Poetry Manifesto

For my "Creative Writing: Poetry" class last semester, we were implored to write a "manifesto" of sorts, elucidating our take on some fundamental elements of the craft of poetry--meter, rhyme, diction, and so on--as well as a big-picture analysis of what poetry is or should be, what it should do, how it relates to other arts, how it relates to life. I felt a lot of tension in preparing for this assignment, as our class spent a large part of the semester pressing against conventional and personal boundaries of what poetry was allowed to be. We looked at poems by E.E. Cummings, prose poems, and digitally-animated poems on the internet. We looked at the word paintings of Joan Miro, and we even listened to sound collages by John Cage. In every instance, we were supposed to deal with the question, "Is this poetry?"

I enjoyed tracking this expansion of what is legit poetry, and I was grateful for the passion my professor (L.S. Klatt) had for refreshing the shape and content of poetry and for trying to re-engage it with its brother and sisters in other forms of art/science/life. However, when it came time to lay out my opinions on the subject, to mark out some boundaries and definitions, I felt immobilized. The best I could do, at the time, was to let loose with a somewhat obscure philippic as a form of catharsis. After turning in my purgation to Klatt, the real world of grades and potential failure set in, and I found myself nervous about how the thing would be received. Thankfully, although I "failed to engage the terms of the assignment" and "did something completely different, to the extent that it it couldn't be graded," my gracious and understanding professor understood that what I did was worthwhile and valuable for myself. Therefore, he simply pretended it wasn't on the syllabus and didn't factor his non-grade into my final shakedown. At any rate, here is my poetic abreaction:

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Something Scrawled on Napkins in the Attic, Overheard in a Dream

"The emotion of art is impersonal."

- T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”

"lenses extend unwish through curving wherewhen until unwish returns on its unself."

- E.E. Cummings, “pity this busy monster,manunkind,”


§ 1: That if one wants once to be undone, then tons of dust and rubble must from everything of It become (and us’s It, as well)

Words

Words are crunchy. Words are oozing. Words are kaleidoscopes and chisels. Swiss Army words. Words deal quite a blow. They are, in fact, a gamble. Or, words are upside-down, sometimes. Have you ever had the inside outside? Words have. Or at least, they did once. It’s words when you remember everything, 1 2 3. First comes the picture, then comes the feelings, then comes the phrases in the baby carriage. Words up the ante. At Christmas, or on other special occasions, words make sense. Words are all in, all the time. Words taste good over a warm meal. Reports indicate that they may even contribute to factors which are responsible for low cholesterol and a healthy heart. What wonderful little engines! Words come out to play at night, when the neighbor kids are fast asleep. Sometimes they shoot hoops, and you hear the drumslap of the ball hitting asphalt while you sleep. Slam dunk! Two plus two equals words. Two times two equals words, too. Words break open the ground on their way towards sunlight. They just keep coming. Do you see where they end? Beans and leaves bud on their tips, and their wide stem reaches up, up, and we see giants climbing down, down, word by word by word.

When you go to visit your grandmother, that’s not words. It’s not words if and only if it’s indeed you. What’s you? Not words, that’s for sure. Kissing’s not words, neither. Nor washing dishes. Nope. You are making a quiche with the tomatoes from your garden when you realize there’s a camera outside your window and Martha Steward is beating the eggs. Not words. Nada. Words are not this stale-potato-chip culture. No-sir-ee. Words don’t make cents. Just sentences. Personally, I’ve never had a halo, only visions of paystubs and diplomas. But, words are not quite enrolled in college. And paystubs are just numbers, that’s all. Words have been received with little critical acclaim. They were not nominated for any awards, this year or last. Words are forgotten, or can be. Words have been banned as playground equipment--too many sharp edges. For now, words shiver through the night on a bench in Central Park, wrapped up in newspapers without headlines or captions, only images. The police find words and beat them out of the park, out of the city limits, banned for good, like graffiti in a dark alley or a tattoo on the small of Lady Liberty’s back. Goodbye, words. Goodbye for now. Please speak well of us to whatever lies beyond.

Presence

Oh, but what about the paper? Where is the inkwell? I would recommend a few things: 1) artifacts, 2) artefacts, 3) art, 4) facts, or forget 1-4 and just come inside to drink some cocoa with me by the fire. I have a friend, actually several, that do certain things better than I do. One draws pictures, often utilizing the circle. Another calculates the phases of a chemical shift (on four sheets of paper, stapled one to the other). Some strange denizens downtown attach objects onto walls. They call this “art.” My grandfather makes the walls to which these objects are attached. But as for me and my house, we are bound lock-stock-barrel to: Hallmark Publishing House in 3 easy steps; Walmart University; or, if you’re lucky, you go to bed in a slim volume beneath a dictionary on the 5th floor of an empty library. I invited my friends to come along for a poem, but they objected to my use of the term on the grounds that its utilization marked a cognitive instability on my part and that it would be in the best interests of all concerned if I were committed to a mental institution at once. Well, shucks. From now on, anything goes.

And everything goes with it.


§ 2: That a lantern lights a small, warm cabin and the cave Itself is dark, dark, dark

A Partial, Indirect, and Admittedly Biased Summary of the Issue

Ronald McHegel runs for President of something or other. You drop your great aunt’s glass vase. Ronald McHegel trips and falls. Our poems come to us on a box of Wheaties. Or on the milk carton: Missing Child. What nonsense. Even worse? Yes. In fact, there is a heavy, dusted book in storage in the basement at the museum in a ghost town on the edge of nowhere in a black hole--as of now, the final resting place for all our poems--from hereon referred to by the prosecution as “It”.

It is a pair of moldy socks disguised as a university setting. It is a hot dog in a tuxedo. It is an festering zit under your sister’s... It has issued an array of designations, jurisdictions, blueprints, modules, collections, modifications and edits, implications, resolutions, citations, documentations, complications, and so on and so forth. Lots of words from Greek or Latin, I think. Who knows how things got to be this way? This bad! Yes, you in the front. Speak up, please, this is no cubbyhole we’re suffocating in.

