Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Discussion Log about Mary Oliver's Poetry

After reading two hundred and fifty-five pages of Mary Oliver’s poetry, I can firmly say that she prefers images of the natural world and portraits of non-human entities, and I don’t think that anyone would or could refute that claim.

In her images, we can see a slight difference from her earlier poems and her later poems. In the later poems, the narrator is not as closely integrated with nature as he or she is in the earlier poems. For instance, in the “Kookaburras,” the birds ask the narrator to be let out of their cages. The connection between the narrator and the birds is suggested by communication; however, the narrator refuses to let the kookaburras out of their cage. He or she says “no” and “walk[s] away.” From this negation, the narrator’s communication and connection with the kookaburras is diminished. This allows questions about the relationship between humans and non-human entities to arise: to what extent, if any, should humans interact with non-human entities? A question about duty can be raised from Oliver’s poem too: to what extent, if any, is a human’s duty to a non-human entity?
 
In the poem, “The Fish,” the narrator shows a full integration with nature when she or he catches and eats a fish: “the sea/ is in me: I am the fish, the fish/ glitters in me.” The narrator becomes a part of nature, not an individual entity separate from it. This connection to nature is also apparent in the poem “Sleeping in the Forest.”  In this poem, the narrator cloaks nature in human clothing: “her dark skirts, her pockets/ full of lichens and seeds.” Consequently, the description of the narrator is the opposite. He or she is described in terms of natural imagery: “I slept as...a stone on a riverbed.” From this, we can see that the narrator is one with nature, and nature is one with the narrator. This is also illustrated by the last line where the narrator’s egocentric I “vanished at least a dozen times/ into something better.” The “something better,” I suspect, is the connection between the natural world and the narrator, but it is also the mystery nature holds. In the previous poem, the narrator mentions this mystery as one that we are “nourished” by.  

A large portion of Oliver’s poetry is based on the same form:
Her lines are positioned in a downward falling quatrain that is done in syllabic meter.

From this type of form, the syllabic meter is the trickiest to spot, but it is there if we listen to her lines. For instance, in “Moccasin Flowers,” the first quatrain is

All my life,   
    so far,
         I have loved
            more than one thing.    

Listening to the sound of the lines or counting the syllables in the lines, we find that the syllables waver up and down. This produces variety, and, I suspect, Oliver did this for more than one reason.

One last item on craft I want to mention: Oliver likes to use repetition. In many poems, the repetition creates an incantatory quality that is akin to other poets, including Ginsberg, Whitman, etc., but the use of incantation is closer to pagan rituals that celebrate the human and the non-human world.

Oliver is a consistent poet, and she is more consistent than any other poet that I have read.  Her later poems contain the same forms and subject matter as her earlier work, except for her first published volume which focuses more on man-made stuff, particularly houses, than nature. By limiting herself to the same subject matter and same forms, Oliver may be doing herself and others a benefit because this allows her to hone her craft and find solid subject matter; however, at the same time, she limits herself to her own known forms and subject matter. This seems to me a paradox only the author can understand.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Why Should I Become a CNA?

I've been thinking about trying to find a new career. I've been working for a communications company and writing about poetry for a long time. And I'm kinda tired of it. I've been thinking of becoming a certified nursing assistant or even an registered nurse. I wrote 10 reasons (I guess trying to convince myself) why I should become a CNA or an RN.

1. To many RN aspirants, the first step to becoming a full-fledged nurse is usually via the CNA route. A CNA gets a closer foretaste of the RN profession, after devoting a relatively short period for training and certification. CNAs work in the same medical and healthcare settings as with registered nurses or other medical practitioners. Ever wonder how long it takes to be a CNA? 6 months. Also, did you ever wonder how long is nursing school? It takes two years to become a registered nurse.

2. To one those who find it difficult to make up their minds on pursuing a career in nursing, becoming a CNA first could be a crucial element in the decision-making process. Being able to work in hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics, nursing homes, and assisted-living centres allows one to experience the nursing field up close.

3. While a CNA’s job belongs in the same classification as orderlies and attendants, they are allowed to assist, every so often, in minor medical procedures under the supervision of an experienced or senior registered nurse. Their responsibilities and tasks vary from conveying, nourishing, and helping patients in their daily care, exercise regimens, and proper hygiene.

4. The work of a CNA helps build and develop a person’s strength and character. Over time, you will learn to be emotionally mature and physically strong, and you will develop compassion and patience to care for the sick, the old, the weak, and the disabled.

