God Bless the Winter Break

If I had to pick one adjective to describe this fall semester at VCU I would pick: bromidic!

Only one course truly inspired me academically, and that was African-American Literature.
The others, eh...not so much. My Poetry class was interesting, but the lackadaisical approach wasn't amicable to comprehensive focus, which didn't make the class as enjoyable as it could have been.

However, the champion of trite, as it were, belongs to my Chaucer course. My instructor felt that we, students, had the profound ability to suddenly comprehend Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Troilus & Criseyde (read in the original Middle English, mind you) without the need for supplemental class instruction.

To give an extreme example that accurately surmises my experience with the course, the class period after the mid-term elections contained absolutely NO discussion on Geoffrey Chaucer or one of his works. Instead, our instructor digressed (that's the polite term. I prefer "rambled incoherently," myself) on topics from politics, a quasi-famous prison break in Richmond that took place years ago, and (as was common in our discussions of other Chaucerian scholars) how our instructor thought another of her academic brethren was an "idiot." In fact, at one point during the semester, she iterated her elation upon hearing the death of a Chaucerian contemporary. No joke.

To give you wonderful readers (all none of you) an idea of how out of step she was with reality, she gave us an essay assignment that was to be handed-in during our final exam period. When did she provide us with detailed instructions for this assignment, you ask? One day prior to the exam. I kid you not. One day for a three to four page explication of a Troilus & Criseyde passage.

All I can tell you is that I am greatly looking forward to a month-long respite here in Springfield, VA, picking up hours at Michael's, spending time with friends I have not seen in a while, and trying to rid my imagination of the boredom that was this Fall semester.

Poem

Sura 54

hammer and sickle
amongst the mouse democracy.
the gentle hand of calligraphy
in the memory of Mujahideen.

an osama bin laden
party hat

adorned by

politics lovers who frequently
spat

and, just as the Soviet moon fell under
Afghanistan,

the stature of Albert Pujols
compliments the candles Little Richard
will blow out on his
Captain America

vanilla
frosted


birthday cake

British Lit Essay

Higher Thought:

Divinity in Romantic Poetry

The Romantic period enforced great changes in English poetry: incorporation of layman vocabulary and linguistic structure, abandonment of past poetic ideologies and practices, and the utilization of new poetic themes and subjects past considered unimportant or insignificant. These changes of traditional poetic principles stemmed heavily, and were greatly inspired, from the American and, perhaps more notably, French Revolutions. The Norton Anthology of English Literature writes, “The [French] Revolution generated a pervasive feeling that this was an age of new beginnings when, by discarding traditional procedures and outworn customs, everything was possible, and not only in the political and social realm but in intellectual and literary enterprises as well” (1318). Poets, noticeably William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, felt their age, which scholars ascribe as falling between, roughly, the years1785-1830, were more open towards a new “renascence” of poetic breadth and evolvement casing a more profound exploration of the poet himself. With the political revolutions taking place in the world a new sense of creative revolution followed suit, allowing poetic freedom to emerge and to showcase each individual poet’s emotional, mental, and, as this paper will explore to more detail, spiritual aspects. One of the more notable characteristics of the age was the prominent description of a “higher spiritual power” residing within the minds of man and its significance towards happiness and creativity. As it will be explored further, that “higher power” does not necessarily facilitate the admittance to God, but is also reserved in the sense of a higher state of being, and, or, consciousness.

The poet perhaps best known and affiliated with the Romantic period was William Wordsworth. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads contained a preface, revised and extended with each succeeding edition, totaling three, explaining the many characteristics of the anthology’s works, with those characteristics influencing other poets of that generation as well as poets of future generations. The third preface to Lyrical Ballads, quoted from the Norton Anthology’s reprinting, explains Wordsworth’s own revolutionary thinking and justification towards what a poem, and poet, should be and aim to accomplish:

The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems [ within Lyrical Ballads] was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them…the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. (1438)

Each of these points of Wordsworth’s poetic practice was radically indifferent to past ideology of poetry, formed, essentially, by the neo-classicists within England, especially the “excitement” taking place in the poet’s mind. Wordsworth writes, “For the human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this, and who does not further know, that one being is elevated above another, in proportion as he possesses this capability” (1440). Two points can be taken from this quotation: the first is that Wordsworth’s thinking that one’s mind possesses an underlying sense of strength and creativity and, thusly, admits that man’s mind retains a higher power. In the prior Eighteenth-century, people, including writers, felt that humanity had a precise and limited range of thought and capability. With the rise of the Romantic period, however, these notions were challenged and rebelled against. The notion that man possesses and retains an intangible and “divine” power would have been refuted by many prior to the Romantics. The Norton Anthology goes on to describe:

Through the greater part of the eighteenth century, humans had for the most part been viewed as limited beings in a strictly ordered and essentially unchanging world. A variety of philosophical and religious systems in that century coincided in a distrust of radical innovation, a respect for the precedents established through the ages by the common sense of humanity, and the recommendation to set accessible goals and to avoid extremes, whether in politics, intellect, morality, or art. (1325)

By Wordsworth’s own belief that poets are “to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them…” this new exploration of artistic thinking would unequivocally arise within specific poetic works. Wordsworth’s sonnet “It is a beauteous evening” perhaps best illustrates his own thinking.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea:
Listen! The mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
Dear Child! Dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;
And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not. (1490)

Several references within this poem inspire thought towards Wordsworth’s notion that a higher power does exist within the mind of man. “Listen! The mighty Being is awake, / And doth with his eternal motion make / A sound like thunder…” (Lines 6-8). Wordsworth states that “The mighty Being is awake” clearly suggesting a divine power, and that it makes an “internal motion,” implying that the “Being,” note it’s capitalization implying importance and significance with the verse, lies within. The ending lines of the poem conclude with “Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year; / And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine, / God being with thee when we know it not” (12-5). Here Wordsworth states that the girl with him is constantly around “divinity” throughout the year, implying a never severing relationship, and that she worships “at the Temple’s inner shrine,” again reiterating an internal power. Wordsworth goes further by addressing this power as “God,” who is “…with thee when we know it not.” The idea of “God” possessing divine power is nothing unique to the Romantic period, but, what is unique is referring to an almighty internal power as “God.” William A. Ulmer, professor of English at the University of Alabama, writes:

Wordsworth transfer the heavenly redemption celebrated in Luke—“and it came to pass that the begger died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22)—to a child in her natural innocence, finding in that innocence, however, not merely a sign of God but a reconfirmation of Christian spiritual deliverance. While “It is a beauteous Evening” ignores Church doctrine, it establishes a resonantly Christian religious perspective for the scene it describes. (94-5)

In the sonnet Wordsworth clearly emphasizes that one possesses and retains a “God”-like power, even if it clashes with societal norms of religion and its practice.

The belief that a higher “internal” power is not solely applicable to William Wordsworth’s own personal belief. A fellow Romantic poet, and friend who aided in the writing of Lyrical Ballads, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, also held this belief. His poem “The Eolian Harp” also provides evidence to this new expressive thinking. An eolian harp, named after the god of the winds, Aeolus, contains strings that, when placed to allow exposure to wind fluctuations, vary with played musical notes. This harp was very common in homes during the Romantic period. “The Eolian Harp” was composed a year after Coleridge married Sara Fricker and was commentary on Coleridge’s love of her and the various emotions that were spawned within that love. The first stanzas of the poem utilize the presence of the harp inside the cottage of the two newlyweds. Coleridge uses the harp as a metaphor for the peace and tranquility given to him by the love he possesses for his wife, Sarah. Coleridge later goes on to ponder that perhaps every man possesses their own “eolian harp”, pleasantly and peacefully struck by the winds within one’s own mind. “And what if all of animated nature / Be but organic harps diversely framed, / That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps / Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, / At once the Soul of each, and God of All?” (Lines 44-8). In these lines one can see that Coleridge, much the same as Wordsworth, feels that “God” is a divine power amongst nature as well as inside one’s mind. This pantheistic belief is met with criticism within the lines of the poem. Coleridge’s own wife rebukes his comment. “Well hast thou said and holily dispraised / These shapings of the unregenerate mind…” (54-5). Here Coleridge cites that Sarah feels his spiritual belief is unfounded and incorrect. In a book analyzing Coleridge’s use of biblical imagery and natural symbolism, author H. W. Piper comments, “What Sarah here particularly points out is that he [Coleridge] has forgotten that God is incomprehensible, and that the proper response to him is simply awe and deep feeling…Certainly he let the speculations stand as, apparently, the main purpose of the poem” (34). This reiterates that the line-of-thinking regarding the belief that a great power, “God” in this case and the former, lying within the mind was not commonly accepted in Romantic society.

