Fluent Essays

Please study the class site. Read the poems. Please prepare a chart that compares and contrasts these two poems. There are always the obvious categories.  Try to expand your horizon and offer insightful ways of seeing, if you can. The following may be copied and adjusted.  See Png for instructions. Notes from the City of the Sun Bei Dao (China) Pronounce: https://www.howtopronounce.com/bei-dao/ The name Bei Dao, chosen by the distinguished Chinese poet, Zhao Zhenkai, literally means Northern Island and reflects his desire for solitude. His works have been translated into 30 languages because of his subtlety, innovation, and eloquence. Government officials exiled him because it was felt that his work influenced protests leading to the Tiananmen Square massacre. He returned to China in 2006 after lecturing at prestigious schools no doubt because of his international acclaim. A significant portion of his works focus on freedom and exile. Poet Michael Palmer says of Dao that he “abjures overt political rhetoric while simultaneously keeping faith with his passionate belief in social reform and freedom of the creative imagination.” He was born in Beijing, an ancient city. 15 Moments in History That Shaped Beijing https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/15-moments-in-history-that-shaped-beijing/ The flag of China was officially adopted on October 1, 1949.  The red of the Chinese flag symbolizes the communist revolution, and its also the traditional color of the people. The large gold star represents communism, while the four smaller stars represent the social classes of the people. In addition, the five stars together reflect the importance placed on the number five in Chinese thought and history. https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/flags/countrys/asia/china.htm Notes from the City of the Sun Bei Dao is strongly impacted by both Chinese political changes as well as individualized thinking. Notes’ series of abstractions are followed by striking visual images. Many of the images are rather obvious illustrations of some aspect of the abstraction. Examples: · Labor uses a common image of “a pair of hands, encircling the earth.” · People are shown in an original image of the moon “torn into gleaming grains of wheat and sown into the sky and earth.” · Note the extended metaphor of the shattered mirror. · There are more obvious images of political themes shown indirectly. Examine how certain words in the last five stanzas (e.g., “at random,” “monotonous,” “cripple,”) function as a criticism of the political structure of the “motherland.” China’s Cultural Revolution purged intellectuals and government protestors. This was a period when high school and college students, known as the Red Guard, waved Mao Tse Tung’s red-covered book of aphorisms. Communist China’s vison of art is as a socialist tool that mirrors the masses. Interview 2015 https://poetry.arizona.edu/blog/interview-bei-dao The Reading Life: A Chinese Writer’s Poetics, and Politics 2010 https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/the-reading-life-a-chinese-writers-poetics-and-politics/ NOTES FROM THE CITY OF THE SUN REFLECTION   What do I know?   Not much.  How can I go about this? How can I analyze this?   What do I see? · There are 14 stanzas – not more than a sentence for each. Often, there are just fragments. Where is the end punctuation? · The background says that the number five is significant to Chinese culture. 1 + 4 = 5.  I see that 5 can be either positive or negative.  This means that circumstances can be taken either way; the outcome can be either way. All may depend upon the perspective of the reader. * So, the work can have ambiguity or be ambivalent. Where else does this occur? There are five elements water (black), fire (red), earth (yellow), wood (green), and metal (silver/white). Where are each of these mentioned? What is the context for each? EX: The old tree has toppled (fallen) and later the rifle is built from wood (and metal) and sprouts branches and new shoots (a play on words?) serving a new purpose of longevity. When does this happen? Answer: When the old king dies (is toppled). https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/Chinese_Customs/five_elements_chart.htm · Each stanza leads with an abstraction followed by an image, a description or clarification. · The stanza abstractions’ order is life>love>freedom>child>girl>youth >art>people>labor>fate>faith>peace>motherland>living, · I need to see if there is an order. The poem begins and ends with life/living. Next in:  Mothers are synonymous with love. There can be a connection between freedom and peace although war may be required.  Ah, a child’s faith is pure and direct.  