#Poetry Blood Lyrics by Katie Ford (2nd poem)

• Author: Katie Ford
• Title: Blood Lyrics
• Published: 2014
• Poem:  A Child is Born Early   (2nd poem in part 1)
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly plan

 

What is part one about?

• The first of the book’s three parts, grapples
• …with motherhood and her sick child.

 

My readings:    I read the poem at least 6 x!

1. Poem is just a jumble of uneven lines…I read it quickly during a coffee break
2. I write the poem in my notebook and mark the punctuation with a red pen.
3. Then I divide the poem in full-stop sentences which makes it easier to memorize.
4. POV: who is talking to whom?
5. Notice the pronouns and does the poet speak directly to the reader?
6. I write down all the nouns
   
7. ….(w/without adjectives) to get a sense of the tone.
8. Next make a list of the images Ford uses:
9. unbreathing scripture is her new born….
10. lantern-glow is her prayer…
11. 700 dimes  ..is equal to the weigh of the per-mature baby….
12. lightning… is death that can strike in the hall of mothers.

 

Opening shot:  the first  sentence (4 lines of poem) ‘Of a Child Early Born”

1. “For the child is born an unbreathing scripture
2. And the broken authors wait on one gurney together.”
3. Ford uses these words an an invitation
   
4. …just like the opening shot of a movie.
5. …a passage into a deeper experience.
6. Deep feeling lies at the heart of most good poems.
7. Powerful.

 

Last thoughts:

1. Emily Dickinson:
2. ” If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold
3. …no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
4. Katie Ford’s poem kept me awake at night.
5. I tried to memorize this poem
6. …. and my brain would just
7. …not accept I was ‘missing a piece’.
8. Result look at IPAD Kindle at 0345 am!
9. #NowThatIsPoetry !!
10. A Child is Born Early….harrowingly intimate and earnest.
11. I cannot review all 40 poems
12. …but I hope I’ve given you
13. a look at this impressive collection.
14. I’ve memorized the 1st and 2nd poems. and
15. Each time I recite Ford’s poems  to myself….
16. …as I pour myself a cup of coffee
17. I stop…put the coffee creamer down and I’m
18. …speechless.
19. Katie Ford is a great poet!

#Ireland Don’t Touch My Hair

• Author: Emma Dabiri
  
• Title: Don’t Touch My Hair  (256 pg)
  
• Published: 2019
• Genre:  essays
• List of Challenges 2021
• Monthly plan
• #ReadingIrelandMonth21

 

Introduction:

1. Ms Dabiri’s book begins with her upbringing in Ireland,
2. moving through to pre-colonial West Africa,
3. to the slave trade in America.
4. She discusses the market dominance of beauty products
5. …how black hair is valued and misunderstood.
6. Hair texture and style have no bearing on one’s ability to succeed.
7. Black hair has been and continues to be judged by white standards
8. …used as a tool to discriminate.

 

Conclusion:

1. Black identity is told through the prism of African hair.
2. Historically, the way you wore your hair
3. signified your marital status, your tribe, your class
4. …and your position in society.”
5. Black hair is much more than just hair….!
6. Hairstyle  is an embodied visual language.
7. Ms Dabiri gives White people this advice about African hair:
8. “…our hair is spiritual. Look but don’t touch!” (pg 47)

 

1. Strong Point:  Ms Emma Dabiri KNOWS  what she is talking about!
2. She attended the prestigious school  SOAS University of London .
3. SOAS is one of the world’s leading institutions for the
4. study of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

 

1. Strong point:  this book made me look more closely at art….
2. …and the hairstyles represented in it!

 

1. Strong point:  I thought I was going to get a book just about hair
2. but Ms Dabiri has touched on many themes relating to hairstyles.
3. Themes of personal identity,
4. cultural traditions, modern aspirations,
5. and social and political issues.
6. She deleves deeply into her own Yoruba roots
7. …..in Benin Africa.

 

1. Strong point:  Personal…describing life in Ireland as a black girl:
2. “…an environment characterized by a pervasive and
3. constant refrain of black inferiority...
4. …I was bombarded with it.” (pg 88)
   
5. But Ms Dabiri  did add some humor into her story….
6. “being black and Irish in Ireland
7. …was to have almost unicorn status” (pg 5)

 

1. Weak Point: I was not very interested  pages 103-122
2. …about A’Lelia Walker (1885 –1931)
3. She was the only surviving child of Madam C. J. Walker,
4. popularly credited as being the first self-made female millionaire
5. …promoting hair products for  African-American women.
6. I skimmed this section.
7. Chapter 5:
8. …honestly, not interested in Shea Moisture,
9. Madonna or Kim Kardashian’s  cornrows.

 

1. Strong point:  chapter 6 
2. Ms Dabiri discusses complex geometric shapes used in braiding.
3. Braiding was used also in ‘intellignce networks’.
4. Hair was used a a form of mapping
5. …a means of communication.
6. The hairstyle was a form of  signal
7. …so escape could happen in blocks of slaves.

 

1. Strong point:  TITLE!!
2. …Solange on Spotify   “Don’t’ Touch My Hair”
3. Somehow these lyrics just give expression or emotion to
4. …the deep feeling  of African hair.

Lyrics….

Don’t touch my hair
When it’s the feelings I wear
Don’t touch my soul
When it’s the rhythm I know

Don’t touch my crown
They say the vision I’ve found
Don’t touch what’s there
When it’s the feelings I wear

Last Thoughts:

1. This book was more scholarly than I anticipated.
2. Ms Dabiri has completed her PhD and her expertise is apparent.
3. She uses a mixture of scholarly and popular sources.
4. But Ms Dabiri has produced a very readable book about
5. looking at indigenous cultures from a new perspective.
6. She  emphasizes the strengths of African society in divination,
7. architecture design, entrepreneurship and…so interesting
8. the unchanging tradition of hair braiding!
9. #AbsoluteDelight  to read!