In another example presenting the ideology of divine power within man’s mind comes from Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley was in line for a baronetcy and, subsequently, was sent to Oxford for schooling. While attending Oxford Shelley and a close friend published a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism and mailed it to bishops and heads of the Oxford colleges, which resulted in his expulsion from school.

After his expulsion Shelley published “Queen Mab”, a poem about a fairy, Mab, and her journey through a horrific past and present and culmination in a rejoice-filled future. The character Mab refutes institutional religion and maxims of morality, feeling they are the cause of evil within society. In keeping with Shelley’s Oxford expelling pamphlet, one can very easily presume that Mab’s beliefs parallel, even to a slight degree, Shelley’s own. Ergo, as an atheist, one could also presume that Shelley would not harbor beliefs that a divine power would be prevalent outside or within the minds of man. However, Shelley’s poems did not exempt the reference towards such a power.

In his poem “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” Shelley devotes the entire work towards the admittance and explanation of a higher power. The first stanza begins “The awful shadow of some unseen Power / Floats though unseen amongst us…” (1.1-2). Here Shelley does, in fact, admit that there is “some unseen Power,” note, again, the significance of capitalization. Stanza two decries “Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate / With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon / Of human thought or form,--where art thou gone? / Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, / This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?” (2.3-6). Here Shelley ponders why this “Spirit of BEAUTY” is not constant, and can be unattached, leaving man to sadness and despair. Shelley continues the poem by commenting on society’s creation of “God.” “No voice from some sublimer world hath ever / To sage or poet these responses given-- / Therefore the name of God and ghosts of Heaven, / Remain the records of their vain endeavor” (3.25-9). Shelley explains that this “Spirit of BEAUTY” has been given the name of “God” and the existence of “Heaven.” “Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart / And come, for some uncertain moments lent. / Man were immortal, and omnipotent… / Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart” (4.37-41). Here Shelley states that love, hope, and self-esteem do indeed cease to be and if man could retain those divine characteristics this “spirit” would be indefinitely present. Within the poem Shelley goes on to recount his religious upbringing associated with his youth and his search for the metaphysical. “While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped / Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin … / Hopes of high talk with the departed dead… / I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; / I was not heard—I saw them not…” (5.49-54). In a book analyzing metaphysics within Romantic poetry the author, Jack G. Voller, writes:

This passage has an autobiographical aspect; Percy Shelley dabbled in necromancy as a youth, but the passage refers equally well to his early literary explorations of the supernatural. Just as he raised no ghosts with his youthful incantations, the Gothic fictions supplied no answers, provided no high talk with the departed dead. The “answer,” if such it is, lies ultimately not in the realm of the supernatural but the natural: (176)

“When musing deeply on the lot / Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing / All vital things that wake to bring / News of buds and blossoming, -- / Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; / I shrieked, and clasped my hand in extacy!” (5.55-60). Shelley goes on to cite “I vowed that I would dedicate my powers / To thee and thine…” (6.61-2). “Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind / To fear himself, and love all human kind” (7.83-4). Here again Shelley remarks of the “Spirit.” Although his explanation of this higher power differs from that of Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s label of “God,” it does parallel their belief that a higher power is indeed present.

Correlating with the vast changes of society, i.e. the American and French revolutions, the poetry of the Romantic period carried out a revolution of its own shelling the ideas and traditions that came before it. With the vast expansion and movement of “acceptable” norms, the poetry, and poets, of the period became preoccupied with the “liberation” of man and his powers. The Norton Anthology underscores, “The Romantic period…was also an age of radical individualism in which both the philosophers and poets put an extraordinarily high estimate on human potentialities and powers” (1325). Fitting with the new individualistic “freedoms” pursued by the generation, fresh and enlightened thoughts of a “higher power,” and its place within man, was pursued more extensively. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge did not abolish the existence, or name, of “God,” but went against the established pietistic notions of that “God” by suggesting divine powers lie inside, not away from, the minds of man. However, this view was not uniformly shared within the age. Percy Bysshe Shelley was noted for expressing atheistic views, yet he to admitted to searching for, and feeling, a higher power above the state of normal consciousness. With past traditions being broken and ignored in the Romantic age one clearly sees that a protrusion of that traditionalistic rebellion is the thinking of what man’s mind truly possesses and is capable of.

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H., Stephen Greenblatt, eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume B. 7th Ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Piper, H. W. The Singing of Mount Abora: Coleridge’s Use of Biblical Imagery and Natural Symbolism in Poetry and Philosophy. New Jersey: Associated University Presses, 1987.

Ulmer, William A. The Christian Wordsworth: 1798-1805. New York: State University of New York Press, 2001.

Voller, Jack G. The Supernatural Sublime: The Metaphysics of Terror in Anglo-American Romanticism. Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994.

African-American Literature Essay

The Harlem “Dream Deferred:”

Frustration and History Represented in the Weaving of Theme and Form

In 1925, Alain Leroy Locke, the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, said, “Harlem has the same role to play for the New Negro as Dublin has had for the New Ireland or Prague for the New Czechoslovakia.” When humans begin a process of rebirth, so does their environment. This is what took place during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920’s. Yet, the hopeful bastion of African-American creativity and hope was doomed by financial disaster. By looking at the historical foundations of Harlem and its Renaissance, and then examining a poem by one of its instrumental figures, Langston Hughes, we can trace the emphatic hope and tragic loss of a unique period in American history. Hughes’ poetry, years after the death of the Renaissance, flows through image and structure dichotomies, mirroring the sadness and frustration of Hughes and his generation.

There was exuberance in the city of New York during the zenith of the Harlem Renaissance in 1926. A major population shift after Reconstruction involved, approximately, five million African-American migrants. These migrants ventured to northern states where a burgeoning process of industrialization was taking place, increasing chances of employment and financial well-being. In addition, another notable lure of the American north was the diminished presence of racism (the creation of the Klu Klux Klan took place during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War).

However, despite the containment of racist ideology, the floundering economy and environmental factors of the American South after the war played the biggest role. In his seminal book on the subject When Harlem Was in Vogue, David Levering Lewis writes, “The real reason for the mass migration was economic. The deadly blows to the South’s economy from natural disasters during 1915 and 1916—drought and rain and the boll weevil—launched the evacuation” (21).

So, the migration began. New York City had been a major metropolis of American society and industry, and the section of the city known as Harlem became a vital center of a re-birth of artistic culture and ideas: a community of writers, poets, artists, and dancers, amongst many others, interjected creativity originally quelled by slavery and social slighting. Now, in a community whose artistic ability fed off the participants, African-American culture was changing. Lewis continues: “[the population]…shared in equal measure what might be called Harlem nationalism—the emotional certainty that the very dynamism of the ‘World’s Greatest Negro Metropolis’ was somehow a guarantee of ultimate racial victory” (169-170). This new social optimism was not limited to a select number of the burgeoning populous, but to everyone.

To a remarkable degree that collective optimism touched everyone—the humble cleaning woman, the illiterate janitor, and even the criminal element. Nowhere else in America were ordinary people as aware of the doings of their artists and actors, composers and musicians, painters and poets, sculptors and singers, and its literary and academic writers than the Harlem of the mid- and late twenties (Lewis 170).

However, the Stock Market crash of 1929 blanketed the country in financial destitution. No creative movement could sustain its strength in such impoverishing conditions, especially in already poor sections of the country, like Harlem. The light of the Harlem Renaissance had been effectively extinguished. It is here, in lost hope, that we find Langston Hughes’ poem, Harlem.

When reading “Harlem,” one immediately senses a frustrated disillusionment of the speaker’s current condition. Hughes published the poem in his anthology Montage of a Dream Deferred in 1951, over twenty years after the end of the Harlem Renaissance, a period still very much on his mind. In his essay “Langston Hughes: Cool Poet,” Arthur P. Davis describes the collection; “Actually one long poem of seventy-five pages, this work employs a ‘jam session’ technique that allows the poet to make use of a host of varied, blending and contrasting vignettes to paint a full picture of Harlem’s frustration” (22).

The poem begins with the posing of the question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” (1). Hughes refers to the feelings of disenfranchisement, even disempowerment, to the ideals asserted with the Harlem Renaissance. Where has this “dream,” the Harlem Renaissance, gone?
Hughes supplies the reader with imagery that resembles the withering-away of 1920’s Harlem: a raisin drying in the sun (2-3), the festering of a sore (4), a stench of rotten meat (6), the crusting of sugar (7), the sagging of a heavy load (9-10), and the final image of an explosion (11).