A girl child’s fate can often end before it begins with the one family-one child policy or the country’s history of not validating female life. Analysis can be successful using this approach. · I wonder if the original Chinese words carry greater significance than what I see here. Is the meaning sensitive to translation? Is the structure impacted by translation? Do I need to know more about the culture to be relevant to me? Analysis can be successful using this approach. Putting this aside to brainstorm other things.   What do I know? · The set up says that the poet was an ardent protester against the Cultural Revolution. This was a period that rewrote history and tried to force people into a mold -- always bad things · Tiananmen gate has five arches. Bingo! · The word notes is part of the title.  Notes contain the essence, the essentials. Essence requires insight. Notes are recorded to remind, to provide an overview, to trigger memory. Notes are not weakened by the needless clutter of additional words. In opposition, detail is often critical to sound decisions. · The sun is enriching and healthy or it is searing and destructive. It can reveal truth or blind people to it.  Here is the ambiguity and ambivalence again. · Ask why. Why is there repetition? Either is lazy thinking or an insistence on emphasis. EX: A child strikes at random at a railing. (Picture a child walking along a fence with stick in hand, striking at the boards one after another.) The railing (that which was struck) strikes at random at the night. (Can you visualize the vertical stakes/panels that pierce the night whose darkness makes distinguishing individuals difficult? If struck what does that strike?) I look at adjectives and adverbs. Here are a few: Wild geese Virgin wasteland Brightly colored birds’ feathers Red waves Green ditch Living net I look at action verbs. Flown Toppled Drifts Fluttering Holding Folded Gathers Soak Appear Torn Sown Encircling Strikes Strikes Spills Pipes Sprouts Becomes Cask Leans Do they have anything in common? Is there a cycle, regression, or progression? What is significant to the culture? Here are some examples: · Five (Discussed earlier) · White crane (In Japanese, Chinese, and Korean tradition, cranes stand for good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years. ... The Japanese refer to the crane as “the bird of happiness;” the Chinese as “heavenly crane” believing they were symbols of wisdom. There is also: White Crane Kung Fu is generally regarded as an internal system, though initial training is extremely demanding. Although difficult to learn because of these physical demands, it is in fact a highly effective combat system, once the method employed by the Emperor of Chinas bodyguards.) · Green is used to communicate growing, generating, sprouting, striving, refreshing, balancing, calming, healing, self assurance, foundation, benevolence, health, harmony, sensitivity, patience vs. anger · Red is used to signify happiness and joy. (As an informally adopted member of a Chinese family, I benefit from a yearly financial gift given to me because I am the youngest of the family. It arrives in an ornate red envelop trimmed in gold.) · White is a symbol of the unknown and purity. The color white is used during the time of mourning, death, and during ghost festivals. Therefore, Chinese people will wear white during a funeral. · Wild Geese (Chinese sources typically distinguish between two types of geese, the domestic goose, and the wild goose. Of the two, the wild goose is the more important for poetry, whether as significant of migratory seasonal change, or as bearing a message of love from afar, by persons separated by a great distance (generally north and south, since that is how geese generally migrate), or as the lone goose, bereft of both mate and flock?) https://nazmiyalantiquerugs.com/blog/cranes-chinese-art-symbol-meaning/#:~:text=There\%20are\%20four\%20types\%20of,\%2C\%20black\%2C\%20blue\%20and\%20yellow.&text=Since\%20cranes\%20fly\%20in\%20the,turning\%20into\%20a\%20feathered\%20crane. And finally, perhaps relate to what you have already studied. Life The sun has risen too Do you remember Charles Atlas Also Dies as in Charles Atlas dies, too? * 5 (五, WǓ) - LUCKY/UNLUCKY   The number 5 is associated with both good luck and bad luck depending on context. Since 五 sounds similar to 无 (wú), which means “not” or “without” in Chinese, it can be viewed as bad luck. However, the number is also associated with positivity because many Chinese traditional philosophical concepts revolve around the number 5, such as the five elements(Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal) 五行 (wǔ xíng), which is used in traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui, martial arts, and even music. http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/lucky-and-unlucky-chinese-numbers#:~:text=5\%20(\%E4\%BA\%94\%2C\%20W\%C7\%93)\%20\%2D,be\%20viewed\%20as\%20bad\%20luck.            