So you would say that the issue is not a new one? Oh, you would rather learn how to bind books yourself, and make one for your dead dog, than release a hit series of novels that reaches high tide on the New York Times Bestseller List? You’d rather eat a brick than here your publisher call you by name through a levitating Bluetooth device? You’d rather burn your manuscripts in the fireplace, taking turns with your best friend, than wire yourself into the intertwining infrastructure of post-industrial wordsmithing? You would rather receive feedback from your little brother than T.S. Eliot, or even a Writer’s Guild, certified non-profit as described in Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986?

Calms, Balms, Alms...

Swish-swish my friend, and listen-listen.

R.S.V.P

We are leaving this damp, dripping hell-cavern and there’s nothing It can do about it but join the parade. Supplies have been gathered from the furthest recesses of the dark, the lonely, and the blind. We may have to do without technology for a while, but typewriters are not so hard to come by. Neither are our voices and handshakes, small but shiny, glowing even, like the esteemed and mysterious Lingulodinium polyedrum. We’ve hands and voices together, you and I. We’ve them! Our itinerary is carved in the soles of our shoes, a tattered atlas. When we hold them all together, we decipher the way. We find the way out of It. As I was saying, It is a dragon

turd. Will it join the parade? This party is not by invitation only.

So forget chatrooms, scholarly journals, and Barnes and Noble Booksellers. Forget It. Go read a diary or a letter, a masterpiece. Write a sonnet with your eyes closed. Goodbye cool world! There’s an old device called a ditto machine. It ran on a liquid called “spirit fluid.” Now there’s something you don’t see too often these days: spirit. If you see fit, please hide a poem for me under the “Welcome” mat, beside the Hide-A-Key. I won’t even spellcheck the thing. Just be sure to put some soul power inside. Be sure to go it alone, without no recipes. Meanwhile, we’ll be outside, warming our hands over your anthologies, such beautiful glowing embers. We’ll be waiting for It, waiting for you.


§ 3: Appendix

Poetic Units by Era



The Author’s Logical Technique for Analyzing A Text

If a thing says a thing, then that thing is true.
A thing isn’t true.
Therefore, the thing doesn’t say a thing.

A Brief but Exhaustive History of It

- March 15, 37000 BCE: It is a pond
- March 16, 37000 BCE: It crawls out of the pond, grows legs
- February 18, 1237 BCE: another pyramid is built out of It
- December 25, 500 BCE: the It dynasty rules in China
- August 17, 3 CE: Peace on Earth, and Goodwill toward It
- July 6, 700 CE: the Dark Ages begin It in Europe
- October 12, 1492 CE: Christopher Columbus sights It
- April 6, 1909 CE: It is found at the North Pole
- September 1, 1876 CE: the Dutch found It in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
- November 30, 2007 CE: this is It!

The Voice

Finally, here's a copy of the paper I wrote for my linguistics class about "The Voice," the phonological expression of me and my friends' high-school sense of humor, interaction, personality, and reality even. I'm not sure what my prof thought about the whole thing, but I guess I feigned mastery, intelligence, and confidence enough to get an A-. Also, completing this project brought a lot of closure to that whole stage of my life, a good mix of rememberance and farewell-to. So in that personal aspect, it was definitely worth the undertaking.

some notes: 1) the title is supposed to be substantially over the top, 2) please ignore the academic B-S, 3) the interview excerpts are the best

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“The Voice of Reason, the Voice of Irreverence, and Other Very Human Articulations: A Case Study in Adolescent Slang, Identity, and Personality”

Ryan Weberling
Professor W. Vande Kopple
English 334--Linguistics
April 27, 2007


Introduction

Beginning in the freshman year of my high-school career, those in my immediate peer group developed a mode of interaction centered on a system of slang we developed and utilized, dubbed “the Voice” by those involved with and affected by it. The Voice, as such, was more than just a lexicon of slang, but involved semantics, style and function, mannerisms and non-verbal commu-nication, and especially, as indicated by the name it was given, phonology or, more broadly, the intonation of the speaker’s voice. In this paper, I will provide a brief overview, history, and analysis of the system we used. The content will arise primarily from interviews carried out with those who were in-volved with the Voice, with occasional reference to relevant sources and ideas. However, the main effort of this project is to convey, through one limited case study, the extent to which people’s language, specifically the unique ways in which individuals and groups speak, affects identities, personalities, and relationships.

Overview and History

How was this mode of interaction developed, and how did it spread? “It all started when two of us were picking beans in my family’s garden,” recalls Nathan, one of the original speakers. “My dad was making us pick these beans, and we were really angry about that, and we just started making fun of stuff. I believe the first phrase was ‘beans, beans, beans... what are we gonna do with all them beans?’” The nature of these beginnings already reveal the commonplace capacity of language to demarcate boundaries, to establish space for restless juvenile identities, and to express otherwise restricted sentiments. As Teresa Labov notes, “Adolescents make particular use of the second characteristic in using slang to differentiate themselves from adults” (340).

This way of speaking soon caught on with others in the social group at church and school, at first remaining limited to those in the immediate sphere of contact. Soon, though, it began to permeate into other related groups and demographics. Two interviewees recalled the spread of the Voice:

Nathan: There were some people that picked up on it that might be more expected--younger brothers, girlfriends, and so on--but there were other cases, some people we had marginal contact with, like at coffee shops or church that we’d see once a week or once a month, but we came known by it, and these other people even started doing it.

Derek: People older than us, like college students, started doing it as well. But the weirdest was when our parents started trying to imitate us.”

Nathan: I think that’s when we started to realize that it had gone too far...and that was the beginning of the challenge to get rid of the Voice. We would make bets and pay each other a dollar or two if we slipped into using it again. It was hard not to.”

The Voice, or the social dynamics created by its use, had a dramatic influence on those who spoke it. John, who was part of the first generation of speakers, recalls his experiences:

There was a group of us who didn’t even look like we’d be friends, but we could relate with [the Voice]...[and] it contributed to tying us all together more than almost anything else. It defined our life for almost three years. And it still does, in a small way. When we get together, we still do it. When I meet new people, I tell them my sense of humor is based on this weird thing we used to do.