The imagery is very appropriate for the theme that Hughes attempts to create. In addition to the images that Hughes kindles for his audience, he incorporates rhyme that provides a dichotomy to the decaying visualizations.

Beginning with the second line, the poem adopts a rhyme scheme of abcbdedfgf. What is odd about this use of rhyme, considering the subject matter of the poem, is that it has an air of playfulness, lightheartedness. This is a polar opposite of the speaker’s lamentations about the foregone Harlem Renaissance. In their book Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, David Mason and John Frederick Nims write on phonetics in poetry that, “…People find [rhyme] fun. Poetry has been seen as the supreme example of the play spirit in human beings…the use of rhyme has been seen as a subconscious recollection of the fun of childhood” (181).

Rhymes do have a sense of childlike appeal and conjuration. If so, why would Hughes use end rhymes, especially in shorter sentences that exacerbate playfulness, when dealing with the vanishing of the Harlem Renaissance? The amalgam of both rhyme playfulness and subject somberness creates a dichotomy and tension against form and tone that mirrors the environment of 1951 Harlem. In another of his essays on the subject, “The Harlem of Langston Hughes’ Poetry,” Arthur P. Davis writes, “Perhaps the dominant over-all impression that one gets from Montage of a Dream Deferred [again, the anthology where Hughes published "Harlem"] is that of a vague unrest. Tense and moody, the inhabitants of this 1951 Harlem seem to be seeking feverishly and forlornly for some simple yet apparently unattainable satisfaction in life…” (142). Hughes very adeptly uses this dichotomy to underscore the frustration experienced by those who had seen the Harlem Renaissance, and the ideals it represented, disappear and not return. Davis continues:

…this theme of Harlem’s dream deferred marches relentlessly throughout ["Harlem"]. Hughes knows that Harlem is neither a gay nor healthy but basically a tragic and frustrated city, and he beats that message home. Because of the fugue-like structure of the poem, it is impossible for the reader to miss the theme or forget it (142).

Immense hope and creativity once filled the streets of Harlem. An influx of slighted people, with new, but unclear freedoms, reinvigorated this area of New York in the 1920’s. This part of the city represented more than just a new home; it represented a life unclaimed. Its subsequent crumbling through the fate of the Stock Market crash crippled the movement, the people. Langston Hughes writes of the sadness and frustration of what was, but now no longer is, in "Harlem." His dream deferred floats amongst dichotomy, and counterintuitive poetic relationships that bring into the mind of his readers what was in the hearts of his contemporaries. It could be argued that the “dream deferred” would float unfulfilled until Martin Luther King Jr. spoke under the gaze of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, speaking to the world the great dream of the Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes.

Works Cited

Davis, Arthur P. “The Harlem of Langston Hughes’ Poetry.” Critical Essays on Langston Hughes. Ed. Edward J. Mullen. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1986.

Davis, Arthur P. “Langston Hughes: Cool Poet.” Langston Hughes Black Genius: A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Therman B. O’Daniel. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1971.

Hughes, Langston. “Harlem.” The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: WW Norton & Co., 2004.

Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Penguin Books, 1979.

Mason, David and John Frederick Nims. Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Who's got Left?????

The loss of Alfonso Soriano (now a Chicago Cub) to free agency gives the Nationals an opening in their roster for left field. I think the most obvious choice to replace Soriano is Ryan Church. But Church comes with apprehensive baggage.

The most recent example comes with his refusal to participate in Mexican winter ball, in which to improve his success with breaking pitches. In 2005 some felt Church did not display either the physical or mental toughness to allow his potential to come through.

Yet, he is by far the best option for the club.

Although he is no spring chicken, Church is 28 years old, which is considered relatively “young” in MLB years. In 196 at bats his numbers (OBP / SLG / AVG) were .353 /.466 /.287 . Although mindful that Soriano had 647 at bats in 2006 (.351 / .560 / .277), Church went toe-to-toe with Soriano in OBP and AVG.

Another option that the Nats have is to play Alex Escobar. In 87 at-bats: (.394 /.575 /.356).

Obviously, offensive numbers in 87 at-bats is in no way a strong prediction as to how that player’s numbers will evolve in 500+ opportunities. Despite this, Escobar has evident talent. That is clear.

However, he has severe trouble remaining healthy. After an in-game shoulder injury last August then-manager Frank Robinson said, “It's like he has a cloud hanging over his head, a negative force…I feel bad for him and I know he feels bad about this.”

100% health can never be guaranteed for any player, but no one should assume that Escobar can remain healthy throughout the 2007 season given his previous health-related concerns.

I would like to see Escobar in a CF platoon situation with Nook Logan, at least at the onset of the Spring Training and the regular season. New Manager Manny Acta said this about Logan shortly after the club announced that he would replace Robinson: "Logan played well during the month of September…Nook has a tool that never goes into a slump and that is speed, especially playing in spacious RFK Stadium. This team has not had a reliable center fielder the last three or four years. We are going to give him every opportunity to win the job."

From that, it appears that the club wants Logan to win the job outright with his performance, which does not attenuate my initial thoughts about a center field platoon.

There is no dispute that Logan needs to improve his offensive production, especially his OBP. His exceptional speed, in addition to making him an above-average defensive player, needs to be used on the base paths. Although Acta has admitted that he is not extremely aggressive with base stealing, no one denies that it is far more preferable to have speed on base as opposed to not. Whether or not any offensive improvements warrant a full-time position on the roster remains to be seen.

In addition, Kory Casto has impressed many in the organization, being named the club’s Minor League Player of the Year in two consecutive years. His 2006 numbers at AA Harrisonburg in 489 at bats were .379 /.468 /.272.

However, I think Casto should get ample playing time during Spring Training, but should start out in AAA Columbus. If at any point during the season there is an opening in either LF or CF, he should be called up.

There are many factors that will determine the opening day lineup. Many won’t occur until Spring Training, should the roster remain as it does currently.

However, of all the outfielders, excluding RF Austin Kearns, Ryan Church has had the most consistent success (which is slim in and of itself).

I think that Church’s talent potential, his relatively young age, and his inexpensive contract will make him quite valuable in the months and weeks leading up to the trade deadline of July 31. Church would be an expendable player knowing that Kory Casto would, presumably, improve in the minors. By giving him consistent playing time, his value will be maximized, giving the Nats a better chance of acquiring starting pitching or any other position that needs amelioration.

Obviously, coaches and personnel are going to have a better idea as to how these players fit into the club and its future. But by giving Ryan Church a consistent shot to test his metal, the club will most likely improve an eventual return on its investment.

Thoughts on Iraq

The removal of Donald Rumsfeld from the office of Secretary of Defense will interject new ideas and new policy to the Iraq war. The move, in step with the eventual release of findings by the Baker Institute and the Democratic “thumping” in the recent midterm congressional elections, shows that the environment in Iraq is at a disconnect with the goals of the Presidential administration and the public.

The midterm elections were a referendum on the Republican leadership. The underlying issue that seems to have generated the referendum-feel, and also an increase in voter turnout across the country, was not a national issue, but a foreign policy issue—The Iraq War.

But can Iraq be fixed? Can the hopes of the President that Iraq will be a peaceful, democratic bastion in a region as volatile as the Middle East?

Probably not. At least not in the near future.

A mistake that war planners at the Pentagon and Central Command (under now retired Gen. Tommy Franks) made was that they did not foresee the animosity that was to be unleashed, a virulence amongst Shiites and Sunnis, against one another, that Saddam Hussein repressed under dictatorial control. In fact, they had no substantive strategy for post-Saddam Iraq (referred to as Phase IV of the war plan). Thomas E. Ricks in his book, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq:

It wasn’t that there was no planning. To the contrary, there was a lot, with at least three groups inside the military and one at the State Department working on postwar issues and producing thousands of pages of documents. But much of the planning was shoddy, there was no one really in charge of it, and there was little coordination between the various groups (79).

The lack of significant preparation and adequate troop numbers caused Iraq to explode. Looting was widespread and difficult to control. In addition, the minimal number of troops allowed a free passing of select Iraqis into neighboring Syria (and would also be the impetus for Iraqi civilian abuse at the hands of U.S. soldiers, notably General Odierno’s 4th Infantry Division), some of whom would fund characters of insurgency. In addition, it is a prime violation of counterinsurgency warfare to allow a lax control of territorial borders (see Lt. Col. David Galula’s, French army, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, a counterinsurgency “bible” despite its dated publication, 1938.)