#Non-fiction Just Mercy

• Author: Bryan Stevenson (1959)
  
• Title:  Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
  
• Genre: Non-fiction
• Published: 2014  (film version: 2019)
  
• Trivia: Time Magazine – 10 Best Books Nonfiction 2014
• Trivia: The New York Times -100 Notable Book 2014
• Trivia: Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in  Nonfiction 2015
• Trivia: Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonfiction 2015
• Trivia: B. Stevenson had founded a nonprofit, Equal Justice Initiative.
• Stevenson has advocated for the release of over
• 140 prisoners facing capital punishment.
• Trivia: HBO documentary film True Justice  wins 2019 Emmy Award.
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly reading plan
• My list of books about black lives

 

Introduction:

How did I discover this book?

1. Author was interviewed on CNN this year.

What is the book about in a nutshell?

1. Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer.
2. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian.
3. He was sentenced to die for a murder he did not commit.
4. Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and
5. …political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter.
6. This is a coming of age story for this young litigator.
7. It is a look at the lives of those he defended.
8. It is an inspiring argument for compassion in pursuit of true justice.

 

Core message:

1. Bryan Stevenson argues that slavery morphed into lynch law
2. which then morphed into segregation and
3. today, into mass incarceration
4. …all of which reflect a desire to control and subjugate black people physically.
5. Simply avoiding subjects because they are hard
6. …leaves injustice to fester.
7. USA:  let’s just not talk about the past
8. …let’s not talk about race.

 

 

 

Introduction:

1. Higher Ground
2. – Stevenson visited death row for the first time, he met Henry.
3. The gospel Henry sang after meeting Bryan Stevenson
4. for the first time: I’m pressing on the Upward Way.
5. …was so impressive!
6. I immediately listened to it on Spotify!
7. LISTEN…so beautiful.

I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

Lord, lift me up, and let me stand
By faith on Canaan’s tableland;
A higher plane than I have found,
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Though some may dwell where these abound,
My prayer, my aim, is higher ground.

Lord, lift me up, and let me stand
By faith on Canaan’s tableland;
A higher plane than I have found,
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground

I want to live above the world,
Though Satan’s darts at me are hurled;
For faith has caught the joyful sound,
The song of saints on higher ground.

Lord, lift me up, and let me stand
By faith on Canaan’s tableland;
A higher plane than I have found,
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground

 

Chapter 1:

1. Mockingbird Players: 
2. – backstory about Walter McMillian, the man on death row.
3. Walter was victim of…
   1. white paranoia about interracial relations,
   2. the scapegoating of an innocent black man,
   3. a hasty conviction that flew in the face of evidence and common sense, and
   4. town authorities bent on execution.
   5. On November 1, 1986, the body of 18-year-old part-time
   6. clerk Ronda Morrison was found under a
   7. rack of clothing at Jackson Cleaners in Monroeville, Alabama.
   8. Morrison, who was white, had been bludgeoned,
   9. strangled and shot three times. About $35 was missing.
   10. Walter was charged for the crime.

 

Chapter 2:

1. Stand
2. – backstory about Bryan Stevenson as an attorney
3. in Atlanta Georgia.
4. The title of this chapter refers to the   great song by Sly and the Family Stone
   
5. LISTEN…this really brings the reader in
6. the mood for the theme of this book: struggle for justice!

Snippets of the lyrics….written in 1969 but still applicable in 2020!

There’s a cross for you to bear
Things to go through if you’re going anywhere

For the things you know are right
It’s the truth that the truth makes them so uptight

You’ve been sitting much too long
There’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong

They will try to make you crawl
And they know what you’re saying makes sense and all

Don’t you know that you are free
Well at least in your mind if you want to be

 

Chapter 3:

1. Trials and Tribulation
2. – backstory of Walter McMillian’s arrest June 7, 1987.
   
3.   details about McMillian’s trial and experiences on death row.

 

Chapter 4:

1. The Old Rugged Cross  
2. – hymn requested for Herbert Richardson’s execution….LISTEN
   
3. – backstory starting new nonprofit law center in 1987, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
4. – backstory of the clients the center tried to help
5.   Horace Dunkins…Herbert Richardson in 1989.
6.   Desperate men calling EJI  looking for hope after hearing of their execution date.
7.   In this chapter…it was difficult to read about the last hour
8. …before an execution on Herbert Richardson.
9.   Now I can appreciate how difficult it must be
10. …trying to help men on death row.
11. Strong point:   In debates about the death penalty
12. …quote: ” I couldn’t stop thinking  that we don’t spend
13. much time contemplating the details of
14. …what killing someone actually involves.”

 

1.   The Team  in 2020:  Equal Justice Initiative
2. …a nonprofit that works toward ending excessive punishment,
3. …including mass incarceration
4. …with author Bryan Stevenson in the front row.

 

 

Chapter 5:

1. Of the Coming of John
2. Title:  refers to chapter 13 in W.E.B du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk
3. Du Bois relates the story of John….needless to say it has a sad ending
4. …that relates to Walter’s  situation:
5. The story symbolizes Du Bois’s belief that all
6. …African Americans are doomed to be lynched
7. whether literally or metaphorically in 19th- and early 20-century U.S. society.
8. In this way,
9. …John (…or Walter McMillian)  can never be free in life
10. —his only path to freedom is through death.

1. – Stevenson  (lawyer) visits Walter McMillian’s in prison and his family.
2. Stevenson develops trust necessary to deal with
3. …the litigation and stress of execution.
4. We must realize how much a lawyer’s support means for these families
5. The family doesn’t  have much but they give into Stevenson’s care
6. Walter….someone they deeply love.

 

Chapter 6:

1. Surely Doomed
2. – this is such a sad story
3. …highlights the case of a 14 year old boy named Charlie.
4.  5 feet tall, 85 pounds and now in jail
5. …with adult prisoners who abused him.
6. Stevenson did manage to get him to a juvenile facility
7. …and a chance to survive.
8. You don’t read about these cases in the newspaper
9. …but I shudder to think how often people ignore evidence
10. …logic and common sense to convict someone
11. …even a 14 year old boy.

 

Chapter 7:

1. Justice Denied
2. – Walter McMillian’s appeal is denied.
3. Stevenson would have to figure out who really
4. …killed Ronda Morrison to win Walter’s release.
5. Lawyer …..becomes detective!

