Week 8 - First collection of poems

Starting a new section into something different, I have to admit, I did enjoy, however, I didn't necessarily like all the poems. 

One that I did like was My Papa's Waltz - I appreciated the authors descriptiveness and this poem could have been interpreted different ways.  The way that I interpreted it was that his father did drink and while he didn't like it, he hung on to his father tightly.  They danced crazily making the pots and pans and other items spill about - much to his mothers chagrin - he talks about how his father beats time on his head.  I found this endearing, however, the word beat sounds harsh to me.  I thought it was more a tap on his head...I didn't take it to be so hard.  It also talked about the hands of his father.   he sounded like he was a hard working man - and those hard working hands danced the little guy to bed.....and the boy didn't sound like he wanted to as he still clung to his fathers shirt. 

My father never drank, but he worked hard....I too adored any attention given to me by my dad because those times were few and far between because he was busy.

Another one that I could relate to partially was White Lies - while I didn't lie about my racial identity, I definitely lied about other things as a child and I didn't get my mouth washed out with soap b/c of lies, but I did when I said a naughty word...so I could relate with that.  Although the line at the end of the poem left me wondering what she meant exactly  - the line says "believing her, I swallowed suds thinking they'd work from the inside out."  Was the young girl wishing that not only would the soap clean her lies but also clean off the color of her skin?

I am not going to comment on all the poems - I didn't particularly like "The Fish" not because it wasn't a good poem, more so that I just didn't really get into a long poem about a fish. 

Again, it is a nice change of pace to read poems.  I find it interesting that you can, for the most part, get an entire story in just a few words. 

TINKERS Part One and Two

Tinkers Part One - I have to admit - I didn't read but maybe the 20 pages this first part.  I at first had a hard time that the author was transitioning between the different characters, George/Howard.  Then he would throw a whole different text into the mix (ex. pages 16-18).  I did like reading about the clocks however.



Tinkers Part Two - The one that resonated with me in this story was the authors explanations of George and his clocks and how he loved them - into how he describe the time prior to his death.  For example he would say (Page 64) "Eighty-four hours before he died, George thought"  To me that tied in with the clocks as all clocks wind down or stop at one point or another and so do our lives.  Sometimes George would only have to tweek and clock a bit and sometimes he had to rebuild them.  Again I thought of life - how sometimes our lives need to be tweeked or rebuilt. 

The other thing that resonated with me as well was George's perception of his father and what may have been actually true.  George may have hated his father b/c he felt that he left them and didn't love him - when in all actuality Howard did love his children and he did care. 

The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien

There are several things that I liked about this story.  First I found it interesting that the author put how much everything they carried weighed.  It gave me as the reader more perspective and more empathy of what it was like to be a soldier in the Vietnam war. I also found it interesting to see what different soldiers found important to carry with them.  It was different for each of them.  

As for the main character, Jimmy Cross.  The change that took place with him from the beginning of the story to the end to me was sad.  He was getting through this horrible war by thinking of Martha.  Remembering time spent with her, reflecting on letters she wrote, fantasizing about things to come or would possibly never come, and how much he loved her, knowing that she didn’t love him in the same way - or so he thought.  I never read anything in concrete in the story to tell me for sure however, that that was truly the way it was.  I thought maybe she may  not have kissed him back at the end of the date because maybe she had never been kissed before and didn’t know how to react, or there could have been many reasons - but Jimmy thought for sure it was because she didn’t love him.  To me this connection was helping him cope.  When Lavender died, however, Jimmy felt that his daydreaming and emotions and thinking of Martha were the reasons that Lavendar died.  When he was shot, that was a HUGE turning point for Jimmy.  His entire demeanor changed, it’s as if he had lost all emotion - he burned Martha’s photos, her letters and stopped thinking of her.  It’s like his heart had hardened.  He then decided to be more structured, no more emotion and everything was going to be “by the book.”

I wished that I could have found out how it all ended.  Did all the rest of the men make it?  Did Jimmy ever see Martha again?  What did Martha really feel?  I just felt that the story just sort of ended leaving me hanging.

