I'm excited to announce our first visiting poet will be Joyce Sutphen on Thursday September 19th.
Read her bio and poems here and here and here, and an interview w/ more poems here.
Then, write a 250+ word journal response that connects particular images or topics or approaches in her work with quotes that show this. This should be something that prepares you to ask a specific, well prepared question in class. This is due on Tuesday, Sept. 17th. We'll discuss her work with writing groups and the whole class in preparation for her visit. See my response to this poem below.
Death Inc.
Without his scythe and crooked knife
he’s simply an ordinary guy.
You see him at the bus stop,
and he’s reading a folded newspaper,
or he’s in the car next to you
on the freeway—first he passes
you, and then you pass him.
It goes on like that for a long time,
but though you glance over at him,
he never looks back at you,
which (it turns out) is a good thing.
All the while you’ve been
waiting for the carriage to stop
(kindly) at your door—the carriage
that would take you past the schoolyard
and the fields, accompanied by
the gentle clip-clop of horse’s hooves,
but suddenly you realize he might be
driving an eighteen wheeler, high on
meth, tires screeching. Yes— it could
happen like that, but it’s just
as likely he might be the shadow
of a tree you planted years ago
falling across the green lawn.
In this poem Sutphen addresses the topic of death as in several other poems but handles it somewhat more playfully. She also alludes to Emily Dickinson's famous poem "Because I could not stop for Death" (Gwynn 159). As in the poem "Death Becomes Me," the poem makes death familiar and close, something more mundane than menacing. In that poem the speaker traces the effects of age on her own body attributing them to the presence of death. The poem above also notes death's proximity, but adds a comic element to Death's juxtaposing the classic image with robe and scythe with some random guy reading a paper at a bus stop. Clearly, those guys with the black socks and bald spots reading the sports section aren't very threatening. Her next image of death as the person you notice but never quite acknowledge in a car pacing you on the freeway moves toward something equally familar but a bit more awkward. Having familiarized death with the two images, the poem continues using the 2nd person pronoun 'you' that places the reader near these representatives of death, but shifts to images of carriage, schoolyard, fields and horses that connect this poem with Dickinson's similar visitation. For an English teacher (and perhaps some of you) "Death Becomes Me" is quite familiar, and her playful allusion fits and extends the light but accepting voice of that poem. My favorite image here, however is the next one that juxtaposes the high literary reference with a much lower contemporary one of semi drivers on meth- a guy I might have seen on my commute today, really. She ends acknowledging such a death isn't likely, and returns to a more traditional shadow image at the end, but also makes it the shadow of a tree in your front yard. Compared to the more reflective quality of most of her poems, I found myself enjoying this playfulness. Now, if I could just understand the title. I don't quite see how a corporate version death fits here. Any ideas?
Read her bio and poems here and here and here, and an interview w/ more poems here.
Then, write a 250+ word journal response that connects particular images or topics or approaches in her work with quotes that show this. This should be something that prepares you to ask a specific, well prepared question in class. This is due on Tuesday, Sept. 17th. We'll discuss her work with writing groups and the whole class in preparation for her visit. See my response to this poem below.
Death Inc.
Without his scythe and crooked knife
he’s simply an ordinary guy.
You see him at the bus stop,
and he’s reading a folded newspaper,
or he’s in the car next to you
on the freeway—first he passes
you, and then you pass him.
It goes on like that for a long time,
but though you glance over at him,
he never looks back at you,
which (it turns out) is a good thing.
All the while you’ve been
waiting for the carriage to stop
(kindly) at your door—the carriage
that would take you past the schoolyard
and the fields, accompanied by
the gentle clip-clop of horse’s hooves,
but suddenly you realize he might be
driving an eighteen wheeler, high on
meth, tires screeching. Yes— it could
happen like that, but it’s just
as likely he might be the shadow
of a tree you planted years ago
falling across the green lawn.
In this poem Sutphen addresses the topic of death as in several other poems but handles it somewhat more playfully. She also alludes to Emily Dickinson's famous poem "Because I could not stop for Death" (Gwynn 159). As in the poem "Death Becomes Me," the poem makes death familiar and close, something more mundane than menacing. In that poem the speaker traces the effects of age on her own body attributing them to the presence of death. The poem above also notes death's proximity, but adds a comic element to Death's juxtaposing the classic image with robe and scythe with some random guy reading a paper at a bus stop. Clearly, those guys with the black socks and bald spots reading the sports section aren't very threatening. Her next image of death as the person you notice but never quite acknowledge in a car pacing you on the freeway moves toward something equally familar but a bit more awkward. Having familiarized death with the two images, the poem continues using the 2nd person pronoun 'you' that places the reader near these representatives of death, but shifts to images of carriage, schoolyard, fields and horses that connect this poem with Dickinson's similar visitation. For an English teacher (and perhaps some of you) "Death Becomes Me" is quite familiar, and her playful allusion fits and extends the light but accepting voice of that poem. My favorite image here, however is the next one that juxtaposes the high literary reference with a much lower contemporary one of semi drivers on meth- a guy I might have seen on my commute today, really. She ends acknowledging such a death isn't likely, and returns to a more traditional shadow image at the end, but also makes it the shadow of a tree in your front yard. Compared to the more reflective quality of most of her poems, I found myself enjoying this playfulness. Now, if I could just understand the title. I don't quite see how a corporate version death fits here. Any ideas?
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