Chapter 8:

1. All God’s Children
2. – this entire chapter was very hard to read
3. about juveniles in adult prison
   
4. …Trina, Ian and Antonio.
5. Trina:
6. 1976: for a tragic crime committed at 14 years old
7. …Trina was condemned to life in prison.
8. 2014: now 52 years old…she is one of 500 people
9. in Pennsylvania, condemned to life without parole for crimes
10. they were accused of committing
11. …when they were between 13-17 years old.
12. I don’t know how lawyers sleep at night
13. …when confronted with US justice system.
14. They feel helpless…but keep fighting for justice.

 

Chapter 9:

1. I’m Here….refers to McMillian’s elderly mother announcing
2. …she takes her seat in the court room!
   
3. “I may be poor, I may be black, but I’m here,”
4. – Stevenson presents NEW evidence to prove McMillian is innocence.
5. Finally…On February 23, 1993, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
6. reversed McMillian’s conviction and ordered a new trial.
7. On March 2, 1993, prosecutors
8. dismissed charges against McMillian and he was released.

 

Chapters 10-16   (investigate the last chapters yourself….)

• Mitigation
• I’ll Fly Away
• Mother, Mother
• Recovery
• Cruel and Unusal
• Broken –> this chapter….is SO POWERFUL!!
• The Stonecatcher‘s Song of Sorrow
• Epilogue

 

Conclusion:

1. This is a stunning…and at times shocking book.
2. I know there are many people wrongly convicted and sent to jail.
3. But to read just these few cases Bryan Stevenson presents is
4. …so difficult to comprehend how often justice is denied in the USA.
5. His nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative has
6. …helped so many innocent victims of the justice/prison system.
7. EJI was awarded the Olof Palme International Human Rights Award 2000
8. …and deservedly so.
9. #MustRead
10. PS:    …I would NEVER  move to Alabama!

 

Last thoughts:

Reading this book was like drinking fortified wine.
It was heavy and sweet and bitter and swirled in my head long
after I put it down.
And I put it down often, consuming it in slow sips.

Honest and eye opening…
the world needs this raw honest truth.

“…It’s when mercy is least expected
that it’s most potent, strong enough to break
the cycle of victimization victim hood and suffering.”
(Bryan Stevenson, page 294 chapter 15 ‘Broken’)

 

16 September 2000

Bryan Stevenson
who has for many years worked intensively, in his daily actions, for the abolition of the death penalty. Bryan Stevenson is a courageous representative of all the individuals, women and men from the entire world, who have maintained tirelessly that the right to life cannot be controverted, that the death penalty is an ultimate form of torture, and that the state does not have the right to kill its citizens.

 

 

 

#Poetry Ailbhe Darcy “Insistance”

• Author: Ailbhe Darcy
• Title: Insistance   18 poems  and  I liked  just 1 !!
  
• Published: 2018
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly reading plan
• #TBR  challenge update  
• Read 22/43 books that I purchased in 2019!
• NOTE:  all comments are my personal reactions to the poems
• ….A. Darcy is an award winning poet and my thoughts should not
• diminish the quality of her work.

Irish poets I would strongly recommend:

• Gerard Fanning ‘Water & Power’
• Eva Bourke  ‘Seeing Yellow’

 

General impression:

I read one reviewer describe Darcy’s poems as ‘…a bit too clever’.
The reader’s ability to understand, interpret and appreciate poetry is different with each person, I agree with this. but….

What makes successful poem?
Accessibility is the extension of a poet to the reader and say
Come here, with me and lets share this experience of language.

What makes successful poem?
A poem written in plain language that can connect with the reader.

What irritates me the most?

I dislike  the quirky poets with visual tricks or dazzle readers with their vocabulary!
Too many poets are cryptic….they think the purpose of poetry is to be cryptic.
Poetry should be plain and simple…but that does not mean it cannot be complex.

 

My notes:

Conclusion: Hair
Oke…Darcy has a wide vocabulary (simulacra, chyme, fettled, to futz) but IMO does not a great poet make.

 

Conclusion: Umbrella
Yet another poem that leaves me unmoved…

 

Conclusion: The Car
Quirky….memory of family car and time in South Bend Indiana.

 

Conclusion: Postcards from Europe
Bombs, St. Martin, sword swallower…sigh
…this poem did not throw open my imagination
it nearly put me asleep.

 

Conclusion Mushrooms
Mish-mash of words and random thoughts that don’t make sense to me.
Mushrooms? Really?

 

Conclusion: Stink
I just lost interest….there is no great message…not emotional buzz
…no humor or creative metaphors.

 

Conclusion: Nice
Absolutely no emotional reaction
This poem about….cockroaches and robots, please!
I listened to the poet recite this poem…it didn’t improve
the reading experience.

 

Conclusion: Silver
…..more insects, silverfish. Not for me.

 

Conclusion: Jellyfish
I read the the article by K. Mathiesen which is the inspiration for Darcy’s poem (The Guardian, 21.08.2015). I could not find a coherent link to the article and the poem with the exception of the word jellyfish. I found the poem an unfathomable rant.

 

Conclusion: Angelus
Now I thought concept is known “devotional prayer for morning, noon and evening’. That should help me read this 3 part poem.
No. I could not make heads or tails of it.
It’s probably not Ailbhe Darcy’s fault…it has to be me.

 

Conclusion: Service not included
Try as iI do…I cannot link the 4x mentions of shopping centres and 3 x of hospitals.
I presume the speaker is the poet and imagine she’s referring to her mother-in-law
But only Darcy can confirm this.
…all the references to (mother-in-law??)
— your tears?
— your hands
— your own son
— Your hands
— your way there
— your palms
— your daughters
— your hands
Baffled.

 

Conclusion: Postcard of ‘Walls of Aran’
What a beautiful photograph….yet I was not able to link this with the long blast of words in Darcy’s poem. Her words made zero impact on me. On the other hand….this image is breathtaking! Getting bored with Ailbhe Darcy
….even if she is considered one of the best Irish poets in a generation! I feel obligated to get through her poems….if I bought the book I should read it.

 

Conclusion: My son is born
Poems about children example: ….by Katie Ford in her collection Blood Lyrics “Of a child early born” brought tears to my eyes but unfortunately Ailbhe Darcy cannot evoke the same emotion in me.

