Robin Robertson, "Hide"

John Ashbery, "Late Echo"

William Stafford, "At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border"

We won't be in class on Friday, so here is a blog assignment for today:

Today I'd like to play "Close-reading Bingo" with the class blogs on the blog-roll opposite from your own. Browse the responses written to yesterday's prompt and, using the "Common Weaknesses" handout, find, quote, and link to examples of at least four different common weaknesses that you find. They should be in four different samples, too.

To complete your bingo, also quote and link to the best overall response that you come across.

After that, feel free to fit in a reading response, to read, or study for tomorrow's test. Please don't make me ask you to stop doing homework for another class.

George Bilgere, "Bus Boy"

Today, a big leap forward to the practice of writing with authority about language. We have two exercises to complete today, and you have a choice: (a) read the explanations and follow the directions for both exercises on your own, or (b) doing exercise #1 with me and #2 on your own. I recommend option (b) if you think you work better with things explained out loud in a small group, or if you feel uncomfortable with the style of analysis we started with the "Art of" project. No more than eight people can sit in on this, though.

Here are the exercises. Both refer to documents that are saved on our class Notes page at the HHS site.

(1) EXERCISE #1: Read the document entitled "Observation Guide: Diction" and then complete simple exercise it describes on the document entitled "Sample analysis: Diction." Save your results to your network folder.

(2) EXERCISE #2: Select one of the two prose excerpts on the handout provided today and compose a complete, but brief, close-reading analysis of its diction, saving the paragraph as a word file and posting it to your blog as a post with the title "Practice Diction Analysis." (10 pts)

Kenneth Koch, "In Love with You"

Gary Snyder, "Piute Creek"

Photo of the Miners Ridge fire lookout in Glacier Peak Wilderness, Washington. Can you imagine?

Here is your action list for this period:

1. For today's "Currently" post, list your reading, but not your sentences of the week. Instead, visit the blogs of your peers to read their "Style Mapping" posts from Wednesday. Pick the five most original posts and paste their strongest sentence into your "Currently." Give them credit and/or link to their blog and write a few sentences that explain which are your favorites and why. Which classmates have come up with the most surprising adjectives to describe language?

2. Long poem day. Pick a poem longer than any you have in your moleskine so far, and collect it. It can be a poem we read in class, or another. No song lyrics today, though.

And here is Bus Boy.

Bob Hikock, "Unmediated Experience"

She does this thing. Our seventeen-

year-old dog. Our mostly deaf dog.

Our mostly dead dog, statistically

speaking. When I crouch.

When I put my mouth to her ear

and shout her name. She walks away.

Walks toward the nothing of speech.

She even trots down the drive, ears up,

as if my voice is coming home.

It’s like watching a child

believe in Christmas, right

before you burn the tree down.

Every time I do it, I think, this time

she’ll turn to me. This time

she’ll put voice to face. This time,

I’ll be absolved of decay.

Which is like being a child

who believes in Christmas

as the tree burns, as the drapes catch,

as Santa lights a smoke

with his blowtorch and asks, want one?

David Hernandez, "Retirement Home Melee at the Salad Bar"

Today, some rainy-day practice in the art of observation. You will be placing the style of different authors on the "map" that we made yesterday. Your task: blog a single, informal, observational paragraph that compares the language of three different excerpts from novels of your choice. Title your post "Style Mapping."

Up to two of these excerpts can be from the group that we looked at yesterday (other than Cruddy). The third should be from a book you find in this room: one that you have in your backpack, in your neighbor's hand, on the shelves--it's up to you. Open the book to the first page and have a look.

The three excerpts you choose should have styles of diction that fall in different areas or quadrants of the map you looked at yesterday. For example, one might be elevated and musical, another might be lower but more evocative and sensuous or figurative.

Remember that pop-fiction and some non-fiction is less useful for an exercise like this because it is often written in more of a "middle style" that tries to be "invisible," or style-less.

In your paragraph, describe and compare their language, using partial quotations and using adjectives that you collected yesterday. But you should also use some adjectives that you come up with on your own. Find them from our ol' pink handout of adjectives, find them using the synonyms function on Word or the internet, or come up with your own. Try to surprise yourself.

You can collaborate with a friend (or nemesis) but your paragraph should be your own.

When you have finished your work, read, blog, it's up to you. No homework for other classes, please.