Paul Bremer’s implication of de-baathification (removing all individuals once associated with Hussein’s party) and the abolishment of the Iraqi army effectively rooted insurgency in the already unstable country. Roughly half a million individuals were slighted, dishonored, and now without paychecks to support their families.

The current unemployment rate in Iraq is between 30%-70%, with notable percentage differences in various sections of the country. The creation of jobs in the country is essential. This will require extensive amounts of money. Perhaps Iraq’s neighbors, Syria and Iran, can help to build-up the fragile Iraq economy (both Syria and Iran have no need for a continuing unstable Iraq, which would cause an influx of refugees and could insight intra-religious violence amongst Muslims in their own countries).

In a recent article for Newsweek magazine, Fareed Zakaria puts forth this contemplation: “If you think that Iraq's tumult is a product of its culture, religion and history, ask yourself what the United States would look like after three years of 50 percent unemployment. Would there not be civil strife in Manhattan, Detroit, Los Angeles and New Orleans?”

There is one bright spot in Iraq, which is the growing economic strength of the Kurdistan region in the north. “While the government in Baghdad is still haggling over its petroleum law and violence wracks much of the country, the Kurds are about to pass their own oil law. They have already signed contracts with a handful of foreign oil companies, and they’re aggressively wooing more” (Fang, -style: italic;">U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 13, 2006). Fareed Zakaria further adds this notable characteristic: “…it is a Muslim region in the Arab world that wants to be part of the modern world, not blow it up.”

Iraq needs to find a way to allocate petroleum revenue to both Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias. This will generate much needed income if the new country is to grow.

However, the sustained violence curbs development in the country, and security is not at the levels it needs to be. This is the primary difficulty that the new Secretary of Defense will undertake. However, it is a pipedream to assume that U.S. forces can eliminate the sectarian violence in the country. The best hope that forces have is to keep the violence at minimal levels so the economy, based in oil revenue and employment-creation, can grow and become, at some level, self-sustaining without the aid of American troops.

I’m not quite sure how Americans view the situations in Iraq, nor do I comprehend their best wishes and intents (even their realistic goals) for that fragile country. But, we would be kidding ourselves to assume that a peaceful and a working democratic country will take form in the none-to-distant future. It will take many years, possibly generations, for a stable economy to emerge amongst sustained security and prevalent democracy.

However, there is no guarantee that this will happen.

Run, Barack. Run????

A few hundred people crowded onto the property of Virginia Union University in Richmond to participate in a rally for Virginia senatorial candidate Jim Webb. Sharing the stage with him were three of the most famous Virginia Democrats in the history of the Old Dominion: current Mayor Douglas Wilder, current Governor Tim Kaine, and former Governor (and a once hopeful presidential candidate) Mark Warner.

Despite the local stature of these individuals, it was a Democrat from Illinois that received the loudest cheers from the crowd: Sen. Barrack Obama.

I have heard a great deal about the Illinois Senator. He left his first nationwide impression during the last Democratic Convention where he gave a rousing speech. That speech inspired many to think that, perhaps, they were hearing a future President. If so, Obama would be the first African-American President of the United States.

I was surprised to see the Senator with a sense of meekness in the chilly, sunny autumn November. He, at times, seemed as though he was a bit overwhelmed with the attention he has been receiving of late. During the occasions when one of the local politicians would insinuate that Sen. Obama could be the “next President,” he would smile sheepishly, even once looking to the ground, made awkward with the crowd’s cheering.

Who can blame him? Within the past two years, he has moved from “high-level prospect” status in the Democratic Party to starting shortstop.

Yet, his humble demeanor did not derail is ability to inspire the crowd. Yes, he was among members of his own party, who are further electrified with leaders of their own party as Election Day is less than a week away. And yes, he himself is not running for election, but using his “star power” to elect a hopeful Democrat into the Senate. But that doesn’t guarantee that a politician can still electrify the crowd. His strong presence today did not come from an overt Type-A personality, but a genuine honesty and a relatable quality that makes him especially hard to dislike.

One of his best lines recanted the decision-making process he had when deciding to run for public office. He did the two things that every would-be politician does: he first prayed, and then asked his wife for permission. With a yes from both “almighty decision makers,” he decided to run for Senate.

Whereas Mark Warner comes across as a politician that you can like, Sen. Obama comes across as an individual that you like. There is a difference.

To prove this point, after the rally had ended, and the politicians onstage walked down the steps leading to the grounds of VUU, Senatorial candidate Jim Webb was easily and readily accessible for a handshake, picture, or autograph. However, the swarming crowd forced Senator Obama to return back up the stairs and into a VUU building to avoid those eager to meet him.

At one point, every news camera was inches away from Barrack Obama, with the rally’s spectators crowding the Illinois Senator with copies of his two most recent books for him to sign.

As I began my walk back to the Fan district of Richmond, I saw one man selling t-shirts and buttons that read “Obama for President.”

It’s hard to imagine not seeing more of those as 2008 approaches.

Op-Ed Piece

“Hey Congress, Where Ya’ At?”

The current presidential administration bears much of the blame that circulates regarding the Iraq War. The executive branch of the government must shoulder the responsibility of a wartime United States; our President is the country’s Commander in Chief.

However, the structure of the Constitution does not delegate full authority to the branch of the executive during times of war. The legislative branch shares its own authority, and thusly its own responsibility, as well.

The current congress (the 109th in U.S. history) has relinquished its own power of oversight when examining the actions and policy of the executive branch. Oversight enables Congress to examine how their legislation is carried out, in addition to “checking” and “balancing” the other two branches of government.

Under the Clinton administration, Congress formed an oversight process to investigate whether or not President Clinton had used his Christmas card list to petition possible campaign contributors. The Congress took in roughly 140 hours of testimony on the matter. Contrast this with the number of testimony-hours the current Congress took, 12 hours, when investigating the Abu-Ghraib abuse allegations.

The state of military involvement in Iraq has been given slighted attention. In June of this year, the Republican Congress began a debate to decide whether to enact formal resolution to “stay the course” over, the largely Democrat position to, “cut and run.” This debate was the first formal Congressional discussion on U.S. / Iraq military relations since 2002, when in October Congress voted the use of force in Iraq.

In addition to the lowered numbers of oversight discussions in the legislative branch (in the 60’s and 70’s Congress held a biannual average of 5,700 subcommittees, between 2003-2004, roughly 2,100) the current Presidential administration views oversight discussions as an annoyance, and unnecessary. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld begrudgingly attended an Armed Services Committee meeting in August of this year, only after Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY) turned Rumsfeld initial refusal into a favorable political issue for the Democrats.

Another example of how the current administration approaches oversight came in May of 2004. The Armed Services Committee, in light of the Abu-Ghraib scandal, asked Rumsfeld and various army personal about proper chain of command. When Rumsfeld was about to demonstrate the command, he was informed that one of his accompanying Generals neglected to bring a prepared chart for the committee to use as a visualization aid.

A lack of interaction between both branches may cause many to feel that it is necessary for opposing parties to control the executive and legislative branches separately. Competition is good for the political market. However, it does not need to come to this. Congress is an independent force in the American government, as is the Presidency. Both need to keep an “eye out” on the other. Had Congress been more vocal about oversight discussions, or more vocal about a lack of cooperation on the part of the Bush administration, perhaps the Iraq war would not be in the position we find it now. It is necessary for Congress to reinvigorate oversight to minimize failures and to better, and quickly, adapt to changing circumstances.

Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) said, “You don’t need the [oversight] hearings” when one party controls both the executive and legislative branches of government. Hopefully, just as Rep. Delay, that ideology will be pushed out of Congress.

Book Review

Few writers have the ability to present history to their readers with both historical integrity and quality narration. The former allows the reader an accurate appraisal of history. Yet, writers can easily neglect the latter. It is far easier for them to approach their recount with dry objectivity, void of a human “touch,” and void of a true story.

Victor Sebestyen accomplishes both tasks in his book Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Filled with vivid accounts and character analysis, which comes from Sebestyen’s in-depth research, a largely forgotten historical event of the Cold War finds new life.

As a satellite of the Soviet Union, Hungary fell under the control of Maytas Rakosi, a torrid dictator eager to please his appointer, Joseph Stalin. Under Maytas, Hungarians came to know the AVO (the Hungarian equivalent to the KGB), who under the leadership of Gabor Peter, implemented the “salami tactics” of Rakosi to subdue dissent and retain control of the communist country.

After the death of Stalin, and the subsequent approval of Nikita Khrushchev to lead the Kremlin, Rakosi influence in Hungary diminished. Khrushchev and his associates, well aware of Rakosi’s brutal “salami tactics” diminished his power. One way in which the Kremlin accomplished this was through the appointment of Imre Nagy as the country’s Prime Minister.