 

Conclusion: Election Day
What does this poem have to do with an election day?
Darcy has the ability to write a poem which has
NO relation to the title…that I can discover!

 

Conclusion: A guided tour of the house and its environs

Rambling on and on…. (excerpts)

This is where the floor slants you can roll a ball
This is where I killed the ants with cleaning chemicals
This tortuous shape represents a salamander squeeze
the distance and it grows it shrinks when we leave it alone
This is where you froze the mouse you’d half killed
This is where you’ll lie down again with me…

Here is the beef we ate for the iron
We have been invited to a wedding in Austin
Here is the deck the landlord built
Here is our herb garden
Here is my bicycle
You bought a waffle iron…

I do not see the poetic beauty in this poem.
I could even write something like this!

 

Conclusion: Ansel Adams’ Aspens
13 sentences with enjambment for  visual effect.
Repetition of a few phases…
” To tiny Ansel Adams…”

Focus on SKY:
the sky must seem a miracle
the sky bright and bottomless
the sky must seem a matter of fact
the bright black sky
the sky is what it is

Focus on TREE(s)
trees gnarled as the knees of elephants
renders each tree a bouquet of paper
each tree out there glows with itself

What does Ansel Adams want to do?
— toiling after the spirit, not just the body of America.
— the mind beneath he wants to grasp

This was a very nice poem about Ansel Adams photographs

 

Conclusion: Still
Did I like any of the poems?
I liked  ONLY ONE POEM    “Still”.
I read it and then listened to A. Darcy read the poem.
It was THE BEST poem in the book.

 

#Ockham NZ Awards poetry Therese Lloyd

• Author: Therese Lloyd
  
• Title: The Facts
  
• Published: 2018
• Genre: poetry
• Trivia: 2019 Ockham NZ  Book Awards shortlist
  
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly plan
• @theockhams
• @VUPBooks
• #AWW2019
• @AusWomenWriters

 

Poem:  “no title”

1. Just 64 words, no title, no punctuation, no capital letters.
2. But this poem  had the
3. …emotional impact of fear and hope.
4. Fear moves one away from something a feeling
5. “common and strangely comfortable.”
6. Hope moves one towards something a feeling
7. that starts with “a voiceless wish”.
8. The heightened image of a ‘pinned down moth”
9. who wants to fly home is beautiful.
10. A moth where the ‘hot glass ceiling” (of specimen drawer)
11. “reflected only her calm, resolute gaze.”
12. How often do we feel ‘pinned down’?
13. Conclusion: excellent poem to kick-off this collection
14. …it will linger in your mind.

---

 

Prose poem:   On Looking at Photographs in High School Yearbooks

Appears as prose (anecdotes about school chums and her mother)
Reads like poetry (…not really, no pattern, rhythm, rhyme)
No line breaks (…just paragraphs)

What can I find ‘poetic about it?
No much, no elaborate metaphors
but I did find one symbol: eclipse and
repetition of the word ‘lack’ to help me pinpoint
the core message of the prose poem.

Conclusion:
Narrator: “…hated myself” for the “..lack of shimmer, the confusion”
The yearbooks “brought a swift eclipse of 28 years.” (Re: symbol)
“There is always more lack waiting” and
it fell like a shadow (Re: phase of eclipse) over her life.
Now the yearbooks have shone light on her memories (Re: phase of eclipse)
and she discovers the faces of those girls (Re: in yearbooks)
“All naked and plain. We all had it.”

---

 

Poem: Y2k

1. Y2K  (2 long stanzas) felt like to distinct poems.
2. stanza 1:  What is humanness….what does it feel like?
3. stanza 2:  NZ feels high-esteem “… That lovely conceit of time”
4. …because in 2000 Gisbourne NZ felt the first rays of sunshine
5. …in the new millennium.
6. Conclusion: average poem with no emotional impact for me.

---

 

Poem:  On Metaphysical Insight  (metaphysical = ‘after the physical’)

• It took me an hour to read 10 lines!
• That attests to the Therese Lloyd’s talent.
• She walks creatively into a painting by Ed Hopper
• ….but the reader must discover
• …which painting it is from the clues in the poem.
• Lloyd opens the poem:
• “Night-time alone suffocates colour.”
• Now the reader must see the
• …thick black oils, smeared yellow lights
• and a frowning bowl of fruit
• …to help  one to unlock this poem.
• Conclusion: Chef d’oeuvre, master work!
• I saw things in  Ed Hopper’s painting after reading
• …this poem that I never saw before.

 

Most difficult section to comprehend:

Pg 34-43

1. Lloyd wants to illustrate that poems echo
2. and reecho against each other.
3. ‘They cannot live alone anymore than we can”.
4. Five poems and than five second drafts of these poems
5. …were difficult  appreciate.
6. I just do not have the poetic savvy
7. to see connections or disjunction between the poems.
8. Sigh.

 

Update:   I found the connections!      Now you try!

 

Best selection…..absolutely amazing.

1. The Facts (pg 44-52)
2. Listen to a broken heart….
3. …it is sounds more like a confession.

 

Poem: Funeral Playlist  (pg  68)

1. Never read a poem with a playlist before!
2. With Spotify I listened to Lloyd’s selections.
3. I tried to find the line(s) in the lyrics that would
4. reveal the emotions Lloyd has hidden in this poem
5. #Inventive
6. Playlist:
7. Into  My Arms (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds)
8. Here’s Where the Story Ends (The Sundays)
9. Avalon (Brian Ferry, Roxy Music)

 

Conclusion:

1. I reviewed a few of the poems in this book.
2. There are 32 poems divided into groups:
3. Time — Desire — Absence.
4. Lloyd writes 3 poems with reference to
5. 3 paintings by Ed Hopper: Office at Night
6. Western Hotel and Eleven a.m.
7. If you place the image of the painting from Google images
8. in front of you and then read these poems
9. …it is an unique poetic experience!
10. The Facts is MY CHOICE  to win
11. Ockham NZ Book Award 2019 for poetry.
12. It is the ONLY collection I could get my hands on
13. before 14 May 2019.
14. Will one of the other nominees win?
15. …only the jury can tell us
16. …and I will see if I agree after 15th of July
17. …when my books arrive!

