Week Seven

Seamus Heaney's "Digging" is a poem that I can definitely relate to becaue I grew up on a farm. Most of our food came from our garden, and every year we spent time digging potatoes. I can still smell the "potato mold" from potatoes that rotted in the ground. Sometimes, when I dug deep into the soil, I would slice the potatoes in half. But most of the time, Daddy did the digging, and I filled buckets with the new potatoes.

The best potato harvest came after we raked cow and horse manure into the garden soil. Once the potatoes were all picked up, we spread them to cure on the porch. Later, Mama would fry the potatoes in an iron skillet. The fried potatoes tasted so good and made all our hard work worth it!

Heaney compares his father and grandfather's digging to his writing. I think he is proud of his ancestor's work and continues their tradition through his writing. Instead of a spade or shovel, Heaney uses a pen to do his digging for memories and words to express his feelings. After reading this poem, I believe he does just that.

Heaney values hard work and his Irish heritage that he writes about. Although he was only a young boy at the time, he must have watched his father and helped pick up potatoes just as I did when I was young. I remember how dirty my hands became after digging in the dirt, but I didn't mind. I thought it was a miracle to dig into the ground and find food.

Mama cut the eyes off the seed potatoes and stored them in a burlap sack until we could plant them. I loved walking on the cool ground behind Daddy's plow, dropping the round potato buttons into the deep furrows. But I hated the potato bugs. My sister and I had to flip them into a can of gas to kill them. Ugh! I hated that chore because my brothers chased me with the bugs. It seems funny now, but it was not then. Today, I still enjoy eating new potatoes.

Heaney also writes about his father digging in his flowerbeds. I also love to plant flowers and am always digging in my yard. I have many rose bushes, a few tomatoes, and several irises. When I was a child, we only grew vegetables, so I love to grow flowers now. I only grow a few tomato plants: one in a topsy-turvy planter and two in clay pots. Flowers are food for the soul. Their color and fragrance attracts hummingbirds and releases peace. The flowers and birds liven up my yard.

My favorite flowers are purple ones. I have purple irises, purple pansies, and purple mums. The pansies and mums will bloom during the cold months because they are perennials, and the irises blooms every spring. Both of my grandmothers were avid gardeners and had green thumbs. They could grow anything. My nanny could take a single rose cutting, put it under a glass jar, and grow an entire rose bush. She was amazing!

Writing about my grandmothers remind me of Heaney who writes about his father and grandfather working in the field. Heaney and I share a heritage that begins with soil and ends with a pen. Growing things and writing poetry are creative and theraupetic exercises.

But I have found there is one plant that I cannot get rid of, cannas. I have some yellow cannas that will not die. I have dug them up, gave them away, and still they come back. The plants are very invasive. Although the flower is pretty, I want to move them because the stalks are quite tall and resemble Johnson grass; however, they seem to love where they are, despite my efforts to move them.

Through the simple act of digging, Heaney identifies with his ancestors and redefines his own geographical space. The geographical constraints seem to free him to explore his own path. Yet, the Irish forebears leave footprints for him to follow through his poetry.

It is interesting to see how much our ancestors shape our identities. My nanny never drove a car or traveled far from her home, but she could sew a dress without a pattern and grow a beautiful garden with seeds she collected. My other grandmother raised nine children by herself and managed a six-hundred acre farm. The land is still in my family today.

"Digging" helps me to see how important heritage and family are. Heaney's ancestors were Irish, and their influence is seen in his poetry. The old cliche: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, is true. We may think we are doing things a new way, but it just may be an old thing revisited. Regardless of what we do, we should do it with passion.

Week Six

This week, we are reading more of Auden's poetry. On the Open Forum, I posted "Funeral Blues" because it reminds me of a recent death. My sister just lost her husband after forty years of marriage. Although he took chemotherapy, my brother-in-law suffered greatly for thirteen months before dying of colon cancer.

As I read Auden's "Funeral Blues," I am amazed at its timely message. My brother-in law's funeral is tomorrow, and I will be thinking these words, "Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come." It is strange how the world seems to march on, regardless of death or pain. But my sister feels just like the speaker who says, "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone." She too thought "love would last forever."

