story that she is constantly being compared to her older sister, June, by her mother and her mother’s sisters. They always talk very highly of June and get very excited when they hear her name and that June does a lot more for the family than Connie. June saved money and helped to do chores around the house, which they appreciated so much that they looked at Connie as an outsider in the family and always belittled her. When Arnold Friend came in front of her home, she immediately pushed him away and was rude to him. She explained that she had other things to do instead of going out for a ride with him because he did not want him to know that she was interested in him, as it would his ego much higher. He constantly called her sweet and caring names, had asked a lot of their mutual friends about Connie and explained that he wanted to be with her. Towards the end, she realizes that she wants to be with the boy as well, as it makes her heart pound and she feels that she can finally have something to herself. She says this because Arnold saw Connie for who she was and accepted her. She liked that she wasn’t compared to anyone else, especially her older sister. She didn’t accept it at first because she thought that what he was said was fake and silly and she did not want to be hurt. She was not close with her family and did not grow up with showing love and affection. She did not have a strong relationship with her father, and she wished that her mother had died. She was scared and pushed Arnold Friend […]

In my opinion, I agree with the perspective that it is an inverted fairytale. In a stereotypical fairytale, there is usually some kind of princess who needs to be saved by some kind of prince, knight, or mysterious man. Then he takes her away, they fall in love, they ride off into the sunset, and live happily ever after.  The story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” has similar components with a very different outcomes. This story’s princess, Connie, while feels isolated from her family and misunderstood, she does not want to be with them. However, she does not want to be taken from them. Especially not by Arnold Friend. In this case, Arnold Friend is the “savior: He is the mysterious dark fiure that is going to take Connie away. Except in this story, they aren’t in love and he is taking her by force. And they don’t end up happily ever after.

The short story “where are you going, where have you been”?  was dedicated to Bob Dylan because the Author was inspired after listening to his song “Its all over now baby blue”. Connie did not feel appreciated at home because her mother always criticized her and always comparing her to her sister June, so she uses her looks and action to get attention from boys. Connie’s relationship with her mother and sister were unfortunate, the mother always make a references to June because she were more responsible. Her father seems like he’s very distant at home and that maybe is also a problem in her eyes. This was very sad to read!

In “How to Read a Poem” William Carlos Williams writes that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun, in the Italian sonnet, “What My Lips Have Kissed and Why and When”, Edna Saint Vincent Millay uses her sonnet to make provoke thought in the reader. Poems tell stories and in order to understand the story, the reader must read between the lines to fully understand. The sonnet is at a surface level about love and loneliness. The deeper meaning to gain from the poem is the narrator reflecting on past loves and regrets she has had and the heartache she feels. In lines 6 through 8, the text states, “And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.”. The narrator is guilty that she has forgotten these past lovers who were once important in her life. As time moves on, she knows they will never rekindle what they had or will speak again in the same way. Lines 12 to 14 state, “I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.” Though the narrator knows she enjoyed being in love with her past lovers, though short-lived she feels empty and in grief. She now wonders if the relationships she’s experienced were even worth experiencing. Usually, we’re used to seeing stories about love where the person is longing for past loved ones but the narrator doesn’t remember much about them. The sonnet started off with her longing for these past relationships she only faintly remembers and ends open-ended left for the reader to come to their own conclusion of how their outlook on the topic.

In “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch teaches me how to carefully read a poem. He states that “the goal of careful reading is often to take up a question of meaning, an interpretive question that has more than one answer”. That means you have to have a good listening ear for how sound a rhythm is related to meaning. William Carlos wrote a poem addressed to his wife and he admits in this poem, the lines was difficult. He said that a reader must complete what the poet has written. In order for a reader to complete a poem, he or she have to have an imagination. Society has a sharing experience in literature. whether its understanding about living, loving, or dying. The Lineation is the relationship between meaning, sound, and movement intended by the poet is sometimes hard to recognize. The best way to retain the grammatical sense of a poem is to read to the end of the phrase.

After reading “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch I have more knowledge on how to understand reading poems, in the past I have always like I understood how to read poems, but the article helped me understand it a lot more. it helped me to understand what it means to complete a poem. I have chosen “White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey. in “White Lies” I thought it was funny because throughout the poem she explaining she only lying to feel good about herself by saying things like “I could easily tell the white folks that we lived uptown, not in that pink and green shanty-fled shotgun section along the tracks. I could act like my homemade dresses came straight out the window of Maison Blanche.” was able to enter imagine the play of the poem due to it being something like movies I’ve watched and it being like what people do daily.  