Where are you going, Where have you been - Joyce Carol Oates

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been - Joyce Carol Oates

The first thing that I notice from the get go is the jealousy or enviousness from the mother that her daughter, Connie is pretty and she looks at herself often - and that the mother no longer has the looks that she once did.  I guess this is odd to me because as a parent myself, I feel like I would never make my child feel they couldn’t look at themselves because they were pretty and I no longer had my looks.  I would always want my child to feel good about themselves whether I felt good about myself or not.  Connie also had a sister June that at the age of 24, still lived at home.  June was opposite Connie in the looks department and it seemed that the mom cared more about her than Connie.  The father, he worked, came home and took a nap.  Showed little interest it seemed.  Connie would often go out with her girlfriend and it sounds to me that she looked for love and acceptance in boys.  Unfortunately, she caught the attention of the wrong boy/man and he seemed to have an obsessiveness with her.  Arnold knew everything about Connie.  One Sunday afternoon while Connie’s family went to a family picnic, and Connie chose to stay home.  The afternoon was uneventful until Arnold came to her house, insisting that Connie go for a ride with him and Ellie.  Connie didn’t want to and she soon noticed that Arnold and Ellie weren’t even close to her age - they were much, much older.  She was scared and stayed in the house - Arnold said he wouldn’t come into the house as long as she didn’t use the phone and call the police.  Eventually Connie does go for the phone, but was unable to dial.  At the end of the story, Connie seems to concede and begins to go with him.  I am guessing because she was fearful of what Arnold might do to her family as he had threatened her that he would harm them.  

I didn’t like this story - I found it to be sad and in some ways, I could relate.  My dad was a wonderful father - but there was little interaction with him(when I was a young teenager)  as he worked, came home and napped, and read the paper.  My mother was a wonderful mother too - but much like the story, she wasn’t always the most encouraging.  I too know what it was like to be rebellious and think that love was to be found elsewhere.  As I grew older, I have found that love is first found by loving yourself.  I didn’t have the end result as Connie did - but also learned many valuable lessons by making mistakes by trying to find acceptance and love in all the wrong things and people.

Week 5 - Blogs for A Good Man is Hard to Find and Greasy Lake

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Flannery O’Connor

I found this story to be very odd and disturbing.  One of the first things that I found interesting were the details that the author chose to go into great lengths about.  Such as what the old grandmother was wearing for one.  Ironically, the grandmother wanted to look as she did in the event that she was in an accident, it would be able to be seen that she was a lady.  Ironically, not only was she in an accident, but she was ultimately killed by the fugitive on the run.  He must not have cared too much that she looked like a lady.  I also thought about the irony of it all - that the reason that they were out on the road where they had the accident in search of a house that wasn’t going to be there at all because the grandmother forgot that it wasn’t in Georgia, but in Tennessee, and also how fate would have it, that because they went to search for the house, they had the accident and that inevitably would be their demise.  I didn’t understand what point the grandmother was making at the end - I am not the best at figuring out symbolism in stories often times - so I didn’t get what she meant by “You’re one of my babies.  You’re one of my own children!” as Bailey was her only boy.  Did she mean it in the way that he was just like one of her own children?  I just didn’t understand that.  

Overall - I don’t really like stories that are dark.  I think about how cold blooded the other outlaws were too to kill little children and a baby.  The author, while maybe a great writer - I can’t quite relate to minds like the authors that I have read this week.  

Greasy Lake - T. Coraghessan Boyle

As with A Good Man…..I didn’t care for this story either.  The characters in the story at first come off as real tough guys and not having a care in the world.   The spend the third night of summer vacation getting drunk and doing other things and then they come to Greasy Lake because they can’t find anything else to do.  There they mistake a car for a “friend” of theirs and that is when everything just gets a little crazy.  They end up getting in a huge fight, and the narrator spends much of the night thinking that he killed a man with a tire iron.  The story talks about them looking for something that they never find.  I was left wondering what it was that they were looking for.  More booze?  More drugs?  Girls?    It never states.  A car comes along and the three young men hide - the narrator ends up in the creek that was once clear - but is now murky and filled with litter with a dead body.  Eventually, the narrator hears the voice of the man that he thought was dead - so I could sense relief that he hadn’t in fact killed him.  However, the car that came along, obviously had friends of the man and they were wanting desperately to find the three young hoodlums.  By the end of the story, the three seeking revenge leave and the three hoodlums come out of hiding.  They check out the damage that was done to the car of the narrator's mother and decide to get out of there when yet a mustang comes along carrying two young girls.  They are in search for Al - who as we find out is the body of the dead man in the creek.  The boys say they have not seen him when asked by one of the girls.  The same girl asks them if they would like to party with her and do some drugs with her.  To me at that moment, when the boys turn her down and you can feel that they aren’t quite as tough as they seem - because they have no desire to party with her - they all just want to leave and go home.  I see at that point that there is some innocence left in them and that there may quite possibly be some hope for them.  They saw that evening what can/would happen to them if they kept going down the road that they were going.