Barbie Doll + Qs — the old fashioned way

Barbie Doll

This girlchild was born as usual

and presented dolls that did pee-pee

and miniature GE stoves and irons

and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.

Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: 5

You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,

possessed strong arms and back,

abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.

She went to and fro apologizing. 10

Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,

exhorted to come on hearty,

exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.

Her good nature wore out 15

like a fan belt.

So she cut off her nose and her legs

and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay

with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on, 20

a turned-up putty nose,

dressed in a pink and white nightie.

Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.

Consummation at last.

To every woman a happy ending. 25

—Marge Piercy

Questions:

1. In what ways is the girl described in this poem different from a Barbie doll? Discuss the poem’s contrast of the living girl, a human being with intelligence and healthy appetites, and the doll, an inanimate object.
2. The poem contains a surprising but apt simile: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). Why is the image of the fan belt appropriate here?
3. Why does the speaker mention the girl’s “strong arms and back” (8) and her “manual dexterity” (9)? How do these qualities contribute to her fate?
4. Discuss the verbal irony in the phrase “the magic of puberty” (5) and in the last three lines. What is the target of this satire?

Siren Song + Qs

Siren Song

This is the one song everyone

would like to learn: the song

that is irresistible:

the song that forces men

to leap overboard in squadrons 5

even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows

because anyone who has heard it

is dead, and the others can't remember

Shall I tell you the secret 10

and if I do, will you get me

out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical 15

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,

to you, only to you. 20

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

At last. Alas 25

it is a boring song

but it works every time.

— Margaret Atwood, 1976

1. What are the various meanings for the word “siren”? Look for illustrations or descriptions of sirens and record the most significant information. Does a knowledge of how a siren might have appeared (& where dwelt) contribute to your apprehension of some of the language of this poem?

2. What is a “siren song”—does this term also have several meanings? Spell them out.

3. What form does this poem take: is it a dialogue, an apostrophe…or what?

4. What imagery is evoked in the second “paragraph” (lines 4-6)? How does it fit with the import of the poem

5. a) What is the tone of this poem? Where does a shift occur, and how?
b) Is the speaker in control of the import of the poem, or is the poet? How so?a) What is the speaker’s tone? What things do we learn from the speaker?
b) Does the speaker control the meaning of the poem, or does the poet. How so?

Special on Poems by the Pair—Government Approved for Essays!

Dear Mouseketeers,

At the bottom of this post are the thematic pairings from which you can choose for a comparative essay of three or more (full) pages.

To keep everyone equal, requirements are: Times New Roman 12 point double-spaced, with one inch margins all around.

Leaf through the chapter entitled "Writing About Poetry" and scan the sample essays to give yourself a sense of good critical writing.

("Guide to Feet Complete with Helpful Reminder" courtesy of T.R. Hot-sun, Esq., DNA, OBE, Etc.)

And now…the Pairs!—

1. Barbie Doll (Marge Piercy) + Siren Song (Margaret Atwood)
2. Dover Beach (Matthew Arnold) + Church Going (Philip Larkin)
3. Ulysses (Tennyson) + Curiosity (Alastair Reid)
4. To His Coy Mistress (Marvell) + The Flea (Donne)
5. The World is too much with us (Wordsworth) + God’s Grandeur (Hopkins)
6. A Valediction Forbidding Mourning + The Sun Rising (both John
   Donne)
7. The Broken Heart (Donne) + Farewell to Love (Michael Drayton)
8. To Autumn (Keats) + After Apple Picking (Frost)

And don't forget those feet!!

God’s Grandeur + Qs -

"The Waking" + Questions

The Waking + Questions -

The Waking & God's Grandeur

The "music" of each poem is what's at question here. How does it influence tone and meaning? What is the tone, do you think, and what is the essential meaning or message, of each poem?

Comments, questions, comparisons for "Dover Beach" & "Churchgoing"

We've been taking poems two at a time lately, each pair thematically linked. How about Arnold's poem and Larkin's poem? Do they reflect the same outlook? What are they "about"? What do you think the tone of each poem is, and how does it influence interpretation?

Church Going

Once I am sure there's nothing going on

I step inside, letting the door thud shut.

Another church: matting, seats, and stone,

And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut

For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff

Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;

And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,

Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off

My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.

From where I stand, the roof looks almost new —

Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.

Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few

Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce

"Here endeth" much more loudly than I'd meant.

The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door

I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,

Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,

And always end much at a loss like this,

Wondering what to look for, wondering, too,

When churches will fall completely out of use

What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep

A few cathedrals chronically on show,

Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,

And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.

Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come

To make their children touch a particular stone;

Pick simples for a cancer; or on some

Advised night see walking a dead one?

Power of some sort will go on

In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;

But superstition, like belief, must die,

And what remains when disbelief has gone?

Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,

A purpose more obscure. I wonder who

Will be the last, the very last, to seek

This place for what it was; one of the crew

That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?

Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,

Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff

Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?

Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt

Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground

Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt

So long and equably what since is found

Only in separation - marriage, and birth,

And death, and thoughts of these — for which was built

This special shell? For, though I've no idea

What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,

It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,

In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,

Are recognized, and robed as destinies.

And that much never can be obsolete,

Since someone will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round.

— Philip Larkin

Dover Beach

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits;—on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

—Matthew Arnold

A doggone blog foul-up

Somehow the questions for "Curiosity" and the comment posting went up on last year's blog. I realized that when I saw J-Li's complaint.

Well, we're going to discuss all that stuff anyway tomorrow. I apologize for the screw-up.

J.D.