Spectacular hebdomadals

Last week's hebdomadals were generally fantastic: some of the strongest work I've seen from you guys so far this semester. I wanted to share a couple particularly exciting hebdomadals with you here.

One student wrote this lovely appreciation of Hacker and postmodernism:

I must admit that, at first glance, all poetry kind of blends into one large genre of writing by which I am easily confused. I did, however, find that upon closer inspection of the poetry covered in the first half of the semester, many differences could be discerned between them and the new, postmodern poetry of Marilyn Hacker. In comparing section three of Stevens’ “Sunday Morning” with Hacker’s “Lesbian Ethics, or: Live Girl-Girl Sex Acts”, the most glaring quality which differed between the two was their range in accessibility. Hacker’s rhyme structure is clean and repetitive which allows for the reader to rhythmically work through the meaning. Stevens keeps away from rhyming altogether and instead floods the reader with alliteration which leads to an almost tongue-tying series of lines like “Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind”. The language Hacker uses is also much easier to relate to. She talks of Fiats, planes and jeans; all relatively every day objects compared to Stevens’ “Jove in the clouds”. Differences in philosophical content were also apparent. Stevens writes of a crisis of his certainty of the existence of a heaven and Hacker recounts her stifled homosexual affair due to her involvement in a previously existing relationship. Where I did begin to see a similarity was where I started thinking of modernism’s cynicism. Just as Stevens is troubled believing in a “muttering king”, Hacker is left stuck in a rut “wasting precious spring”. To sum it all up, while perhaps postmodernism still grapples with certain crises such as faith or homosexuality, it does so without all the confusing rhetoric. By making her poetry more accessible, Hacker allows the reader to better and more easily understand its meaning.

Well I must (again) admit I am a little embarrassed. Basically nothing I have said related to what Professor Woolfe laid out on Tuesday. He did mention the complexities of modernist literature but didn’t necessarily say that Postmodernism was any less difficult. I also wouldn’t necessarily say that I have found anything original either. What I would say is that Hacker’s adherence to structuring her rhymes and straying away from modernism’s grandiose and abstract language did make it easier for me to grasp the feeling of the poem. I feel that this speaks to a possible modernist downfall which is that while, yes, the human mind is complicated and can very easily be expressed as such; there are crises and problems which can often be expressed simply. A Simplicity of expression which can allow for a more meaningful connection with the reader.

Notice the textual details at the center of this analysis, and in particular how it directly compares lines from from Hacker and Stevens within a single sentence ("jeans" vs. "Jove"; "precocious spring" vs. "muttering king").

Keith (313) volunteers this subtle, sensitive comparison of Morrison and Hacker:

Toni Morrison and her work Beloved explore many of the same themes as Marilyn Hacker's poem "Lesbian Ethics, or: Live Girl-Girl Sex Acts" using very different characters and settings.

Most obviously is the fact that Beloved explores its problems and themes using a specific "sex" scene (if we can even call it that) between a man and a woman. Morrison explores the idea that one thing can, in fact, be two very different thing at the same time. Like Professor Wolfe pointed out, the computer that I am typing on right now is both solid and porous at the same exact time. The paradox is explored in this scene in Beloved. Morrison begins the scene by having Sethe recount her most horrific story and then Paul D., who is known to have the ability to comfort women so much by his sheer presence, literally holds her breasts. This, as Morrison states, was as if finally, if only for a moment, somebody took responsibility for something of hers. Paul D. rubs his cheek along her back, her "tree", and seems to connect directly into her fears. "He rubbed his cheek on her back and learned that way her sorrow, the roots of it; its wide trunk and intricate branches." (18) However, this deep connection is followed by "Raising his fingers to the hooks of her dress" (18). This raises the question, is this act an act of long lost love and yearning, or a simple fulfillment of desire. To Sethe it seems to be an act of love, or perhaps its just her fulfilling her needs. Finally somebody had "touched every ridge and leaf of it" (18). Paul D., however, seems almost to be taking advantage of her. Either way, when they finally do consummate their love, "it was over before they could get their clothes off." (21) This yearning, love, whatever you want to call it is really satisfied before they ever have sex. The sex is almost a formality that they go through, neither of them really knowing what they are doing. Following this awkward encounter, both of their dreams about each other, the longing they felt from Sweet Home, cannot be satisfied since it has been built up so much. Morrison clearly displays how what can look like love from one angle looks a lot like desire and lust from another.

Likewise, Hacker deals with nearly the same issue as Morrison, just in a very different situation. Instead of post Civil War ex-slaves in a hetero relationship, Hacker describes a relationship between lesbians that could exist even today. Hacker has the speaker describing a fairly graphic scene in an airplane, and disclaimers it with "It's not that I'm inimical to sleaze." (1) This is an interesting word choice, as even the sentence has two different perspectives, one very fancy with a word like "inimical", yet it ends very colloquially with "sleaze". She continues with a description that the speaker felt as she watched from under trees. This is like the longing felt in Beloved by both Paul D. and Sethe. She continues with the best line(s) of the poem "…except that infidelity's/the kind of bad taste that leaves a bad taste/worse that mousebreath of a hangover" (8-10). The infidelity that Hacker has the speaker so badly yearn for is in fact a horrible taste. Not only that, but it leaves a horrible taste, perhaps an unsatisfied taste, like one experienced after a night of drinking. So much time is wasted on waiting, yet the speaker seems not to mind. The speaker experiences the same type of double reality as Sethe and Paul D. do in Beloved.

The double reality that Professor Wolfe discussed in lecture is clearly seen in both of these postmodernist works.

Notice how Keith is here doing exactly what Beth advised us all to do: he works first at the level of characters and psychology, but he immediately uses that level of reading to ask questions about the authors' larger aesthetic programs.