A Super Late Introduction

Hey all!  My name is Eleanor (ignore the "Wooden Finger" title, apparently my ancient blog was still in existence when I accepted the invite to this one).  This is my final semester at STLCC and I'm a Film Studies major.  Along with this and some communications classes I'm taking a Children's Literature class this semester which should make for interesting comparisons to the likes of Arthur Miller.  I'm flying back and forth from New York City (my hometown) this semester to help my mom out at home and then I'm moving back for good once I graduate.  So a lot of this work (and definitely the reading) I may be doing from a plane!
I've always been a big reader, both of my parents are and even as a kid when my dad was still reading to me, he may have skipped my "appropriate" age bracket all together, reading me the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Animal Farm.  I've worked on and off at bookstores and museums and my friends and I love going to author events, I'm getting ready to meet the author James Dashner (The Maze Runner series) in a couple of weeks!
I love the Harry Potter series, Augusten Burroughs, Mark Childress and Frankenstein is probably my favorite book.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what books y'all use as examples or reference in your own posts and checking them out for myself!  Like I said I am a film major, I love films of the 30's and 40's and Literature after 1945 seems like a great place for a film buff like me to be.
Fun Fact: I have three tattoos.  A black and red ship on the inside of my left arm, a black a green spaceship on my right forearm. and the words "I've got the something" across my shins (it starts on one leg and finishes on the other)

Me recently getting really into it at a concert with my friends

my best friend and I on our way to that very concert

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Hello!!!

Hello, my name is Ami Taylor. I am currently attending STLCC for the semester and transferring back to Lindenwood University where I will finish my B.A. in elementary education.  I currently work for a criminal defense attorney downtown, but I quickly realized that law is not the path for me. I do not have the patience to work with “adult children," but I can work with the little ones all day. I am a very active person and love being with my family. I have a twin sister and she is my best friend. Unfortunately, I haven't been an active reader for awhile now and don't have a favorite author, but I plan on changing that this semester. I am really looking forward to learning more about literature this semester!

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Hi Everyone.  My name is Sarah Stephens.  My favorite book is Atonement, written by Ian McEwan.  I love his use of words and how he brings a story to life.  Atonement has a very interesting storyline and the ending really made me think. I am interested in learning about all the different types of literature that have evolved since 1945 and how that came to be. Something interesting about myself is that I recently returned to school after a long hiatus and I ended up in the Honor Society (PTK). It was a shock to me to be asked to join, because I was not a great student in high school.

The picture is a recent photo of me and all my children (and one of their friends), as we gathered for a birthday celebration.

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Introduction, Week 1: David Schmiedeskamp

Hey, I'm David Schmiedeskamp.  I currently am attending Wildwood to receive my accosociates degree. I am a sophomore.  I have never been much of a reader until about five years ago.  For two of those years I was overseas, and had a lot of down time with nothing to but read.  So I began to read a lot.  I haven't kept up as much as I would like to be reading now.  I have a busy schedule.  I am a high school rugby coach, and play on a men's club rugby team here in St. Louis.  My favorite author is Tim O'Brien.  I have read and reread multiple times "The Things They Carried," and "If I Die In a Combat Zone."  I enjoy his works so much because I can relate to them on a personal level.  He tells the story through the eyes of an infantry soldier in war, just like I was.  The wars might have been different, but the feeling and emotions are the same.  I apologize for taking so long to write this, but I am technologically challenged.  I am looking forward to working with everyone in the class.








P.S. I have tried this 3 times, but my computer will not upload any pictures so next time I will have one of myself.

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EXAMPLE BLOG POST: That last line...

The last line of Randall Jarrell’s brief poem “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” took an incredibly striking and powerful turn from the tone and imagery earlier in the poem. I found the first few lines a little confusing, so I am going to leave those for my next post.  (If you have any ideas about what’s going on there, a comment would be much appreciated.) I didn’t realize the speaker was dead until the last line “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose,” which made the poem a lot more haunting (a dead soldier talking!).  We don’t see actually see him die; instead, we first wake up from an image of comfort: “From my mother’s sleep,” sleeping with his mother, into this horrible world in the belly of an airplane (the note really helped me figure out what was going on).  Jarrell writes, “I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.”  The rhyme, “black flak” sounds hard, almost like shots fired from a gun, and the image created is truly one of a nightmare, a sky turned black with anti-aircraft bombs (flak) exploding all around, while this soldier huddles in this bubble underneath the airplane getting shot at.  The reader doesn’t actually see him die; there’s no heroic battle or a picture of him going nobly to his death.  We only get to see the aftermath, and Jarrell states this line so matter-of-factly: “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose,” no embellishment at all.  The language is as practical and efficient as the action of the unnamed “they” (a stand-in for the State?  The people in charge in the government sending these young men to war?) callously hosing the speaker’s blood from the bomber, presumably to be replaced by yet another speaker, another boy sent off to die in the war.  The poem is sort of dreamy at the beginning, but then this last line is so direct, plain even, it is shocking to read, which, I imagine, was what Jarrell wanted, to show how graphic and shocking war is!  Did you have the same reaction to the last line?  Did it sound different from the rest of the poem to you?  

