Essay 2
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ENGL102Spring2021Essay2PoetryTheyCalledUsEnemy2.docxENGL 102 Spring 2021
Essay #2: Poetry & Story: The Poem as Artifact & Witness
Professor Cimino
While the readings, journals, and essay connected with this assignment touch on all of Queensborough’s General Education Outcomes, we will especially be working on numbers 2 and 4 by completing this assignment. Please see below:
General Education Objectives :
1. Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking
2. Use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems and evaluate evidence to make informed decisions
3. Differentiate and make informed decisions about issues based on multiple value systems
4. Apply aesthetic and intellectual criteria in the evaluation or creation of works in the humanities or the arts.
Overview: Throughout the semester, we have discussed perseverance and the human condition in literature and in life. We will continue this theme while exploring poetry and discussing They Called Us Enemy, a graphic memoir by George Takei.
Poems and stories can serve as artifacts or objects of witness. Some of the poems were written out of the Holocaust and speak directly from that place. In the face of internment, Japanese Americans wrote haiku poems, and continued to meet in Haiku clubs, crafting poems that reflected their experience. Other poems explore themes of civil rights, but all of the poems represent stories of courage and human dignity.
Assignment: For essay #2, choose one of the following options:
A. Choose two of the Holocaust poems we read in this class, each by different authors, that share similarities in theme, tone, or experience. Analyze the poems and create an argument that responds to the question: How do these poems serve as artifact or witness through poetry and poetic devices, such as imagery and metaphor? You may use the Kuferberg Holocaust Center and lectures from the center.
B. Choose two haiku poems from Japanese Internment camps and George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy, and analyze and argue how these works respond to the question: How does storytelling and poetry serve as artifact and witness through imagery and metaphor? What is a theme these works address? How do they address this theme? You may use a Common Read lecture to support your theme.
As you write your essay, consider, what themes arise in these poems and how are these themes addressed? For example, Radnoti uses a images of home and nature while Celan places emphasis on the imagery of the speaker’s immediate surroundings. If discussing haiku, consider how form and the element of surprise informs these poems. How does the element of surprise work in Takei’s memoir? How does a longing for home and safety run through these works?
Pre-writing: We will discuss possible pairings and explore them on Discussion Board, prior to our essay. We will prepare for this assignment by annotating the poems and by discussing what we notice in the poems as well as why we chose these works. We will also be writing journals about the poems in preparation for this paper.
Questions: If you have any questions about your topic, please see me during office hours or write your questions on the Discussion Board in the forum that addresses this essay. You may also email me. Note: there will be an opportunity to extend this paper and to include the exhibit, The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide, in essay four, so if you are interested in the Holocaust poems and this exhibit, I encourage you to write on these poems. You may also use the Library Guides for The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide and the Japanese Internment Camps connected to our Common Read book, They Called Us Enemy.
DUE DATES:
Draft for Peer Review on Groups: Monday, 3/15
Upload to Turn It In for Comments: Monday, 3/15
Final Copy for Grade: Monday, 3/22
CHECK LIST
YOUR PAPER SHOULD INCLUDE AND BE MINDFUL OF THE FOLLOWING:
· It should have a thesis which includes a topic and comment.
· It should discuss the significance of the thesis.
· It should have topic sentences.
· It should have an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
· It should have short quotes from the poems to support your argument.
· It should explore how these poems use structure, language, imagery, and literary devices to address a theme or experience.
· It should refer to the voice in the poem as the speaker not the author.
Rubric:
Introduction: 10______Introduction starts out broad and introduces topic.
Essay responds to the question, takes a position, and supports the thesis with convincing details.
Theme & Essay Question: 5_________Essay explores a major theme and argues how the poems serve as artifact or witness. The theme is defined and the terms used are defined.
Thesis: 10_______
Thesis makes a clear argument. It identifies the title and author and makes a comment on the poems. The thesis presents an interpretation of the poems that will be argued and discussed.