 

Last thoughts:

1. I think of reading  poetry in terms of Zen:
2. Trying new things reminds us
3. …that it’s ok to take small steps,
4. to make a little progress each day.
5. It’s ok to feel inept  at something at first.
6. The goal is learning, not perfecting.

#Poetry: Katie Ford

• Author:  Katie Ford
• Title: Blood Lyrics (collection of 40 poems)
• Published: 2014
• Poem: The Spell
• Trivia: Blood Lyrics was a finalist for
• …the LA Times Book Prize and the Rilke Prize.

 

Introduction:

1. It will take me several weeks to read and understand
2. 40 poems…so I’m posting one at a time.
3. My goal is to read the poems and do some
4. investigation about the ‘nuts and bolts’ of poetry.
5. This poem taught me about enjambment.

 

Who is Katie Ford?

1. Katie Ford has completed graduate work
2. …in theology and poetry at Harvard University
3. She received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
4. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review,
5. …The American Poetry Review.
6. She teaches at the University of California, Riverside.

 

Title:  The Spell

1. A spell is a wish or desire. In this poem the
2. …speaker (?) pleas to a nameless receiver for a change of action.
3. Form and Structure: 
4. Free verse with no specific rhyme or meter,  15 line in 1 stanza.
   
5. Ford uses enjambment (line 1,5, 6, 7) to emphasize
6. …a thought on the next line and
7. …keeping a pleasing form that will appeal to the reader.
8. Repetition (anaphora):
9. Ford uses the word ‘take’ 5 times:
10. ….to take my..lights, opal, call of bells, thin lead, all that is nimble, take their cotton.
11. Symbol:  In line 13 “threshing floor” could  represent a
12. place of (Biblical) judgement or
13. a place where good is separated from the evil (grain/chaff).
14. This is just my interpretation.

 

Conclusion:

1. This  poem is a ‘list-with-a-twist’
2. The speaker lists all the things we can take
3. but…in the last line…
4. …Ford tells us what one must NOT take!
5. The unexpected or surprised shift in meaning
6. causes the reader to reinterpret or
7. rethink the opening part of the poem.
8. Puzzle: Ford uses possessive pronouns:
9. ‘My” is obvious referring to the speaker but
10. Ford suddenly refers to “take their cotton, reap their fields,” (line 10)
11. “…my industry, it is yours.” (line 11).
12. I haven’t a clue as to who “they or you’ are!
13. First line:  ” Take my lights, take my most and only (enjambment)
14.                     opal”
15. Last line:   “but do not take (…no spoiler).

 

Last thoughts:

1. I enjoyed the poem and learning some basics about poetry.
2. I learned the definition and purpose of enjambment.
3. The most difficult part is ‘finding’ the enjambment!
4. TIp: always ask yourself at the end of the line
5. …have I understood the whole thought in this line?
6. If not…the thought is probbly in the next line using ‘enjambment.
7. The poet breaks the line to emphasize an idea or theme.
8. Strategy: In order to get a feel for the poem I’m reading
9. …I’m writing it in long-hand in a notebook.
10. Reading a poem digitally just does not work for me.
11. This way I can make notes about punctuation, enjambment
12. meter, rhyme and high-light words or images I want to investigate.

 

#Non-fiction: Evicted: Poverty and Profit

• Author: M. Desmond
• Title: Evicted
• Published: 2016 (448 pg)
• Trivia:  Winner Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction  2017
• Trivia: Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
• List of Challenges 2018
• Monthly planning
• Non-Fiction Reading List
• #NonFicNov

 

Who is Matthew Desmond?

1. Matthew Desmond is a sociologist and  Professor of the
2. …Social Sciences at Harvard University.
   
3. In 2015, Desmond was awarded a MacArthur  ‘Genius Grant’
4. …because Desmond has shown  extraordinary
5. ..originality and dedication in his creative pursuits.

 

What is the book about?

1. Matthew Desmond centers on eight Milwaukee Wisconsion
2. families faced with losing their homes.
3. He analyzes how an increase in evictions has affected
4. …residents of America’s poorest cities.
5. In larger cities like Washington D.C. the wait for
6. ….public housing was counted in decades.
7. A mother of a young child who put her name on the list
8. …might be a grandmother by the time her application was reviewed.
9. How can this happen in one of the richest countries on earth?
10. The book also give us the landlord’s point of view.
11. Many landlords were fearful of renting to poor residents in these neighborhoods.
12. Landlord Sherrena knew that it could be extremely profitable.

 

Conclusion:

1. Arleen: she had 2 small children  Jafaris (5) and Jori (13).
2. They had been evicted 3 x within 4 months.
3. Arleen tried hard to make her livings quarters….a home.
4. She did her best.
5. Strong point:  Desmond does not only gives the reader a glimpse into
6. …this side of life for many people
7. ….he also suggests solutions for the problems.
8. Arleen’s  favorite song was : ‘Keep Ya Head Up’.
9. After I finished the book I sat and listened to
10. 2PAC for the first time in my life.
11. I followed the lyrics and listened.
12. It is the essence of this book….’Keep Ya Head Up’.
13. If you have the time…..
14. …listen to the audio  4 min song.
15. You won’t forget it.
16. Poor black men were locked up (prison)
17. …poor black women were locked out (evicted).

 

Last thoughts:

1. My general feeling about the book?
2. It was depressing…I was shocked how many people
3. …struggle to keep a roof above their heads.
4. Some people spend 80% monthly income on housing.
5. What is left?

 

The New Yorker: 10 Sept 2018 “excellent short story”

• Author: Saīd Sayrafiezadeh
• Title: Audition
  
• Published: 10  September 2018  The New Yorker
  
• Trivia:  Sayrafiezadeh was a finalist for PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize
  
• and he won a 2010 Whiting Writers’ Award for his memoir.
  
• List Challenges 2018
  
• Monthly planning
• #DealMeIn2018  Jay’s  Bibliophilopolis

 

What is the hook?

1. Well it has to be the first sentence:
2. “The first time I smoked crack cocaine was  the Spring
3. … I worked construction for my father on his new subdivision Moonlight Heights.”
4. But no, this is not going to be all about drugs,
5. Sayarfiezadeh tells us in the second line what he wants to achieve.
6. I quote him because I could not have said it better….in a nutshell.
7. “…jotting down details about the poeple I observe so I can
8.   replicate  the human condition on screen  with nuance and veracity.”