5. There are more than 1.5 million employed CNAs as of May 2013, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CNAs have bright prospects ahead, with growth rising faster than the average for all occupations in the country. BLS forecasts 21% growth between 2012 and 2022. I also like that I could go to school and become an RN, which has more growth. I read that an RN does not have to work in a hospital, either. There are non clinical nursing jobs outside the hospital for RNs.

6. For the short training and certification process involved, CNAs get decent pay. Their median pay as of 2012 was $11.97 per hour or $24,890 per year. This annual median indicates that 50% of people working in this occupational group earn below this median, while the other 50% earns more than this median. The top earners are those who work in federal executive branches earning as high as $35,950 per year. Other top-paying industries for CNAs are insurance carriers, junior colleges, universities and professional schools, and state government, where CNAs earn at least $31,000 a year. The top-paying states are Alaska, New York, Nevada, Connecticut and Massachusetts. So if you live in these states, CNAs are paid higher here than in most other states.

7. Nursing care facilities or skilled nursing facilities hire four times more CNAs than RNs. This is where CNAs find the highest demand for their profession. The hourly mean wage in these institutions is $12.01, slightly higher than what CNAs receive on the average. General medical and surgical hospitals, on the other hand, hire only 1 CNA in every 4 RNs. The hourly mean wage for CNAs in these medical institutions is much higher than average, though, at $13.53.

8.  CNAs who get the opportunity to work in federal executive branches enjoy greater stability in their work. Aside from their higher pay, as mentioned above, their benefits may also include retirement packages and 401K plans.

9. For persons who love traveling, becoming a CNA may provide an opportunity to combine travel and work. There are CNAs who become traveling nursing assistants. This job provides higher pay, travel and perks, and the excitement that is otherwise not present in the mundane nature of the regular CNA job.

10. If those reasons have not yet clinched your decision yet, here’s another one. Training to become a CNA can take as short as 6 weeks only, although there are longer programs. For instance, the state of California requires at least 150 hours of training, inclusive of classroom and clinical instruction, while the American Red Cross requires 160 hours. Acceptance to the CNA program does not require you to have a high school diploma or equivalent GED. It does, however, require a clean slate – background check on felonies, crimes, and drug-related issues will be quite stringent. Licensing involves two steps – a written test about concepts and a practical test about actual skills learned.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

You’ve got ice cream on your beard!

I'm taking a break from poetry this week and trying to have a little fiction fun, so here goes.

I’m not one for making homemade ice creams – I simply didn’t find the need; they’re easier bought, not to mention yummier.

Until I had a tiny tot walking around the house asking if I knew how to make ice cream. “Of course,” I said, which meant I had a vague idea. The little devil didn’t stop there, but insisted that he didn’t think I could. Little bundles can pose big challenges with their innocent (don’t trust that one minute) look and matter-of-fact one liners. “Of course you can’t,” he said dryly and left playing in the yard.

I didn’t have an ice cream maker (like I said, I didn’t find the need but I do have a lot of ceramic cookware I've bought piece-meal after reading too many reviews). I found one recipe on the Internet which seemed to be the easiest one. The ingredients were right in my pantry. So I gathered everything (around 4-5 ingredients). It involved whipping a heavy cream in a bowl until it formed stiff peaks. (I could not find a mixing bowl so I used a stock pot from my nonstick cookware set.) Then I mixed a half cup of peanut butter and condensed milk in a bowl, folded the mixture into the cream, added some chocolate chips my wife uses for baking desserts, and placed the mixture in the freezer.

I spent most of the day writing afterwards. There was a nanny watching the kiddo so I was left to my quiet and peace. Soon, I have forgotten about the ice cream and everyone else when he walked by and said that it was so hot and wished that someone knew how to make ice cream. We lived quite a distance from the nearest grocer and it needed someone to make a business of driving out to buy anything. I laughed and told him that I made myself an ice cream while he was away. “No, you didn’t,” he insisted.

I went to the fridge and scooped ice cream, sliced one ripe banana, arranged everything on an ice cream plate, garnished with corn cereals, and criss-crossed with chocolate syrup on top. It looked professional. I sat and placed my feet on the Ottoman and started with my banana split with homemade chocolatey peanut butter ice cream. I didn’t mind him but I knew his eyes went big. I heard him gasp but was mostly speechless (for a change). In short, I went for another trip to the fridge, with the young fellow at my elbow. He followed my every move, almost meekly (which he wasn’t, I’m sure). He happily squirted the chocolate syrup on his banana split. We then gaily went to the patio and enjoyed our frozen treat.

