Reflection

This term seems to have began and ended in one swift currant. As I reflect on the term, I must acknowledge that this class has, as any good class should do, broadened my "bookworm" horizon, raised my intellectual awareness, and dispelled some of my ignorance. In all honestly, I really am not sure that, before this class, I had ever read any non-Western writings, and I probably never would have. I suppose I had previously ignorantly assumed that because the cultures would be so different from my own, I obviously wouldn't be able to relate to the writings. However, that just illustrates a small-minded and ignorant approach fueling my lack of respect for non-Western writers. While it is true that the cultures vary from one side of the globe to the other, and that is evident in most of the stories, at the core, the same emotions and mental processes that their characters exhibit are the very same as those of Western writers, and as those of my own.

Poetry Day

I, like many others who have already voiced their enjoyment of poetry day, feel the necessity to extend my own appreciation of it. The intimacy of the circled setting relaxes the defensive need to withhold personal reflections on the poems of our choice, and I felt, in some small way, connected to each of my fellow classmates as they shared and expressed their poems and the reasons behind the poems they chose. Poetry, more so than most other forms of writing, seems to express more of a rawness, revealing nothing less than the "dirty truth" of reflection.

"The Waking" has always been my favorite poem, probably because I did form such an attachment to it during my adolescence, which we all know is a crucial time in the development of our beings. However, I consider it to be mine; like Roethke wrote it specifically for my own reflection and consideration, and because of this, I briefly thought about changing my selection to my second favorite poem : "George Gray" by Edgar Lee Masters. Had I known we were going to be afforded more than one poem, I would have brought it along with "The Waking"... ah well, perhaps some other time.

I particularly enjoyed hearing the personal poetic musings of a few of my classmates. Poetry is a meticulous art requiring either a natural tendency toward it, or a patient forger, and I truly appreciate hearing an artist read their own work. I, on the other hand, having neither the natural tendency, nor the patience, will stick to simply reading it from others, and writing only my prose. :)

Measuring Life with Coffee Spoons

I have always been very fond of T.S. Eliot's writing and "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" is no exception to my fascination. Particularly ponderous for me are the lines:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.


For I have known them all already, known them all-
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.


My interpretation of the entire text of the poem is of an internal monologue of Prufrock with himself. Mimicking a conversation with a separate entity, almost unsure of him self from one side of a circumstance to another. When he considers the fates and the destiny those fates have laid out for humanity, it's easy for the reader to sympathize with his need for persuasion to "dare" to "disturb the universe?" And even when the universe and its fates are disturbed, and even when,  for a minute, it is able to be altered, all it takes is one more minute to undo the previous minutes progress. It's the irony of it all; one step forward, three steps back. Not to mention that it is easier just to let fate have the final word after having spent youth struggling against the burden of attempting to challenge the fates. Ultimately, at Prufrock's age, there were ample occasions to which he could have seized every opportunity imaginable. It's the unspoken, but often acknowledged blessing of youth, and the curse of time against age. Every opportunity has been "known" at one time or another, and after having passed them by, his life can easily be measured in the mundane coffee spoon.