Close Reading ModPo
Laura Cushing
This isn't the last thing I'll write about ModPo. I'm working on an article, but there's just so much to say. How do you describe ten weeks that will stay with you for the rest of your life, a class that isn't ending so much as shifting format to stay with us throughout the year? I decided that first I would just do this - just make a list of all the things ModPo has done for me. Maybe then I will be able to, from this long list, pick some things to base my article around.
First there were the poems. From the very beginning, I knew this course was going to be special. Looking over the syllabus, and seeing that we started with Whitman and Dickinson, I knew we were in for something great. I bore a bit of a grudge toward Emily coming into this course. I'd had to learn and recite the I'm Nobody poem in school-- and hated it so much. I didn't want to be Nobody-- I had enough people in my life telling me that already. I didn't want a poem telling me that too.
We were also told that Emily was reclusive to the point that she never even left her room, that she even had her meals brought up to her. Walt was more the kind of person I wanted to be-- running about Yawping at the world, living life and celebrating himself. As week one started and we began to examine the poems, I was surprised to learn about the concept of meta-poetic. That we could look at the words, and find not only the outward meaning-- but the meaning behind the lines. Poetry about being a poet, poetry about writing poetry-- and about life. And Emily wasn't that shattered recluse I'd learned about in school. I got to know her, and I got to know Walt better.
And what about this concept of 'close reading' -- a term I'd never heard of before? Examining something so closely that we considered not only what was said, but how it was said. Not only lines but words, not only words but syllables in some cases, or sounds. Punctuation! Who would have thought there was so much meaning in a dash, or the choice between a comma and a semi-colon? I was amazed by these discoveries. And I felt like I was making them not alone, as an outsider as I had felt throughout my school years -- but as a part of the group. Our class, so large in scope with 30,000 enrollees, felt so very personal. Professor Al and the TAs didn't lecture to us. They sat around a table and talked about the poem. They close read together, and as they did so -- I felt that though I was at home in my bed or chair, I was also there at Kelly Writer's House at that table. I learned as they learned.
My vocabulary increased. I learned the meaning of conceit in the context of a poem. I learned parataxis, and pedagogy. Perhaps more importantly, I learned to closely examine words I used repeatedly in my everyday life that had gone unexamined for so long. THIS. THAT. THE. JUST. Words I used hundreds of times a day without thought now on my mind. What is meant by, and defined by THIS? What are the qualities of THAT? I felt as though my language was flowering, buds of words that had lay closed and dormant inside me now opening up to possibilities.
As the weeks went on, and we got into more modern poets, a wonderful addition to the already amazing course materials occurred -- poets reading their own poems. Recordings from Penn Sound that captured the voice, the original inflections, the way each poet spoke their own words. That added such a depth for me, such an authenticity to what we were reading and writing about. Here were the voices of William Carlos Williams, of Frost, of Stein -- poets I had known the names of, seen the words of, but never heard speak. They became more real to me, more personal, in having heard them. I could picture the author of This is Just to Say not only as William Carlos Williams poet, but as a Doctor, but as a husband-- as Bill, who had stolen plums from Flossie and then wrote her this note that became a poem that also spoke something about their marriage.
Speaking of voices, the course also included a live webcast every so often. There not only could I watch, but I could pick up the phone and call and speak. I could hear the voices of my professor and TAs, I could share with them my voice, I could ask a question and make a comment and have them respond to me not as a digital typed Nobody, but as Somebody. As a person, as a class member, as a student and a questioner-- a live entity calling in and making a connection. If I couldn't get through the lines and I had a burning question, I could type it on a forum set up for such. Or I could tweet it in using Twitter. And Julia would read those questions, from where she was in California, to Al and TAs where they were, in Philadelphia. And it would all be broadcast, live sound, over the internet to reach every other student tuning in everywhere. To be recorded, to be heard by classmates later, or future students, or just those tuning in. I have a voice. And in this class, it is heard.
We are all heard. Every one of these students, so many of us from so all over the world. When people call in, they are recognized by name. Al knows their location. He has spoken with them on the discussion boards, interacted with them on facebook, tweeted. Some of them pilgrimage in person to the writer's house, for we all have a standing invitation-- this is not closed to us. This is not a fortress, with brick and ivy walls to keep the common man out. This is a house, a home, of possibility where all are welcome to come. And come they do. They drive in, bus in, train in, bike in, fly in from all over. I can't quite navigate it and I think that is closed to me, that I won't ever make it in.
But one of the most amazing things about this class is how it brings people together. A lady named Andrea responds to my posts-- and I have seen Andrea already, in those webcasts at the writer's house. I feel like I know her as I feel like I know the others in that room. Andrea lives near me and invites me to tag along with her to the writer's house. And I do. And I go there, to the place that I have seen so often now, and I have called into. Now I am there, and I can touch the chairs. And see the room is smaller than it looks on the webcast- but in a good way. There is an intimacy to being there. To sitting in one of those chairs I have seen my other classmates sit in. I have arrived.
I shake hands, I hug. I feel the warmth of my fellow students, my professor, our TAs. I am welcome. I am not an outsider here.
I belong.
I have made so many connections. New friends from all over the globe, and in my area. And we have so much common ground, in our separate places. We can speak of so many things that make distance and difference feel unimportant in the face of closeness and similarity. That is not to say we always agree. There are discussions, differing opinions. But as classmates and friends, we can discuss and debate without anger. We can learn from each other's positions. We can learn from each other. We can learn.
The last ModPo webcast, there were so many people. So very many emotions. I felt overwhelmed at all the happy/sad/lovely in the room. I cry, I cry and I keep crying and I don't know whether they are tears of sad or tears of happy. I go to sit outside after the webcast and modpo are over. Sit on the porch of the writer's house, and feel like a writer. Feel like a student.
Feel human.
And I think of the words my classmate Daniel spoke inside-- spoke, through difficulty, but in his own voice---
He said-- Not Impossible.
And it isn't.
Nothing ever is.
Lynn Scott
Beautiful and was same for me.
Shannon Ratliff
Yes! YES! YES! You are right on! Same same!
Anjela Villarreal Ratliff
Eloquently stated. Covered all bases of the ModPo experience--all the reasons why we students/participants keep coming back for more!