In the Article “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch, he explains all the ways how to correctly complete a poem. He writes how to “put yourself” into the poem, the reader has to put in the effort to truly understand what the “poet has begun”. Hirsch also explains how it takes time and effort to truly do this, but after a lot of time in doing this, understanding poems is easy. In the poem, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W.B Yeats, the poet, is fantasizing about a lake island where it is very peaceful, and it seems he wants to go there. It states “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings”. He utilizes imagery in this poem, showing how his image of this place is running wild and how he is eager to go there. According to this text, I think something might be going on with the poet’s life at this time: “While I stand on this roadway, or the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core”. It shows that he isn’t in this place, by saying “while I stand on this roadway”. It is in his heart where he wants to go, whether this may be going to heaven where he may be at peace, or he actually might want to go on a vacation somewhere nice. In the article that Edward Hirsch wrote, I used one of his ways to read a poem, which is by reading the poem aloud. It sort of helped me understand it a bit more. In the article, Hirsch said that everyone sees a different meaning in any poem. That was in the back of my head while reading […]

Throughout my years of reading literature and specifically poetry has been a struggle to understand fully. In the article “How to Read a Poem” written by William Carlos Williams, He tells us about how difficult poetry often is to read and that to fully understand a poem we have to “complete” what the poet began. He tells us “This act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing to it your experience and point of view.” The poem that I have chosen to “complete” this week is “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. On the surface, it seems like a really simple and to-the-point poem with it being so short but it tells a deeper story. I completed this poem by putting myself into the shoes of one of the seven boys in the poem. The lines “We Left school. We Lurk late.” and “We Die soon.” stuck out to me the most because it does not say explicitly in the poem that they were kids rebelling against what they should do and that it could come with serious consequences such as death. But when I put myself into the position they were in it seems much clearer that Brooks was trying to portray this message.

In “How to read a poem” it says that you need to complete what the poet has started and one way to help was to read aloud. The poem I chose was “The mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks and at first I read it silently. What I got was a poem about a mother who had to abort a baby and is haunted with regret for her actions but in the end loved her children. On my second read I read it out loud and I got a different experience as I noticed how some words at the end of the lines had rhymed and how the commas had helped set a slightly different tone. I still felt a tone of regret but throughout the poem I felt the mothers love for her children all throughout. In the lines,” If I stole your births and names, Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,” When read silently I had the tone of a mother who knew that she stole the future of her children and was regretful with what she did. After reading it out loud I had seen a mother who knew what she did and was instead sad and apologetic to them that they never had the chance to live their own life.

In my opinion, poems speak to us in many ways. Though their forms may not always be direct or narrative. Sometimes the job of the poem is to come closer to saying what cannot be said in other forms of writing, to suggest an experience, idea, or feeling that you can know but not entirely express in any direct or literal way.  Williams admits that poetry is often difficult. the poem “January Morning,”: All this— was for you, old woman. I wanted to write a poem that you would understand. For what good is it to me if you can’t understand it? But you got to try hard— He also suggests that a poet depends on the effort of a reader, somehow, a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. This act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing to it your experience and point of view. If a poem is “play” in the sense of a game or a sport, then you enjoy that it makes you work a little, that it makes you sweat a bit. Reading poetry is a challenge, but like so many other things, it takes practice, and your skills and insight improve as you progress.

Until this assignment I would usually struggle with poetry. Most of the times I would struggle with interpretation or meaning that the author tries to portray. These sources of information about the structure of poems and it’s components I found extremely helpful and gave me a better understanding of how to approach poems. My personal favorite takeaway from the article on “how to read a poem” is to read it aloud and embrace the ambiguity. I find both of these suggestions very helpful. Reading a poem aloud does make you get a better feel of the flow and rhythm while knowing that the meaning of a poem is a subject to a personal interpretation and it keeps on renewing itself every time you reread it is very freeing. Poems certainly have a mystery aspect to them and knowing that there is no right or wrong way of interpretation is quite liberating.Discussin

In the article “How to Read a Poem” written by William Carlos Williams, he acknowledges the challenges of reading poetry. The readers must “complete” what the poet has begun. This week the poem that I am choosing to speak about is “White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey. This poem is about all the “white lies” the speaker told during her childhood, as the poem progresses the story becomes less innocent. The speaker uses spondee in the third line of the poem “light-bright, near-white” which first introduces us to the racial theme of the poem. The speaker goes on to talk about her “white lies” as she is identified as white by one of her classmates “‘…the time a white girl said (squeezing my hand), Now we have three of us in this class. But I paid for it every time Mama found out.” The speaker was happy to be seen as white but in doing that she was denying her black mother. Her “white lies” symbolize the innocence of the lies she told but also symbolize the thing she is literally lying about which is that she is not 100% white. I did some research on the poet and she was half black and half white and this gives a little insight to the identity issues she faced growing up being mixed. I feel that the poet did a great job at displaying those emotions in the poem.

The poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” describes Innisfree as a peaceful and tranquil place the poet wants to go to. It’s a very quiet place and that is the main reason the poet wants to go there. “Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade” the poet is explaining the landscape and knows for sure he will be at peace living there. In the second stanza “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings” describes the peace and positivity that would come as if the dawn is coming out of the veil. When the morning comes, it carries calmness into the place where the crickets were singing which is why the poet wants to be there. The poet wants to be around nature and doesn’t want to hear unnecessary noises. I completed what the poet set in motion after reading “How to Read a Poem” is how it can sound very lonely and miserable way the poet wants to live but I see it as being at peace with himself. The poet pointing out nature and the environment shows he doesn’t want to hear unnecessary noises but wants to hear nature, something that gives him peace. 

William Carlos Williams states that in order to understand a poem, a reader must “complete what a poet has begun”. The article from Poets.org states that in order to do so you must use your imagination to connect it to your experience to see it from your point of view. For this discussion I’ve selected “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. After reading the poem a few times I really examined it and broke it down.  Gwendolyn Brooks states that the poem was inspired when she passed a pool hall one day and noticed some teenagers inside cutting school. Using “imaginative play” I interpreted the poem as a summary of the life trajectory of the 7 teenagers (as established in the subtitle). The first stanza “we real cool, we left school” establishes the rebelliousness of the group foregoing their education, viewing this act of defiance as cool. Stanza 2 the author uses the word lurk. To lurk means: “To lie in wait in a place of concealment especially for an evil purpose.” Which is followed by the line ‘We strike straight.” To strike is to hit with force. I interpreted this stanza as a representation of the dark path the kids are travelling down, staying out late being menacing. This Stanza is followed by “We sing sin, We thin gin.”  I don’t interpret this as singing of sin but enjoying sinful acts or showing unruly behavior like drinking alcohol (the act of thinning gin). The 4th stanza brings the poem to an end “We jazz june, We die soon”. Gwendolyn Brooks states that “June” represents the establishment (Authority). “Jazz” was once considered rebellious music. So I interpret the line representing the teens rebelling against authority. The outcome of their behavior culminates into their early demise or the behavior ending sooner […]

In “How to Read a Poem” it is said that the act of “completion” begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing it to your experience and point of view. The poem i chose is “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem is about a group of kids forming a identity that they themselves accept and not what society accepts. What completed the poem for me was the line “We jazz June. We Die Soon.” It made me understand the reason for their Defiance, rebellion, the reason they wanted to form a identity true to themselves even if it meant going against societal rules was because they were going to die soon and they rather die with a identity they accept rather than one society accepts.

I chose The Lake Isle Of Innisfree this Poem is very sad yet beautiful because it highlights certain factors about what the author is going through and what he thinks of himself for example he states “ Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade.“ In this line he is higlighting loneliness that he feels but at the same time he thinks that this life will be peaceful where he says And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;“ here the author is saying that even though it can be lonely here that he is content with it because he can have some form of peace that he never had before and by the end of the poem he comes to grip with the reality of the situation and accepts it by saying “I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.” This is the author realizing that he has to accept what is happening, after reading the article how to read a poem it helped me to complete it because in it it states that everyone can see a different meaning in the poem so while others may find this poem depressing I find it beautiful that he’s able to get past the loneliness and to be at peace with the life he is living now.

For this week’s discussion, I chose “The lake isle of Innisfree” by W.B. Yeats. It’s a beautiful haunting record of what I believe is W.B. Yeats himself reciting the poem adds another mystical layer to the poem and in a way brings the poem more to life. You can close your eyes and listen to W.B Yates himself describe  ” I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore” and “And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade.” You can imagine the imagery and scenery for this poem more vividly with W.B. Yeats himself describing it. The poet has set in motion the imagery of this scene of the lake isle of Innisfree and the yearning and longing of the scenery. You can picture everything described in the poem and with the way of W.B Yeats himself reciting the poem it brings the very imagery of the Lake Isle of Innisfree to life. 

In “How To Read A Poem” one of the biggest instructions that helped me read and understand poems clearly are “Talking Back to a Poem” talking back to a poem is something I noticed I did unconsciously, I would faintly question what the author or poet is trying to say and represent. After reading this article, I made sure to be intentional with my questions so that I can understand the poem in its entirety, after asking myself “what does this line mean?” “what is this poet trying to say?” it makes me further read the poem deeply over and over. The poem “My Last Duchess” at first was a very hard poem to understand at first, I had to ask myself over and over what each paragraph was trying to convey, and I had no choice but to understand fully so that I could answer the questions through each paragraph on Commonlit. This poem is about The Duke feeling betrayed and belittled by his first wife, The Duchess. He described her as “trifling” simply because she was pleasant to most that she had laid her eyes upon, and The Duke’s ego was not going for that so he killed The Duchess. Later on in this poem he reveals that he wants to marry a Count’s daughter.

