Total Eclipse

Total Eclipse by Annie Dillard is a great example of creative nonfiction. She is allusive, descriptive, speaking to the reader, and you feel as though what she is telling you absolutely happened regardless if it actually did. This was by far my favorite short story that we have read this semester. The language and adjectives she used made it very interesting to read and helped to keep the reader engaged. I really like the sentence on page 91, “I turned back to the sun. It was going. The sun was going, and the world was wrong.” For some reason the way she described the world and everything that she was seeing in it as “wrong” struck me. Maybe it stood out because she uses such descriptive words throughout her entire essay, that the simplicity of the word “wrong” felt non-simplistic. Regardless, I found it fascinating. She goes on to describe why everything around looks “wrong”, such as the platinum grasses.

Another line from her essay that really just stood out to me was in the second paragraph down from the top on page 90. She starts this description off by saying matter-of-factly, “What you see in an eclipse is entirely different from what you know.” She ends by saying, “What you see if much more convincing than any wild-eyed theory you may know.” It was not so much the descriptive part in the middle of the paragraph that stood out to me; but these two lines. I feel them to be extremely true and believable in this case. I cannot begin to comprehend what she saw, and I can say this because of how in-depth her descriptions are. Even though I have read all of her descriptions, and over 20 pages of detail of how this eclipse looked, her words could never compare to actually seeing what the people who were there that day did. On page 95 she says, “The lenses of telescopes and cameras can no more cover the breadth and scale of the visual array than language can cover the breadth and simultaneity of internal experience.” This sentence says it all; to believe it, you have to actually see it.

She also uses a lot of metaphors throughout her essay, which really allows the reader to connect to what she is describing and seeing. On page 93 she says, “At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover.” I think that the way she describes things is very unique in that she is doing it for the reader’s benefit; to put them where she was at. I have always found metaphors to be annoying, and allusive. But the way that she uses them, and maybe the simple fact that she is describing an eclipse, really makes me relate to the metaphors. Throughout the entire essay, she is very in-depth, and it almost seems like she is all over the place, but always brings it back around to relate. I really enjoyed reading this essay.

The story out of the creative writing packet that I found to be the straightest forward is Sunday by Henry Gates Jr. The first sentence in this story really caught my attention, “White people couldn’t cook; everybody knew that.” This immediately made me realize that this was from the era of the Civil rights movement. The tone and assertiveness in the sentence shows that there are hard feelings between races at the time this story is taking place in. I also found the first paragraph to be very intriguing in the sense that they were puzzled that the civil rights movement was focusing on integrating restaurants. To me, this shows how much our government knew and cared about integration and the feelings of African Americans at the time. I can hear and feel the disgust in this paragraph. The rest of the story goes on to describe cooking and a typical Sunday meal at the Coleman’s house. It’s described as a very happy and relaxing time. They eat from the time church is out on Sunday, all through the day, and into the night. I felt like the author really nailed the ending, and brought it all back together by saying, “White people just can’t cook good, Aunt Marguerite used to say; that’s why they need to hire us.”

The other story that really stood out to me, but I found less straight forward is Red: an Invocation by: Lia Purpura. Through-out the story, she went back and forth describing a Fox, and a hawk. This story definitely has an underlying meaning, but I have no idea what it is. I notice that she uses other words to describe red through-out the story, but says that they are not good enough to describe what she is seeing. The lines that really stood out to me were at the very end, “By red I mean the last thing I could see as the hawk disappeared. As the fox slipped away. And yes, I led my child into that day.” The last part about her child really threw me off. But I just can’t seem to pin point the underlying meaning of it.

