It had to be poetry. There was never a doubt that, wherever else I went with this, I would start with poetry. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was not pursuing either poetry or children's literature in my graduate work. This was because 1) I was advised that children's literature wasn't taken seriously as a specialization, or it would limit me too much, or some such... and 2) there wasn't much focus on poetry at the school where I did my graduate work, which was not my first choice. Or my second. Or third. More because of circumstance and finance than because I couldn't get in anywhere else. I would up working on British Modernism because I was able to write a dissertation on British Modernism, and it seemed like a promising field. Except somehow, I didn't write about the cool British Modernists, or the cool issues in British Modernism, so...
I started out intending to work on ecopoetics. I had one of my mentors say that he would "love to work on ecopoetics" with me, as my advisor. He wound up being my advisor, but only because the Modernist I wanted to work on was too rigid. And she got pregnant, got divorced, and left, so there's that. Kids, take it from me: don't choose your Ph.D. program on the strength of a smile and a handshake, no matter how flattered you are by someone's regard. And don't continue into a Ph.D. program because you might as well, since your husband is finishing his second M.A. It is better to wait, teach a few classes or get a different job, and come back to it if you want to. Otherwise, in the immortal words of Admiral Akbar, "It's a trap!"
***
Having decided that I would start this series (?) with poetry, the poems started to flood my brain. Mostly, as promised, poems once considered as part of the canon--if, actually, on the late end of the canon. For example, Tolkien wouldn't have recognized them as canonical. Tennyson was verging on too late for his liking, Yeats was right out, and some of the others I would choose (will choose?) were, in fact, his contemporaries. But the poem that settled into my brain was, in fact, by Adrienne Rich. One of her later poems, that I encountered on my own rather than in a class, because I liked what I did read by Rich in class and, having aspirations to poetry myself, sought out contemporary poets. It is, in fact, "An Atlas of the Difficult World."
Right now, I am hamstrung by the fact that my poetry books are packed up from my exodus from my final (only?) (contingent) faculty position, by the fact that the poem is very copyright protected, and by the fact that it is, therefore, unavailable in its entirety on the web. But the most evocative section is available online, probably not legally:
Now, the first question with a poet like Adrienne Rich is in what context I would be teaching this poem. A contemporary poetry course, which is likely where I originally encountered her? In an Introduction to Poetry course, if your university has such a thing? In an Introduction to Literature course, if the course included poetry as one of its genres, and if the survey nature of the course allowed for the inclusion of what is a long and surprisingly challenging poem? In an American Poetry course? I wouldn't likely be teaching American Literature, even in an ideal world. Not my cup of tea. How about a Women in Poetry or a Women's Literature course, or Feminism in Literature? Again, probably not subjects I would be teaching, each of which would lend itself to a particular approach involving theory and context. For argument's sake, let's imagine an Introduction to Literature. I would prefer the class that I took as an undergrad against the objection of the advisor, who said that English majors usually took Intro to Lit instead of the two-course sequence of Intro to Short Story/Novel and Intro to Poetry/Drama. I imagine this being a good poem to teach to nontraditional students in an introductory literature course--to students with life experience, who might have different motivations for returning to school. I believe that Rich would have approved.
How would I begin?
Ideally, the class would already have a pretty firm basis in poetry by this time. Meaning, we would have had a survey of poetic form and covered certain influential figures who preceded Rich. It is a bit of a crime to read Rich without having read Whitman and Ginsburg because of how each one of them uses the poetic line--stretching it to its breaking point and using it to its fullest capacity at the same time. It is, however, possible to do so.
Would I give background on Rich? Students do like a short biography. I personally love the fact that she was chosen by none other than W. H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1951, who commented memorably that her poems were "neatly and modestly dressed, speak quietly but do not mumble, respect their elders but are not cowed by them." Oh, to be condescended to by the likes of W. H. Auden! This, however, would only register with a class already familiar with W. H. Auden, and I have never taught a class--even of senior English majors--in which even one was familiar with Auden, more's the pity. There are certainly some who would be interested and find value in the story of her young marriage and subsequent divorce, her lesbian identity and her feminism. Being brought up as an undergraduate by a flock of professors who were schooled in the original New Criticism, biography tends to be less important to me, though I suppose I would include a slide with her life and career high points. This is why I am not an "expert." My expertise shows itself in the process of reading and discovering, not in the collecting and disseminating of information.