 

SHORT STORY ANALYSIS

 

1.Explain the title. In what way is it suitable to the story?
Audition refers to the main characters desire to become a stage actor.

 

2. What is the predominant element in the story?
a. 90 % Inner dialogue: the speech of a the narrator to himself.
b. He hears it and the reader hears it, but other
c. characters have no idea what’s going on in his head
d. 10% dialogue

 

3. Who is the single main character about?
a. Nameless narrator
b. boss’s son forced to learn life the hard way
c…..working at Dad’s construction subdivision.
d.”…just another working man in wet overalls.”

 

4. What sort of conflict confronts the leading character or characters?
a.external – a self made-father vs son “dreaming of fame, art and exhault” as actor
b.internal – an outsider seeking friendship.

 

5. How is the conflict resolved?
a. External – a real job carrying 60 pound drywall across
b.“damp floors and up banisterless staircases”
c. is better than being a carbon copy actor with no talent.
d. Internal – befriending Duncan Dioguardi
e. same age…19 years older but looks 10 years older
f. from a down and out working class neighbourhood.

 

6. How does the author handle characterization ?
a. Description by narrator (unreliable?) about himself and others.
b. Narrator: American teenage voice with adult voice behind it
c. Language is conversational, simple
d. Not defined by famliy (tension between father and son)
e. 19 yr, out of shape, gone to best schools,
c. at 15yr attending weekend acting lessons.
c. Duncan Dioguardi: 19 yr but looks 10 years older
d. at 15 yr chipping bricks at a demolition site for a nickel a brick.
e. Father: in powder blue Mercedes,
f. just another big shot in 3 piece suit and safety vest.

 

7. Who tells the story? What point of view is used?
a.1st person narration captures my attention
b. narrator is an unnamed 19 year old spoiled smart-ass.

 

8. Where does the primary action take place?
a. Subdivision building site Moonlight Heights
b. working class neighborhood of weather beaten 2-story red brick homes
c. basement/bedroom ‘theater’

 

9. What is the time setting for the action?
a. Spring 1990’s

 

10. How does the story get started? What is the initial incident?
Narrator recounts is on-the-job training at his father’s building subdivision.

 

11. Briefly describe the rising action of the story.
a. Narrator describes the difference between himself and the labourers.
b. “ My problems were not their problems but I wish they were.”
c. Their problems were “immediate, distinct, resolvable.”
d. My problems were “long term, existential and impossible.”

 

12. What is the high point, or climax, of the story?
a. Epiphany – The author keeps the reader waiting
b. until the last paragraph…..builds tension!
c. ”I knew I was traversing some essential but unstated boundary,
d. but I traversed it anyway.”

 

13. Discuss the falling action or close of the story.
a. Narrator realizes he still has time
b. to make new life decisions
c. that have nothing to do with the theatre.
d. ” It was midnight. Midnight was still young”.

 

14. Does this story create any special mood?
a. There is a mood of pathos created in the story.
b. Experiences that stir up emotions of pity, sympathy, and sorrow.
c. For Duncan it was job that is going no where.
d. Stacked in the corner were some carpentry manuals for beginners.
e. ”I dabble with those sometimes,” he said ”
f. but they won’t give a guy like me a chance.”
g. This evokes feelings of sympathy in readers.

 

15. Did you identify with any of the characters?
a. Of course, you can identify with the narrator and Duncan
b. Who has never wanted to make  a dream a reality
c….only to have their bubble burst?

 

16. Does this story contain any of the following elements?
a. Motif: – There are many subtle and obvious references
b. to the theater and acting roles.
c. Father vs Son: “we played roles that  were generic superfical and true”.
d. Repetition, alliteration, contrasts, platitudes euphemisms
e…they are all there!
You have to pay your dues…
It takes as long as it takes…
It is mind over matter…
Whatever you set your mind to…
f. This makes the story a memorable experience of language.
g. Bravo, Saīd Zayarfiezadeh!
h. Irony: Duncan Dioguardi is bossy.
i. ”Put this here, put that there. He enjoys the power while the narrator
j. ”enjoys the cold comfort that I could burst his bubble by
k. telling him who my dad was.
l. But a good actor never breaks character.” (motif)

 

17. Can you find any examples of figurative language?
a. Images: Duncan:
b. He had a tattoo of a
c. ”…snake coiling around his bicep crawling up toward his neck
d. en route to devour his face…”
e. Images: nameless narrator
f. “…never get a tattoo…
g. a performer must always remain a blank slate.
h. So here I was playing
i. …the role of general laborer with flawless skin.”(motif)

 

18.  Does the story have a thematic message?
a. After reading the story I had to think of the
b. lyrics of Eminem’s song “Nowhere Fast”.
c. This  song (…it is really a poem) expresses the feeling
d. I got reading about two boys from different
e. points on the economic spectrum
f….yet they bond and come together
g. …because they are so alike.

“Wasted youth, always on the road
Never lookin’ back and we’re never gettin’ old
‘Cause the skies are black
But our heart’s made of gold.”

 

19. What was the sentence that impressed you the most?
a. Duncan: “He’d lived twice the life that I’d lived,
b. while having none of my advantages.
c. He was what my father had been before he hit it big.
d. But Duncan Dioguardi was most likely never going to hit it big.
c. His trajectory seemed already established.”
e. This reminds me of the fatalism that oozes from this story.
f. Events are predetermined and Duncan
g….is powerless to change them.

 

Conclusion:

1. Strong point:  quite funny, and emotionally engaging
2. Ending: an inevitable surprise
3. satisfying but without neatly tied up conclusions.
4. Depth: goes beyond the surface,
5. goes beyond what characters are wearing.

 

1. Strong point: The story felt like a bildungsroman
2. …novel of maturation
3. but compressed in a short story!

 

1. Note:  I listened to the fiction podcast on The New Yorker wesite
   
2. then I re-read the magazine copy.
3. The podcast was the best!
4. I can hear the rhythm of language, the alliteration, the contrasts.

