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We Languish In A Grammar of Sighs
Apr. 1st, 2009 03:43 pm*flails* Guess who my English professor is?
EAVAN BOLAND.
HOLY FUCK YEAH MOTHERFUCKERS. SO AWESOME.
I didn't realize she was until the class was over actually - I'm a big enough geek to have heard of her, but not to recognize her on sight, and the website says the course is being taught by someone else. But it isn't! And she is so cool! And Irish! *flails more* The first class was really interesting. We got into the difference between poetry and poetics a little, and the intersection between sound and sense, and read a bunch of war poems - Wilfred Owen, Tennyson, Brian Turner, and a few pieces about the Northern Ireland conflict. This class is going to be a ton of work; two shorter papers, a midterm paper, and a final, plus whatever extra work is required because this is my Writing in the Major class. But I think it's going to be totally worth it. I'm really excited!
I think I'm going to stick with my Japanese Religions class. It seems pretty neat, and I'm a total sucker for a prof who seems really excited by what they are teaching about. The Post-Doc who is teaching the class seems really sweet and enthusiastic, and like she wants to make this class a lot of fun for us. I can do that. Also it's quite small - only 6 or so people - and the work load looks pretty light. A lot of reading, but only two 3-5 page papers. I can handle that! Especially when all the reading material looks just facinating and weird and awesome.
Academic enthusiasm - I has it.
And hey, it's National Potery Month, yeah? So I was thinking, since I am taking a Poetry class, I should maybe post some poems. So I will try to do that everyday. Here's today's poem!
Amber by Eavan Boland (!!)
It never mattered that there was once a vast grieving:
trees on their hillsides, in their groves, weeping—
a plastic gold dropping
through seasons and centuries to the ground—
until now.
On this fine September afternoon from which you are absent
I am holding, as if my hand could store it,
an ornament of amber
you once gave me.
Reason says this:
The dead cannot see the living.
The living will never see the dead again.
The clear air we need to find each other in is
gone forever, yet
this resin once
collected seeds, leaves and even small feathers as it fell
and fell
which now in a sunny atmosphere seem as alive as
they ever were
as though the past could be present and memory itself
a Baltic honey—
a chafing at the edges of the seen, a showing off of just how much
can be kept safe
inside a flawed translucence.
EAVAN BOLAND.
HOLY FUCK YEAH MOTHERFUCKERS. SO AWESOME.
I didn't realize she was until the class was over actually - I'm a big enough geek to have heard of her, but not to recognize her on sight, and the website says the course is being taught by someone else. But it isn't! And she is so cool! And Irish! *flails more* The first class was really interesting. We got into the difference between poetry and poetics a little, and the intersection between sound and sense, and read a bunch of war poems - Wilfred Owen, Tennyson, Brian Turner, and a few pieces about the Northern Ireland conflict. This class is going to be a ton of work; two shorter papers, a midterm paper, and a final, plus whatever extra work is required because this is my Writing in the Major class. But I think it's going to be totally worth it. I'm really excited!
I think I'm going to stick with my Japanese Religions class. It seems pretty neat, and I'm a total sucker for a prof who seems really excited by what they are teaching about. The Post-Doc who is teaching the class seems really sweet and enthusiastic, and like she wants to make this class a lot of fun for us. I can do that. Also it's quite small - only 6 or so people - and the work load looks pretty light. A lot of reading, but only two 3-5 page papers. I can handle that! Especially when all the reading material looks just facinating and weird and awesome.
Academic enthusiasm - I has it.
And hey, it's National Potery Month, yeah? So I was thinking, since I am taking a Poetry class, I should maybe post some poems. So I will try to do that everyday. Here's today's poem!
Amber by Eavan Boland (!!)
It never mattered that there was once a vast grieving:
trees on their hillsides, in their groves, weeping—
a plastic gold dropping
through seasons and centuries to the ground—
until now.
On this fine September afternoon from which you are absent
I am holding, as if my hand could store it,
an ornament of amber
you once gave me.
Reason says this:
The dead cannot see the living.
The living will never see the dead again.
The clear air we need to find each other in is
gone forever, yet
this resin once
collected seeds, leaves and even small feathers as it fell
and fell
which now in a sunny atmosphere seem as alive as
they ever were
as though the past could be present and memory itself
a Baltic honey—
a chafing at the edges of the seen, a showing off of just how much
can be kept safe
inside a flawed translucence.