But time stands still for no one. It continues on without our consent. Grief is a strange thing.

Just when we think we are better, something triggers a memory and pain attacks again.

It could be the smell of coffee or a favorite song that stirs up sad emotions. I know there are stages that one must go through, but it is a painful process. Nothing seems to hurry it along because grief takes its own sweet time.

Everyone handles the proces of grief in their own way because it is a personal experience. My sister gave her eight-year-old grandson a cap that belonged to her late husband. The young boy commented, "Wow! It smells just like Grandpa." He was so proud of the ball cap that he went home and put it in a plastic bag so he could keep Grandpa's smell forever.

Auden writes:

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

These lines in "Funeral Blues" suggest that the beloved was the speaker's muse and his whole world. Regardless of which way he turned, his beloved was there. Even though it seems like a perfect relationship, it ends. Consequently, the speaker is sad. I find that Auden is an awesome poet and his poetry always teaches me to see things in new ways.

"Musee des Beaux Arts" is also an interesting poem because it was influenced by a painting, Brueghel's Icarus. I like the line: "About suffering they were never wrong, / The Old Masters: how well they understood / Its human position." Auden writes about children and old people in opposing ways. It seems the elderly are "passionately waiting" while children are "skating." The children ignore disasters and martyrs and are content to live life.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Brueghel

Auden refers to other paintings in this poem. It is amazing how an artist is influenced by another artist's work. Sometimes when I look at a painting, I also feel inspired. After all, the artist was a beginner at one time and probably studied the "Old Masters." I took an online class, Women in Art, and learned many things about art and paintings. The canvas is similar to a text that can be read. Lighting, brush strokes, placement, and subject matter are all important elements that must be considered when observing a painting.

Once we learn to read a text, regardless if it is a poem or a painting, we can understand it. Inspired by "The Fall of Icarus," Auden explores the indifference of people to death and the continuance of life in "Musee des Beaux Arts." He takes away the romance of tragedy and suffering and presents it as an everyday event to demonstrate the apathetic state mankind has fallen into.

Poetry allows me to see things that I never seen before, which I find exciting. It is a personal adventure that gives me the freedom to explore a new world and set my own rules or have none at all. As a reader, I bring my views and opinions to the text and find a brand new interpretation.

Week Five

This week we read W.H. Auden's poetry. I really enjoy his work because of the vivid imagery he uses. Auden left England in 1938 and wrote "September 1, 1939" right after the war began. Arriving in New York, Auden appears helpless and overwhelmed. He begins the poem stating his location, similar to a reporter. I like the line: "all I have is a voice / To undo the folded lie." Auden uses his voice of poetry to make a difference. After he enlisted in the Army, he became an anti-war poet.

"In Memory of W. B. Yeats," Auden writes an epitaph for his friend, Yeats and mentions how poetry outlives its author. Auden touches on several factors about Yeats: his death, his human aspect, his poetry and its impact. The first section relates to Yeats's death and has no meter or rhyme. Words such as "disappeared" and "dead of winter" implies death.

Even his surroundings reflect death in the "brooks were frozen," the air-ports almost deserted, / and snow disfigured the public statues," which give a sense of isolation and decay. I like the alliteration that Auden uses: "Of all the instruments agree / The day of his death was a dark cold day." Yet, nature pays no attention to Yeats' death.

In fact, life continues as the river flows and the wolves run. Auden makes a point to show how death is a natural part of life. The second section is in iambic hexameter and touches on Yeats' struggles during his lifetime such as the "parish of rich women, physical decay / Yourself."

But the last section of Auden's poem is full of rhyme scheme and meter that suggest Yeats reached a high peak in his life. Auden writes that Yeats' works are "scattered among a hundred cities" because his "gift survived it all." I am glad that Yeats left his words with us through his poetry. Even though Yeats was a great poet, Auden writes, "You were silly like us," which inspires me because it shows that he was also a human who makes mistakes.

My favorite stanza is the last one: "In the deserts of the heart / Let the healing fountain start / In the prison of his days / Teach the free man how to praise." I interpret this stanza as a sign of hope. Although our hearts may be dry and hard, they can be made new again when we praise God for what we have.