Nagy represented a communism that sought to withdrawal from the harsh affronts of Stalin, mirroring the desire of Khrushchev, in favor of a more amicable system for the Party and Hungarians through his “June Road” plan. A polar opposite of the much harsher Rakosi, an embodiment of Stalin-communism, Nagy quickly amassed a loyal following amongst his compatriots. His rival-like stature to Rakosi, the First Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, was not unseen by the country’s leader. As he had done before with perceived rivals, Rakosi attempted to oust Nagy through trumped-up charges, which would ultimately lead to a show trial (a preferred method amongst Soviet communists to remove threats).

Rakosi failed at this, and was only able to fire Nagy from his position. Khrushchev later tired of Rakosi, and removed him from power. His successor, Erno Gero, would ultimately be in communist power when the Revolution began.

A communist student organization desired to march into Budapest City Park. A last minute approval by Gero sealed the eventuality. What began as a protest march, partly inspired by rhetoric heard on the U.S. sponsored Radio Free Europe, quickly turned into a revolution. Hungarian soldiers joined the side of their country, and what began has a mere protest to voice concerns turned into a hostile takeover of Budapest. The people rallied around the implementation of a Nagy-led government. Yet, the still loyal communist was unable to inspire and govern a rebellion, whose hatred of communism had grown since initial Soviet takeover of the country after World War II.

Intermixed between these events, Sebestyen places his readers inside both the Kremlin and the White House. Had the Eisenhower administration taken a more proactive stance to support rebellious Soviet satellite countries, the revolution might have brought significant change for the country. Instead, a more passive approach to communist “containment”, coupled with a developing Egyptian crisis, doomed the revolution of help from the West.

In the Kremlin, a Polish upheaval days before the Budapest march gave way to a more moderate communist led country with stronger autonomy. Initially, Khrushchev did not want to retake the country with military force, opting more for the agreement that had been reached in Poland. Yet, the violence exhibited by the revolutionaries pushed Khrushchev to invade, twelve days after the initial protests.

The succinct writing of a well-researched subject makes the book feel more of a narrative than a historical textbook. The reader quickly aligns themselves with the Hungarians through Nagy and various other insurgents based on their immense reproach of Rakosi and the communist leaders. Despite knowing the outcome of the uprising from the beginning of the book, one reads Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution with the investment of possibility, inspired by hope.

A W.B. Yeats Takeoff Poem

This Fine Autumn Day

On Stephen’s Green her beauty shines proud
In a restless fit of old thoughts and dreams
A tender walk through an old mountain stream
Becomes a relic, more than Turin’s shroud

How many walks I made in younger years
Were filled with deep silence and solitude
And many doubts about Love’s fortitude
Drenched my mind in a great many of fears

Yet, now in older meek and humble ways
I search for a touch to come from your hand
Like an ancient jewel entrenched deep in sand
Longing to meet on this fine autumn day.

A New Piece in Chaucerian Lore!!

Fabliaux and the Bible:
How Biblical Allusions Shape the Miller’s Tale

Since the canonization of the New Testament in the 4th century under the supervision of Roman ruler Constantine, the Bible became a collection of books with strong prominence in society. Many pieces of literature have incorporated biblical allusions and undertones since its canonization. Geoffrey Chaucer used biblical allusions in the Miller’s Tale to supplement the story’s fabliaux quality. These allusions can often be indiscernible to modern readers, with diminished biblical comprehension in a growing secular society.

The Miller’s Tale follows the noble and chivalric Knight’s Tale. Where the Knight is an honorable figure, the intoxicated Miller parodies the Knight’s character and tale with a drunken story of adultery and flatulence. In the tale, one of the characters, Absolon, is a feminine looking parish clerk: “Crul was his heer, and as the gold it shoon…His rode was reed, and his eyen greye as goos” (MilT 3314-3317). Absalom was also the name of King David’s favorite son, who was a physically striking individual: “In all of Israel there was not a man who could so be praised for his beauty as Absalom, who was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (2 Samuel 14:25).

The similarities of the two characters, according to Paul E. Beichner, “…suggests the biblical character and the traditions of vanity and effeminacy that came to be symbolized with that name” (qtd. in Cook 178). The usage of biblical allusions was common in Chaucer’s time. Lawrence Besserman, author of Chaucer’s Biblical Poetics, writes, “References to the Bible…were commonplace in medieval poetry. Accounting for the abundance of partial quotation and oblique biblical allusion in Chaucer’s works is therefore not especially problematic” (136).

By inferring a biblical character, Chaucer insinuates a moral aspect to the tale. In The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: A Study of Their Comic Climax, Thomas D. Cooke writes, “Readers of the tale have long noticed various religious allusions that give the story a ‘moral edge,’ but more recently scholars have been finding enough religious allusions to force that moral edge into the center of the story” (178). The “moral edge” presents an interesting dichotomy to the common fabliaux characteristic of sex, specifically, the audacious affair between John’s wife, Alisoun, and her lover Nicholas. The biblical allusion strengthens the overall disregard of morality in the fabliaux, allowing the moral issues to lurk just behind the characters (Cooke 185). Another biblical allusion provides a comedic finale to the tale.

An amusing ending is a primary characteristic of the fabliaux. The climax consists of two elements: it comes as a surprise, and yet it has been carefully prepared for in such a way that when it comes, it is seen as artistically fitting and appropriate (Cooke 13). Chaucer references a famous biblical story to accentuate the comedic ending of the Miller’s Tale.

The great flood by God intended to wipe away the inequity of the Earth. He spared Noah and his family, commanding that Noah construct an Ark. “The Lord wiped out every living thing on earth: man and cattle, the creeping things and the birds of the air; all were wiped out from the earth. Only Noah and those with him in the ark were left” (Genesis 7:23). This is one of the most memorable stories of the Bible.

To coax John away from Alisoun, Nicholas, a scholar and astrologer, instructs him that God will bring about a second Great Flood.

“‘Now John,’ quod Nicholas, ‘I wol nat lye; / I have yfounde in myn astrologye, / As I have looked in the moone bright, / That now a Monday next, at quarter nyght, / Shal falle a reyn…so hidous is the shour, / Thus shal mankynde drenche, and lese hir lyfe.’”(MilT 3513-3521).

John accepts the young scholar’s deliberately misleading prediction and even agrees to build his own ark that, at Nicholas’ command, John will drop from his roof. This plan eventually backfires later in the story (thus supplying the comedic ending) when Absolon rams a hot poker in the ass of Nicholas. In searing pain, Nicholas cries for water. John assumes Nicholas is referring to the flood. John releases his ark, tumbling to the ground in idiocy, later ridiculed by the public. As was John, modern readers may be inclined to the plausibility that God would undertake a second flood.

However, careful reading of the Genesis story shows that such a scenario would not occur, should one take the biblical story literally. After the flood dissipates, God says, “I shall establish my covenant with you, that never again shall bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood, there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth” (Genesis 9:11; emphasis added). The rainbow that follows rain showers represents this Covenant. Modern readers, unaware of the full story of the Covenant, would not see the humor of John’s biblical ignorance if they were ignorant of the biblical narrative themselves.

In addition to supplying a very humorous end to the tale, John’s general aloofness in the story causes tension with one of the traveling pilgrims. The Reeve takes offense to such an unflattering depiction of a carpenter; fitting as the Reeve once served the profession. In the following tale, the Reeve tells a story depicting an unsavory Miller as an act of revenge.

Chaucer uses biblical allusions that become apart of the fabliaux structure in the Miller’s Tale. The inclusion of a biblical name introduces a play on morality and a major biblical narrative accentuates the comic climax of the tale. By recognizing these allusions to biblical stories, one better understands and appreciates the Miller’s Tale.

Works Cited

Besserman, Lawrence. Chaucer’s Biblical Poetics. Oklahoma UP, 1998.

Cooke, Thomas D. The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux: A Study of Their Comic Climax. Missouri UP. London, 1978.

The New American Bible. P.J. Kenedy & Sons. New York, 1970.

