a.k.a. Ronosaurus Rex
A dog under your table
you scratch and forget,
cross legs through angled shadows
pressing me back into the darkness.
Waiting for corner to fall,
I trace the wood grain,
smell the feast above me
and dream of broken wine.
I long for your lean fingers,
the wrinkles and whorls,
the grease under your red nails,
a bit of slippery fat dropped.
Kept by hunger, I search
the linoleum for patterns.
Even though I have not read these books, their titles have impacted my life, altering my values, my understanding, and my experience with their titles alone.
The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety by Alan Wilson Watts
The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
Because It is Bitter and Because It is My Heart by Joyce Carol Oates
What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter
Continue reading “Books I’ve Never Read Whose Titles Have Influenced Me”
When Al Jolson put on black face in the first talkie, he turned himself white, according to the article “Blackface, White Noise: The Jazz Singer Finds His Voice” by Michael Rogin. Wasn’t Al Jolson white to begin with? Well, he was Jewish. The plot of The Jazz Singer (1927) revolves around the young performer’s decision to become a cantor for the synagogue, like his father, or pursue a career in Vaudeville. Jakie Rabinowitz chooses Vaudeville and changes his name to Jack Robin, just as Asa Yoelson had changed his name to Al Jolson. The movie, like the play it was based on, was a thinly veiled biography of its star.
A cereal narrative: Just as the milk fills the bowl, the doorbell rings. The milk slowly warms up and the Honey Bunches of Oats turns soggy. Swelling and disintegrating, the cereal becomes a kind of brownish mush that yellows over and sours, attracting flies. Late one night, the kitchen window opens slowly, scattering the flies. (To be continued.)
say something say something
cram my mouth with crumpled words
stuff my chest cavity with paper
anything to fill me up give me shape
ever since I pulled the gods
from my belly my hide’s begun to sag
say something say something
any answer as long as it is broad
enough to fill the gap between stars
strong enough to bridge the space
between a nucleus and electron
an open question is the mouth of death
any answer to stop the asking
Steer your students away from the question “What does The Waste Land mean?”, a question that still baffles literary critics. Instead, get them to ask “What does The Waste Land express?” Rather than getting them to interpret the poem; have them experience it. A four day course of 90 minute classes, for high school and undergraduates, based on a theoretical framework laid out in my essay “What The Waste Land Expresses: An Experiential Approach to T. S. Eliot’s Poem.”
(Photo by Ronosaurus Rex)
Continue reading “Experiencing “The Waste Land”: A Four-Day Unit for Teaching T. S. Eliot’s Masterpiece”
Forests have fallen to explain The Waste Land. And yet, many readers express frustration, which never fully goes away, no matter how many papers and books they read. Once someone begins to read the poem, it is difficult to know where to stop: the preface, the note on the text, the poem itself, the author’s footnotes, the editor’s footnotes, the sources alluded to, the literary criticism, the guides, the biographies, the bibliographies, the early drafts? There is no back cover to this book. One could go on reading The Waste Land until the Holy Grail was found.
Continue reading “What “The Waste Land” Expresses: An Experiential Approach to T. S. Eliot’s Poem”
(The results of an experiment, described in the first and second parts of this series about the writerly reader. A condensed version of this study appears in my book Narrative Madness, which you can acquire at narrativemadness.com or on Amazon. I have sometimes altered spelling, punctuation and capitalization in the responses to make them more accessible.)
The Conflict
Twenty respondents (71%) gave their longest answers to the question “What happened?”, sometimes two, three, four and five times longer. Obviously, this is the part of the story that matters.
(The results of an experiment, described in the first part of this series about the writerly reader. A condensed version of this study appears in my book Narrative Madness, which you can acquire at narrativemadness.com or on Amazon. I have sometimes altered spelling, punctuation and capitalization in the responses to make them more accessible.)
The Setting
When we read a story others have read, we assume everyone has had a similar experience. However, the range of responses in this experiment demonstrates how differently readers envision a narrative. The amount and specificity of detail shows how thoroughly readers inhabit a scene, even one that is brief. As you read the rich responses below, feel free to reimagine these reanimations of my story. After all, it is your birthday!
(A condensed version of this study appears in my book Narrative Madness, which you can acquire at narrativemadness.com or on Amazon.)
I know a very talented individual who adapts literary works, produces and directs them, designs staging, lighting and costumes, casts the characters, plays every last one of them and sometimes adds music and special effects. This whirlwind artist accomplishes all this effortlessly, while sitting around the house in underwear and a t-shirt. That genius, my friend, is you!
When a writer walks away from a text, she vanishes. Roland Barthes calls this “The death of the author.” The death of the author, however, is the birth of the reader! So, let me be the first to congratulate you as you step in for the author and rewrite everything, animate the work and perform the text. A piece of writing, like a music score, is a set of mute symbols until it is played. Only then does it come alive.