Hi ASTU class!

I hope all of you are having a good time during reading break <3. The blogs during this week focused from lyric poetry to language poetry…from Collins to Spahr…from September 1, 1939 to September 11,2001. Since I am one of the class bloggers this week I will try my best to mention the main themes…Let’s do this!

First I would like to start with “September 1, 1939” by W.H. Auden. Therese begins with an interesting point of view about how this poem relates to Saal’s trauma transfer because “is seeing your own suffering from someone else’s perspective.” I found really fascinating how she mentions that people’s traumas are connected. For example, WWII and 9/11 victims probably experienced similar type of emotions because of the traumatic events they had to passed through. This is a reason to why people should consider all types of victims, as she mentions “‘habit-forming pain, mismanagement and grief’.” On the other hand,Gabriel’s post mentions how this poem can be adapted and interpreted in different ways. He also points out how “the last line of the eighth stanza was changed from: We must love one another and die” to “We must love one another or die.” Hint: If you are thinking about a future comment you might want to consider the question he wrote at the end of his blog.

Other poems that came out while I was reading the blogs were “The Names” by Billy Collins and ““Photograph from September 11” by Wislawa Szymborska. Even though both were written after 9/11, they represent it in a different way, as Alex’s post says “Szymborska can be seen as writing in the moment where as Collins’ poem can be seen as a reflection.” When I read the word “reflection” it made me think about Kate’s blog since she mentions how for her “The Names” made her think about the 9/11 memorial and the engraved names on it. Olivea also mentions how “there is certain imagery that we have just learned to associate with 9/11.” For example, from a post by Humans of New York the idea of “bodies falling outside” made her associate this event with 9/11. Going back to Kate’s blog, she brings an interesting point regarding “Photograph from September 11” which is how the author manages to bring a little piece of hope as seen in the lines “There’s enough time” and “They’re still within the air’s reach.”

Even though we focused on different lyric poems, an important piece we were discussing the past weeks is This Connection of Everyone with Lungs by Juliana Spahr. Clara discusses how there are links that bind humans no matter what and how the role of a global citizen is to recreate these connections to be able to understand our differences in this globalized world. On the other hand, Jackson presents to us the question: “Is it the contributions made upon world peace represent the spirit of a “Global Citizen?” Even though they connected the poetry with the theme of global citizen, others decided to take a look at the symbol of “bed” on Spahr’s poetry. For Isaiah it is seen as an equalizer and he mentions “What follows our wake up is what distinguishes us.” Seen from a different perspective, Erin thinks “the change that needs to be brought about is less ignorance regarding what is happening outside of our own comfortable countries.” In this setting she relates “bed”  with the idea of comfortable.

After taking a look at the different poems during ASTU class we were able to learn the difference between lyric and language poetry as seen on Sandra’s post. I find it interesting how Inneke mentions similarities between song lyrics and lyric poetry. Maybe you would like to discuss more on “Can you call a song writer a poet then?”

Thank you for your time and see you next week!
Maria Jose Zegarra

Hello readers,

It’s been a long time since we did not write blogs for our ASTU class. This week’s blogs mentioned the different works we touched during class, for example: class presentations, literary reviews, Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco and Obasan by Joy Kogawa. As it is my time to be the class blogger, before I start to mention the different themes discussed this week, I want to let you bloggers know that it was a pleasure to read all of your blogs and it is amazing to realize that ASTU is helping us developing more of our critical thinking skills.

First I would like to start with Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco. This graphic journal takes place in the war in eastern Bosnia from 1992-1995. Many bloggers emphasized the difference between Persepolis and Safe Area Goražde. Therese mentioned how Sacco’s information in his graphic journal “was gathered and came from individuals who experienced the historic event firsthand.” This differs from Persepolis since Satrapi was one of the main characters on the graphic novel and we are able to know how the Islamic Revolution had an impact on her life since she is the one who is telling us her own experience. Sandra on the other hand mentioned how the drawing style in Safe Area Goražde was realistic and how the style actually suits Sacco’s narrative because he draws the victims of the war “as real people, and not just statistics or interviewees. They are the people within Gorazde, all with their own emotions and stories.” The realistic technique of Sacco in his way of sharing people’s stories was also supported by Mia’s blog when she mentioned that “it’s been said many times that a picture is worth a thousand words; in the case of Gorazde that could not be more true.”

Another novel we touched during class is Obasan by Joy Kogawa. This novel focuses on Japanese-Canadian families who were victims of internment during World War II. It was interesting to read how Obasan is an object that created cultural memory as seen in Paolina’s blog when she mentioned how a piece of this book was even read during a ceremony of the Redress Settlement Agreement in 1988. From a cultural memory point of view, “remembering is the active engagement with the past.” The action of remembering from this point of view makes me think about Inneke’s position about the keyword: forgetting. It contradicts the point of remembering since she asserts  that “we can equate the term “forgetting” with “delete” which means selecting what to delete and what to keep.” This position is supported by Kate, when she reported that “some scholars deem forgetting as a necessary act in order to move on from traumatic and painful experiences”.  The idea of forgetting presented in Kate’s blog argues the idea of cultural memory because Paolina reveals that “ Trauma is seen as an essential part of cultural memory.” During Obasan we can identify how cultural memory is produced through traumatic events.

As seen above the keywords we touched in class during our presentations had a big impact in how we are analyzing the pieces we are reading. Gabo mentioned it was interesting to analyze how “the emergence of new technologies changed the dialog that was formed by scholars talking about technologies of memory.” The idea of scholarly articles bringing in new sides on different fields makes me think about Ryan’s blog since he highlights that under arts “there are many theories on certain subjects, which are all similar but usually with different names.” This leads to the question of “How do you know who is right?” This is a tought question to answer on the field of arts since there are multiple theories and scholars backed their points of view by other scholars.

Thank you for your time!

Maria Jose Zegarra