An essay from my African-American Literature course

Poeticizing Tragedy:

Selected Poets and the Middle Passage

“‘Middle Passage:’ the WORD means blues to me” is the opening line of James A. Emanuel’s poem The Middle Passage Blues. The first horrific steps of the slave-trade were aboard the Middle Passage, the route taken by slave-wranglers to bring Africans to England and the United States. A majority of scholars on the subject estimate that for every one African to make it through the arduous journey across the Atlantic, five or six Africans would die. The Middle Passage forced an estimated sixty million Africans into its belly. Art very often becomes a means to deal with tragedy and history. It should come as no surprise that many African-American poets have composed art to deal with the tragedy of the Middle Passage. Many of these poems differ in terms of poetic techniques. Looking at selected poems by Robert Hayden, Lucille Clifton, and Phillis Wheatley one will see just how different these poems are. The methods vary between these three poets and their poems, yet all three of these works recapture and/or comment on the horror burdened by millions over the Atlantic Ocean many years ago.

One of the first poetic techniques found in Robert Hayden’s Middle Passage is intertextuality. Hayden includes lines from a Protestant hymn: “Jesus Saviour pilot me / Over life’s Tempestuous Sea” (20-21). Middle Passage adopts multiple perspectives within the narrative. Not one of those perspectives, however, comes from an African slave. Instead, Hayden opts to include narrations from members of a slave crew. John Hatcher, author of From the Auroral Darkness: The Life and Poetry of Robert Hayden, writes, “Hayden’s most adept handling of narrative to achieve poetic effect is his synthesis of voices and points of view” (261). Hayden uses these perspectives to achieve irony: a shipman onboard a vessel transporting slaves appealing to God. The plea continues: “We pray that Thou wilt grant, O Lord, / safe passage to our vessels bringing / heathen souls unto Thy chastening” (22-24). Immediately, the reader cannot help but feel a sense of hypocrisy on the part of the speaker. The act of an individual who participates in the slave trade, a grotesque endeavor, appealing to any compassionate God for a secure voyage is a delusional. Hatcher continues, “…any indictment of the slavers comes from our own reaction to the powerful irony of the accusations of the slavers themselves…” (139).

This notion was common during the years that the slave trade remained a working function of the American colonies; many found no religious hypocrisy in relationship to their actions and the spiritual teaching of Jesus Christ. Because the modern reader would be confused, horrified, and baffled by the fact that individuals would actually feel Jesus Christ condoned the slave trade, it creates a powerful (and historically accurate) representation of the Middle Passage. Despite the severe physical, emotional, and mental scars inflicted on fellow human beings by the functionality of the slave market, certain practicing “Christians” felt no hesitation or shame in facilitating that slave-market. Hayden employs this irony for the emotional benefit of his poem. This irony helps influence the reader into viewing the multiple narrations in a negative regard. What is interesting is that the vast majority of first-person narrations involve the protagonist, or the “good guy.” It is very unusual, although very effective, for Hayden to cast the first-person perspectives (the slave-shipman) in a negative connotation. This strengthens the reader to feel sympathy for the slaves and resentment for the practitioners of the Middle Passage.

In contrast to Robert Hayden’s rather lengthy poem, Lucille Clifton’s [the bodies broken on] is a shorter work, consisting of only eleven lines. The length of Hayden’s poem allowed him a larger poetic “palate,” if you will. He allowed himself more opportunities to generate thoughts and emotions to his readers by the simple fact of lengthening his poem—the more space one has to write, essentially, the larger amount of ideas one will convey.

Clifton’s poem is the opposite of Hayden’s endeavor. The shorter length of limits her space to generate thoughts and emotions. Therefore, Clifton employs language that achieves a great deal in minimal allocation. One of the first examples of this comes with the mentioning of the Trail of Tears. In 1838, under President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Americans were marched west. Thousands died under the harsh conditions.

The affect that this historical event has in the poem is the conveying of death at the hands of a power (the United States Government) over those who lack power (the Cherokee). Immediately afterwards, Clifton mentions “the bodies melted” (3) in the Middle Passage. The poem’s speaker associates a harsh physical aftermath with the Middle Passage, and the slave trade, very quickly in the poem. The severity of melting bodies pushes the actual repercussions Africans under the slave trade. Although there were deaths, beatings, disease, broken families, no bodies physically melted. Yet, the statement in Clifton’s poem generates powerful imagery, one that brings total human destruction—a statement of the horrific journey of millions of Africans. In addition, Clifton further adds melodramatic imagery when the speaker comments how both the bodies of the Trail of Tears and the Middle Passage are “married to rock and / ocean by now” (5-6). Ultimately, the mountains’ crumbling on white men and the ocean’s pulling white men down “sing for red dust and black clay / good news about the earth” (10-11). Here, Clifton suggests retribution for the actions of past white’s in their treatment of others. What makes this poem so effective is usage of imagery and associations on the part of the reader. In their book Language in Thought and Action, S.I. and Alan R. Hayakawa state this about poetry: “…one has to admire…their [poets] deep awareness of the mechanisms of human perception and conceptualization that has made it possible for them to express so much so effectively in such condensed form” (196). This is precisely how Clifton influences her readers; painting strong imagery that lingers in one’s mind.

Regarded as the first African-American poet, Phillis Wheatley offers her readers insight into the Middle Passage, and slavery. Born in the African continent and raised in the American colonies. One of her poems, On Being Brought from African to America, uses language and form to describe her thoughts on the slave trade. On the surface, her poem can appear to be contrived and dogmatic, akin to a brainwashed work of art. However, subtle nuances within the poem paint an entirely different picture than initial readings yield.

As Lucille Clifton’s poem, Wheatley’s work is similarly short (only eight lines). The first lines of the poem play into the common societal beliefs of her time: “‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land; / Taught my benighted soul to understand / That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too” (1-3). The first impressions readers gain is that Wheatley’s poem is the byproduct of colonial ideals toward Africans. However, Wheatley hides, or “masks,” her true feelings by putting on airs. The last few lines highlight this: “Some view our sable race with scornful eye; / “Their colour is a diabolic die.” / Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, / May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train” (4-8). By using a quotation to represent her society’s belief toward Africans (“Their colour is a diabolic die”), Wheatley now detaches herself from the more apparent tone of slave-trade “testimonial” and initiates her own commentary. For modern readers, this tactic in subtlety may seem confusing and unnecessary. What readers need to keep in mind is that Wheatley was not afforded protections that others were (there were no First Amendment rights for African-Americans). She would have to deal with the repercussions of openly criticizing the Middle Passage and colonial slavery. Therefore, she used poetic tact and cunningness to create a safe barrier between her own thoughts and those that were easily discerned in the poem—“masking.”

Note the italics in the second-to-last line. She highlights Christians, Negroes and also Cain (the evil son of Adam and Eve). Also, be mindful of her comma usage. First readings may yield a statement made toward Christians (i.e. Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Cain…”). However, there is a comma placed after Negroes: “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain” (7). Using Wheatley’s grammar, one sees that the statement the speaker is making to both Christians and Negroes. Combined with both social identifiers italicized (suggesting a uniformity or together-ness), the reader discovers that Wheatley is comparing both Christians and Negroes as being black as Cain. The significance of the Cain reference is that many who read the Genesis account in the Hebrew Bible thought the mark sustained by Cain for murdering his brother, Abel, was to be interpreted as the “mark” of black skin. In Black Imagination and the Middle Passage the authors write, “…the dominant culture uniformly saw blackness as a stigma, the mark of Cain to be “refin’d” away, if not materially, at least spiritually…” (283). Her contemporary white readers (the vast majority of her readers would have been white colonials) would have inferred the “black as Cain” reference as one pertaining only to Africans, as commonly believed. Yet, Wheatley’s reference pertains to both Africans and Colonials. As such, her message can also be reread to infer that both Africans and Colonials “may be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train” (8). If an African slave, especially a young woman, openly suggested that white Christian colonials also shared the mark of Cain, she would have faced numerous reprisals, death being one of the many possibilities. By nature, artistic “masking” is subtle and difficult to extrapolate. Perhaps, Wheatley felt that her African contemporaries needed to be “refin’d.” However, the text can also suggest that Wheatley was not at a loss to comment on white-superiority/black-inferiority notions of her time. There is substantial logic for Wheatley to have incorporated a “masking” technique in light of the legal stranglehold held against the African-American contemporaries of her time, making her “true” intent difficult to separate from her masked rhetoric.

Robert Hayden, Lucille Clifton, and Phillis Wheatley use varying techniques in their poems that describe the Middle Passage. Hayden incorporated the Christian religion to build a poem around irony. Clifton used minimal syntax, focusing more on strong lexical associations and Wheatley “masked” her true thoughts, blanketing them in prose that is more ambiguous. These poetic measures differ, but they both focus on, bringing into higher awareness, the immense tragedy that followed the ships of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. By reading and understanding the art that describes such tragedy, we may better understand it. Doing so will give cadence to the memories lost over that broad sea.