A grateful heart changes our attitude and makes us free. When we get our eyes off our own selfish desires, we see with new eyes and realize how precious life is. I believe life is a gift that we should live to the fullest and treasure every minute of it. Perhaps, reading poetry by Auden and Yeats will broaden our views and open new windows of insight and perspective, which will lead to new levels of understanding.

Auden is a cool poet! He writes many poems such as an elegy for his contemporary and friend, W. B. Yeats as well as an awesome poem for Sigmund Freud. Poetry continues even though authors die. Auden's poems help me to see things in a new light. I always thought poetry was hard to understand, but now I realize that I can interpret it any way that I choose, which is the beauty of poetry.

I just wrote a paper about how poetry can be interpreted in different ways for my Literary Criticism class. My paper "Life versus Death" focuses on Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." I give the positive and negative interpretation and include Paul de Man as a reference. Although I interpret Frost's poem as a positive work, others might take a different approach.

I think Frost's speaker stopped by the pond for a moment of reflection while he drank in the beauty of the winter landscape; however, some readers might interpret the speaker as depressed and contemplating suicide. The falling snow, freezing temperatures, and dark woods set the stage for the longest night of the year on December twenty-second.

Poetry takes me to places that I have never been or never imagined. The more I read it, the more I enjoy it because it contains several layers of meaning. Auden is a poet who writes about many subjects. There is no chance of getting bored. I simply take a deep breath, jump in, and let his inspiring words lead me to another world.

Week Four

This week we read some great poems by W. H. Auden and Stevie Smith. "Refugee Blues" is my favorite because it is written about the Jews who were exiled in 1939. Written in the form of a blues song, the tone and rhythm reflect the Jews' anxiety and fear. The refugee speaks to his wife as they try to find their place on foreign soil that is in a huge city among strangers. I cannot imagine how terrifying that would be. But they are the lucky ones. The speaker relates his anger about the horrific conditions and alienation that the Jews experience. Auden lived in New York City beside thousands of refugees. That alone would be scary! Auden's "Refugee Blues" is a poem that reveals the Jew's experiences as they fled Germany and the Nazis just before World War II. This poem helps me to have a better understanding about how the Jewish refugees felt as they were persecuted and displaced.

Stevie Smith's "Not Waving But Drowning" is a short ambigous poem but has rich meanings. Although the man in the water appears to be waving, he is really drowning. I think this poem can have many interpretations. First of all, it can have a literal meaning that involves swimming out too far into deep waters. But it can also mean that the man is drowning with responsibilities or too much work. As a student, I can certainly understand this. Deadlines and projects seem to occur all at the same time.

The next thing that I noticed was that no one seems to hear the drowning man or pay any attention to him. He has no voice but drowns alone even though there are many people around when they pull his dead body to shore. What a tragedy! But life is often like that. We become so consumed with our own busy lives that we forget to keep an ear out for those in trouble or less fortunate. We then give excuses to ease our guilt, similar to the speaker in this poem.

Finally, I noticed the word "cold" is mentioned twice. Not only is the water too cold for the drowning man, but his life seems to be cold as well. The man cannot win. He lived a cold, loveless life and then dies, alone in the freezing water. Stevie Smith is refreshing to read after T. S. Eliot's long symbolic poems.

Stevie Smith also wrote "Pretty." This poem seems to be ironic because she uses the word 'pretty" over and over. Her comparisons help me to realize how often I use the word, too. I enjoy reading Smith's poetry because her sarcasm is funny. I cannot imagine a "water rat" being pretty.

Poets often see the world through a slanted lens such as Emily Dickinson. She certainly saw the world in a unique but different way. Dickinson read Webster's Dictionary to savor words and their definitions to write her lyric poetry. Like Dickinson, Smith rejected religion and lived in the same house most of her life.

I am grateful that Smith does not use the compressed language that Dickinson did. Yet, both Smith and Dickinson deal with life, death, and immortality in their poetry as seen through nature and elements of everday life. I enjoyed our readings this week.