The ice cream did turn out great, it was smooth and soft. But it was too sweet for me; not for the other person, though. He went back for more, without the banana. After demolishing everything, obviously a satisfied customer, he sat beside me and said that the ice cream was so good. That was a big compliment considering his earlier snooty stance. He was suddenly friendly; even wiped some ice cream off my beard. But then he had to return to his old mien; I say that it must be his default setting. “The ice cream was so good you couldn’t have made it yourself,” he said and left. Huh?!

Monday, March 17, 2014

3 Image Poems

Poems can be as simple as an image, which can be complex in meaning. But most of all, poems should be easy to read. Below are three short poems that qualify.

Nostalgia

On top
a wooden
desk
I wrestle
an empty
page, my mind
strains to
fill the paper
with soft
relics of why
I stopped
in the lush grass
as the silver
moon
glistened upon
buried rites
and years
past.


The Poem


some say
is a drunk
beer
bottle floating
along a muddy
river's enjambed
waves.


A Blind & A Decisive Mind


the soiled curtains
that hang upon
my dusty window
sills are not
getting washed today.
I have no extras.

Friday, March 14, 2014

The Confession

Cheating poems exist because somebody made a mistake in life and turned that mistake into an image that others can relate to.

The image in this infidelity poem captures the emotion of being in a relationship where a significant other had an affair.

The poem, which is below, is called "The Confession."

The Confession


You watch the bodybuilder push 250 lbs of weight off the bench and lower it to his chest. The iron rising, sinking; the weight lifter's face reddening, straining. The weight rattles back into its cradle with help from you, the spotter. But that clanking iron rattles you back to the last day of your marriage.

You watch yourself on that fateful day: Your face reddening, muscles straining under weight. But the words that rise from your chest are too heavy to be re-racked by a spotter. You watch those heavy iron barbells, called words, crush your wife when you say, "I had an affair."

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Discussion Log about Stephen Dobyns’ Comic Structure

Many of Stephen Dobyns’ poems evoke black humor with a tantalizing image.  Dobyns’ poem “Tenderly” places the reader in a world of comic absurdity where a man attempts castration with a dull knife.  Even though the image is arresting and unpoetic, Dobyns exhibits a masterful  control and balance of the imagery and language in “Tenderly”.  This essay will focus on Dobyns’ poetics to illustrate how he uses syntax and a central image to advance and withhold the narrative to achieve central meaning to the poem.  

The first sentence of “Tenderly” is long and carefully structured.  The structural components of this sentence are the correlative conjunctions that represent two negatives and an implicit positive: “It’s not a fancy restaurant, nor is it\a dump” (lines 1-2).  These two negative extremes force the reader to infer a positive; the restaurant is somewhere between the upper and lower-class stratums.    The second component is the parallel structure that balances out the comical list: “a man leaps onto his tabletop,” and “whips out his prick”; however, the structure is weakened when the absurdity of the entire image is introduced: “and begins sawing at it/ with a butter knife” (3-5).  The image of a man engaging in self-mutilating tendencies in public creates a general association of chaos.  Dobyns uses the structural components to keep a coherent order and balance the delivery of the image and setup of the scene.

Enjambment also plays an important role in the structure of the first stanza.  The most prominent example is the first to second stanza enjambment.   It delays the small prepositional phrase “with a butter knife”(5).  Because this portion of the image is delayed, it allows readers to reach the pinnacle of absurdity when readers realize the mans attempt is in vain.  Enjambment also keeps the narrative moving because there is no punctuation to stop the reader at the end of the line.  The stanza enjambment allows a disconnectedness to manifest itself between the penis and the knife, which may suggest the two are not mutually exclusive and the contrast between flesh and metal.

No motivation is presented for the character except “I can’t stand it/ anymore! he shouts” (5-6).  The emotional outburst is appropriate within the context, and the short line illustrates the violent passion.  The grammatical structure of the line uses no quotation marks nor italics to set it apart.  Italics and quotation marks might draw too much attention to the line.  Dobyns may be suggesting this man is insignificant: a name is never mentioned for this man, and his destructive actions define him as futile. The small “h” in “he” is an illustration of the man’s smallness.

The chaotic element is lost the moment the waiters extradite the man outside before he draws blood.  In the course of nine lines, the narrator has shocked the reader with the central image and brought the scene back to normality.  The structure of the two sentences that contain the restoration of normality are similar in structure: “before he draws blood and hustle him out back.  Soon the diners return/ to their fillet and slices of duck”(7-9).  The coordinating conjunction “and” in both lines illustrates a balance that coincides with the restoration that is taking place. 