Five is also associated with Chinese philosophy, and was historically associated with the Emperor of China. The Tiananmen gate, being the main thoroughfare to the Forbidden City, has five arches. The Pan, the Pot, the Burning Fire I Have in Front of Me Author: Rin Ishigaki · Translated by  Hiroaki Sato For a long time these things have always been placed in front of us women: a pan of a reasonable size suited to ones strength, a pot in which its convenient for rice to begin to swell and shine, grain by grain, the heat of the fire inherited since the very beginning— in front of them there have always been mothers, grandmothers, and their mothers. What measures of love and sincerity they must have poured into these utensils— sometimes red carrots, sometimes black seaweed, sometimes crushed fish in the kitchen, always accurately for morning, noon, and evening, preparations have been made and in front of the preparations, in a row, there have always been some pairs of warm knees and hands. Ah without those persons waiting how could women have gone on cooking so happily? their unflagging care, so daily a service they became unconscious of it. Cooking was assigned oddly as the womans role, but I dont think that was unfortunate; because of that, her knowledge and position in society may have lagged behind the times but it isnt too late: the things we have in front of us, the pan and the pot, and the burning fire, in front of these familiar utensils, let us also study government, economy, literature as sincerely as we cook potatoes and meat, not for vanity and promotion but so everyone may be served for mankind so everyone may work for love. The Pan, The Pot, The Fire I Have Before Me Ishigaki Rin (Japan) https://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/3781/auto/0/IN-FRONT-OF-ME-THE-POT-AND-RICEPOT-AND-BURNING-FLAMES-AND Ishigaki Rin, known as “the bank clerk poet” because of her early employment, was an active trade unionist as well as essayist and poet. The latter is the class focus. Her poetry was described as “contemptuous of arrogance and power” and she was not an advocate of women’s domestic roles. She knows dedication; she cared for her aging parents for 40 years while maintaining her same job. In the same way that you are asked to “make every word count” she “weighs carefully every word and phrase.” This means that she thinks attentively and uses the most accurate words possible within the most compelling positioning possible. Somewhat like America’s Emily Dickinson, she use simple language to communicate expansive thinking. Diction implicitly selects a value for such words as “reasonable,” “convenient,” “shine,” “unflagging” Feminism: Within this unit we also examine “Late Chrysanthemum.” This short story is harsh reality versus what can be construed as a gentle sense of tradition in creating and maintaining a home. In opposition, if the reader is not so inclined, the poem might be interpreted as generational entrapment. Remember the poem when we begin work on the novel, “Farming of Bones.” Certainly, after World War II, traditional behaviors were bombarded by change from acknowledging that the country’s ruler, the Emperor, was not a God to opening the cultural “windows” from music to employment to what was an acceptable role for women. THE PAN, THE POT, THE FIRE I HAVE BEFORE ME REFLECTION   This is a particular favorite poem and often I am alone in this. That is “ok.”  You do not hurt my feelings. Here is my “take.” By now you realize that poems must be pulled apart, chewed, digested.  See the segue into cooking? (You are encouraged not to groan.) They are works where every word is precise. This is similar to a really good recipe.  Follow those measurements, people, or disaster or tasteless is the result. The nuances of words carry heightened influence. Think rare spice. Then personality is added like a single story. (If I could, I would add garlic and bacon to Cheerios.) I like “making a home.”  Done well, there is contribution to the world. I rejoice when others succeed. I like washing laundry (Hello, Mrs. Dutta, Sr.) and hanging it on the line (Not again, Mrs. Dutta!). I like making beds and creating order (Myers Briggs INTJ). I enjoy cooking and having a garden. I do not care that the former is historically attached to gender (although the most famous chefs have been men.)   I like serving the greater society in teaching, writing, and caring in hospice. I rejoice when others succeed, when others grow, when others are comforted.  It is good that women’s opportunities increase in the marketplace because my brain would have been extremely bored otherwise. I like doing both. That’s just me. So very long ago, men were once hunters of wild game and the typically smaller sized women prepared the “catch.” It evolved that men should provide and women care. (Don’t forget childbearing and rearing.) Then some were not there to provide or the once care giver became better able to provide. And some do it all.  It is societal flux. And, it is not new. Remember the word control from the beginning of the term?  It still operates and some do not want to release it. NOTE: All the composition do-nots are intentional.  This is a very personal reflection, a single story.