One-Stop Poetry Shop

As you know, UNISA prescribed a list of 20 poems for this year. You will be examined on 2 - one in ENN101 this semester and one in ENN102 next semester. A few extra classes and energy drinks later, we've broken all records and managed to actually go through each of those 20 poems. I hope you're as impressed as I am.

In case you couldn't make the last class (Danielle's Psych students had a clash), I will be offering a repeat extra class on THURSDAY 30th April at 12:50 in room 24.

In order to help you prepare for exams, here are brief reminders of each poem on UNISA's list. This is not a substitute for attending class, merely a reminder of some of the more salient points in each poem in order for you to complete a good general critical analysis in an exam situation.

*** This is a work in progress - keep checking back, as I post more on each poem ***

MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888) - Dover Beach

Things to look out for:

Pathetic fallacy, religious allegory, the pulsing sea-like rhythm, 'sound effects' in alliteration and assonance.

SHABBIR BANOOBHAI (1949 - ) - When the First Slave Was Brought to the Cape

Things to look out for:

Form (particularly lack of capitalisation), positivity and tenses, blurring the boundaries between the possible and impossible through imagery, freedom of the spirit, the possiblities of refiguring the self.

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) - London

Things to look out for:

Mimesis in the endless, heavy rhythm, repetition, imagery, 'sound effects' in alliteration and assonance.

Seeing as they are only a couple of decades apart, it's particularly interesting to contrast Blake's representation of London with Wordsworth's in Composed on Westminster Bridge.

ROY CAMPBELL (1901-1957) - The Zulu Girl

Things to look out for:

Othering, association of women with the land/nature, foreshadowing of ominous future.

HART CRANE (1899 - 1932) - My Grandmother's Love Letters

Things to look out for:

Imagery and its implications, sense of female lineage and desire, sexual/familial positioning, the significance of line breaks, water/memory imagery.

ROBERT FROST (1874-1963) - Mending Wall

Things to look out for:

Rhythm and form as examples of mimesis, register, literal and figurative meanings.

FHAZEL JOHANNESSE - A Young Man's Thoughts Before June the 16th

Things to look out for:

Form (particularly the lack of capitalisation and punctuation), youthful, romanticised notions of martyrdom, the childlike - though not childISH - speaking voice, 'sound effects' produced by alliteration and assonance.

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) - When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

* Commentary coming *

PHILIP LARKIN (1922 - 1985) - Talking in Bed

This is Larkin's intricately structured examination of a dying relationship. Look at RHYME STRUCTURE, IMAGERY that reflects an uneasy relationship and the ironies of the title and FORM. Remember our discussion of the significance of the breakdown in rhyme and formal structure from the 'clean' first stanza through to the increasingly messy structure breakdown that occurs further on. This is can be seen as an example of mimesis - mirroring the breakdown in the relationship. Recall the significance of the number 3 in this poem - the odd number, three's a crowd etc. Also consider expectation ("should be the easiest") versus reality ("but more and more time passes silently"). Focus on those last, paradoxical "words at once true and kind/or not untrue and not unkind."

OSWALD MTSHALI (1940 - ) - Men in Chains

Do NOT get this confused with Sepamla’s The Loneliness Beyond!

Look at:

Dehumanising animal imagery vs humanising sun imagery (personification) and the implications of this, anticlimax of doomed prophesy in final line.

EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY (1892 - 1950) - I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed

Things to look out for:

Subversive use of the sonnet form, line breaks, feminist perspective.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) - On His Blindness

Milton's sonnet addressing his encroaching blindness. Although it is never good to conflate poet and speaker, in this case we can say that the speaker IS Milton himself. This is a very personal testament to his struggle with faith and purpose after failing eyesight has called into question his life choices. Look at STRUCTURE (particulars of Petrarchan sonnet and its typical association with love), ENJAMBMENT and its effect on the sense of RHYME, IMAGERY (particularly dark/light) and PUNS/WORD PLAY. Recall the Biblical parable of the Talents.

ESSOP PATEL (1943 - 2007) - In the Shadow of Signal Hill

A short, yet powerful call for violent revolution against Apartheid laws. Look at the IMAGERYand its IMPLICATIONS, as well as the TITLE and lack of PUNCTUATION/CAPITALISATION. Remember our geography quiz? District 6 is associated with forced removals, Langa is a township near the airport (where many black evicted residents might have gone) and Robben Island (where the "heroes" call from) is easily visible from Signal Hill. Signal Hill itself is famous for the noonday gun - a military symbol of the passing of time. What kind of alternate militant symbols of passing time are being called for in the poem?