In the article How to Read a Poem by Edward Hirsch in order to “complete” what the poem has started, you must put yourself in the poem. You have to immerse yourself into the poem, and put yourself into the point of view of the narrative. The article brings up the fact that it is something that takes time and effort to get used to. But over time it should make understanding poems easier. The poem I chose was The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B Yeats. This narrator is fantasizing about going to a remote island off the coast of Ireland. In this poem, the narrator wishes to live a simple life on a remote island. The narrator says that the nature on the island will bring peace and comfort. “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings” (5-8, Hirsch). The narrator speaks about nature on the island like it has a spiritual meaning and as if it is a part of him.     

Poetry is a written art form expressed with literature.  Poetry at times can be tricky, and hard to understand. At times you may not understand, but how Carlos Williams said poetry comes with challenges. He also stated that you must complete what the poet has began. By Carlos saying that phrase you must complete what the poet began means that the reader has to put hard effort and be open minded when they are reading the poem. You must put your imagination into the poem, and approach the poem in a different way. Also by finding the meaning of the poem by understanding what the poet is trying to express in the poem. For example the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks is a short poem with lines that really difficult to understand. In order to understand it you must complete the poem, and put an effort when reading the poem. The poem talks about a group of young men trying to be cool living life at young age by cutting class, being in the streets late at night, by doing that they will might end up dead at a young age. At the end it all depends on the reader to find and complete the poem with the effort of understanding the message of the poet.

I chose White Lies by Natasha Trethewey as my reference for this week’s discussion. At first, I had a challenging time understanding the meaning of the poem. However, through several readings and breaking down each line I understood what was laid out by the author. The poem touches on identity as a theme and it’s about a girl who struggles to accept herself for who she is. What brought my understanding to completion is this line “Believing her, I swallowed suds / thinking they’d work / from the inside out.” For a good portion of the poem, it seemed like it is about a girl just telling normal white lies that meant little harm. However, underneath that I understood that her mother was punishing her because she was denying her racial identity, trying to assimilate into a culture that was not her own. To which the line comes into play where she really believed that if she were to be clean from the inside then she can be white and purified on the outside- as in her skin tone. 

According to the article “How To Read A Poem”, the act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing it to your experience and point of view. The poem I choose to illustrate my response to this week discussion is “The Mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks. After reading the article, I used the talking back to the poem technique where I asked, what does the title suggest? The Mother, suggest some form of being a parent, as I continued to read, I asked, what circumstances gave rise to the poem? The answer was abortions. The first time I read the poem, I imagined a hurt female, that had regret and disappointment in the act that she committed. The line where she states, “I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children”, I felt like she was beating herself up about not giving the children she aborted life. The second time I read the poem, I read it aloud. This time my imagination gave me a woman that feel she did what was best. The line where she states, “believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate”, gives a perception of her doing the right thing. My completion became clear in my third reading of the poem when I read the line ” you remember the children you got that you did not get’, with me knowing now what she was talking about, this is a woman thinking about what could’ve been if she kept her children, the love she still has, and the guilt she feels, however there is no regret. I put myself in Gwendolyn position and imagined not having a child by choice. I have a beautiful daughter that I cannot see life without. Pain […]

I enjoyed reading the article “How to Read a Poem” because the author uses many references to life that makes it easier to connect to the challenge of reading a poem. For example when he says that reading a poem might make you “sweat” a little, but that it’s like a sport – it takes practice and in the end, you get better.  The poet William Carlos Williams, in acknowledging the challenges of reading poetry, writes that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. One example from this week’s readings can be the poem “My Last Duchess” in which you need to “talk back to a poem” as mentioned in the article. The author of the article gives some questions to ask yourself which I think are helpful in order to understand this poem better, such as who is the speaker, and what situation is presented? In this case, the speaker is a Duke, he shows someone the painting of his first wife, the Duchess, and tells him about her and a little about their relationship. The Duke says “She had A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere”.  She had a big heart and saw good in everything, she was friendly. He also mentioned that she treated others with gratitude and warmth, as treated him.  