Although use of the Voice was at first spurred on and incited by members of the group at every possible occasion, it soon began to dominate the group’s interactions to an undesired extent. Again, John recalls this shift:

"It was a sense of humor we all agreed on, and it ended up controlling us...It’s not something we could just fluff off. It was some sort of psychological... addiction. We couldn’t kick it. We needed to have an alter-ego to be funny, to relate. When it got to the point where we couldn’t get ourselves or each other to stop doing it, that’s when realized: some people our age did drugs or had sex... well, we had the Voice.
It turned against us. There was no way to get angry with each other. You couldn’t get upset because as soon as you brought an issue up, others could invoke the Voice to completely shut you down. There was never any arguing or fighting and therefore no real resolutions, because the Voice made getting mad seem ridiculous...we couldn’t have any emotions, even if we got really excited, the Voice would just cancel it out...On a positive side, it kept us from getting too serious, but it wasn’t healthy to not be capable of dealing with each other. Everything just got made fun of.”

All of the original speakers have since graduated from high-school and moved on to college or various other post-high-school pursuits. Since then, though, the Voice has been transmitted at a substantial level through two high-school “generations” (that is, two sets of students four years apart, such that one set is graduating when the younger set is entering high school). There have also been observations, much to the disbelief of those initially involved, of isolated occurrences of use by those as much as ten years younger than the original speakers--the equivalent of nearly three such “generations.” This staying power continues to reflect on the inclination or even the necessity for young people explore the entirety of their surroundings, whether linguistically, relationally, or critically.

Analysis

On a more technical level, of what did this system of interaction consist? Nathan explains, “It’s hard to understand or explain to other people, but I think for us who experienced it, it was such a clear, noticeable thing.” What began as a loose imitation of Southern dialect shifted drastically into a wide range of variations. Interviewees mentioned such variations as “pompous,” ”playful or joyful,” “violent,” “sour and grumbling,” “depressed,” and most prominently, “sarcastic” and “awkward.” This wide range of descriptions makes sense in light of the fact that the majority of interviewees noted their use of the Voice as a means for displaying emotions and personalities.

The Voice itself was characterized by an intonation that was varied but always recognizable. Derek describes it as such: Everyone had their own take on it, but it was always a continual thing...There are other people I’ve met at college who have their own crazy voices or jokes, but there’s a difference between just ‘a voice’ and ‘THE Voice.’” Non-verbal communication had as much of a defining quality as intonation. Speaking in the Voice required a large, crucial vocabulary of gestures, facial expressions, and mannerisms.

“It was so many things combined together: facial expressions, voice intonation, body posture was crucial, hands in the pockets and lips protruding--and the most important part was the delivery, raising the head and then slamming it back down, like an elephant.” You had to frown until the two points of your lower lip are as far down as possible, hopefully getting down to the chin line, where you’re making this Godfather-like, old Marlin Brando look--an old, haggard, moaning and grumbling face.

As flourishing young speakers, we certainly took advantage of what W.F. Bolton describes as the “productive” and “arbitrary” nature of language (Bolton, 62-62). We possessed the social and creative energy that Felix Rodriguez asigns to our demographic: “Of all social groups,” he writes, “the young are the most prone to the use and renovation of slang and unconventional language. They exhibit great social dynamism and are receptive to changes in fashion: in clothes, look, style, and also in speech.”

Our lexicon, as it were, expanded and was formed by a process of bricolage drawing from various sources in pop culture, inside jokes, and everyday experiences. A large portion of the phrases we adapted could be included in the category of “non-propositional” language specifically in Van Lancker Sidtis’ categories of 1) conventional expresions, 2) expletives, 3) indirect requests, and especially, 4) pause fillers (Van Lancker Sidtis, 3). On the other hand, though, many of the terms, phrases, and ideas were assembled into an informal and fluid lexical collection with nearly infinite semantic applications. There was a way of, John explains, of “turning lines from movies into phrases. If you used the Voice for the delivery of a line, it could be applicable to anything, and it would become something totally different, with totally different meanings.” Nathan agrees, recalling, “On one hand, it was just a goofy thing...but we could use [the Voice] whenever, to express almost anything with these phrases.”

Several examples stand out. One instance of a “found phrase” that found wide use and application is “razzle dazzle,” which was taken from a popular basketball video game. The phrase, originally used to highlight slam dunks, was employed in its new context as a greeting, an exclamation, a curse, or quite regularly, to mock political figures. The term ‘Puffy Biffalo’, a coinage supposedly based on sound symbolism, “stood for anything that was laying on the ground, Cheetos snack food, and trees--or it could be used as an insult.” A more systematic feature of the Voice was a naming process of adding an “-o” suffix to proper names and titles. For example, speakers Derek, Nathan, and Stephen became known as “Debo,” “Nato,” and “Stevo.”

Many items were created out of the immediate social context. “Southern style,” once used as a reference to the quality of one family’s hospitality, became a descriptor for any action that needed to be done in a bombastic manner. An example of functional shift is the use of the word “pamcake”--first used to describe the singed but under-cooked, soggy-with-cottage-cheese breakfast creations of one of our mothers--as a verb meaning roughly, “to embarrass oneself” or, more generally, “to make a mess of a situation.”

It is also helpful to consider the Voice in terms of its style and function. The Voice fits well the “casual” and the “intimate” categories of Martin Joos’ styles of conversation (Daniels, 50). Casual language, in Joos’ terminology, often features ellipsis, or “the shorthand of shared meaning,” and slang--the expression of these meanings “in a way that defines the group and excludes others.” Likewise, the intimate style contains language that is “personal, fragmentary, and implicit,” “a kind of language which ‘fuses two separate personalities’” (Daniels, 50). In comparison to these considerations, many interviewees noted the capacity of the Voice to establish their identity within and without the group, and a few also described the Voice as a sort of character or “alter-ego” that emerged from the group and could be taken on.

Summary and Conclusion

Why is it that this bizarre mode of communication spread so far and endured so long? I believe such a phenomenon as the Voice could occur because there is a vital interaction between language and both individual and group identity. “[Our native language] is the code we use to communicate in the most powerful and intimate experiences of our lives. It is a central part of our personality, an expression of who we are and wish to be” (Daniels, 56). The same considerations that apply to native languages or dialects are relevant to the slang of social groups, especially of youth for whom language is an exciting avenue for the expression of their maturing ideals and self-concepts.