Jim Harrison, "I Believe"

I believe in steep drop-offs, the thunderstorm across
the lake in 1949, cold winds, empty swimming pools,
the overgrown path to the creek, raw garlic,
used tires, taverns saloons, bars, gallons of red wine,
abandoned farmhouses, stunted lilac groves,
gravel roads that end, brush piles, thickets, girls
who haven’t quite gone totally wild, river eddies,
leaky wooden boats, the smell of used engine oil,
turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages in the woods,
the primrose growing out of a cow skull, the thousands
of birds I’ve talked to all of my life, the dogs
that talked back, the Chihuahuan ravens that follow
me on long walks. The rattler escaping the cold hose,
the fluttering unknown gods that I nearly see
from the left corner of my blind eye, struggling
to stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.

"Graves," Hayden Carruth

"Graves," Hayden Carruth

Both of us had been close

to Joel, and at Joel’s death

my friend had gone to the wake

and the memorial service

and more recently he had

visited Joel’s grave, there

at the back of the grassy

cemetery among the trees,

“a quiet, gentle place,” he said,

“befitting Joel.” And I said,

“What’s the point of going

to look at graves?” I went

into one of my celebrated

tirades. “People go to look

at the grave of Keats or Hart

Crane, they go traveling just to

do it, what a waste of time.

What do they find there? Hell,

I wouldn’t go look at the grave of

Shakespeare if it was just

down the street. I wouldn’t

look at—” And I stopped. I

was about to say the grave of God

until I realized I’m looking at it

all the time....

Linda Pastan, "Somewhere in the World"

Today:

1. Please total your bookmark, write "week 8" by the total, and hand it in.

2. Instead of a "Currently" post this week, title one "Quarterly." I would like to see a 200 word or so reflection on the independent reading you have done this semester so far.

You can take this any way you like--what have you noticed about your reading so far this year? Have you surprised yourself in any way with your reading habits? What type of reading has challenged you the most so far? What has been the most pleasurable reading? What time of day do you find yourself reading? Where? What else? What challenge or goal might you set yourself for the rest of the semester?

No sentences of the week necessary, unless you have some you want to share.

Wendell Berry, "How to be a Poet"

Today's assignment: catch up.

First, an fyi: Today ends the second "cycle" of reading that will be graded this quarter, covering weeks 5-7.

So, no extra assignments today--I'd just like everyone to catch me up on what they have read in the last week with (a) a response post and (b) a currently post that updates your pages last week and shares your three favorite sentences of the quarter.

Tell me what you like about these overall favorites--something unusual about the words that are chosen? The way they are put together? Something original about a picture the words make? Do they make you think of something in a new way?

After you have caught me up on your reading, feel free to read your book or challenge the class in multi-eight. As always, I only ask that you do not use our time to do homework for another class.

If you're up for it, here is another Billy Collins poem, "Aimless Love," that, like a lot of my favorites by him, expresses a simple but thoughtful and tender-hearted affection for the every-day objects that populate our lives, and suggests the extent to which these things can fill us up.

Billy Collins, "Litany"

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Robert Bly, "The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog"

I never intended to have this life, believe me -
It just happened. You know how dogs turn up
At a farm, and they wag but can't explain.

It's good if you can accept your life - you'll notice
Your face has become deranged trying to adjust
To it. Your face thought your life would look

Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.
That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.

Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed.

Sparrows in winter, if you've ever held one, all feathers,
Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.
You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,

But you can't quite get back to the winter sparrow.

Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles.
Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.

John Ashbery, "At North Farm"

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.
But will he know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

Hardly anything grows here,
Yet the granaries are bursting with meal,
The sacks of meal piled to the rafters.
The streams run with sweetness, fattening fish;
Birds darken the sky. Is it enough
That the dish of milk is set out at night,
That we think of him sometimes,
Sometimes and always, with mixed feelings?

William Carlos Williams, "Danse Russe"

DUE DATE CHANGE

Hey . . if you read this tonight (Tuesday), you should know that I have decided to move the rough draft due date back by a day. Rough drafts for our genre, or "The Art of," projects is now Friday, and Wednesday will be another lab day. Pass it on.

Linda Pastan, "Unveiling"

"The Art of": Points of Emphasis

As you prepare your full drafts this week, try to remain conscious of these three points of emphasis:

(1) A strong claim should describe a general observation, a general inference, or both.

(2) Supporting evidence should take the form of specific observations. That is, describe specific elements in detail.

(3) The discussion section of these paragraphs should be more specific about the inferences (tone or ideas/themes) than they were in the claim. They should not evaluate the work (say whether it is well done or not).

Doug Morph, "The Forgotten Planet"