 

1. Message:
2. “Who is the fool who agrees to move
3. …thru space without saying a word?”
4. #MustRead
5. #MustListen

 

Last thoughts:

1. After reading this story…I couldn’t go to sleep.
2. I kept thinking and pondering this narrative.
3. Two young men and
4. “This was an outsized struggle in a midsized city.”
5. That is impressive because not many novels
6. affect me that way!
7. The next morning I just sat at the laptop
8. …and this review ‘wrote itself’.
9. I may just concentrate only on short stories
10. …for the coming weeks.
11. Short stories are much harder  to write
12. because the author has to do so much with so few words.
13. Every word packs a punch.
14. Writing short stories is truly a skill!
15. Bravo, Saīd Zayarfiezadeh!

 

Feel Free Essays by Zadie Smith

• Author: Zadie Smith
• Title: Feel Free  (31 essays)
  
• Published: 2018
• List Reading Challenges 2018
  
• Monthly reading planning
• #DealMeIn2018  Bibliophilopolis

 

 

Fences: A Brexit Diary

1. This essay is about a topical issue: Brexit.
2. But was written in August 2016 and much has happened since.
3. The facts: The UK will leave the EU by
4. automatic operation of international law on 29 March 2019.
5. The UK government does not know what it wants
6. …and there is no UK Brexit policy worth the name.
7. Working-class Brits voted without understanding the stakes
8. …and fell back on their inherited  fear of England’s invasion by  foreigners.
9. Despite the fact that many people in London there are
10. …multicultural and cross-class aspects in their lives
11. …...that is actually represented by their staff —
12. nannies, cleaners, people who pour their coffee and who drive the cabs.
13. The painful truth is the fences are being raised all over London.
14. Conclusion:
15. Smith lambasts wealthy London.
16. ” We walk past ‘them‘  very often in the street and get into their cabs
17. …and eat their food in their ethnic restaurants
18. …but the truth is that more often than not they are
19. …NOT in  our schools, social circles, and very rarely enter our houses
20. …– unless they’ve come to work on our endlessly remodeled kitchens.”
21. Excellent essay

 

 

In the Audience  (very good!)

1. Generation Why? – review of the movie “Social Network” (Zuckerberg and Facebook).
2. Seems surreal to read this review by Zadie Smith while
3. Facebook is in the midst of turmoil (Facebook vs Cambridge Analytics scandal).
4. Zadie Smith quit Facebook 2 months after she started.
5. She admits FB has been the greatest distraction from work she has ever had.
6. In FB life is turned into a database and this is degradation.
7. We use the FB software to behave in a certain, superficial way toward others.
8. We know what we are doing ‘IN’ the software
9. ….but we don’t know what the software is doing to us? 
10. Zadie Smith quotes Lanier a software expert:
11. ” be attentive to the software into which we are ‘locked in’.
12. Is it really fulfilling our needs?
13. When a human being becomes a set of data on a
14. …website like Facebo0k, he or she is reduced
15. …our networked selves don’t look more free
16. …they look more owned.
17. It is scary reading this essay published in November 2010
18. …8 years ago…and feeling it could have been written today!
19. It does not matter who you are, as long as you make ‘choices’.
20. Zadie Smith gets nostalgic at the end of the essay
21. “I’m dreaming of a Web that caters to a kind of
22. person who no longer exists” …a private person.
23. NOTE:  I have DELETED  Facebook and TWITTER
24. …a waste of my reading time!

 

The House that Hova Built

1. Starting  The House That Hova Built. (2012, New York Times Magazine).
2. Reading this in 2018 we already know Jay-Z
3. will have an extra marital affair (2013 – 2015).
4. His wife made the 6th best selling album
5. …by a woman in all time “Lemonade” in 2016.
6. Beyoncé reveals explicitly her  progress through the discovery,
7. detonation and aftermath of the affair.
8. Album is divided into chapters:  Intuition, Denial, Anger, Forgiveness, Redemption.
9. Rapper Jay-Z mentioned in an interview with Zadie Smith:
10. And when it comes to talent,
11. ‘You just never know– there is no guage.
12. You don’t see when it’s empty.’
13. IRONY: Speaking about his then 4 month old daughter, Ivy Blue,
14. “She doesn’t have to be tough […]
15. …she has to be respectful and be a moral person“.
16. Hmm…just like her daddy!

 

Brother from Another Mother 

1. I had to look up who Key & Peele are.
2. I needed to watch some Key & Peele on You Tube!
3. The first two seasons of Key & Peele on Comedy Central 
4. ..received positive reviews, maintaining a score 74 of 100.
5. The third season of Key & Peele received
6. …critical acclaim, receiving a score of 82 of 100!
7. The series won a Peabody Award in 2013
8. “for its stars and their creative team’s inspired
9. …satirical riffs on our racially divided and racially conjoined culture.
10. THANK YOU Zadie Smith…I finally discovered Key & Peele!

 

Some Notes on  Attunement –  very personal, touching

1. I loved this essay.
2. There was a quote that made me stop and think about
3. …my determination to find out ‘What Makes Poetry Tick.
4. I think Zadie Smith has given the key I was looking for.
5. Quote:
6. “Sometimes it is when you stop trying to understand
7. …the new art  that you become more open to it.
8. Put simply: You need to lower your defenses.

 

Flaming June

Zadie Smith starts her essay “I’m trying to think of the first bits of art I ever saw.”  Now that is a good question.  My  Dad had some prints in his den of Revolutionary War 1776 soldiers hanging around a cannon. I don’t consider that art. But in my uncle’s house there was one painting (print) by Renoir I remember...I liked her hat.

But Zadie Smith  in this very short essay tells us which poster she choose to hang in her college apartment: Flaming June by Leighton. From now on she was not going to pinch pennies like her father or take up political commitments like her mother. No, Zadie was going to live for art!  “I’m going to spend three years on a sofa thinking about truth and  art…” “I was going to live for love and art and food[…]….and sleep, lots of sleep!”

