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51. Megan Richmond - 2009-04-25 02:25:13 |
| I liked pretty much all of the poems that we talked about in class, but I still have to say my favorite is Langston Hughes. While all the other authors serve important perpouses and get other emotions across I think that Hughes’ "Let America be America Again" is the most moving and important. I did really like Levine’s "You Can Have it" and the poetry by Jan Beatty I found in my research. |
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50. Megan Richmond - 2009-04-22 15:00:01 |
| I enjoyed our speaker last week, I thought he made some interesting comments about writing characters and how they differ from one another with out making them sound unrealistic or unhuman. I also enjoyed the reading, he had a very interesting writing style. |
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49. Megan Richmond - 2009-04-16 22:41:00 |
| I agreed with Johns comment about Working. I think the movie/musical version was much more cohesive and to the point of what Terkel was getting at. It would be a good reference as John pointed out, but sitting down and reading the entire thing would be...well really time consuming to say the least. I thought the movie/musical was a really good ’working class’ message and tribute however. I think that more people fit into this category than I ever gave credit too and how each person handles the lifestyle ranges exponentially! |
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48. dr. larry - 2009-04-09 11:49:05 |
| I hope this is not a private conversation between John and me. He has opened a real consideration into the nature of the texts we are reading. I ask myself, what is the intention behind the work...what were they trying to do...how well did they achieve their goal...was it worth doing? Just as African-American, Native American or Appalachian poetry has certain characteristics, so does working-class poetry. What are they? I think it comes back to the intention behind the art, and yet, I do agree that some of it is clearly fine art as well...some of the poets are more trained and able to do more with their work. Patchen, Rukeyser, Sandburg are among the best. We are also getting into the contemporary poets...and so the abilities of the poet should increase. The editors of our book were certainly trying to be "inclusive," and so the "primitive" exists along with the finer art. I like it all, though I’m amazed at some. dr. larry |
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47. John Allton - 2009-04-09 11:11:07 |
We have seen a discernible trend in the text. The material reflects improved lives of the working class, a much greater opportunity for the education of the working class, and trained artists who now write about the working class. The editors of the text are no longer pulling their material from the same sources they used earlier.
Just as there is a suitable home for "primitive art," so too is there a home for the rough poetry written by the working class. With Patchen, and many others, though, we are now seeing working class poetry written by trained poets who produced some of the finest poetry in American history.
Though the words "good" and "bad" are perjorative, some of the words we could use, in their place, have equally negative connotations like "primitive." Therefore, some of the poetry we have read is "sophisticated" and some is not as "sophisticated." |
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46. dr. larry - 2009-04-08 17:33:33 |
Well,John, you are full of judgments here. I’m not sure how that opens the discussion. What is an "honest" opinion? I just don’t see it your way of judging the "good" and "bad" poems. You might be more specific. For me, it is history as well as literature that we are studying, and so culture is the domain. I’m here to discover what’s there, not to judge it. I find that blocks me.
An "honest opinion." And so we disagree at last openly. |
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45. John Allton - 2009-04-07 23:43:45 |
I do not like the book WORKING. It’s a great reference book. I would turn to it if I were doing a paper or a poem or a story on some type of work described in the book. But to read it, page by page, that was not for me. This is an honest opinion. I say it, though, to encourage the students in the class to be more open and candid in their comments on this page. We have read a lot of material about the working class, and some of it, quite frankly, was pretty bad writing. Some of the poems, for example, were awful. They may have filled a need, e.g. rallying workers to unionize, but they were pretty bad poems.
So, if you liked WORKING, let me know. |
 44. Larry - 2009-04-01 22:49:43 |
National Poetry Month...Once a year, the poets come out of the closet, drag their poems out of drawers, and read them aloud to all who listen intently and cheer wildly. Well, it could be like that. Here’s the link to the web site.
www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41
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43. Larry - 2009-03-30 14:55:34 |
Appalachian Studies Conference in Portsmouth, Ohio...on the Ohio River across from Kentucky. Well, the people spoke Appalachian English down there and it was nice. The music of Appalachia was there in the Bluegrass concert they provided but also in the panels I attended. Ex. one on "Strong Women" in Appalachian culture focused on the folks singers, including the woman who wrote "Which Side Are You On" by tearing down a used calendar page and writing it out on the back. It was her screechy voice we heard the other night. Florence Reese. And there were others. The big issue of the conference was the mountaintop removal that is going on in the myth of "clean coal" being produced by stripping off the tops of mountains and tearing away at the places and lives of the people who live there. Governor Strickland was there, and he’s from that area, so we all hoped he heard the call for "healthy coal."
I gook slides of the quilts we saw and some of the panelists who presented discussions and performances. After the conference, my wife and I headed north to McArthur County where the Smith family originated in Ohio...and we found the old one acre homestead again. But that’s another story... |
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42. John Allton - 2009-03-28 16:46:11 |
First, as further explanation, some of the people we have met were extremely quirky in the own right or led very unusual lives. Added to their uniqueness was exaggeration. In the end end, therefore, we have met larger than life figures like John Reed, Joe Hill, Bartolomero Vanzetti, and Aunt Molly Jackson.
In addition, in the literature we have read, there is a tendency to idealize the life of the working class. The worker may have a hard life, but he is endowed with virtue, strength, and honor. In the movie, for example, Gertie’s oldest son’s values are good and Detroit’s values are bad. It wasn’t his fault he beat up another kid, the other kid called him a liar. "Them’s fightin words!" |
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