Order is restored, and the narrator begins his abstractions on human nature.  “How peculiar, each, in some fashion, articulates./ Consider how the world implants a picture in our brains” (9-12).  The articulation of these lines is peculiar in itself.  The commas draw specific attention to the separation of the words and phrases. They slow the sentence down. Commas allow the reader to mull over the statement before the command is given.  After the command the central image is brought back and the narrator says “for each, forever after, the image pops up/ a thousand times” (14-15).  This exemplifies that the narrator is generalizing about the influence of this image or is omniscient.  Another statement is juxtaposed against the image: “I once saw the oddest thing--” (15).  It is trite, and validity is added to this line when a rhetorical question about human nature is attached: “how often does each announce this fact?” (16).  The sentence structure is unique.  It’s the first of the three dashed sentences.  The dash keeps the reader suspended at the end of the line.  It is the most appropriate punctuation mark because it is not as final as a period or colon or semicolon.  The reader can linger on the statement and the strange episode. 

In stanza five, the narrator continues suggesting the diners will recall the central image at unconventional times in their lives. The narrator concludes that “so they are linked as a family is linked--through a single portrait” (23-24).  Because this is the only simile in the poem, stress is  placed on it; however, the conclusion word-- “so”--and the linking dash draw attention to themselves and illustrate the narrator’s conclusion of the central image and abstractions.  The link or connection is what the narrator is trying to get readers to realize.  Even the dash in the sentence creates a link from the simile to another image.  The use of connection is apparent in other Dobyns’ poems too.  “Bowlers Anonymous”, for example, uses the bowling alley to bring together mismatched people with strange desires:

Here comes the woman who wears the plastic prick
hooked to a string around her waist, the man who
puts girls’ panties like a beanie on his head,
the chicken molester, the lady who likes Great Danes,
the boy who likes sheep, the old fellow who likes
to watch turkeys dance on the top of a hot stove,
the bicycle-seat sniffer, grasshopper muncher,
the bubbles-in-the-bath biter--they all meet
each night at midnight and, oh lord, they bowl. (1-9) 

Even though these characters have varying desires, they manage to form a connection at the bowling alley, and the absurdist metaphor for the connection tries “to jar the reader off his or her pedestal of complacency” (Dobyns, n. pag.).

“Tenderly” suggests a similar idea about connection in a different way.  In “Bowlers” the actions of the peoples’ desires are absurd, and the structure of the long sentence creates an element of suspense and surprise.  In “Tenderly” the central image is comic and violent, and the  structural words balance out the comic and the violent.  However, in both these poems Dobyns manages an optimum balance when pushing the comic language, abstractions, and  image in view.  For instance, lines 9-20 in “Tenderly” juxtapose the central image with abstraction. Language engages in this balance, too.  The profane language, “prick” and “dick”, the violent language “whips”, “sawing”, “strangling” elicit profound emotional responses, driving the narrative forward until readers reach the crux of the poem where the central image is described in grotesque detail: “the man’s wobbly perch on the white tablecloth/ his open pants and strangled red chunk of flesh” (21-22).  This sentence is the longest, and it pushes the central image one step further with the gory detail.  The narrator suggests the image becomes a “symbol” for the diners as to what will happen when each has had enough “of slipping over the edge, of being whipped/ about the chops by the finicky world, and of reacting/ with a rash mutiny against the tyranny of desire” (23-26).   The parallel structure of the prepositions causes a repetitive, rhythmical nature that drives the lines forward. Also, the end-stopped line takes readers out of the abstraction and allows them to start a fresh line about the future of the man. 

When the narrator writes about the man’s future, he still uses extremes.  For instance, when the man is “tossed out back\ and left to rethink his case among the trash cans” the narrator equates the man to a sack of garbage that is tossed in the trash.  Dark comedy is present in these lines.