SIPHO SEPAMLA (1932 - 2007) - The Loneliness Beyond

Do NOT get this one confused with Motshali’s Men in Chains!

Things to look out for:

Look at IMAGERY (particularly animal/human contrasts and the themes of people's lack of individuality. Ask yourself whether, in the last few lines, there might be a subtle sense of forboding.

MONGANE SEROTE (1944 - ) - Alexandra

Things to look out for:

The speaker's inner child-voice that changes register, regression into childhood to parallel helplessness, imagery, continuous play between person/place (Alexandra as woman’s name and Alexandra as township).

PERCY SHELLEY (1792-1822) - Ozymandias

Look at form, as well as line breaks. Notice and comment on the 'story within a story' approach.

WOLE SOYINKA (1934 - ) - Capitol

A scathing political statement against the capitalist trade of a country's (and, thus, people's) access to basic natural resources. This poem is replete with PUNS ("germ", "dough", "tender", "sad"). Look also for basic contrast in IMAGERY (happy, smiling faces to sadness, embers to ashes etc).

STEPHEN WATSON (1955 - ) - The Rain That is Male

It's important to recognise that this poem is a poetic interpretation and translation of the Bleek and Lloyd Collections, whcih are, themselves, translations of !Xam narratives and myths. that means that the politics of this piece are pretty fascinating, given your course preoccupation with 'selves and others'.

Things to look out for:
Form, male/female binaries.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770 - 1850) - Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Spetember 3, 1802

Things to look out for:

Unusual figuration of the city/culture as feminine (and nature as masculine), extended metaphor of London as a beautiful woman, use of sonnet form, unusual Romantic extolling of the virtues of the city as pseudo-pastoral space.

William Butler Yeats ( 1865-1939) - The Second Coming

Things to look out for:

Image of spirals, revolution and thwarted communication, apocalyptic religious imagery, 'sound effects' in alliteration and assonance.

Assignment Panic? Never!

I know a lot of you are starting to face the hand-in horror of Friday. Here are a couple of helpful hints; take a deep breath and read them through!



If you're writing on the Press poem:


I suggest that paragraph 1 should set up your understanding of the speaking voice - who is the speaker and what is their position on the refugees? Once you've explained some of the complexities around what is said versus what is implied in this poem, your analysis will flow a lot smoother.

Now, take my worksheet of questions that I gave you in class, and turn a couple of your favourite points into one paragraph each. Remember, whenever you're trying to make a point, it helps if you use a quote from the poem (properly referenced, of course!) to back up your ideas. Don't just drop a quote in cold - use it in a sentence. Make it work for you.

Above all else: don't rush your points. Take the time to do your ideas justice. You have 3 pages - use them! Remember my 3 critical analysis questions and APPLY them.

If you're writing on the Conrad:

This is a lovely, but broad essay topic - like Marlow, you will need to navigate your own path through the jungle of ideas. You HAVE to use quotes from the text in this! They will act like road signs and draw your reader back to the text, making your final mark that much higher.

Remember: one idea per paragraph. If you speak of the "heart of darkness" being the literaral geographical space of Africa as represented by Colonial Europeans, don't suddenly begin referring to the brutality that lies in the Coloniser's own hearts - it mixes ideas! You need to insert a nice, fresh paragraph break. That way, your marker won't get theme-claustrophobia.

Please remember to reference all quotes using Harvard conventions: ".....quote....." (Author surname, year of publication: page number).

Your essay will consist of three or four main points (ideas as to what the "heart of darkness" might refer to) and, for each one, one or two strong links to the text supporting your argument. It will mean re-reading several sections of the book to find the right quotes. Yes, RE-READING!

Remember, I am happy to look at drafts, but not on Thursday. If anyone asks me for help on Thursday, I may take payment in fingers.

Hope for More than Just Refugees

First thing’s first. We have an ESSAY EXTENSION – your 2 essays are now both due on the 20 March. This means both your essay on Karen Press' Hope for Refugees and the essay on your choice of the three novels will be due on the same date.

This does not mean that you should leave them until then! Rather start them now and use the next week to show me your drafts (as some people already have). Remember, you’ll have a lot more work coming up around that time (like your midterms!). Speaking of midterms, come and fetch an exam timetable from me if you haven't already got one. You write ENN101 on March 20th - the exact same day your essays are due. Easy on the memory, hard on the execution.

We had a nice long chat about the poetry essay in class this week. You seemed to have a lot of anxiety over where to start your analysis, but I reminded you that you actually know more than you think about poetry. In fact, when it comes to understanding the subtleties of language, rhythm and sound effects, you already have all the ‘answers’ – you just need to identify the right questions to ask yourself. After I handed out some guiding questions for you, this turned out to be the case. Glorious! Remember to come and see me, though, if you want to run your essay by me…or if you want help coming up with more questions!