Juicy Juice

I found this book to be very allusive and vague. It is almost somewhat poetic, but not a poem, which I thought was a very interesting approach for a short story. Some of the lines throughout the book are composed like a poem, but still tell a story. For example in the section First Sleep, the narrator uses several line breaks throughout the section. The sentences are sentences, but just barley, for example, “Five days later. The phone rings. I think. It’s nearing dawn.” (Gladman pg.62)

I think that the common theme throughout the book was that in every story, there was some type of major crisis that had drastically changed the narrator’s life and that they now have to deal with the aftermath. In the section Translation, the narrator seems to be the only one left in her little “town” after an exodus. She alludes to a lot of things such as, “I love this town. It’s still vibrant though I have not seen anyone in years. I am not in jail—they just have gone.” (Gladman pg.10) It makes you wonder what happened to all the people in her town. Where have they gone and why are the alone. It gives the story a sense of mystery. It is at the end of that paragraph that she tells us the there was an exodus, which is what she was alluding to from the start.

Overall, this story book was odd, and oddly enticing. I think that because of the allusiveness yet distinctive detail, it really captures the reader and brings them in. Finishing the entire book really brought it all together for me. I realized that there are several (if not four) different narrators throughout the book. I found a common theme throughout the book of the narrator going through some type of crisis, and the effects it has had on them. I think that they all could be in different locations and possibly going through the same crisis? You can see that each narrator handles it differently, and focuses on different details; such as the fresh juice, in the section Proportion Surviving, or the empty town and fixation of the people returning in Translation. I think these stories show the different effects that change and struggle can bring. It was a very interesting piece to read and analyze.

The fiction story title Internal by Brian Evenson was very interesting. I like how he approaches the overall story and breaks it down into subgroups i.e. my internship, My Instructions, A Summation of Rauchian Theory, etc. The layout of the story hit me first. From the title Internal and the first section entitled, My Internship, it instantly made me think that this could possibly have to do with an internship in the medical field. I later went on to learn that he is a psychologist. Throughout the entire story I feel the writer is very stern and detached; almost cold. The writer also makes Dr. Rauch seem very stern and mysterious. I like the line where he states he always addresses one with, “a conspiratorial air.” I got this feeling as I read through the story. I like how he consciously included that in the beginning of the text, to almost make the reader subconsciously feel that way. As he refers to the writer as, “hardly the t typical intern” it makes me thinks that the writer is in some way special to Dr. Rauch. Maybe he was easily able to use the writer? I also get the feeling that the writer is afraid and intimidated by Dr. Rauch, and I think that is all a part of the Doctors plan to use the writer. I feel as though the intern is being manipulated and used throughout the entire story. Even when he is required to switch doctors because he disappointed Dr. Rauch, you can still sense some manipulation from the psychologist throughout. Overall he was very descriptive, and gave off the vibe that he was in fact a psychology intern.

Fiction Packet Blog Response

There were three short stories out of the fiction packet that really stood out to me. The first was "Survivors" by Kim Addonizio. This poem stood out to me because the contents of it. It discusses two lovers who are both dying from HIV Aids which is and has been a very controversial epidemic. The first sentence of the poem, "He and his lover were down to their last few T cells and arguing over who was going to die first." From this sentence, you can tell that this is a same sex couple, particularly male, and that they are dying of HIV Aids. I found the use of the word, "arguing" to be quite interesting; generally people do not argue over such horrible things. It implies that they have accepted their fate, and that either one did not what to outlive the other. It proceeds to say that he does not want to have to deal with the blame that will be place by the others mother, although she would never say it, he knew she believed it. I think it represents the struggle that same sex couples go through when it comes to situations like this.

The second short story that I found to be interesting is "The letter from home" by Jamaica Kincaid. I found this story to be confusing and all over the place, with no clear destination. After I finished reading it, I realize that this was due to the fact that she does not use any periods until the very last sentence of her story; it is all comas and semi colons. I can now see why in high school, my English teachers steered us away from using comas and semi colons too often. They can make your story look like a bunch of run on sentences, and ultimately, give the wrong affect. However, I do believe that the author did this n purpose... now if I only knew why.