So how would I really begin?
In this poem, I would focus on persona. The usual first question that my professors (or one notable one) taught me to ask--"What is the dramatic situation?"--is not relevant here. Unless it is... The dramatic situation is that the Poet is speaking. And this is why biography does not strike me as helpful in all cases, though again, students like to have something to latch onto, and some "information" that might plausibly be on a quiz. Who, after all, is "the Poet"? Well, it is not Adrienne Rich. And it is quite deliberately not Adrienne Rich. She is speaking here not as "the poet," but as "The Poet." It might be helpful to know a little bit about rhetoric and oratory, here, and to be able to talk about Voice.
Now, Voice is something that I have taught in quite a different context. Specifically, in an upper-division course titled "The Rhetoric of Style," which was designed by a mentor of mine, now retired Emeritus or something, to take writing to the next level. It's great for analysis, as well--for really getting down into the nitty gritty of why writers make the choices they do, or, if they don't know why they make the choices they do, to explain why what they have done instinctively is effective. The foundational text for the course is Performing Prose: The Study and Practice of Style in Composition. The reason I loved this course and its text is because it reminded me of analyzing poetry. And one of the key points is a discussion of Voice, which the authors recast as "Footing"--the author's self-positioning in relation to the subject. After all, Voice is not very helpful, evoking as it does something that you hear when you speak to a person, but that has much less meaning when it comes to describing a written text. "Well, she sounds like..." But if you're talking about what she sounds like, are you talking about Voice, or Tone? Shifting the discourse away from standard (or stale) literary terms can only yield more productive discussion, not less. So... footing. How is The Poet (not Adrienne Rich, but some more formal persona created by Adrienne Rich, a mask, if you will) positioning herself in relation to the subject? Granting, of course, that we have not yet determined the subject. That discovery will come.
So how do we know what we know about The Poet?
Unpacking the persona is really the point of a discussion of this poem, as far as I'm concerned. To discuss this teaches us something about how language positions us in relation to our subject, which can be really valuable to carry back to one's own writing, poetic or not.
Strikingly, this is a poem written in second person. Which means that it is constructing not only The Poet, the poet's persona, but also the reader (by virtue of the second person pronoun):
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellowing lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush hour. I know you are reading this poem....
Where is the reader positioned in this poem? The first line we read is "I know you are reading this poem." We have been discovered--potentially in a compromising position. Were we not supposed to be reading? Is the Poet sympathetic? Is the Poet a voyeur? These questions evolve with each line. Are we uncomfortable with the position we are placed in? Or for that matter, are we placed in the position of reader? After all, it is with the Poet's voice that we read the poem, not the reader's. Perhaps we are, sometimes, the Poet, and other times, the reader--the subject--the one being regarded. If this is a class that uses theory, we might consider "the Gaze." Does the Poet's regard objectify the subject/reader? If not, why not?
And look! This is a poem about reading. My preoccupation with depictions of reading stretches back before this blog, before my dissertation, before, even, my first paper on the topic, which was probably for a course on Dante and Medieval English Literature, a graduate course that I took at my undergraduate institution. So if I were teaching a course that had a literacy theme, I would, of course, ask what this poem tells us about literacy and what it does for us.
Formally, we might look at the line breaks and consider that "I know you/ are reading this poem late" creates different meaning from "I know you are reading this poem/ late...." I believe I would want to read the poem aloud, which would call for classroom seating that facilitated such a thing. I love arranging certain of my classes in a circle. I would ask what their favorite lines might be, because this is a poem that reaches into the soul of the reader, and I might read some of my favorites:
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
This does not answer any questions. I have my ideas about the answers, but I tend not to give them. If this seems a haphazard way of teaching, well, I guess it drives students nuts sometimes. Except the ones who really crave this kind of thing. And sometimes, a whole class would play along, and it was magic.
The value in a poem like this comes from being able to read it, not from knowing what it says. And that's what I love about teaching poetry. Reading together. Discovering. Because life is short and you too are thirsty.
Still searching thirsting,
Literacy-chic
