Broken and Complete: Actualities I
On my first reading of "Actualities I", by e.e. cummings, two anomalies were immediately apparent. The adjectives and adverbs used to describe the events in the poem were piled against each other, sometimes four and five adjectives and adverbs with no break. The use of cumulatively descriptive words was confusing. I had to slow down to absorb each new definition and reconcile it to each preceding definition. The second anomaly was the bizarre rhyme sequence, which at first appeared almost without any structure, and on closer examination revealed what may have once been the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet jammed into a blender and the results hastily rearranged. These two abnormalities (confused rhyming structure and piled descriptors) are closely related. They refer to each other heavily within the context of the poem and serve to illustrate a moment or feeling, which Cummings reveals as his purpose, entitling the series "Actualities".
The opening line of the poem, "a thing most new complete fragile intense," is an excellent example of the confusion created by piling adjectives one after the other. The difficulty is not, as I first suspected, that Cummings uses adjectives that directly contradict each other. Instead, the difficulty is that the words have connotations that directly contradict each other. Throughout the poem, Cummings puts together groups of words which seem uncomfortably like gibberish because of their associated meanings. Examine several phrases from the poem and some of their contradictory connotations:
format:
(line #) "poetic schmoetic" - [(connotation 1A, connotation 1B), connotation 2]
(line 1) "complete fragile" - [strong, weak]
(line ...
... middle of paper ...
...most new complete fragile intense, A
2 which wholly trembling memory undertakes B
3 -your kiss, the little pushings of flesh, makes B
4 my body sorry when the minute moon C
5 is a remarkable splinter in the quick D
6 of twillight
7 . . . . or if sunset utters one C
8 unhurried muscled chromatic D
9 fist skillfully modelling silence A
10 -to feel how through the stopped entire day E
11 horribly and seriously thrills F
12 the moment of ethusiastic space G
13 is a little wonderful, and say E
14 Perhaps her body touched me, and to face G
15 Suddenly the lighted living hills F
Throughout history there have been many poets and some have succeeded while other didn’t have the same luck. But in history e.e. Cummings has stunned people with his creativity and exposure to the real world and not living in the fantasy people imagine they live in. Cummings was a great poet, and was able to make his own way of writing while he was also involved greatly in the modernist movement. But he demonstrates all his uniqueness in all and every poem, delivering people with knowledge and making them see the world with different eyes as in the poem “Since feeling is first”.
Fulton, Alice. “You Can’t Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain.” Approaching Poetry: Perspectives and Responses. Ed. Peter Schakel and Jack Ridl. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. 128-29.
With reference to three poems studied so far discuss how Larkin presents the theme of illusion and reality.
The clearest vision of reality is often the most abstract. While the rise of science and progress suffocate the notion of an extrasensory experience within the reading of literature, the phenomena persist. Meanings are communicated, participating in a magnificent cosmic-cultural aura, penetrating a communication of meaning, intent, and scandalously--truth. There is a process of intertextuality occurring, a conversation between authors, texts themselves, and the readers who venture to interpret them. Richard Brautigan's imaginary novel, In Watermelon Sugar converses well with a poem written many years after his death, Tunnel Music by Mark Doty. This conversation appears to be about the collapse of our techno-egocentric society.
...vocal statement about the ?organic? possibilities of poetry than optimistic readers might have expected. ?Mayflies? forces us to complicate Randall Jarrell?s neat formulation. Here Wilbur has not just seen and shown ?the bright underside of? a ?dark thing.? In a poem where the speaker stands in darkness looking at what ?animate[s] a ragged patch of glow? (l.4), we are left finally in a kind of grayness. We look from darkness into light and entertain an enchanting faith that we belong over there, in the immortal dance, but we aren?t there now. We are in the machine-shop of poetry. Its own fiat will not let us out completely.
“Poe’s Theory of Poetry.” The Big Read. Handout One. N.d.. 16. Web. 19 April 2014.
Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 14, 1894. He earned a BA from Harvard and volunteered to go to France during World War I with the Ambulance Corps. After the war, he stayed in Paris, writing and painting, and later returned to the US. He died in Conway, New Hampshire, in 1962. Cummings is one of the most innovative contemporary poets, he used unconventional punctuation and capitalization, and unusual line, word, and even letter placements - namely, ideograms. Cummings' most difficult form of poetry is probably the ideogram; it is extremely terse and it combines both visual and auditory elements. There may be sounds or characters on the page that cannot be verbalized or cannot convey the same message if pronounced and not read. Four of Cummings' poems "la," "mortals," "!blac," and "swi" illustrate the ideogram form quite well. Cummings utilizes unique syntax in these poems in order to convey messages visually as well as verbally.
Does the amount of student loan debt have an effect on the economy? If so would forgiving student loan debt help lower the national debt or would it just increase it? According to Mary Claire Fischer, a writer for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, “two-thirds of students who receive bachelor’s degrees leave college with an average debt of twenty-six thousand dollars” (Fischer). This means that the average student debt has doubled since 2007 (Ross 24). The total student loan debt is $1.2 trillion with $1 trillion being from federal student loans (Denhart). This debt accounts for six percent of our nation’s $16.7 trillion debt (Denhart). Since student loan debt is such a big part of the national debt, if the student defaults on their loan then the United States tax payer has to carry the burden of the loan (Denhart). Students who are graduating with debt do have a couple of different options that they can choose from. There is a six month grace period after graduation to allow the student time to find a job and programs to try to help eliminate debt. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates that one-fourth of the American workforce may be eligible for repayment or loan forgiveness programs” (Atteberry n.p.). The problem with these programs however, is that they are hard to get into and stick with.
Glynn, Sarah Jane, and Nancy Wu. "The Gender Wage Gap Differs by Occupation." Www.americanprogress.org. Center for American Progress, 9 Apr. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
It is imperative for us, especially all poets and writers of prose that use language to express figurative meaning, to critique this theory because it only decreases creativity and denies that artist say anything beyond the literal with their words and metaphors. Davidson's ideas violently affront to the purpose of our craft. If we become completely dependent upon objective, literal meaning and learn to reject subjective, figurative meaning in words, we will consequently become less human and more detached from the world, from our natural surroundings, from our fellow human beings, and from the spontaneous, creative voices deep in our guts that often speak of truths literal expression cannot capture.
Restlessness is the main focus of Phillips’ article, it is the title of his article and in his opinion it is the reason why poems exist at all. “Poetry is the results of a generative restlessness of imagination… uncertainties become obsessions to be wrestled with, and with luck, the result is poetry…” (Phillips 132) Phillips, in summary of his article, claims uncertainties in life trouble our minds until the uncertainties become obsessions. We become restless in our quest to understand the uncertainties we face and by writing poems we can organize our thoughts and try to understand the things we do not. Phillips furthers his explains his claim by admitting “ I write poetry for the same reason that I read it, both as a way of being alive and as a way of trying to understand what it means—how it feels—to be alive.” (Phillips 133).
...human imagination and reality, the role of imagination in shaping that reality, and the role of the reader, as an observer as well as participant, in the understanding of poetry, of language shaping the world around him.
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...
Diller, V. (2012, November 5). Teens Who Commit Crimes: What Can/Should Parents Do? | Vivian Diller, Ph.D. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vivian-diller-phd/teen-crime_b_2035255.html
Imagine walking across the stage in just a few years from now. Having thousands of eyes pointed at you as you take that emotional walk to finally receive your high school diploma. After a few years when you have graduated high school and started life, you're going to look back and think, what have I accomplished so far? Extracurricular activities can be very beneficial for students now, and those in the future as well. They can allow you to feel like you have accomplished something while in school. Extracurricular activities are important because they can benefit a student through personal, educational, and even social means. It is a great idea to get more students involved in extracurricular activities and parents should begin to give their kids a little push to get them more involved.