The third and final story that I would like to discuss is titled, "Morning News" by Jerome Stern. For me this story really hit home. I work with Cancer patients daily, so I can relate. I like how throughout the story, he never mention how he told his wife, or what her reaction was; he didn't focus on the big, bad, and ugly. I also like the way he decided to tell us that he was not a very religious person, so he could find no piece or substance in spending his last days in becoming one. He says, “But I have never been able to take seriously my earnestly mystical students, their belief that they were heading to join the ringing of the eternal spheres." So what does he decide to do? He takes a rather light hearted turn in the story to keep the readers spirit up and to possibly add a little humor. In his final days he and his wife, go buy the biggest television at the store; a 60-inch. And this is where he found happiness. I believe that any disease is 60% disease, but 40% mindset and spirit. If you stay positive, it can be very beneficial. This is why I loved the humor at the end.

Discussion of Poems after the Sonnet's

The first poem that I would like to discuss from this weeks assigned reading is Susan Howe’s Gabion Parapet (I think that’s the title?). This was the first poem after the Sonnet’s that I decided to read not only because it was the first poem after the Sonnet’s, but because of the presentation of this poem. The layout of it caught my attention right away. It is made up of sentences and words that are overlaying each other, some are turned upside down, and some are even staggered sideways. I will admit it took me a couple of minutes to figure out the correct way to read it. This one had me lost. On the left side of the page, she starts out the poem with “Parted with the Otterware at the three Rivers, & are Gone to have a Treaty with the French at Oswego & singing their war song The French Hatchet Message’s.” I have no idea how to interpret this. On the right side of the page, she has what looks like the “same” poem only upside-down. However, it starts with “Of the far nations over the lakes Messengers say The War Belt & singing their war song The French Hatchet Messages.” So she changed it up a little bit. I also notice that compared to her first poem (on the left side) the right sides “title” is the same way on the page, whereas the left side has Gabion right-side up and Parapet upside-down. I can only come to the conclusion that she placed her words and sentences on the page this way for a reason. Now only if I knew what it was….

The next poems that I would like to discuss are the set of poems in our packet by American poet and social activist Langston Hughes. I thought that his poems where the easiest for me to understand. He has a similar topic in all of the poems that we have read; that topic being African Americans and activism. He was a social activist and played a big role in the Harlem Renaissance. Knowing this about him, I found it very easy to pick up on the subtle hints in his poems for example: In the poem Parade, he says, “Motorcycle cops, white …” As soon as he brought the color of their skin into it, it dawned on me that this is a parade of activist marching for their rights; of African Americans marching to have the same rights as White Americans. The poem Dream Boggie also has subtle hints in it, which I found very easy to identify. For example the first stanza says, “Good morning, daddy! Ain’t you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred?” A dream deferred… when I read this line, I immediately thought of Martin Luther King’s famous speech, “I have a dream.” A dream deferred it truly was. I also liked the second stanza of the poem Dream Boggie that says, “Listen closely: You’ll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a- You think It’s a happy beat?” I think that this is referring to the steady beat of all of the activists marching on the streets. The third and final poem by Langston Hughes that stood out to me was Children’s Rhymes. It has the same theme to it as the others, however I think it could be from an elder white person’s point of view. The poem starts out by saying, “When I was a child we used to play, “One-two-buckle my shoe!” and things like that. But now, Lord, listen at them little varmints! By what sends the white kids I ain’t sent: I know I can’t be President.” I interpreted this as an elder white person saying this about the little African American kids in the community shortly after the civil rights movement. The kids are saying that they know there is not equality for them. They then proceed to chant, “What don’t bug them white kids sure bugs me: We know everybody ain’t free!” I think another reason this particular poem stood out to me is because it is kids saying it. It just goes to show how they were affected by the things that happened during that time, and it also represents how long after the civil rights movement it actually took to get true equality.

Hello!

Hi Everyone! My name is Olivia Schrock. I am a nursing major here at EMU. I currenlty work at the University of Michigan Cancer Center. I am looking forward to a great semester with everyone!