Hello readers,

Our poetry unit had came to a conclusion today, and we spent our past four classes looking at poems that regard to September 11th attack. Although I did briefly study poetry in the high school class and even had chances to write a few poems. But I never encounter any poems which focus to express on a national memory or traumatic event. In this unit, I gained insight about how this “obscure” type of literature which once was prevalent to convey the collective memories of the traumatic event. Two genres we focused on are lyric and language poetry, but today I want to discuss with you about my personal understanding on Juliana Spahr’s “This Connection of Everyone with Lungs”.

The collection starts with a repetitive, overlay structure of poems that insist the idea of that the space between everyone is connected with air by breathing into our lungs which create a linkage among every human beings on the planet. My first perception of the poem is like when academicism artists encounter Monet first Impressionism artwork “Sunrise” in 19th century. The poems of Spahr really deliver a sense of blurriness and meaningless just like critiques from conventional artists on Monet artworks are dim in color and lack of finely details. However, when I notice this endless poem is actually dedicate “scheme” by the author in order to let its readers generate a resonance, I begin to amazed that poetry can have such mystical power to keep its readers in the same “frequency” of thoughts.

Rest of the works are also featured by repetitive structure and many sentences are applied the with juxtaposition between one object and another. Most interestedly, the subjects that Spahr put together usually don’t have any logically connection. There are many examples such as sleeping, the bed, the birds singing outside in the morning, the sound of planes fly over, ships put off from ports. Those trivial matters in our daily lives indicates a peaceful and comfort situations that many Americans are favored by. However, the another half of the combinations (juxtaposition) usually aren’t things that make us feel delightful. I felt overwhelming by the poems because it’s like a series of breaking news that play on TV, many of them are flash in screens and a second later nobody can remembered. Perhaps, the author try to increase the sensitivity especially American to being aware of incidents happened in rest of the world. Therefore, I can now argue it is purposeful to apply huge amount of juxtapositions in poetry which tends to form a sharper contrast between two detach objects in order to express author’s point of view.

Although, we now realized how lucky we are living in one of the best pieces of continents on Earth. But I don’t think this is the final level of thinking that Spahr wants us to achieve. In the book, she intended or I should say successfully control our breathing in the beginning, but in different angle I sense helplessness when she try to interrupt or alter the things happened far away in other areas of the planet. It reflects contemporary poets are currently feeling “out of alternative” in global situations which means they aren’t powerful as many politics leaders who able to bring changes in societies. Coincidently, it is very similar to ancient Chinese poets who often express helplessness about bad governance of authorities. So, the questions that Spahr asking is clear: as a normal citizens how can we maintain harmony with each others while take actions on the foreign conflicts? Do we have the responsibility to help the individuals that are suffering in the flames of war? On other hands, is it the contributions made upon world peace represent the spirit of a “Global Citizen? Feel free to share with me about your idea also comment on my analysis on Spahr’s poems.

Appreciate your time with my thoughts.

Reference:

Spahr, Juliana. This Connection of Everyone with Lungs: Poems. Berkeley: U of California, 2005. Print.

Hello, everyone,

I feel like the time was elapse fast that is again for me to take on our class blogger.（You might never seen my previous blogs because I wasn’t in this class last term). In the past week, we had gone through the work “Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect” by Judith Butler, which sounds like a philosophical script when I tried to digest words from it. However, some of our classmates went back to our first week of reading on Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and comes out with some new perspective on the terrorist attack.

I believe every bloggers in our class have done a great job in each of your blog, but I didn’t have time to read through them one by one. First blog that draw my interest is Kennedy who comments on Butler’s question which ask for what does it means to be human? He then answer the question with a cosmopolitan view which I strongly agree that humanity is despite the border of nation-state, who don’t come from the same background doesn’t mean we can deny the fact he also a human. Through Butler’s lens, Kennedy also identified some actions the American government took that reveal the hypocrisy under the mask of freedom from their constitution. By also discuss on Butler, in Isaiah’s journal he takes a deeper look on the concept of “dehumanize” which basically claimed when you feeling threaten by someone, you will not perceive he as a human being . He  exemplified with the event of Holocaust, which is when Nazi Germany seems the genocide of Jewish as an statistic. This example, let me recall my history teacher while I was in high school once quotes a (in)famous sentence by Joseph Stalin, “The death of one men is a tragedy, but the death of millions is a statistic ”. When I rethinking this “dehumanizing” phrase, is kind of true when it applies to many historical artificial atrocities which reveals the brutal and cold-blooded (political/military) figures just like Stalin himself.

Two another people I had looked at are focusing on the novel “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”. One query arouse since I finished the novel is why the story doesn’t seems much relevance with 9/11 attack, and some of us do debate on their blogs. Erin argues that the experience of Oskar does not engage with public mourning after the attack happened. He is upset on his American identity because he discover more footages and facts from foreign websites them the domestic television channel. It suggests that many American media had modify the images that will eventually go to public views in order to promote the value of American exceptionalism and formed the wave of Islamophobia. Coming next, In Inneke’s blog, instead of dig down to the historical trauma of 9/11, she compares the movie played in 2012 with the actual novel. I felt similarly when I was watching that touching movie although it abandoned much of the grandparents part.However it does shown me the visual contexts that I couldn’t form by only reading the words which improve my understanding when I browsed the book later on.

In the end, I want to say that I had receive many unique insights about both the novel and Butler’s opaque essay after read all of the intellectual talks you made. During this blog posts, I saw lots of opinions that are resonate to me and hopefully I will see more amazing thinkings that will compelling me to read and comment in future.