In Sharon Olds' "Silver Spoon Ode," she writes a clever poem about her
own wealthy upbringing and her consequent feelings of guilt. She invents
a character near the end, Miss Lucille, who tells her, "And now /
enough, Shar [Sharon], now a little decent silence" (75). This new
character, for me as a reader, created a bit of ambiguity. However,
after reading the autobiographical statement in the back, I felt like I
got a better hang on the poem.
This week, I'd like you to read one or two of the poems that I assigned
you along with the autobiographical statement in the back. How does this
writing about the poem help you understand the poem better? How is it
similar to the author's notes I'm asking you to write each week?
Welcome to the blog for Prof. John Talbird's English 102 class. The purpose of this site is two-fold: 1) to continue the conversations we start in class (or to start conversations before we get to class) and 2) to practice our writing, reading, and thinking on a weekly basis in an informal setting.
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ReplyDeleteI read a poem called "Hands" by Sheana Ochoa. The poem is about change and how time can make us a different person. After reading the autobiographical statement and then reading the poem again, I understood it a little more and where she was going with it. its like she was encouraging me to reread the poem in hope of discovering something I didn't see before. It is similar to the author's notes we write for our collection because we tell readers what made us create what we wrote and where we might go with it.
ReplyDeleteHi Shaista: Check out "On a Palm," also about hands: p. 135.
DeleteThe poem I read on pg. 92 was called 'Angels in the Sun' by Ruben Quesada. I didn't really understand what the point was of this poem until I had read what Quesada said in the back of the book. Quesada said that a painting called "The Angel Standing in the Sun' by Joseph Mallord William Turner was what has inspired him for this poem. Quesada's authors notes are similar to the notes that we write for our collections because it gives the reader sort of an inside scoop on what we were thinking when we were writing.
ReplyDeleteHi Nicole: Good response. This is called an ekphrastic poem, a poem inspired by a work of art.
ReplyDelete