It has been awhile since I sat down to read poetry – even longer since I have written any – and I had forgotten how much I enjoy the twist of phrase and the mental pictures a few words can create.  The slight alteration to the usage of common words can add a provocative twist to the meaning of ordinary everyday words and cause them to draw pictures in my mind of a slightly different hue.  I especially enjoyed the following poem by Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 -2000).

Speech to the Young.  Speech to the Progress-Toward

"Say to them,

say to the down-keepers,

the sun-slappers,

the self-soilers,

the harmony-hushers,

“Even if you are not ready for day

It cannot always be night.”

You will be right.

For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.

Live not for the-end-of-the-song.

Live in the along.” (398)

Gwendolyn was born the same year as my mother, and writes to the young children, “the harmony-hushers” as she calls them.  Whilst reading her words, I suddenly hear echoes of noisy children at play and the mid-night cries of certain small “self-soilers” who roused me from my sleep.

“Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night” reminds us all that morning often comes before we are ready for it and so too those days link together into years that speed by far too quickly.  If one is too busy looking only toward the goal, one can miss the journey.  “Live in the along.”  Live in the moment.  Enjoy the journey.  Do not be in a hurry for the end of the song, the end of childhood, for too soon after follow the days of old age.  Looking beyond my first responses to the poem, I think the author is also referring to progress.  To paraphrase the meanings I see in the poem:  Enjoy life and embrace progress.

Works cited

Kennedy, X.J. and Dana Gioia, eds.  Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing.  4^th ed.  Boston: Pearson, 2012. 398. Print.

“Everyday Use”

Dee, the prettier daughter with the nice hair, a full figure and cute feet, was coming home for a visit.  At age 16, her Mama remembers, Dee had “a style of her own: and she knew what style was” (71).  Dee read aloud to her family, her mama and her sister Maggie, and to her few friends, whether they wanted to hear it or not, and had a “faultfinding power” that she readily exercised along with a “scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye” (72).  It was not a secret that she hated the three room house with no real windows where she grew up, and maybe even hated her sister and mother, but Dee went away to college on money her mother and the church raised, and now after having “made it” she was coming home for a visit.

As a child Dee wanted nice things.  Now with a new name, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, she snapped lots of pictures of the house with her Polaroid and she wanted the nice things, the handmade folk art items that Mama and Maggie had.  She wanted the hand-carved butter churn top and wooden dasher, even though she didn’t remember which uncles had carved them, and even though someone would need to carve new ones before the butter could be churned again.  And she wanted the hand-stitched quilts with the old fabric pieces, including the quilt stitched with a small piece of Great Grandpa’s civil war uniform. 

However, the quilts had been promised to her sister, Maggie.  “But they’re priceless!  Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!  She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use,” said Dee (Wangero).  Mama replied, “I reckon she would, God knows I been saving ‘em for long enough with nobody using ‘em.  I hope she will!” (75). Maggie was standing in the doorway. “She can have them, Mama,” she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her…” (76).  This was a pivotal moment for Mama, and she felt like “something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap” (76).

Although Dee claims that Mama and Maggie don’t understand their heritage, it is really Dee who doesn’t understand. Dee only wants the quilts and carved items because of their value and because she wants beautiful things.  Maggie and Mama understand about the time and care that family members put into making the useful, everyday items of beauty and the love that was in every stitch and scrap.  Love does no good stored away; it is best enjoyed for everyday use.

In this story, Mama is the central character because she is “the one who must deal with the plot complications and the central crisis of the story” (90).  Dee is the “round” (55) character because we know the most about her personality, from both her actions and from what Mama conveys to us. Maggie is a “flat” character, with “only one outstanding trait or feature, or at most a few distinguishing marks” (55).  Maggie is not pretty or bright and ever since the house fire that left her arms and hands badly scared she walks “chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle” (71). The other flat character is Dee’s short, stocky companion, with “hair all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail” (72).

Works cited

Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing (4^th).  Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 69-76. Print.

"A Rose for Emily"

     As my journey at Marylhurst University continues, and computer technology continues to have an increasingly important role in communication, this blog will reboot with my postings of  weekly assignments from my Literature class.  The reboot begins with an analysis of the use of  "point of view" in a story...

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

The narrator of this story is a minor, unnamed character, a member of the town, who gives us an account of the life of Miss Emily in the town, as well as observations about her life and her death.  The story opens with the event of Miss Emily's funeral, and is written in the first person plural.  "When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral..." 

The story continues with a retrospect of the life of Miss Emily and various events involving members of the town in both the recent and more distant past.  The narrator describes Miss Emily's reaction to the death of her father, when she was still a young woman,  "We did not say she was crazy then...we knew that with nothing left, she would cling to that which had robbed her, as people will."  These words foreshadow the future.

The narrator is a member of the town and is of some importance and authority which makes him a reliable narrator.  Although we do not know his exact role, he seems to be an official.  He is a member of the official group who, after the funeral, knocks down the door to a sealed upstairs room in Miss Emily's house.  This narrator's point of view allows the reader to be intrigued by the mysterious life of Miss Emily and then be surprised by the final discovery in that upstairs room.