I really enjoyed reading this article as it helped me understand the mind of a poet and how the reader can use what the poet is trying today in his or her poem and be able to feel what is being said. I have always struggled with reading poetry, being more analytical in my reading and writing, and putting myself in a poet’s shoes. The article explains that a reader must “complete” the poem, which is when the audience and reader start to think about how the poem plays a part in their lives and to put themselves in the poem. The poem, “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, is about her seeing seven young pool players and telling them that life is short. She explains this writes “We left school.” in the first stanza to “We die soon.” in the last stanza. She writes the word ‘We’ seven times at the end of the line for each pool player that she saw. I am able to complete what the poem set in motion, by putting myself with the seven pool players, having fun and not thinking about what life is about and how it ends so quickly, and Gwendolyn Brooks giving them advice since she is experienced, wiser and older than them because they are not able to see that there is so much store for the pool players. The article states “This act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem, bringing to it your experience and point of view.” I did this by putting my selves with them and always hearing advice from my elders about being careful with the things that I do because life is so short and I should not mess it up doing silly things and hanging out with people […]

In “How to Read a Poem” the biggest idea I took out of it was that there was no one way to interpret a poem. There are countless ways to understand a poem, and each person can understand things differently. That is what we, the readers, complete I think of a poem as a puzzle the writer gives the outer lining of the poem, but each time we interpret the poem differently, we add a different piece to the poem. For example, in the poem.” The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W. B. Yeats, my first understanding of the poem was a man escaping from the city or just from his normal life to the wilderness and taking in nature. Then on my second read, I thought of it as him comparing two different life of his in the busy everyday life another where he lives freely in his cabin. These two similar ideas are like 2 pieces of the puzzle that I put together.

In the article, “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch, he describes the act of completion when reading poetry, is to step into the imaginative play of the poem.  So as I read, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W.B. Yeats, I took part of this imaginative play was by first reciting the poem at different tempos. To see if there was a rhythm I needed to find so I can find the flow of the poem.  I tried different ones, like from how I would read ” Mary had a little lamb”.  I kept trying until there was a flow connecting the words that rhymed, which was every other line.  I also found myself searching for a theme. I noticed there was a lot of mention of things that create sounds from nature. For example, “Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.”  or ” Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade.”  As I re-read it, I found myself playing the sounds of nature he described, in my head to create the atmosphere. I, without trying, played along with the visuals given to me in the poem. Trying to bring it to life to see what about it felt peaceful. Every sound they found pleasant were low, fluttering and from nature.  It almost felt like a picture puzzle in my head as I tried to envision the meaning. and feeling, through visualizing.

In the poem The Lake Isle Innisfree by W. B. Yeats. The poets fantasize about going to a peaceful life in Innisfree where he would build a small cabin of clay and waffles (line 1). He was providing a great vision of a place where he was going be at peace, he hopes to plant nine rows of beans in a clearing (line 3) which would buzz with sound of honey bees tending to a hive. he believes that this place would bring him peace. Maybe the message he was trying to send was that he wasn’t happy where he were and he needed to escape to an environment where he would be happy. He needed to be around nature and natural beauty, he mentioned “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore” (line 10)  that gave him  pleasure just to enjoy it which gave him solace and comforts. This also teaches us that when things get overwhelming we should also build a cabin of solitary place.

In this week lesson, it made me understand more about poetry. How to understand when I’m reading poetry. Before this lesson, it also takes me a while to understand reading poetry, especially when I’m reading Shakespeare. When I was a kid, the only poem I love to watch with my grandma was a show called “Brave New Voice” on HBO. It was a show where a youth group compete in verbal battle to make it to Washington for the National Slam Poetry. In the video, Italian and Elizabeth Sonnets explained “how word, sound devices, and imagery affect mood, meaning and theme”. It also explained how there are two different types of sonnets. The Italian sonnet is 14 lines in length and follows a strict structure. It’s divided into two sections that deals with two different aspects of the same subject. The two sections are identified as octave and the sea state. Elizabethan sonnet contains three quatrains and rhyming couplet. It contains three sections of four lines each. The quatrains are followed by two lines that sum up the message of the sonnet of proved a comment by the poet.

I used to think that poems were just an easier way to tell a story but after doing the exercises, I can tell that a lot of thought is put into it. In “How to read a poem” it says that poems are often difficult and that a lot of it also has to do with the reader’s own interpretation of what they read. There are many things to consider when writing a poem such as whether the poem should be long or short and what kind of poem it is, whether it rhymes or not. Poems are a much more complex thing and as a reader it doesn’t have to be understood by the first read it takes effort from both the writer and the reader to piece it together and give meaning to it. Poems are more of a everyone has their own interpretation thing rather than a one size fits all.

My ideas have change or broadened about poetry different ways, for example from me not knowing that much about poetry to seen more about poetry and poetry vs prose, and the difference, Also how poems should be written, and what they should have, for example, rhyme, rhythm, repetition, sound, imagery, or form. This are some or ways a poem has to be in poetry. Also from the reading and activities I learn that, poetry has the power to spread out any message or like feeling or ideas, as for how much you love someone, I know this because from the reading of sonnet 43, how do I love thee, by “Elizabeth Barrett Browning, we can see how the narrator expressed her love towards her husband, also she shows that her love is big and will forever be. I am not really that big of a fan towards poetry but I feel it’s something nice and good, also a really good way to show your ideas, emotions, expressions and your message towards the world or someone about you.