The interviews I conducted were very revealing as to the motivating factors and the forces that drove speakers of the Voice to such extremes. “We were in a humorless town, where the constant jokes and conversation were just degrading women and getting drunk,” says one interviewee. “I think the Voice developed as a way to disconnect with that, an escape.” This fits well with the assessment of Felix Rodriguez, who explains that young people “may use slang as a countercultural tool, as a weapon against established authority and conventions” (247). Many interviewees agreed with the idea of the Voice as part of the struggle against established norms and expectations:

"Part of it was the way we looked at our high-school culture, our city and surrounding context, and so much of what we saw seemed ridiculous. The Voice provided an escape. We saw so much we thought was pointless or absurd--high-school drama, sex and drugs, the drive for a good career. It helped us establish our place in the world. We couldn’t make fun of certain things, things about ourselves or just unmentionable or taboo things, and the Voice was this objective alter-ego we could use to do that.”

Thus, the Voice was crucial to establishing definitions, evaluations, and boundaries amongst individuals, the group, and the surrounding components of society.

The most profound effects of the Voice, however, were on the individuals in the group and the dynamics that existed between them. It was an important part of growing up and learning about ourselves and each other. “[The Voice] was a way of putting a face on our awkwardness as teenagers,” John confesses, “because if we could make fun of it, then maybe afterward we could ignore it.“ He then goes on to explain the way that the Voice affected the friend relationships of his adolescence:

"[The Voice] was one area we could always relate to each other on. It was definitely part of trying to fit in with each other, and the Voice helped me, at least, because as much as I wasn’t like you guys or didn’t fit in, I could catch on with the way you guys talked and actually be close to you guys, to my peers."

Such an intimate connection to and dependency on language is not uncommon. It is in fact, the nature of most peoples’ relationship to the way they speak. It was more dramatically noticeable in this case, though, because it occurred within the microcosms of family, church, and high-school-subculture.

The Voice instantiates the “three general effects of slang that distinguish it from other types of vocabulary: informality, group identification, and opposition to authority” (Rodriguez, 250). The Voice is unique and serves as a valuably revealing example for study because of the small scale on which it occurred. Its existence and function communicates the vital connection between the language of adolescents as a means of self-expression and the formation of their personalities and identities. It speaks also of the dependency of human beings on their own unique modes of communication and the profound desire to speak one’s own langauge and still be understood.


Works Cited

Bolton, W. F. "Language: An Introduction." Language: Readings in Language and Culture. Ed. Donna Erickson. 6th ed. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998.

Daniels, Harvey A. "Nine Ideas about Language." Language: Readings in Language and Culture. Ed. Donna Erickson. 6th ed. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998.

Ebel, Connie C. "Slang, Metaphor, and Folk Speech." American Speech (2003): 151-61.

Labov, Teresa. "Social and Language Boundaries among Adolescents." American Speech 67.4 (1992): 339-66.

Rodriguez, Felix. Rev. of “Slang Sociability: In-Group Language among College Students,” by Connie C. Eble. Journal of English Linguistics 26.3 (1998): 247-65.

Van Lancker Sidtis, Diana. "When novel sentences spoken or heard for the first time in the history of the universe are not enough: toward a dual-process model of language." International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 39.1 (2004): 1-44.

"Born to Farming: Connection and Reincarnation in the Poetry of Wendell Berry"

This is another piece, a shorter "critical appraisal essay," that I wrote for my Craft of Writing class. I checked out half a dozen collections of poetry from the school library, but Wendell Berry's "Farming: A Hand Book" caught my attention. He writes pastoral/nature/farming poetry that actually results from his lifestyle as a farmer. Sometimes political, sometimes meditative, usually simple and earthy, always authentic. He's lived in Kentucky with his wife and family(?) for the past two decades, farming the earth organically (using horses not tractors, for example) and writing poetry, essays, fiction, etc. He inspires me to do likewise.

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"Born to Farming: Connection and Reincarnation in the Poetry of Wendell Berry"

Farming: A Hand Book is Wendell Berry’s guide not to the literal techniques of farming, but to living as “the grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming” (3). First published in 1967, the work is divided into three unnamed sections of poetry and a short play entitled “The Bringer of Water.” The second section of poetry contains a series “Mad Farmer” poems, which allow Berry to express more fiery and provocative sentiments through an alter ego. Occasional internal rhyme is the closest he comes to any conventional poetic device, and his diction is straightforward and unostentatious. Overall, the poems are simple, peaceful, usually pastoral, and advocate a lifestyle of the same qualities. More than just an agricultural activity, farming is presented as a way of living, thinking, and being that is rewarding, beautiful, and sustainable. It is the ideal life.

As a farmer, Berry has a view of the world that is joyfully reincarnational, of life as “only the earth risen up a little way into the light, among the leaves” (20). To him, life is cyclical: “Going and coming back, it forms its curves, a nerved ghostly anatomy in the air” (7). Thus, he will “take [his] stand on the earth like a tree in a field, passing without haste or regret toward what will be, my life a patient willing descent into the grass” (31). Ultimately, Berry sees an organic sameness between human and plant life and a union of every life with the earth--all are dust, either constituting life or nourishing it. The farmer’s life is but one stage of this cycle.

This reincarnational understanding stems from the farmer’s central concern of connection: connection to his own birth, present existence, and imminent death; to his family and community; and most vitally with the earth, even a specific plot of land, as the context and source of his life. First, the meditative quality of Berry’s writing is an example of him connecting to himself as a farmer and is a model for others to do likewise. Part of the farmer’s meditation is appreciating the roots of his birth and the fruits of his present life. Another is coming to face his mortality. Death is presented as good and necessary, as “the seed of the beginning and the end” (31)--the last that the farmer sows. By understanding the cyclical nature of his life, he will be able to connect with it.

Secondly, human relationships are a foundation of the ideal life. Several poems explore the idea of human connection in spite of humanity’s tendency towards inhumanity. They show that the simple and peaceful farmer will inevitably face isolation from the brooding events of the outside world. And yet, if he will “purge [his] mind of the airy claims of church and state, and observe the ancient wisdom of tribesmen and peasant, who understood they labored on their earth only to lie down in it in peace, and were content” (20)--if he can do this, he will be capable of establishing more humane connections with the larger community. These social connections contribute to the evolving rotation of life, as individuals die but the community continues. Marriage especially is an elemental relationship, seen as a source of restful security and identity (“Air and Fire”) and fiery renewal (“Earth and Fire”). It is the source of the family and all of its inner life and connections. In marriage, the farmer and his wife die to themselves but provide life to each other and to future generations--it makes the farmer “time and again, a new man” (47).

