somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully,
suddenly,as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closesand opens;
only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands


by e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

Class Activity

Analysis

You will be put in to small groups of 2-3. Each group is responsible for the interpretation of one of the five stanzas in the poem. Your task is to firstly paraprhase it then to summarize it.
A paraphrase is saying the same thing except using your own words wherever possible; it may be more or less the same length. A summary is much shorter containing very few examples or details and not unlike the paraphrase maintains the author's point of view.

Seminar

Your group will then present your findings to the class.

Answers to come

Further Analysis


For an ecocritical analysis using evolutionary psychology follow the link below:

Supernormal Stimuli as Essences

Imagery in Poetry - Reading and Writing Haikus

One definition of 'art' is that it is a medium to communicate sensation (Wilson, 1998). This can be achieved through pictures, sounds and words. When words are used we call it 'imagery'.

An image can be conveyed by a word or a series of words and suggests any sensory experience. For example, it could refer to either visual(sight), auditory (sound), tactile (touch), gustatory(taste) or olfactory(smell) experiences.

Poetry is especially appealing when it sows pictures, sounds or smells in our minds, and makes us feel the sensations of the poet. Very often this is achieved with very few words.

The most effective are those that use noun, compound nouns, simple verbs and few adjectives. A good introduction to visual imagery is Ezra Pound’s minimalist poem In a Station of the Metro (1916).


In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.


Vocabulary

Bough: (n), a large branch of a tree


Exercise

Use you imagination and reasoning powers to answer the following questions about Pound’s poem. Before you start make sure you understand every word, if you don’t you will get a false image. For most English speakers the imagery is very clear. If you are able to see in your mind’s eye what your teacher sees, then you truly understand.

1) What are the people in the poem probably wearing? Explain your answer.
2) What color are their faces? Explain your answer.
3) What season is it? Explain your answer.
4) What is the weather like? Explain your answer.



Haikus

Haiku is a Japanese poem of 17 syllables arranged in 3 verses. There is no rhyme. The first verse has 5 syllables, the second has 7, and the last has 5 (Kennedy, 1994). Naturally, once they are translated into English they may no longer respect these rules.

Haiku translates beginning verse. It was created in the 16th century as a game. Players were given a haiku and were asked to extend it into a longer poem. A haiku contains two images taken usually from nature. Often haikus are about seasons. Here an image of a blossom suggests spring, a crow on a branch implies autumn, snow refers to winter and a cricket indicates summer (Kennedy, 1994).

The recurring theme in these short poems is to show that there is dialectic (inter-penertrating) relationship between the poet and Nature. But above all to show us that Nature can be both immense and fragile.

Exercises

Read the following haikus and describe what you hear and see in your mind’s eye. All have been translated by X.J.Kennedy. You should be able to answer the following questions:

What is the season?
What is the time of day?
What is the location?
What can the poet hear?
What is the poet doing?
What is the theme of this haiku?

On the one-ton temple bell
A moon moth folded into sleep
Sits still

Taniguchi Buson (1716 – 1783)

Cricket! Be,
Careful! I’m rolling
over.

Kobayashi Issa (1763 – 1783)

In the old stone pool
a frogjump:
Splisshhh!

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

Answers

Student Haikus

Students at the Grenoble School of Architecture were asked to compose a haiku for homework, here is a selection.

The sun gets up,
The fog goes away,
And I fall asleep.

Jeannie Roumanet, March 2008, France

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On a frozen lake
I saw a careless rabbit
Crac, plouf!

Lorene Blampey, March 2008, France

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Childhood house.
All is more small,
Except the memory.

Camille Ortis, March 2008, France
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References

Kennedy, X.J & Gioia, D (1994) Literature: an introduction to fiction, poetry and drama. Seventh Edition. Longman, New York.

Wilson, E.O. (1998) Consilience - The Unity of Knowledge. Abacus. London.