My ideas of poetry have broadened after the Week 11 activities because I had a sense of what poetry is but I forget how different poetry can be. It’s a broad writing form. When I think of poetry, I think of repetition and rhyme and though those literary devices are found in poems, that is not all poems are. It has been a while since I’ve refreshed my memory on poetry but I find that the short video from Activity 3 helped differentiate the different types of poetry, specifically sonnets. I have always been fond of poems and how poems can have many different meanings while being so concise. I am more drawn to powerful imagery and stories so poems are interesting to me but sometimes can be hard to break down. Reading Activity 5 Sonnet Number 130, “My Mistress’s Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun” by Shakespeare helped break down the sonnet making it easier to understand and less intimidating. I’m usually able to understand poems but Shakespeare’s work can sometimes stump me so the short video helped me better understand the sonnets for this week.

Whenever I read poetry it wasn’t always understood completely, either I haven’t gone through any experiences to understand the meaning of a poem or I simply just did not understand how the said words were meant to be taken. Although, I had some misunderstandings I always appreciated poetry; the way a speaker speaks poems and the way I could just envision the poet speaking their words. In Week 11 readings I was able to understand every poem, the preparation steps truly helped me to analyze and interpret the poems. Activity 7 was my favorite poems which contained “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and “Why Do I Love You So Much?” by a poet who is not named. I adore stories about undying and infinite love, and that is exactly what these two poems represent. The title “How Do I Love Thee?” confused me a bit, because I took it too literal thinking it meant “How do I love this person?” but it’s more “This is how much I love this person!” Browning goes onto explain in every way and any circumstance her love is so deep and strong for this person. In “Why Do I Love You So Much?” is kind of the same level of extreme as brownings poem, the poet goes onto say that they trust this person more than anyone else, that they look for that person to guide them to happiness.

With all the activities the class was given this week I was able to learn more about poetry than I ever had before. I remember learning about haiku’s in gradeschool but do not remember learning about the deeper meanings of poems. All of the videos were extremely helpful in explaining the different types of poems as well as giving examples. After what I have learned I realize that I really enjoy reading poems that use imagery. It’s another fun component added into the reading to create an element of imagination vs the emotions you would typically feel from reading a deep poem. I really like to use my imagination and try and visualize what the poet is depicting.   I want to read and maybe even get back into writing poetry again just so I can try and make some using imagery.

My ideas about poetry broadened tremendously after doing the activities affiliated with this weeks discussion. Being a songwriter growing up I’ve learned about ballads and how to separate your verses, chorus, and bridge. I also wrote poems but never put thought into what type of sonnet it may be. I would just put lines together and make sure they rhyme. The short video in Activity 3 really gave me a lot of insight on what poetry is. The way she dissected each part of sonnet was very clear. A sonnet consists of 14 lines and there are two types of sonnets. Italian (Petrarchan) and Shakespearean (Elizabethan). I learned that certain sections actually tell a problem and another section gives a solution. Learning this allowed me to read the poems in activities 4-8 much differently. I actually read the poems looking for the problems and solutions. I allowed myself to feel what was written and use my imagination more vividly.

Personally, I have never been a fan of poetry, however, I do agree that it helps people understand and appreciate the world around us. Petry can offer people a way to empathize with one another. In its immediacy, poetry is a counsellor helping people to understand one another and leading us away from hate to love, from violence to mercy and pity. Since I have never been deeply interested in Poetry, all the activities in Week 11, helped me view it differently. The reading materials and the videos helped me deepen my knowledge of Poetry and showed me the importance of it in people’s lives. For example, I really liked “Sonnet 18” by  William Shakespeare. In this sonnet, Shakespeare also claims to have the power to preserve his love’s beauty through poetry. Shakespeare uses Sonnet 18 to praise his beloved’s beauty and describe how their beauty is preferable to a summer day. The stability of love and its power to immortalize someone is the overarching theme of this poem. It deals with the theme of beauty and how it can be affected by prolonged lapses of time.

My idea of what I believed poetry was about is a combination of rhymes, analogies and personifications that were dumped into a few sentences and didn’t make much sense to me. Although I know that there’s a lot of passion that comes from poetry, I have to say that it’s extremely difficult to understand. After reading “How to Read a Poem” I was intrigued with the phrase “Embracing Ambiguity” which means that people tend to avoid uncertainty and are able to cope with change which offers the opportunity of learning. Often times readers give up on confusing expressions especially in poetry and embracing ambiguity directs readers into letting go of the idea that poetry is boring and let poetry take control without any assumptions or misinterpretations.

