B Bell Owen Meany- Grace and Emily Posted 1/29 due 2/5

A Prayer for Owen Meany is a classic example of a post modernism novel. Several characteristics of post modernism literature includes one's search for identity and truth, and the lack of a timeline which follows chronological order. Please give specific examples of how Owen Meany displays these aspects typical to post modernism.

Postmodernism by John and Tripp

The following poem was written by the postmodern poet John Wieners. Explore the conflicting parallelism presented by Wieners. What poetic devices (if any) are used? What makes the broken prose of Wieners' poem effective? Also explore the effectiveness of the poet's direct address to an unknown party.

"You Talk of Going But Don't Even Have a Suitcase"

(A series of Repetitions)

I will be an old man sometime
And will live in a dark room somewhere.

I will think of this night someplace
the rain falling on stone.

There will be no one near
no whisper on the street

only this song of old yearning
and the longing to be young

with you together on some street.

Now is the time for retreat,
This is the last chance.

This is not the last chance.
Why only yesterday I lay drugged
on the dark bed while they came
and went as the wind

and they shall come again
to bear me down into that pit
there is no returning from.

Old age, disaster, doom.

It shall be as this room.
With you by the sink, pinching your face

in the mirror.
Time is as a river

and I shall forget this night,
its joy.

B Bell- Owen Meany Blog, Posted on Jan. 22nd, due on Jan 29th

"God has taken your mother. My hands were the instrument. God has taken my hands. I am God's instrument." (87)


Owen claims that he is an extension of God Himself. This is an unusually profound and insightful thing for a child to say. It must be a heavy burden for Owen to bear as well, if he truly believes that God has sent him for a mission. Give examples of what affect Owen's belief has had on his childhood. Does he still retain youthful qualities, or is he more prone to adult-like tendencies? Use specific examples.


Moderated by Yousra and Diana

F bell modern poetry blog

P OR NOT P by Eugene Ostashevsky
1.Excuse me, is this P or ¬P, the sky or not the sky, the building or not the building?Does the building imply the sky, does the sky imply the building,what does the not-building imply?
There are waves to one side of the building and a boat.We stepped down into the boat and sailed away.
We sailed past an island where Dave Cameron stood reading his poetry.We sailed past an island where Brandon Downing stood reading his poetry.We sailed past an island where Macgregor Card stood reading his poetry.
So much poetry for one day!
2.SOME QUESTIONS:Are there books in the building? Is there a book on fire in the building?Is there a book on fire in a book on fire in the building?Is this the beginning of number?
SOME ANSWERS:The beginning of number is song. The song is not about anything. It gave birth to the world.The world is not about anything.
SOME COMMENTS:Animals gather around the song. They listen, tilting their heads.They have large eyes. We can count the animals.
3."What do we do when the song ends for somebody what do we doDo we say, Don't go what will I do if you doDo we run to the doctor and cry, Give me an MRI, doctor! What he hasI might have it too Do we lie around despondent and blueO why do you go, why do you go There's so little time left
"Let us sit down, me and you Let me help you sit downbecause I am now a man and for you it's hard even to sit downWhat do we do now, what do we do Let us speak, me and youWe never learned to speak, me and you Let us start, ma-ma da-daYou say The Metamorphosis is about dyingLet us sit on this rock, me and you I say, ma-ma da-daWe live in Brooklyn We have a dog"
This is the song as heard / unheard by the animals. By some of the animals. By none of the animals. There are no animals.
There are only points, each at the convergence of an infinity of structures. The structures appear to be of metal. They oscillate. They make noise.
4.What is mathematics to animals? Is P or ¬P truefor all animals? Does 1+1=2for all animals? Is there a me and youfor all animals? What is
mathematics to animals? What are animalsto mathematics? Take away mathematicsand there are no animals. Take away animalsand there is no mathematics.
The animals gather for a concert of mathematics. We sail past them.They are capable of love. We sail past them.
5.We sail and we repeat. What do we repeat? Words.What are these words? There is a word for skyand there is a word for building.
What do they mean? They mean skyand building. The sky is blue.The building is pink and white.