Topic Sentences and Paragraph Structure: 10_______Paper uses topic sentences effectively. The topic sentences connect with the thesis statement and are specific so that the paragraph coheres. Paragraphs stay on topic.
Content/ Body Paragraphs: 30_______
Essay uses examples and quotes from the poems to support the thesis. Essay addresses theme & uses examples from the poems to address literary devices and theme.
Literary Devices: 20_______
Paper uses primary quotes from the poems to discuss the literary devices present in the poems. Identifies and states the significance of the metaphors, similes, imagery etc. discussed.
Grammar conventions: 10______
Syntax and sentences flow and sentences are varied. Strong verbs—attention to replacing being verbs with active verbs. Uses transitional words.
Style and Directions: 5_______
Line writing is creative and offers a unique style.
Nuts & Bolts: Essay is in PRESENT TENSE and refers to the SPEAKER or VOICE of the poem.
In the Midst of Life
by Tadeusz Rozewicz
After the end of the world
after death
I found myself in the midst of life
creating myself
building life
people animals landscapes
this is a table I said
this is a table
there is bread and a knife on the table
knife serves to cut bread
people are nourished by bread
man must be loved
I learnt by night by day
what must one love
I would reply man
this is a window I said
this is a window
there is a garden beyond the window
I see an apple-tree in the garden
the apple-tree blossoms
the blossom falls
fruit is formed
ripens
my father picks the apple
the man who picks the apple
is my father
I sat on the threshold
that old woman who
leads a goat on a string
is needed more
is worth more
than the seven wonders of the world
anyone who thinks or feels
she is not needed
is a mass murderer
this is a man
this is a tree this is bread
people eat to live
I kept saying to myself
human life is important
human life has great importance
the value of life
is greater than the value of all things
which man has created
man is a great treasure
I repeated stubbornly
this is water I said
I stroked the waves with my hand
and talked to the river
water I would say
nice water
this is me
man talked to water
talked to the moon
to the flowers and to rain
talked to the earth
to the birds
to the sky
the sky was silent
the earth was silent
and if a voice was heard
flowing
from earth water and sky
it was a voice of another man
-translated by Adam Czerniawski
http://www.divasofverse.com/2017/01/in-midst-of-life-by-tadeusz-rozewicz.html
Death Fugue
Paul Celan - 1920-1970
translated by Pierre Joris
Black milk of morning we drink you evenings we drink and we drink A man lives in the house he plays with the snakes he writes he writes when it darkens to Deutschland your golden hair Margarete he writes and steps in front of his house and the stars glisten and he whistles his dogs to come he whistles his jews to appear let a grave be dug in the earth he commands us play up for the dance
Black milk of dawn we drink you at night we drink you mornings and noontime we drink you evenings we drink and we drink A man lives in the house he plays with the snakes he writes he writes when it turns dark to Deutschland your golden hair Margarete Your ashen hair Shulamit we dig a grave in the air there one lies at ease
He calls jab deeper into the earth you there and you other men sing and play he grabs the gun in his belt he draws it his eyes are blue jab deeper your spades you there and you other men continue to play for the dance
Black milk of dawn we drink you at night we drink you at noon we drink you evenings we drink you and drink a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete your ashen hair Shulamit he plays with the snakes
He calls out play death more sweetly death is a master from Deutschland he calls scrape those fiddles more darkly then as smoke you’ll rise in the air then you’ll have a grave in the clouds there you’ll lie at ease
Black milk of dawn we drink you at night we drink you at noon death is a master from Deutschland we drink you evenings and mornings we drink and drink death is a master from Deutschland his eye is blue he strikes you with lead bullets his aim is true a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete he sets his dogs on us he gifts us a grave in the air he plays with the snakes and dreams death is a master from Deutschland
your golden hair Margarete your ashen hair Shulamit
Paul Celan, Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry, trans. Pierre Joris (FSG, 2020). www.poets.org
Psalm
BY PAUL CELAN
TRANSLATED BY JOHN FELSTINER
No one kneads us again out of earth and clay,
no one incants our dust.