 

Crazy They Call Me: On Looking at Jerry Dantzic’s Photos of Billie Holiday

1. In this essay (New Yorker, 06.03.2017) you inhabit the world of Billie Holiday.
2. Zadie Smith is writing the story from the singer’s perspective.
3. “…after the clapping dies down,
4. …there’s simply no one and nothing to be done.”
5. “…you’re grateful for your little dog…”
6. “A dog don’t cheat, a dog don’t lie.”
7. “This little dog and you? Soulmates. Where you been all my life?”
8. “You never sing anything after….’Strange Fruit“
9. This song, written by Abel Meeropol and performed
10. by many artists (but most notably, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone,)
11. …is a dark and profound song about
12. …the lynching of African Americans in the
13. …Southern United States during the Jim Crow Era.
14. In the lyrics, black victims are portrayed as “strange fruit,”
15. …as they hang from trees, rotting in the sun, blowing in the wind,
16. …and becoming food for crows upon being burned.
17. It was a protest song that Billie Holiday
18. ..very bravely performed under grave threats and at high personal cost.
19. THE BEST ESSAY

 

1. Essay: A Bird of Few Words  by Zadie Smith (The New Yorker, 19.06.2017)
2. I thought this essay was going back and forth
3. ..describing the art of  Lynette Yiadom Boakye (British- Ghanaian artist) and
4. …then comparing it to the comments of the critics.
5. But Smith went in another direction.
6. Boakye creates compelling character studies of people who don’t exist.
7. The paintings are of people with no name.
8. Boakye  can finish a portrait in 1 day…
9. …and Smith sighs from a novelist’s point of view both the
10. ..speed and clarity of Boakye is humbling.
11. This painting I found light as if the person was about to take flight!
    

    

12. But this painting just was full of  ‘color politics’ and
13. …shows Boakye’s talents and Smith’s insightful interpretation.
14. “Mercy over Matter”  a man holds a bird on this finger.
15. Notice “…the underplumage: those jewel-like greens and
16. …purples and reds you can spot
17. beneath the oil-slick surface of certain bird-feathered birds.
18. …the man’s jacket magically displays this same underplumage;
19. …so does his skin; so does the bird.
20. He is often thought of as a nothing, a cipher.
21. But he has layers upon layers upon layers.“

 

 

 

 

The New Yorker 18-25 December

 

Street Sense: How coach K guides Atlanta’s hip-hop stars.     [Eye-opener…]

1. I try to at least read about hip-hop  The Rising Stars 2017
2. I am amazed how the rap  music world rules the ‘sound waves’.
3. This is an eye-opening profile about Kevin Lee aka Coach K.
4. Nashville is home of country music….
5. Detroit was once the center of Mowtown
6. …now Atlanta Georgia is the hip-hop capital of the world.
7. Coach K guides  Migos 
8. and helps Stefflon Don  (UK’s rising star) enter the US charts.
9. My music world started with the Beatles
10. …..hip-hop feels like another planet!

 

I’m a Proud Nuclear-Missile Owner – Teddy Wayne   [Very funny…]

1. This was a great article using a chatty tone…
2. what you’d expect from a relaxed, funny
3. ..buddy sitting next to you on the couch.
4. It is a parody, a satiric or ironic imitation of a speech by a NRA member
5. …defending his right and need to carry a weapon
6. ..in this case ballistic missiles!
7. The illustration was perfect….by Luci Gutiérrez.

 

China’s Selfie Obsession  by Jiayang Fan     [Strange…]

1. Meitu’s apps are changing what it means to be beautiful in China.
2. This was actually scary.
3. It sounds like ‘real life’  science fiction!
4. Young Chinese become Meitu stars in their video’s.
5. Below each video came the comments and donations of teen-aged fans
6. Some manage to easily clear six thousand dollars a week!
7. What are Meitu apps?
8. About 70% of social media users in China upload at
9. …least one picture to social networks every week and
10. …they all must be adjusted with apps like:
11. MakeupPlus – virtually try on top and trending makeup looks
    
12. Airbrush – manual photo retouch and makeup looks
    
13. BeautyPlus – instantly retouch their photos and video selfies
14. Before:
15. After:
    

 

The Poetry of  Systems by    A. Levy    [Stark contrasts…with the hip-hop world] 

1. I read the article about hip-hop millionaires
2. ….who have difficulty speaking English.
3. Take the time to …just listen to this interview with Lil Baby!
4. One if the hip-hoppers… rented a helicopter to let
5. $ 30.000 dollars flutter down over a group of jubilant fans!
6. What a waste…!
7. Now compare that story to the heartfelt words and deeds
8. done by Ophelia Dahl (Roald’s daughter).
9. She has been trying for more than 30 years
10. to improve the lives  and health of the poor  through Partners in Health.
11. This is an aid organization that Dahl co-founded when she was very young.
12. Dahl said:
13. “…the world’s most fortunate people had a moral obligation to investigate—
14. and compensate for—the suffering that underlies their comfort.
15. Dahl said:
16. “If we can’t connect our own good fortune with the misfortune of others,
17. ….then we’ve missed the boat completely…”
18. Nancy thinks: 
19. Have the Hip-Hoppers in Atlanta Georgia…missed the boat?
20. Hmmm….I wonder.

 

Estonia: The Digital Republic by Nathan Heller     [#MustRead….link is HERE]

 

1. This is by far THE most interesting article in this week’s magazine.
2. The Netherlands (my place of residence) is on the digital path:
3. 50% of mortgages are secured online, taxes are paid online.
4. But Estonia is the ‘future’ !
5. Formerly imperialist powers have withered into
6. nationalism (as in Brexit) and
7. separatism (Scotland, Catalonia).
8. It is possible to imagine a future in which
9. ….nationality is determined
10. not so much by where you live ….as by what you log on to.
11. This is amazing!  #Must Read

 

Contributors:  Who are these people?

• Kelefa Sanneh – journalist and music critic. staff writer since 2008
• Teddy Wayne –  monthly column in New York Times;  contribtuer to the New Yorker .
• Zadie Smith – English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer
• Anthony Lane –  English journalist, currently a film critic for The New Yorker.
• Zoë Heller – English journalist and novelist (Notes of a  Scandal)
• Robyn Creswell – critic, professor literature at Yale;  poetry editor The Paris Review.
• Hua Hsu – Associate professor of English; director of American Studies at Vassar.
  
• Anna Scotti – poet
• Staff writers:
• Jiayang Fan
• Ariel Levy
• D.T. Max
• Nathan Heller