Eugen Ostashevsky teaches English at New York University. He moved to the United States from Russia to the United States with his family when he was a child. He holds a Phd in Comparative Literature from Standford University. During his time there, he delved into the complex world of early twentieth century Russian poetry. In addition to translating works, which he still continues to do today, he particularly focused on Russian absurdist poets of the 1920s and 1930s.
There are certain reappearing traits in Ostashevsky's poetry, much like there are for most poets. Some of the more complex ones deal with verbal relationships to mathematical proofs and allusions to philosophers and mythical creatures. Ostashevsky is also immensely humorous and a very satirical, witty writer. This poem is from his book The Last DJ Spinoza. The real Baruch Spinoza, if we all tap into our AP MEH knowledge, was a Dutch philosopher from that special period in time called the Enlightenment. Remember his book Ethics? In it, he asks and reasons through such simple questions as what are emotions? (He actually single handedly defined all his emotions in this book). Spinoza is a very complex person and his philosophy, however fascinating, is very hard to explain.
The reason you should know these things about Spinoza is that the speaker of this poem is Ostashevsky's voive alter-ego, DJ Spinoza. In this book, DJ Spinoza is a sort of Monty Python inspired epic hero, who is based on a lot of the reasonings of the real Baruch Spinoza. He mingles with other fictional/mythical/popular characters, including Flipper the dolphin, a Griffon(begriffon), and a creature inspired by his toddler nephew called the Peepeesauraus. Of course, it wouldn't be an Ostashevsky work if DJ Spinoza didn't run into other poets and philosophers in some of his adventures.

This is a fascinating poem. Don't read too into the faulty reasoning however; remember what was said earlier about Ostashevsky's wittiness.
Find a phrase, line, or stanza in the poem where Ostashevsky uses repitition, sarcasm,extended syntax, logic,false reasoning, or sectioning (or a combination of all of them) to create poetry and not philosophy, even though some could consider it philosophy in poetry. How are these effective ways in which to assert the overall constricting, trapped yet imaginative mood of the poem? Would it make a difference if he had used a rhyme scheme or an acrostic instead?


I encourage you, if you want to, to click on this link for entertainment. Eugene Ostashevsky reads this poem in a set of poems he delivered at the UC Berkley lunch poems series. P or not P is read precisely at the time 30:53.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIcO6JnZUkU

Modern Poetry- B Bell

Sailing to Byzantium
By William Butler Yeats

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

This poem, first published by Yeats in 1928 in his collection The Tower, details the tension between life and art and that between the material and the spiritual. Yeats wrote that he chose to symbolize "the search for the spiritual life" as a journey to the ancient city of Byzantium because it "was the centre of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy." What is Yeats trying to say about his own mortality through his journey to Byzantium? How does he accomplish this? What are some poetic devices that Yeats utilizes to convey his message?

Responses are due January 22.

B Bell Poetry Blog

I Am

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

This poem by John Clare is a very raw and vulnerable bit of insight into the speaker's feelings and emotions. This poem was not received well by Clare's readers when it was first published. "I am" was written after John Clare was put into an asylum for insanity. His readers believed that the poem was much too concentrated on Clare's descent into "madness." What is madness, and how can madness or insanity often prove helpful in the creative process? Even though Clare was crazy, can one still make sense of his poetry? What poetic devices that we have studied does Clare use to construct his poem? Use quotations to support your answer.

Renaissance Elizabethan Poetry F Bell

William Shakespeare incorporated several poetic devices into Sonnet 130 such as metaphor, personification, repetition, and alliteration. Find a specific quote from the poem that exemplifies one of these techniques and analyze how it effectively conveys Shakespeare's message.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

This blog is moderated by Kristen, Elizabeth, and Channing.