Lastly, “A Standing Ground” explains how a farmer’s connection with a literal place on earth will keep him from becoming “uprooted” in a more figurative sense. Ironically, turning away from crowds to be “apart” holds the “promise of life and peace” and “the healing shadow of the woods.” The farmer by his work is capable of “Enriching The Earth,” as another poem title suggests, and through this he brings forth further life. Only as he serves and becomes unified with the earth on which he lives will he be able to live fully or combat evil.

Farming: A Hand Book is an instructive chronicle of Berry’s own life as a farmer. In it, he has laid down from mind to page his crop of words, which in turn offers seed to readers and inspires them to also grow into the rich life of the farmer. This life’s agricultural work, it’s holistic connectivity, and it’s simple, meditative, and peaceful nature would allow them to live more meaningful and moral lives. Quietly from outside the city, they could sow change in and offer nourishment to other humans and the earth, even into death. Should they choose the farmer’s life, they will surely keep Wendell Berry’s manual close at hand.

"Soaring Up Into Womanhood: Femininity from the Perspective of an Early Girl Scout Handbook"

The Girl Scouts of America once played a significant role in the development of young women, and it persists today as a unique component of American childhood. Throughout the organization’s history, it has helped shape the identities of girls. The groups’ early handbooks, though, are filled with stereotypes that strike contemporary readers as bizarre, old-fashioned, even harmful. These source materials are valuable artifacts, providing a first-hand perspective on the beliefs of their authors and readers. They can be used to locate and analyse gender stereotypes that were part of the larger culture.

Throughout the group’s early publications, one discovers the characteristics desired of young girls and the roles they are expected to fill as they grow into adult women. The fourth edition of the Official Handbook, published in 1923, lists ten qualities desired of girl scouts in its section “The Laws of the Girl Scouts” (4-12). Girl scouts are to be trusted, loyal, useful and helpful to others, courteous, cheerful, thrifty, and clean. It is notable that these merely describe what a girl scout is to be, in contrast to the action-oriented identity of boys that had developed by the 1968 Boy Scout Handbook. Boys Scouts are members of a troop and a worldwide brotherhood, busy in the great outdoors, prepared for service, dressed in uniform, adorned with scout badges, and out on the scouting trail towards citizenship, career, and manhood (13-26, 379). This contrast between the boys’ external achievements and the girls’ internal qualities reinforces the stereotype of girls as primarily passive creatures. In fact, the only verb that appears on the girls’ list is in the seventh law: “a girl scout obeys orders” (9).

Each of the Girl Scout’s laws comes with further explanations that reveal the culture’s view of women. For example, the law of courtesy means that “it is not enough for women to be helpful in this world; they must do it pleasantly” (7). Or, for a girl scout to be truly obedient, “she must remember to obey first and complain afterward” (9). It is important for women to be thrifty because “no matter how much money a man may earn, it is usually the women of the family generally have the spending of most of it” (10). Therefore, a girl must learn to save and to spend “on some system,” lest she become “niggardly” or go in debt. The fate of her family, her community, and her country depend on this saving and spending--one of the few active roles expected of women in that day.

Lastly, a Girl Scout should remember “health is probably a woman’s greatest capital” (10). Thus the tenth law:

Just as she stands for a clean, healthy community and a clean, healthy home, so
every Girl Scout knows the deep and vital need for clean and healthy bodies in the
mothers of the next generation. This means NOT only keeping her skin fresh and sweet and her system free from every impurity, but it goes far deeper than this... (12)

A girl must tend to her mind and spirit as well as keeping her skin attractive, for she somehow has been objectified by her culture as a sign of her family and community’s well being.

Girl Scouts have clear roles planned out for their futures: either homemaking or healthcare. The introduction to these roles comes even earlier than the Girl Scouts, in the Brownie Scout program. According to the Brownie Scout Handbook of 1956, members “learn how to do things to help other people, especially those at home” (28). As part of their education, then, they have “a good time keeping house at troop meetings” (28) and learn to use kitchen utensils, take care of young children, and entertain guests--valuable training for what their culture will expect of them as adults.

After the Brownie Scouts, girls are invited to become full-fledged Girl Scout Guides, a title explained in the Foreword of the 1923 Handbook as “a good and helpful comrade to her brother or husband or son”. As background, the text offers an inspiring history of the girl scouts’ predecessors, including Sacajawea and Louisa May Alcott. Sacajawea, “The Bird Woman,” is praised for her “great virtues of daring and endurance...out-of-door wisdom and self-reliance” (23). And yet, the story continues, “a country full of ‘Bird Women’ could not be said to have advanced very far in civilization.” So the manual offers this warning: “let every Scout who finds housework dull, and feels that she is capable of bigger things, remember this: [Louisa may Alcott] had to drop the pen, often and often, for the needle, the dish-cloth, and the broom” (24). The story concludes: “to direct her household has always been a woman’s job, in every century, and girls were learning to do it before Columbus ever discovered Sacajawea’s country” (24).

A few pages later, it is admitted, “we no longer believe that housekeeping should take up all a woman’s time” (25). Instead, a girl will become the envy of older generations of women when “she has learned how to manage her cooking and cleaning and household routine so that she has plenty of time to spend on other things that interest her” (25). Thus the expected role of a woman remains clear.

The pinnacle of a scout’s development is The Scout Aide merit badge, which “will probably be regarded by the outside world as the most important decoration the Girl Scouts can win...any grown girl or woman should be proud to own it” (105). The primary subject in The Scout Aide program is the art of the Home Maker, or “Keeper of the House.” The pages in this section are dedicated mostly to the kitchen and its floor, the stove and icebox, dish washing, and the proper handling of waste. It also focuses on the good manners and social forms necessary for the woman’s job of entertaining, such as being sure to “stand where guests can see you at once when they enter” (129). A specific accomplishment is earning the merit badge for cooking, a sign that meals can be planned “in such a way that nothing is wasted and that the family is satisfied and well-nourished” (133). Finally, if a girl scout has ambitions outside the house, she can choose from several subject titles in the field of healthcare: child nurse, first aide, home nurse, or the more indefinite “health guardian.”