Some further tips for writing a first-class essay:

1 - Don't waste space talking about 'what the poem is about'. Even worse, don't spend pages talking about the context of the refugee situation in South Africa. Although you might want to reference both of these topics, keep them short and to-the-point. In general, your essay should be more focussed on the POEM itself - think of yourself as a scientist dissecting and tweezing apart each little word, sentence contruction and image and sticking it under the microscope. Your essay should be a CLOSE EXAMINATION of the text, first and foremost. If you follow the headings I suggested you talk about (form, rhythm, word choice, imagery etc), you should stay away from the pitfalls of going off topic. Use this extra time to really craft your poetry essay! I look forward to reading them.

2 - Don't confuse the POET (the fabulous Karen Press) and the SPEAKER (unknown person whose attidude and views are complex and worth investigating).

3 - Always follow through on your three golden questions of critical anlaysis (WHAT do I notice that is different and interesting? WHAT EFFECT does this create in me the reader? WHY might the poet have wanted to create this effect?). Stopping half way through will almost always undermine your argument.

4 - QUOTE from the text to support your arguments. If you're trying to show show how a particular line creates a certain meaning, quote it. It's hard to make meaning out of an abstract concept. Show it off, parade it about and, above all, make it work for you.

______________________

So, what else did we do?

Well, for one thing, we discovered that pretty much everybody needs to brush up on their Heart of Darkness plot knowledge.

Read. Read, or I'll throw more than marshmallows at you next time.

We chatted about the concept of Empire, power and representation. I asked you to get into the mindset of a white, British man at the height of Empire....temporarily. This was to understand the rhetoric (ways of talking) and world view that the novel would be set against. It's often hard for students to see just how revolutionary and before his time Marlow's perspective on colonisation is, so hopefully remembering this exercise will help to clarify that for us.

Hopefully I'll be seeing many of you on Saturday, at the 'Infecting the City' outing. Wear comfortable shoes - we'll be doing a lot of running between venues - and bring a camera!

PROGRAMME

At 9:30am, we will be meeting in Church Square (corner of Adderley and Bureau Streets – behind the Old Slave Lodge) to watch Limbo – a new collaborative work about today’s immigrants that dangles breathtakingly above the square where white slave-owners used to buy foreigners.

We will then move to Thibault Square (corner of Riebeeck and Long Streets, opposite the SARS tax office) where, at 10:30am, we will watch Amakwerekwere. “Amakwerekwere” is a derogatory South African term to describe African immigrants and, as such, this piece explores the issue of xenophobia.

At 11:15am, we move to the Adderley Street Fountains, where we’ll see Exile - a work about loss that haunts Cape Town’s iconic fountains while the traffic circles.

At 12 noon we will head over for the launch event in Riebeeck Square (corner of Shortmarket and Bree streets)– Turning into the Void. Sponsored by Red Bull, this vast animated sculpture hangs suspended from a crane against Cape Town’s dramatic skyline.

Have a great weekend,

C

PS 71 students have put their names down for Macbeki so far. SEVENTY ONE. (R28, March 10th). Just call me Ms Marketer.

On Your Marks...

It was great meeting all of you this week.

Here are a couple of reminders of what we chatted about.

We began to tackle the concept of critical analysis - a new way of looking at texts (remember what a text is?). I gave you three basic rules of performing a critical analysis in poetry:

1. WHAT is different or interesting about this poem?
   


2. WHAT EFFECT does this have on the way we read, hear or understand it?
   


3. WHY might it have been done?
   

Follow this approach and you'll be well on the way to writing amazing poetry essays!

We also chatted about three important 'tools' that poets use to create meaning.

FORM (very roughly, the way the poem is laid out on the page)

RHYTHM (the 'beat' of the poem - this may be regular or irregular, but it's always done for a purpose)

'SOUND EFFECTS' (things like alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia).

Finally, I suggested that poems and songs are closely connected, which gave rise to some very unfortunate dance moves. Speaking of which, click on this link to have another look at Ani Difranco performing the magnificent 'Coming Up'. I prefer this simpler live version to the one I played you in class. If you like it, have a listen to Grand Canyon - another 'spoken song'. And, of course, check out her music too! (with Valentine's day just around the corner, you might enjoy this one).

FOR NEXT TIME...

Look out for a poem, song or lyric that you particularly enjoy this week and think about what makes it clever or interesting. Please bring it to class next time - I want to see what you enjoy....and why!