No one.
Blessèd art thou, No One.
In thy sight would
we bloom.
In thy
spite.
A Nothing
we were, are now, and ever
shall be, blooming:
the Nothing-, the
No-One's-Rose.
With
our pistil soul-bright,
our stamen heaven-waste,
our corona red
from the purpleword we sang
over, O over
the thorn.
Paul Celan, "Psalm" from Selected Poems and Prose, translated by John Felstiner. Copyright © 2001 by John Felstiner. Used by permission of the author and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
www.poetryfoundation.org
There was earth inside them, and they dug
by Paul Celan
They dug and they dug, so their day
went by for them, their night. And they did not praise God,
who, so they heard, wanted all this,
who, so they heard, knew all this.
They dug and heard nothing more;
they did not grow up wise, invented no song,
thought up for themselves no language.
They dug.
There came a stillness, and there came a storm,
and all the oceans came.
I dig, you dig, and the worm digs too,
and that singing out there says: They dig.
O one, o none, o no one, o you:
Where did the way lead when it led nowhere?
O you dig and I dig, and I dig toward you,
and on our finger the ring awakes.
— Paul Celan
(trans. Michael Hamburger)
https://woodscolt.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/there-was-earth-inside-them-and-they-dug/
You're crazy. You fall down, stand up and walk again, your ankles and your knees move but you start again as if you had wings. The ditch calls you, but it's no use you're afraid to stay, and if someone asks why, maybe you turn around and say that a woman and a sane death a better death wait for you. But you're crazy. For a long time only the burned wind spins above the houses at home, Walls lie on their backs, plum trees are broken and the angry night is thick with fear. Oh if I could believe that everything valuble is not only inside me now that there's still home to go back to. If only there were! And just as before bees drone peacefully on the cool veranda, plum preserves turn cold and over sleepy gardens quietly, the end of summer bathes in the sun. Among the leaves the fruit swing naked and in front of the rust-brown hedge blond Fanny waits for me, the morning writes slow shadows—- All this could happen The moon is so round today! Don't walk past me, friend. Yell, and I'll stand up again!
https://allpoetry.com/Miklos-Radnoti
Letter to My Wife by Miklós Radnóti translated by Michael R. Burch Written in Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Zagubica, August-September, 1944 Deep down in the darkness hell awaits—silent, mute. Silence screams in my ears, so I shout, but no one hears or answers, wherever they are; while sad Serbia, astounded by war, and you are so far, so incredibly distant. Still my heart encounters yours in my dreams and by day I hear yours sound in my heart again; and so I am still, even as the great mountain ferns slowly stir and murmur around me, coldly surrounding me. When will I see you? How can I know? You who were calm and weighty as a Psalm, beautiful as a shadow, more beautiful than light, the One I could always find, whether deaf, mute, blind, lie hidden now by this landscape; yet from within you flash on my sight like flickering images on film. You once seemed real but now have become a dream; you have tumbled back into the well of teenage fantasy. I jealously question whether you'll ever adore me; whether—speak!— from youth's highest peak you will yet be my wife. I become hopeful again, as I awaken on this road where I formerly had fallen. I know now that you are my wife, my friend, my peer— but, alas, so far! Beyond these three wild frontiers, fall returns. Will you then depart me? Yet the memory of our kisses remains clear. Now sunshine and miracles seem disconnected things. Above me I see a bomber squadron's wings. Skies that once matched your eyes' blue sheen have clouded over, and in each infernal machine the bombs writhe with their lust to dive. Despite them, somehow I remain alive.
http://www.thehypertexts.com/mikl%C3%B3s_radn%C3%B3ti_hungarian_poet_poetry_tanslator_bio.htm
May Sky : There is Always Tomorrow: An Anthology of Japanese American Concentration Camp Kaiko Haiku, by Violet Kazue De Cristoforo