The central message girls learn in the Scout Aide program is that household economics is “the great general business and profession of women,” and “if it is raised to the level of the other great businesses and professions, and managed quickly, efficiently, and economically, will cease to be regarded as drudgery and take its real place among the arts and sciences” (105) While this sounds like a noble aim, the only hope it gives is that girls may someday raise their assigned lot in the home to something equaling the tasks and roles of men. It does nothing to broaden the options of maturing young women.

In the first half of the twentieth century, there were clear expectations of what a woman was supposed to be like and to do with her life. An essentially passive nature was assumed in females of the time period, and homemaking and healthcare were their prized occupations. Early Girl Scout handbooks are a direct entry point to the culture that held these expectations.

"Rags and Tatters in the Terrible Swamp"

Another essay, this one for my history class "Modern History of the World and the West." The prof includes a lot of original source material as well as more literary readings, which is refreshing compared to the usual rut of textbooks and workbooks. This particular essay was an analysis of the historical fiction novel "Silence" by Shusaku Endo. It tells the story of a Jesuit priest who sneaks into Japan as a missionary during the period when Japan was shutting itself off from the West, especially from Christianity. The book has caused quite a stir, especially among Japanese Christians or those who are interested in the way that Christianity spreads across cultural boundaries, at times fusing to or at other times displacing the native culture and its religion.

It's really a powerful novel, in spite of what seems to be some problems with the translation and editing, and even some more glaring problems with the writing itself. Endo is considered Japan's leading novelist, and "Silence" is greatly comparable to Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory." In fact, "Silence" takes at least one key phrase directly from 'The Power and the Glory," and the critical acclaim on the back of "Silence" features a quote from Greene praising it as one of the finest books of the 20th century.

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“Rags and Tatters in the Terrible Swamp”

In the novel “Silence,” author Shusaku Endo raises many theological issues. He addresses, perhaps most prominently, God’s silence in the presence of evil, but he also struggles with God’s sovereignty and love in relation to the apostle Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and the nature of true Christian faith in regards to martyrdom, apostasy, and the silence of the persecuted church. Most of these issues are resolved powerfully by the book’s end. However, Endo also raises another question: how can Christianity fit into Japanese society without one of the two being compromised? To answer this difficult question, Endo tells us the tragic but redemptive story of Sebastian Rodrigues. By focusing on Rodrigues’ transformation from a Portuguese priest into the truly Japanese man Okada San’emon, Endo asserts that Westernized, European Christianity--what translator William Johnston terms “Hellenistic Christianity” (xvii)-- must be rethought before it can enter Japanese society.

At the beginning of the novel, Father Rodrigues is the embodiment of this Hellenistic Christianity, bearing also the ethnocentric, colonizing spirit of Western Europe. He has a naivety of Japanese culture that leads him to remark to Garrpe that all Japanese people look the same. Rodrigues also maintains a sense of absolute assurance in the rightness of his own beliefs and those of his church. In his first encounter with Inoue and the daimyo, he tells them, “According to our way of thinking, truth is universal” (108), betraying his foundational conviction that not just Christianity, but the Portuguese way of doing Christianity, is the only and absolute truth.

Both Rodrigues and his faith have been transplanted into Japanese culture, and at first they seem to flourish. His work as priest to the impoverished peasants of Tomogi seems to go exceedingly well, just as the initial introduction of Christianity to Japan led to numbers of converts estimated in the hundreds of thousands. “Everything had worked out beyond our wildest expectations,” he writes (45), describing the seeming effortlessness, assuredness, and safety of their work. However, just as the authenticity of the multitudes of Japanese conversions later came into question, Rodriguez begins to see problems in the assimilation of Christianity into Japanese culture. There seems to be “some error in their outlook” and “their whole attitude makes [him] uneasy” (45). As the novel progresses, and especially after encountering Ferreira, Rodrigues will begin to see the deeper issue that is at hand.

The novel’s central conflict, that is the question of how Christianity can fit into Japanese culture without destroying the integrity of one or the other, is enunciated as both the apostatized Ferreira and the political leaders of Japan, representative of Hellenistic Christianity and imperial Japanese society, respectively, insist that Christianity cannot fit into Japan. Ferreira insists that Christianity can only become trapped in the culture of Japan like a butterfly in a spider web. The external skeleton of the religion may remain intact, but the form of the body is sucked clean of its true inner life. The Japanese, on the other hand, see Christianity as a tree that cannot take root in the swamp-like culture of Japan or a pushy woman whose affection Japan does not desire. The tree produces no fruit, and the woman is barren. Initially, Rodrigues is likewise trapped by these pictures of the conflict between Christianity and Japanese society. The two seem irreconcilable. And yet, through the course of Rodrigues’ stay in prison, as he witnesses executions and apostasies and experiences God’s silence, he discovers an unforeseen means of reconciliation between them that is more radical than he ever could have expected.

Through what Rodrigues experiences in prison, his understanding of religion and faith, of the Church and missionary work, are drastically altered. He sees ways in which his own Christianity, embedded in a net-like culture of its own, resembles the butterfly trapped in the web of Japanese culture, sucked clean of its inner life. His idea of Christianity as a prospering and triumphant ideology melts into a deep comprehension of the death that true Christianity requires, expressed perhaps as a literal martyrdom or in his case the total sacrifice of one’s culture, one’s independence and security in the world, and even one’s name. He realizes that the pity he had previously felt for the Japanese “was not action. It was not love” (135). In the end, Rodrigues is forced to undertake a new task “more important than the Church, more important than missionary work” (170): that is, to give up his priesthood, his self-assurance, and his righteousness in the eyes of the world in order to truly love others and Christ by, of all things, apostatizing.

Likewise, the face of his Savior Jesus begins to change. It is no longer the idealized, attractive, commanding, or healthy countenance he often imagined in the past. He begins to see the face of Christ in the one-eyed gaze or servile smile of his fellow man. Christ is downtrodden, unsightly, abused and suffering. Indeed, this is what He reveals to him as Rodrigues holds his foot above the fumie: “Trample! Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I came into this world” (171). It is in this that Rodrigues understands the reconciliation of his faith to Japanese culture. He must abandon himself wholly to it, just as Christ abandoned himself, giving up his livelihood, his rights, and even his name, in order to truly “live the same life as the Japanese Christians” (188), to “become a Japanese” (189).

