Extra Blog

I missed class on Thursday, so I thought I would do a little extra blogging now so you all could know some of the ideas and thoughts I would have contributed if I had been there for your discussion on Thursday.

First off, I really liked “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home.” I liked how the author treated things that seem so familiar to us humans as completely foreign objects, describing them in ways that made me look at things a bit differently. I also thought it was fun to try and figure out what objects and activities the author was describing in the poem… It was kind of like a puzzle and it made it fun to read. This reading reminded me of a reading I did for anthropology last semester; it was called “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” The whole piece was about looking at our culture and our everyday activities from an outsider’s perspective. I read the whole piece and thought about what a weird culture I had just read about… then in our class discussion, found out that the author had written it about American culture (Nacirema is American spelled backwards). The things described in the piece were things we do every day, like brushing our teeth or going to the bathroom. It was really cool, and I feel like Raine’s piece had a similar effect.

As for “The Fish,” I thought it was a fun poem to read. I noticed once I got to the end of the poem that what had kept me reading was the question of what happens to the fish—does the fisherman keep him or throw him back? This question is answered in the final line of the poem, which leaves the reader satisfied and content at the conclusion. I thought this was a good effect and a good technique to use within the poem. It was a good example of the tension and propulsion concept that we had to work on for the last assignment… a good technique to use to keep the reader’s attention through a long poem. I also really liked the vivid description used within the poem to describe the fish throughout the narrative. I especially liked the lines “While his gills were breathing in/the terrible oxygen.” It made me pause briefly while reading because we usually don’t think of oxygen as a bad thing… it is the key to human life. This connected the poem a bit to the theme of the familiar and unfamiliar for me. The poet is able to see things from the fish’s perspective, and therefore allows us as readers to see things from an unfamiliar perspective.

Finally, I didn’t really like “A Few Words in the Mother Tongue.” I thought it was kind of creative and that trying to connect the ideas after reading the poem was intriguing. But I did not like the form of the poem and I felt that the words in another language kind of made me lose interest while I was reading. I couldn’t really figure out what the intended message of the poem was. Sorry if I am being insensitive or if I really missed something… I just didn’t really get it.

See you Tuesday!

p.s. Chelsea—I love the poem about germs! Very nice.