Works Cited

Diedrich, Maria, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Carl Pedersen. Black Imagination and the Middle Passage. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.

Gates Jr., Henry Louis and Nellie Y. McKay, ed. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.

Hatcher, John. From the Auroral Darkness: The Life and Poetry of Robert Hayden. Oxford: George Ronald, 1984.

Hayakawa, S.I. and Alan R. Hayakawa. Language in Thoughts and Action. New York: Harcourt, 1990.

From a loosely inspired assignment on transitions

the lost Marconi


there is a lost Marconi wave
hidden deep in the temples
of the Aztec rulers
just before inventing
soccer.

herding the elderly to their deaths

or

singing old Woody Guthrie songs,
that one wave,

unaccounted,

floats breathlessly
in satin sheets
and nights crawling
with religion

A brief essay on a Charles Bukowski poem

The poet Charles Bukowski is quoted as once saying, "It's up to a man to create art if he's able, and not talk about it, which, it seems, he's always more than able.” However, much to the dismay of this notion, I counter Bukowski’s opinion with that of the necessity to “talk about” art in order to understand, and be ultimately moved, by any creative work, specifically his poem I’ve seen too many glazed-eye bums sitting under a bridge drinking cheap wine. By exploring this poem’s respected usage of narrative-addressing and adopting a post-structuralism approach in interpretation readers have a more defined aptness in understanding the poem’s principle architecture and will become more aware of new implications that, quite possibly, would go un-noticed during an initial reading.

The poem’s narration is in the first-person (note the usage of the pronouns “I”; “you”; and “we”). This type of narration, an addresser-centered approach, aims to place the reader directly within the scope of the main character to view situations, emotions, and thoughts within the vantage-point of the individual—essentially, one views the world as the main character does. Upon reading the poem one discerns that the addressing within the text (i.e. the narration) is monologic; the communication is between the addresser and the addressee with no inter-communication between the two parties—the narrator is the only “voice” heard within the poem. From this observation, readers can place attention on two main attributes of the narration: 1) the reader can focus on what the narrator explicitly states and 2) focus on what the narrator does not explicitly state. The latter is far more intriguing. It is in identifying “absences” and “gaps” within the poem that furthers the reader’s understanding(s) of this Bukowksi poem.

When examining the usage of language in the work we discover there are no rhyming patterns in the poem—it is a free-verse work. In addition to the free-verse structure, there is an absence of proper (or traditional) grammar when Bukowski forgoes capitalization with the first letter of the word that follows the end of a sentence: “have you seen the animal-eater.../ they show death. / and now I wonder…” (ll. 5-9). It would be a ridiculous to imply Bukowski simply forgot, or was not educated, that abstaining from this capitalization standard is a strict violation of grammatical norms. This suggests that this omission was intended. What one could discern from this observation is, possibly, that Bukowski is, for one, trying to rebel against the “chains of grammatical oppression” (which I find to be highly unlikely). Another could suggest that this might imply a psychological “dis-harmony” (on the part of the subject-narrator and/or Bukowski himself) corresponding to the dis-harmony of grammatical usage and a lack of rhythmic structure. However, I am more swayed with the notion that this is an example of regression, a more primitive usage (primitive is derived here from the absence of conforming to grammatical norms) of language corresponding to a more primitive state of being expressed in the work. This argument is strengthened when one examines the poem’s focus on death, “they show death” (l. 8) and consuming, “we consume animals / and then one of us / consumes the other” (ll. 16-8) which, traditionally, are two aspects that one could very easily harmonize with the notion of being primitive—the need to consume along with the inevitable reality of death. In addition, the lack of proper capitalization, and it’s primitiveness, parallels the early inclusion of the “animal-eater documentaries” (ll. 6-7) which I feel denotes television documentaries that shows the very basic (and primitive) need for animals to attack, kill, and eat other animals to ensure survival. This connotation established with the “animal-eater documentaries” becomes the basis for the poem’s dominant subject—the various degrees of “consumption” with the “new woman.”

A very notable absence in the text is the usage of details regarding the “new woman”: “you sit on the couch / with me / tonight / new woman.” (ll. 1-4). There is no mentioning of any physical characteristics or specific relation (minus the “my love” (l. 19) line which will be addressed below) of the woman-figure other than the fact that the woman is “new” (a new girlfriend? A new prostitute? A new friend? A newly reconciled long-lost family member?)—we are told seldom anything about this individual. I feel this is because the specific woman mentioned in the story is not overtly important—if she were she would be mentioned more prominently and with particular attention paid to explicitly describing “her” significance. Yet, the narrator uses the “woman” to expound upon the “eating” and “consumption” process that takes up the vast majority of the poem: “which animal of / us will eat the / other first” (ll. 10-2). Also, notice the pattern of the woman’s placement and usage within the poem. She is introduced in the beginning, catalyzing the moving towards the “animal-eater documentaries” (which introduced the connotations of death and consuming another for survival) and is re-introduced within the volleying of “consumption” between the two entities in the poem. This “new woman” exists in the text with a very sharp and direct association with the “physical” and “spiritual” consumption that is ultimately expressed—she is focused more as a symbol of that physical and spiritual consumption in the text and not a carbon-based female individual. From this standpoint, and correlating with the lack of details attributed to “her” in the story, I suggest the possibility that this “woman” is not, in fact, a woman but acts as a signifier for something else entirely.

If one were to replace the “woman” nouns and references in the poem with nouns signifying, let’s say, alcohol, narcotics, or pornography there would be a harmonious fit with no textual conflict because the absolute absence of details that would identify the “woman” as an actual biotic female are not present—the usage of the woman subject would serve as a “poetic lament” drawing on contextual usage of a “female” in describing non-sex related objects and/or themes (i.e. “she’s a beauty” when describing a newly purchased boat, commenting that “she was a mean wine” when referring to a not-so-agreeable Merlot one had last evening, etc.). This paradigm would also effectively explains the usage of “my love” (l. 19) not as an intimate addressing of an individual but as a poetic gesture. For example, if a devout patriotic American stated that he was “in love with Lady Liberty,” whom would he be referring to? I doubt he would have a physical attraction to the actual statue off Ellis Island in New York City but would instead refer, in an affectionate manner, to the concept, of freedom symbolized with a “woman,” i.e., Lady Liberty.

As stated earlier, the “new woman” is not the sole subject in the poem; the digression into “consumption” constitutes the main intention of the work to which the woman is attached with. There is both a “physical” and “spiritual” consumption at work: “and now I wonder / which animal of / us will eat the / other first/ physically and / last / spiritually?” (ll. 9-15). Although one could replace “new woman” with “CD player” and have no textual conflict (grammatically it fits fine) it would not amicably align with the “spiritual” degradation that is expressed. For that reason, there must be a subject-matter agreement that would also fulfill the “spiritual” side of the expressed “consumption.” That is why when I introduced the idea that “new woman” did not necessarily suppose a biotic female I used alcohol, narcotics, and pornography because they have very common, and a more acknowledged, spiritual debasement, in addition to a physical one, through the hands of addiction, compulsion, and obsession. Could the narrator (and, inductively, Bukowski himself) be commenting on the physical and spiritual taxation that an addiction carries with it? Very possibly. However, one cannot offer an explicit definitive affirmation of this. Because of the omission of detail attributed to the woman figure in the poem there is a large array of interpretations. However, one must acknowledge that this “new woman” could have been an actual woman. If so, the adjective “new” suggests there have been others in the past. With this in mind, and with the supplementation of the discussion regarding a physical and spiritual “consumption,” one could, very easily, feel that the narrator is implying a new girlfriend or a new prostitute (a possible source for “spiritual” consumption found in a biological female?)—there are possibilities.

Many critical approaches are available for the expert reader. However, one does not need to be professional critical analyst to appreciate poetry. Being aware of the authors organizational principles in the construction of narration and contemplating what is not admitted into a work are informative ways in which to immerse oneself into a greater understanding of that respected work. In engaging this Charles Bukowski poem by asking, “Who’s doing the addressing and who’s being addressed?,” and by deliberately centering attention to what is not the textually-based focus of that addressing we, by increasing our awareness of these features, increase the breadth of our comprehension and enjoyment.

A response to an article on J.D. Salinger

In Dominic Smith’s article “Salinger's Nine Stories: Fifty Years Later” which appeared in The Antioch Review, Fall 2003, the purpose is one, mainly, of exploring J.D. Salinger’s psyche—shaped by his historical contexts, and their subsequent repercussions, surrounding his life and works.