Rodrigues acknowledges that his beliefs have changed. He tells God, “My faith in you is different from what it was; but I love you still” (189). He also sees that he has parted ways with the Hellenistic Christianity with which he began: “I know that my Lord is different from the God that is preached in the churches” (175). And yet in this position, he administers the sacrament of confession to his weak brother Kichijiro, a fellow apostate and Judas-like betrayer of Christ, and finally hears the quiet voice of Christ spoken through his own life.

By the novel’s end, Father Rodrigues has begun to understand the truth that has since become powerfully evident to Christians: that is, that the evangelization and the Westernization of a society are not, or at least should not be, the same thing. Instead, the truth of his faith must mature beyond the doctrines and practices of his Hellenistic Christianity to become the living, incarnating Truth that is the person of Jesus. Rodrigues is the novel’s example of this as he gives up everything to show love to those “wasted like rags and tatters” (116) around him. Thus, “Silence” demonstrates that although the roots of the Westernized European church cannot take hold in Japan’s cultural swamp, the incarnating spirit of Jesus, betrayed, trampled upon, and soft-spoken to the end, enters Japan “like water flowing into dry earth” (32).

"Good Things From Grease"

This is another essay I wrote for my English class. It was supposed to be a "persuasive essay," but seeing as I have enough trouble convincing myself of most things, it was a challenge to craft a piece that truly attempts to persuade anyone of anything. I guess that purely rhetorical arguments are not the most effective means of affecting today's individualized, think-for-yourself, "postmodern" readership, and that's why many writers opt for raw and hard data, historical documentation, and especially personal story-telling (memoir) as means of persuasion. Anything less didactic, deconstructible, etc. etc. than a pure essay.

I tried to take a casual and light tone, but ended up mostly repeating myself and not narrowing anything down to workable specifics. At least that's the gist of what my professor said, and I'm inclined to believe him. Sometimes amidst the joking around in class or reading the pencil scribbles on returned assignments, it's easy to forget that I'm learning from and receiving critique from an accomplished, award-winning author (he won NEWBERRY PRIZE for his children's novel "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy"!). It's definitely a privilige, and it helps that he's such a funny, caring, and laid-back guy. Anyways:

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"Good Things From Grease"

As automobile drivers, Americans are disconnected from their vehicles. They take for granted the transportation that they have such easy access to and are forgetful, even thoroughly unaware of the intricate machinery that carries them so dependably, safely, and quickly. Cars do not demand engagement or involvement from their users, other than the occasional oil change or engine repair. By default, the average car owner never considers the development and technological advances that have come together to produce the masterpiece that now resides in his or her garage. It can be even harder to find someone with gratitude for the opportunity and the money to possess such a convenient, efficient (at least in some regards), and luxurious invention. Odds are, the person hardly has any idea how the thing works, other than the standard procedures for on/off, accelerate/decelerate, and refuel.

When Americans turn sixteen years old, they earn not only the right to legally operate a vehicle, but often they will also inherit an automobile of their own. Unfortunately, they very rarely receive any appreciation for what they so easily acquire. They are only required to reach out and snatch the keys from a parent’s open hand to access levels of speed, convenience, and autonomy that are wholly unprecedented. They soon become a blur across the landscape, gliding here and there in climate-controlled isolation towards whatever destination they fancy.

But, with the jangling keys comes the beginning of a lifetime of careless, meaningless, and stressful dependence on personal vehicles. The young driver will soon become just another road-enraged driver, taking his or her place in the cursing commotion of traffic jams and adding their voices to the never-ending grumble against gas prices. Compared to the intimate relationship between ancient riders and their animal means of transportation or to the more modern, community- and group-oriented systems of train or bus travel, the spirit of the automobile has become unfeeling and coldly utilitarian in every aspect. There is no connection from the heart or mind to the engine, to the landscape being navigated, or to the other people traveling nearby.

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But, for those environmentally or financially conscious, those who enjoy cars and contraptions, or those who undertake diverse projects and hobbies; for the slightly subversive, creative, or curious; for anyone who feels the prevailing disconnect of the automobile: there is the possibility of running a car on vegetable oil. After only a minor DIY or professional conversion procedure performed on any diesel-engine-bearing car, truck, van, or bus, it is possible to drive right on past the gas station and instead fill up with the free grease in a waste storage unit behind the local Chinese restaurant.

The potential to run a diesel engine on pure, unmodified vegetable oil is no new discovery. The engine’s inventor, Rudolf Diesel, once designed a prototype engine that ran on peanut oil, and he also speculated on the possible future significance of running vegetable oil as fuel. The mounting “energy crises” and the concerns about fossil fuels, along with recent innovations and improvement from largely grassroots efforts, have resulted in increased interest in both SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) and WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil). Especially on the Internet, numerous websites have emerged offering resources, statistics, services, and a place to network with other people interested in vegetable fuel sources.

Many benefits of using vegetable oil are being touted by those involved in the growing community of its users and innovators. The fact that waste vegetable oil can be gathered for a slight charge or often for free from restaurants, chip or snack factories, and potato processing plants, is an immediate and very appealing benefit to users. Online companies offer pumps with built-in filters that be used to fill a vehicle up directly from a WVO storage unit. Also, it must be noted that deisel engines, whether running off diesel or vegetable fuel, are up to 40% more efficient than their average gasoline-burning counterparts.

Environmentally aware people may appreciate that the emissions from engines running on vegetable oil contain no sulfur dioxide, the prime chemical contributor to acid rain. Also, while the level of carbon dioxide produced by WVO-burning engines is comparable to that produced by diesel-burning engines, the gross figure for WVO-burning engines is actually less because the plants that end up as fuel in a gas tank spend their life in the field absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

On perhaps a more profound level, the entire process of converting a diesel engine to run off of SVO or WVO is a powerful way for people to cure the disconnect they find between themselves and their vehicles, their surroundings, and their partners on the road. Just doing the preliminary research and installation work forces owners to learn about the basic functioning and mechanics of their vehicle. They are forced to interact with the nuts and bolts of what they depend on so frequently. As they talk online or face to face with other people interested in cars, the environment, saving money, subcultures, or travel, people will naturally develop connections to humans other than the car salesmen, auto mechanics, or insurance agents that the present system offers. After the conversion, the process of setting up and maintaining a supply of vegetable fuel can connect people to their neighborhoods, cities, and entire country in new ways, as the act of keeping a car running moves beyond the commercial sphere and becomes a creative and relational task that takes planning and current knowledge of a person’s surroundings. The environmental advantages of vegetable fuel offer users a chance to learn about and engage with the surrounding natural world. Whether on cross-country road trips of short trips across town, travel has the potential to become a more thoughtful, meaningful, and intentional part of a person’s life.