Reading poetry and really understanding the deep meaning of them was something that I had always struggled with. After doing the Week 11 assignments I have learned to not only see the base purpose of the poetry but to dive deeper and understand what the author is really trying to tell us—specifically reading the poets.org post on how to read a poem and breaking down the process of reading a poem to understand it deeply. Talking back to the poem and asking all these questions back to it was something that I had never thought of till reading this. It gave me a better understanding of how the poet wanted us to read their poem. Knowing the context of the poem was also something that I had never thought of, I had always read poems as a stand-alone piece of text but now I see that it is important to read between the lines and see what’s not right there in front of you.

After reading the material It was interesting to learn that there are both Italian and Elizabethan (Shakespearean) sonnets considering that the latter is the most popular I had no idea that the former existed. Also, how the structure of each differs, with Italian Sonnets consisting of an 8/6 composition (8-line Octave and 6-line sestet) while Shakespearean sonnets have makeup of 4/4/4/2, (3 quatrains and a 2-line rhyming couplet at the end) both equating to a 14-line makeup. Also, the ambiguous nature of poetry, we often read poetry and try to interpret it at face value when actuality the meaning behind the poem is often hidden with colorful language. Sonnet 18 is considered one of Shakespeare’s most romantic works, leading the reader to believe it is an ode to someone he fancy’s when in actuality the subject is that of a young man known as the “Fair Youth” who is handsome and widely sought after. The poem is in reality one of admiration rather than romantic notions. 

My ideas about poetry have changed drastically after reading week 11 readings and activities. Before I thought reading poems was very simple but after week 11 readings it showed me how poems can be way more complicated than it may seem on the surface level. Reading “how to read a poem” had the biggest impact on my thoughts regarding poems it made me realize I was one of those readers who made 2 of the 3 false assumptions when addressing an unfamiliar poem which was Assuming that I should understand what I encounter on the first reading and 2. Assuming the poem is a code I should crack and if I can’t do so I’ve missed the point of the poem. It also taught me to read poems out loud which is something I never do when reading poems. All in all this week readings helped me understand poetry way better than I did before and given me alot of useful tips I can use on the poems I read in the future

After doing all these activities I learned that poetry is a lot more complex than I previously thought, especially when it comes to sonnets and the differences between the Italian version and the English version. Sometimes I would go and read poems or stories and realize that I didn’t really understand the true meaning of the poem but when looking at the how to read a poem activity and the activity on Shakespeare also helped me to understand poems and poetry in general a lot better. I also learned about the Shakespearean sonnets which are split up into 3 sections while having 4 lines each while Italian sonnets don’t seem to have any couplets, Shakespearean sonnets also wrap up the end of the third section by giving a brief line or two summary about what the message of the poem was. Overall this week’s activity helped e to come away with a much better understanding of poetry writing and overall how to read poetry and stories in general and it was overall a helpful week of activities.

Before doing all these activities I used to think poems looked very simple at face value but now I know that there is more to poems than I thought. When I used to read poems If I didn’t get the message or the point at the beginning I would just assume that it was too difficult for me to understand. After reading the activity 2 article “How to read a Poem.” I have better ways to try and understand a poem. The questions in the article can give me a base line of questions to ask myself when reading the poem to get a better understanding. I also didn’t know about some of the forms of poems like sonnets. I found it interesting that sonnets can be in different categories even though they are both sonnets. In activity 3 I found it interesting how an Italian sonnet has two different stanzas with the octave being 8 lines and the sestet being 6 lines. I also found it interesting how the octave would show a question with the sestet showing the answer.

  My idea about poetry has changed drastically after I read the readings in week 11. It has given me the idea on how to observe and evaluate the meaning of the hidden text of the poems. Poetry has also shown me ideas and structure on how a poem is created by using repetition, sound, rhythm, and imagery. It has given me the idea of how poetry that expresses emotions can help us to process our experiences, and how to describe beauty objects or things in a fashionable way. I love how the poem ” My Mistress’s Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun” by William Shakespeare clearly describes how beautiful a woman is by only using words and strong metaphors. For example in the poem William Shakespeare describes a woman he calls his mistress by saying “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”; “Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;”in the poem “. He is saying in other words how beautiful the mistress’s eyes are and how her lips have a bright beautiful red color. It is just magnificent how poetry is put together to give the reader a creative meaning just by using words.