Smith reports of Salinger’s involvement in the wartime effort during World War II: “His job as a soldier was to discover Gestapo agents by interviewing French civilians and captured Germans; he also landed at Normandy and took part in the Battle of the Bulge” (Smith). Smith highlights this experience to show a major catalyst in Salinger’s evolvement; in his life and his writing. Salinger’s war experiences caused him to become very troubled. After returning from war he married—a marriage that lasted only eight months. The divorce, coupled with his war experiences, caused further feelings of alienation from society, and self, which spurred an interest, for Salinger, in Zen-Buddhism. From this perspective Smith feels that we gain a very prominent insight into studying and interpreting Salinger as a man and a writer—through spiritual means. Smith points out that a major correlation between Zen Buddhism and post-WWII outlooks of the time were the concepts, and consensus, of life as illusory, life as suffering, non-attachment to fixed meaning, experience as fragmentary and subjective, intuition as central, a sense of the absurd in human experience, the necessity of irrationality combined with a turning away from absolute coherence and unity (Smith). From this realization one can approach Salinger’s works—especially Nine Stories from which our English 301 class will read “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”—with a more accurate disposition attributed to the mind of Salinger himself.

It was most assured, Smith postulates, that there was an interest on Salinger’s part to explore the psychology of the human mind: rational and irrational, poignant and absurd. Smith goes on to say that “the mysterious inner lives of his characters, the labyrinth of character and story through which he minimally guides us, that slight sensation that we have missed some vital clue to a character's downfall yet recognize that this is the same clue we miss every time we watch the disasters of the evening news or a neighbor's life reduced to tragedy--these arise out of navigating between these poles and become Salinger's fictional legacy” (Smith). The feelings of alienation are common in his works, Holden Caulfield in A Catcher in the Rye, for instance, because they correspond to Salinger’s own feelings of alienation. The stories derive meaning without ever sacrificing the mystery of human experience; they try to suggest more than they try to illustrate and in this way remain illusive at their core (Smith).

I feel that Smith’s insight offers readers, young and old, to explore a unique realm within the works of J.D. Salinger. By understanding the man’s life and experiences we can approach his fictional narratives to be, in some sense, non-fictional interpretations of his great “Zen Quest” of the human mind via his intriguing characters and stories. When our class discerns his “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” we can better understand occurrences of illusiveness and intrigue as literary manifestations of Salinger’s trek into the human mind to explore our thoughts and behavior—one of immense searching for understanding. I, for one, will be very interested to hear Salinger’s take on things.

An essay composed when contemplating the meaning of life

It is a question quite possibly as old as humanity itself—why? What is the purpose, the intent, the meaning to begin every day by simultaneously opening our two eyes, to re-enter into consciousness and be apart of our environment and our world? Where does our motivation come from, and where should it come from?

I don’t believe that after the physiological termination of our bodies we are destined to either arrive at “the gates of Heaven” or the “fires of Hell.” I neither believe that Heaven, nor Hell, are physical locations just as Berlin, Africa, or Augusta St. in Staunton, VA are. If we lead the lives that we were “supposed to” or “ought to have done” and do, indeed, arrive at the Heaven exit just off the inter-galactic super-highway, what would we do all day? After we re-connect with our family members, our friends, and meet people from the great spectrum of history and time how would we satiate our existence? Would we mow Heaven’s lawn? Play darts? Attempt to have sex with Marilyn Monroe—it just doesn’t make logical sense to me.

If then, I now come to the conclusion that our lives are important for the present. I don’t think life is comparative to the college student working in the summer months so they may take a trip to Europe once they complete their Bachelor’s degree. I don’t think life, here and now, is to invest in a future award that will be “named later.” Albeit one could sculpt their lives, behaviors, and thoughts with this premise, I think they would encounter, at some point, an emptiness that would haunt.

So, the question still remains; why?

I am not a scientist. I know remarkably little of the world that surrounds me and the organic "world" that is in my body. If what scientists say is true, then human-kind has evolved from something not entirely of its present condition. The amoeba existed and over time the amoeba became the primate, and the primate became the human. From the beginnings of the human we have pursued the world around us (physical science) and the world within us (psychology). We have increased our knowledge, increased the efficiency of our brains, and still have not satiated our appetite for more of these.

Our existence is reliant on change. Even within the scope of humanity, look at how much has changed (evolved) with us from the past four thousand years. Fire as turned into electricity. Walking has turned to trains, to automobiles, to space flight. Humanity has done remarkable things in the brief time the species has inhabited Earth—both good and bad.

This is where I begin to find a “meaning.” One day (thousands of years from now? Millions?) humans will evolve from our present state. Just as the amoeba turned into the primate, and just as the primate turned into the human, humans will turn into our future. What if Love evolved as much as technology has done? What would the human mind be able to see and experience when fully initiated into the characteristics that associate the one Love? Have we seen glimpses of it already? Was Prince Siddhartha, and his Nirvana, a glimpse of what will one day come? Was Yeshua of Nazareth and his claiming that a “Kingdom of Heaven” resides within? Were the respected “Enlightened One” (the Buddha) and “Anointed One” (the Christ) possible figments of the eventual burgeoning change that will one day befall?

Quite possibly. Maybe even probably.

And it is here where I find meaning. I would rather further the inevitable change—not hinder it. I want to be the amoeba seeking to become a primate. I want to be the primate seeking to become a human. I want to be a human seeking to become what is destined to be. In “A Burnt-Out Case” Graham Greene writes, “I think of Christ as an amoeba who took the right turning. I want to be on the side of the progress which survives.”

The much more difficult task, and the one that both fills me with anxiety and excites me with unfathomable possibility, lies in its accomplishment.

I don’t want to be an amoeba.

Book review of "Voice of an Exile" by Nasr Abu Zaid with Esther R. Nelson

Is the Qur’an the literal Word of God revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel? Islamists in power, and many Muslims of the current age, feel that this is so—it is the present orthodoxy within Islam. However, one notable exception is Nasr Abu Zaid. In his book co-authored with Esther R. Nelson Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam, Zaid feels that certain “… people resist looking at God’s Word as a document expressed in human language, thinking that understanding in such a way goes against belief or faith”(97). Nasr feels that “Language does not emerge from a vacuum. Language has a cultural, social, and political context. Human beings populate these contexts. Human beings, living throughout the world in specific places at specific times, leave their mark on language” (96). Islamic fundamentalism has always insisted that the Qur’an is God’s eternal, uncreated speech. Because it always existed it was never created and fundamentalists feel, thusly, that the text should be read literally and applied uniformly across time and place (Zaid and Nelson 3-4, italics mine). However, just as Bishop John Shelby Spong argues similarly for the interpretation of the New Testament Scriptures, Zaid feels that modernity should approach the Qur’an using the seventh-century context in which it was created in order to extrapolate meaning for the modern age. Zaid feels that the divine text became a human text at the moment it was revealed to Muhammad. How else could human beings understand it? Once it is in human form, a text becomes a book like any other. Religious texts are essentially linguistic texts. They belong to a specific culture and are produced within that historical setting. The Qur’an is a historical discourse—it has no fixed, intrinsic meaning (Zaid and Nelson 97). Yet, Zaid is not trying to debunk or make the Qur’an, Islam, or Muslims illegitimate. He states early in his book that “… I identify myself as a Muslim. I was born a Muslim, I was raised a Muslim, and I live as a Muslim. God willing, I will die a Muslim” (11). A major stance that Zaid takes issue with comes from state power that does not separate from religion. Zaid comments, “When the state identifies itself with a certain religion, folks who belong to another religious tradition inevitably are discriminated against. In addition, those folks who belong to the religion officially sanctioned by the state, but don’t hold orthodox views…become subject to persecution on the grounds of apostasy and heresy” (183).

It is on the grounds of apostasy and heresy that Zaid was forced into exile away from his beloved home of Egypt based on his ideas of how the Qur’an should be read and interpreted. Even though Zaid offered new insights and encouraged only debate, not allegiance, toward his ideas, the powerful in the current Islamic orthodoxy forced him to live in exile from his homeland. Zaid feels one should pursue religious texts through historical context and hermeneutics. By placing yourself within the specific time of any religious document you enable yourself to discover new insights that a literal, or “face value”, interpretation will not uncover. The foundation of any sacred writing is constructed, molded, and whose intentions reflect, around the society in which it was born. I feel that fundamentalists in Islam, and in any other religion, have a right to think, discuss, and preach how they feel. However, when Islamic fundamentalist powers censor anyone amongst “the ranks” by any and all means necessary they undermine the central theme of their Prophet, their Qur’an; the central theme of Nasr Abu Zaid—justice.