Obviously, neither straight or waste vegetable oil is the miraculous alternative fuel source that will solve energy crises or save the environment. The world’s food supply cannot be diverted to take the place of gasoline, and all of America’s drivers cannot begin mining grease dumpsters for fuel. And yet, for those resourceful and motivated, intrigued by the opportunity to benefit from the waste of society and concerned about the environment, the possibility may strike them as something good and worthwhile. And it can even be hoped that making the switch to vegetable oil will in some way contribute to holistic and healthy lifestyles, reconnecting people to their vehicles, their surroundings, and each other.

"When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky"

the following is a "personal essay" i wrote several weeks ago for my Craft of Writing class. there's a lack of subtance and the emotions are too overbearing. my professor said there's no coherent flow to the piece as a whole, and no, i don't know where the idea to use all the Bob Dylan stuff came from. in hindsight, i feel like i didn't manage to express what i was attempting to express. blah blah blah.

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"When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky"

We walked uphill towards the far end of the clearing, and found ourselves atop the ridge of a naturally-formed hillside ampitheater. A huge outdoor stage lay below where we stood, facing us. The friends we were visiting explained that we were on the abandoned grounds of an outdoor music festival, untouched since the 1970s when The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan had filled the surrounding hills with the waves and winds of rock and roll. For decades, it had lain hidden away like the ruins of a forgotten temple.

We climbed onto the stage, which was littered with squares of stage platforms that rolled on rusted wheels. Straining together, we maneuvered one of these pieces out from under the awning of the stage and stretched out on it, on our backs, under the stars. The moon was just a sliver that night, we had left the glare of man-made lights in our dust miles down the road, and our backs pressed against ground that Brian Wilson had once tread. For all these reasons, the stars seemed brighter, closer, and more numerous than ever before. What had always seemed just a few sparkling stones strewn across the heavens was then a thick, glittering dust that coated over the glassy dome of the sky. For a while we forgot everything, forgot all of our subterranean homesick blues, and became lost in the mystery of the firmament spread out around us.


*

I’ve been reading a book, “The Gifts of the Jews,” by a guy named Thomas Cahill. It talks about how people in ancient times understood the universe. To them, Cahill explains, the sky was the realm of the gods, literally populated by the dieties of their religion. They transcribed supernatural dramas and truths from the stars and based their agricultures, governments, religions, and personal lives upon the movement of lights in the rotating sky-dome. Of course, now we know better than these ancients, and their worldview seems bizarrely naive. We know that the sun is not really a flaming chariot that drives over our heads and crashes into the sea at the end of each day. We know better than to offer sacrifices to heavenly bodies or to structure our society after the constellations.

And yet, we have not escaped the heavens and their influence. The sun truly is the source of our planet’s life, and the moon reaches down even through our atmosphere to churn up the tides of the ocean. On an even deeper level, the heavens have remained the quintessential picture of mystery and beauty, whether in art, religion, or secrets whispered between lovers. As Cahill notes, the sky “is still our principal metaphor for limitlessness and transcendence,” a metaphor used to convey the mysteries of our human experience.

I wonder, then, if the scientists who have unmade the supersitious beliefs of the ancients and purged the sky of deities are all that different than the priests of old. With diagrams and equations, astronomers and physicists try to describe mystery and immensity from a distance that is almost unimaginable. They peer out through telescopes to search the dark void for light and matter, or they sort through notebooks of calculations bent on a task similar to that of a monk or a poet. They seek to describe and communicate to us ideas and visions that are so incredible we could not imagine them on our own, and with their help we finally begin to visualize and comprehend a universe that exceeds our expectations and imaginations. They are seers, or see-ers, just as much as priests or poets.

And so Bob Dylan, a seer in his own rite, said it like this:

Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you.
You were trying to break into another world,
A world I never knew.
I always kind of wondered
If you ever made it through.

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The next summer, Katie and I were on our way home from visiting the same friends and again found ourselves near the festival grounds. We pulled off through a field and into the same clearing. We parked and walked over the ridge of the hill to find the stage still there, still sacred. We remembered the intensity of the stars the summer before and looked up to a similar spectacle, this time with the full face of the moon also shining down on us. To our right was one of several abandoned, shed-like buildings we had seen the year before, and in the moonlight we saw that it had once been some sort of concession stand or ticket booth, with an awning extending out from a large window that covered most of its front. Edges of plywood surrounded the windowframe, but the main panels had been knocked out. We tried to see into its interior, but the moonlight from above revealed nothing past the windowframe.

As we examined the building, the sense of beauty that had filled the night shifted to an atmosphere of childish mischief and fright. We were sure the building was haunted, that someone or something lived there in the shadows. We dared each other to creep up to the window, and both accepted the challenge, snickering but becoming genuinely nervous. We made it to the window but still couldn’t see anything inside. Pieces of broken glass lay about our feet and seemed to catch the reflection of the stars.

On another dare, we stepped together over the damaged windowsill into the dark, our legs stretching to find the floor. The soles of our shoes crushed onto shards of glass and sent our pulses surging, but we held our breaths and took several steps into the dark, onto creaky floorboards, and halted. Our eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, and we could just make out each other’s faces when several winged creatures, birds or bats, dropped down from the ceiling and flapped out of the window. We both screamed, leapt back over the windowsill, and ran to the car. Katie plunged the keys into the ignition, and whipped the car around through the grass and back down to the main road, both of us laughing at ourselves and overwhelmed with a strange sense of excitment. We had approached something unknown. It was just a shed, yes, but our imaginations had been overwhelmed by the mystery of it all, and so it felt as if we had, for a brief moment, broken into another world.