What I found interesting was the video explaining the differences between Italian sonnets and Shakespearean sonnets. Both are made up of 14 lines, however the way they are sectioned is very different.  Italian sonnets are made up of two sections, the octave and the sestet.  The octave is usually used to express a problem or argument while the sestet is used for the remedy of the issue.  However, in Shakespearean sonnets it is split up 3 sections/ 4 lines each, usually on the topics of love or the effects of time on physical beauty and the last 2 lines are reserved for a summary of the message in the poem.  I initially felt it might be difficult to understand how to differentiate the two styles but, the couplet is what will give you a quick guess to whether it’s an Italian or English sonnet. That’s because Italian sonnets do not have couplets.  For example, in Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare, the entire poem describes a woman and how unconventional she is and how she doesn’t exactly resemble a desirable woman, although still managing to become someone’s mistress. The very end of the poem or the couplet, takes a turn by explaining that despite all those flaws, she is rare and describing her as his love in the same instance. Knowing they have different structures helps me know what to look for so that I may understand poem better.

One way my knowledge and understanding of poetry has been broadened by all of this week’s reading was by figuring out how to actually read a poem. One thing that was hard for me, especially with reading older poems, was knowing where the lines ended. After reading the article “How to Read a Poem”, it advised to read it out loud. Normally this isn’t something that I would do, but I was already having some trouble decoding the Shakespeare poems. When reading it out loud I found that I was naturally making stops. This made it make more sense to me, it allowed me to take more time to read it, and the natural stops made the line stops make sense to me. Also, since I was reading out loud, I was forced to slow down and that made the poem more digestible for me and help with my analysis of what was being said.

Activity 8 “What My Lips Have Kissed and Why and When” is told by a speaker who can’t remember her lovers in the past but only the happy state of mind she once had. This poem has two stanzas but gives a descriptive idea of the speaker, which has opened my mind to poems and how much information can be given in something so short. For example, in “what arms have lain Under my head till morning” the speaker is unsure why she has forgotten her romantic past or if it’s because it wasn’t serious so her mind wasn’t paying attention. Just a simple line has a descriptive meaning behind it which communicates the speaker’s mindset. My favorite line from this poem is “summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more” this tells me the speaker’s emotional state, summer standing for her feelings of happiness and fulfillment. Summer “sings no more” for the speaker because she knows she won’t have the feeling of happiness summer would bring her and is deeply sad in conclusion. Reading this poem showed me the unique language used and uses my imagination to interpret what the speaker is meaning, making me think more openly to figure out what she means. 

All the poems and activities in week 11, helped me to view a different standpoint on poetry and the way it is written from the author’s point of view. I was never a fan of poetry and thought that it was always silly. This was because poetry was introduced to me in school and there were always questions that I needed to answer. Multiple-choice questions and short responses taught me to see poetry the way test makers saw poetry. I felt dismissed when it came to how I felt and what I saw in poetry. Poetry has such deep meaning, much deeper in passages, because of the way the stanzas are written, the personification, the time that the poetry was written, and even the author shows us how all these details really helped to impact the way the poem was created. It is interesting to know that poetry is such a huge part of the English Language because you gain something so much more that you won’t be able to gain when reading an article, essay, and/or passage.  

The essay written by Edward Hirsch (How to Read a Poem) provided a comprehensive and solid foundation for my understanding of poetry. His descriptions about common pitfalls really resonated with me, as those were things that held me back from genuinely appreciating the craft. Recalling the frustrations of figuring out the literal meaning of the poems. After reading the essay, I know now that poetry should not be rushed, and the words are meant to “felt” more so than read. We don’t have to figure out the literal meaning of the poem in one reading and that’s okay. I figured that’s the point. To write creatively and freely without pressure and to show the reader to allow themselves to get lost in the lines and the imagery.  To search for questions or answers and play around. That you don’t have to think too hard but also use your imagination to experience and feel things that can’t be felt directly.  

Before today I thought poetry was the shortest way to write a story. Poetry was something that started a long time ago. While I wasn’t totally wrong, poetry is literature in the shortest form. I learned that in poetry the author has to find many ways to keep the lines short but meaningful. The author often uses similes and metaphors to give the readers a better image of the story. In “Sonnet 18”  by William Shakespeare, we see Shakespeare the entire poem as a whole is a metaphor comparing the person to summer. Also in the poem, Shakespeare also uses even more metaphors to compare the person to summer, but the poem ends by saying the person is better than summer which gives the readers something to think about. So now I feel that poetry is something that you can’t just read to understand, its something that the readers need to analyze to find what the author is saying and thinking.

What most impacted my view of poetry from this week was the How to Read a Poem article. I’m only just realizing that you need some sort of guidance to understand leveled (mostly artistic) media. I’ve learned, like all interesting media, you must learn how to interpret information in an accurate and cohesive manner. Making things too convoluted can easily muddy your thought process and the subject matter itself. I’ve always had trouble understanding the lineation within poetic stanzas but this article showed a perspective that played close to my interests. As a rhythmically focused person, I enjoyed the part in the article that mentioned the relationship between music and poetry. “Some poets think of their words as music flowing from a horn; they think of phrases the way a saxophonist might.” For me, this is a great tip to keep in mind when reading artful writing.