In the final stanzas, comic elements do not fail when the narrator suggests once again that the diners who saw the central image will look back to that day and realize the tortured individual who tried castration was far worse off than they could ever be.  The comic is achieved with perverse language and alliteration: when “one feels the strap begin to slip, he or she thinks/ of the nut dancing with his dick on the tabletop/ and trudges on.  At least life has spared me this,/ they think” (32-35).  Sound and language create a little humor out of a dire situation.  The final bit of the narrator’s brutal, comic absurdity ends in the last sentence, which is the second longest and somewhat unique in form.  The dashes isolate the“retired banker” as the one person who “hopes against hope that the lunatic/ is parked on a topless foreign beach with a beauty/ clasped in his loving arms, breathing heavily, Oh,/ darling, touch me there, tenderly, one more time! (37-40).  A banker is used to suggest the traditional person’s happy ending: the man at some exotic place with a woman.  Language denotes that it is a woman because the locale is a “topless foreign beach” (38).  Men don’t wear tops on beaches.
    Finally, there is the humor of the title. The word tenderly has many meanings in the poem.  It first stands for the man’s futile attempts at castration, but in the last line the word becomes a representation of the man touching tender spots on the woman.  The structure of the sentence suggests this view because the phrases “clasped in/ his loving arms, breathing heavily” are modifying “beauty” (38-39).  Dobyns also maximizes the meaning of tenderly in the first stanza because the castrator exhibits a severe lack of tenderness when he tries dismembering himself, and tenderly can suggest the tender state of the man’s member. As a result, “Tenderly” illustrates the careful construction Dobyns uses in his poetics, not only through language but through structure too.

Sources:
Dobyns, Stephen. “Bowlers Anonymous.” Cemetery Nights.  New York: Penguin, 1987
Dobyns, Stephen.  Interview by Jim Harrison et al. The Aslop Review.                  http://www.alsopreview.com/aside/dobyns/
Dobyns, Stephen.  “Tenderly.” Contemporary American Poetry.  7th ed.  Ed. A. Poulin, Jr.      Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 2001.  115.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Discussion Log about Wendell Berry's poetry

Wendell Berry’s commitment to rural life is apparent in his poetry.  Many of his poems celebrate the beauty of working in and observing the natural world, and many of his elegies, particularly the second part of “Three Elegiac Poems,” are good, but two of my favorite poems are “The Cold Pane” and “The Vacation,” which this discussion log will focus on.

In “The Cold Pane,” Berry begins the poem with an abstraction: “Between the living world/ and the world of death;” he then turns the abstraction into a concrete metaphor: “is a clear, cold pane” (1-2). He does not specify what type of “pane;” however, readers can assume that it is made of glass because of the properties described. 

Although glass can be found in nature as a volcanic material known as obsidian, the glass associated with a “pane” is more likely to be found in a window or a door. The image is grounded in the world of constants, not the changing natural world.

A constant provides an advantage in this poem because the division between life and death is constant: one is either dead or alive. This image is reminiscent of Pound’s “complex,” a image that exists within an instant of time that provides “liberation.” “Liberation” is achieved as Berry extends the metaphor: “a man who looks too close/ must fog it with his breath,/ or hold his breath too long” (105). This technique creates a distancing, an alienation effect, because the poem is so objective; however, readers who visualize the image will see the division between the “living world” and the “world of death” (1-2).

Another poem that interested me was “The Vacation,” which is a short narrative that employs irony. The beauty of irony is that a chuckle always emerges; however, a downside with irony exists: if one notices the irony, then one realizes that the author is using a form of derision to his or her own ends. In “The Vacation,” Berry starts the poem with the only end-stopped line: “Once there was a man who filmed his vacation” (1). The end-stopped line offers some validity to the line, but the first word–“Once”–associates the narrator’s tale as a legend. I suspect he did this to balance the division between fact and fable. 

As the poem progresses, readers learn that the persona is observing the natural world with a video camera while “flying down the river in his boat” (2). To suggest that the boat is moving fast, Berry uses alliteration and assonance: “his sleek boat moved swiftly/ toward the end of his vacation” (5-6). Before the persona ends his vacation, he manages to capture it on film, and Berry suggests longetivity by using participles, including “making” and “preserving” (3-8).  Even though the persona wants to preserve nature “forever” on film, no logic is offered why the man wants to immortalize nature’s temporal beauty, but the poet’s derision is present in the language: “A moving picture of the moving river/ upon which his sleek boat moved (4-5). The repetition of the word “move” becomes a bit absurd, and one can see that the poet is not interested in sympathizing with the man’s situation. As a result, the poet ridicules the man’s attempts at creating this video by repeating the verb “have” four times: “he was having it/ so that after he had had it he would still/ have it” (11-12).

Through the use of repetition, words lose their power, their significance; they become as meaningless as the Logician’s in Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.  Why would Berry use these poetic devices?  These devices help him illustrate how ridiculous people are for trying to possess nature because nature is an entity in its own right; how people should not be concerned so much about preserving their own creations; how people should be integrated with nature, not passively watching, which Berry’s final line sums up nicely: “He would never be in it”


Work Cited
Berry, Wendell. The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Washington: Counterpoint, 1998.