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Example Blog Post: Researching Jarrell

HERE IS A SAMPLE BLOG POST FOR THE POEM "DEATH OF A BALL TURRET GUNNER" BY RANDALL JARRELL SO YOU CAN SEE AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT AN ACADEMIC BLOG POST ABOUT A PIECE OF LITERATURE MIGHT LOOK LIKE.  THERE WILL ALSO BE SOME DISCUSSION PROMPTS IN THE PRESENTATIONS TO HELP YOU IF YOU GET STUCK ON WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT EACH WEEK.

In order to help make sense of this poem, I thought it might be helpful to know a little more about the author and see what a ball turret gunner actually looks like.

I found some interesting commentary on the author Randall Jarrell on an academic site called "Modern American Poetry."

David Perkins writes: "… During the war [Jarrell] served in the air force, though not as a pilot. By 1942 he had published two collections of poetry. The preface to the first (1940) confessed his wish and failure to replace Modernism with something else. At the air base he listened to the stories of the pilots and read newspaper war reports and out of these materials he composed, in Little Friend, Little Friend (1945) and Losses (1948), what remain for many readers the finest "war" poems of our time. They are vivid and moving incidents of combat, told with an exceptionally sensitive psychological insight and moral perplexity. And the emotions of Jarrell’s pilots were in some ways unfamiliar in the literature of modern war. He expresses the pity and protest typical of the better poets of the First World War, the shock, horror, weary resignation and sense of doom common in war poetry, but also a nexus of other feelings; they do not belong just to Jarrell (or to[W. H. ] Auden, whose perceptions helped form Jarrell’s in these poems), or just to the Second World War, but persist to the present moment. The planes have more reality, more identity than their crews ("A Front"). Enclosed in machines in remote sky, the pilots are psychologically detached from the deaths they distribute and fall toward. They are murderers who are likely themselves to be murdered, yet also passive, helpless, and innocent ("Eighth Air Force"). In short, in his pilots Jarrell expressed the feelings of alienation, helplessness, regression, irresponsibility, and vulnerability that our vastly unmanageable, bureaucratic, technological civilization seems to create."

From "Breaking Through the New Criticism" (Chapter 16) in A History of Modern Poetry: Modernism and After (Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1987), 393.


Also, here are some pictures showing what a ball turret looks like:

In this picture, it is easy to see why Jarrell uses the term "fetus" in his note and where the womb and birth imagery come from in the poem.

*Images from Google Images

Do you think Jarrell did a good job of capturing in words the experience shown in these pictures?  Is this one of the "finest war poems of all times"?

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Hey, what's up?

I'm Zac Smith. I really like just talking about literature and picking apart decisions in story structure and story telling. And although I do read a lot of pros, I think comics/graphic novels are one of the most fascinating mediums to look at that through. I think the theories behind sequential story telling are insanely creative from an art standpoint, and dialogue with limited narration is an interesting form of writting. I really enjoy people like Brandon Graham (King City, Multiple Warheads), Frank Miller (Sin City), Brian K Vaughan (Saga, Y: The Last Man), Sam Keith (The Maxx), Art Spieglman (Maus), Moebius (The Incal), and Jack Kirby (he really created most of the Marvel characters, not Stan Lee in the way people think. Google it, it's interesting). I'm not going to pick a favorite for anything because I'm not that decisive. So yeah, that's what I've got going on.

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Introduction

    Hi my name is Lynn Berger but my name on the email says Vanessa but I go by my middle name and I am not very technologically talented.  I am an older returning student and I read constantly but not what anyone would consider great literature.  I hate reading snobs! The reading snobs are the ones that if you are not reading “War and Peace” then you are wasting your time.  I like Jane Austen books and one of my favorite books is “To Kill a Mockingbird” Every time I read it I find some new insight.   I hate reading tragedies and that might make me shallow but I view reading as enjoyment and I like novels that are uplifting in some way.  I have seen Death of a Salesman and Willie Loomis is a sad tragic character but the play does give a person a lot to think about and discuss. The dynamics between the father and son are revealing.  I am going to try and post a picture so wish me luck!

P.S. I hate counting words just to make a longer blog so I apologize if this is too short.

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Introduction, Week 1 Katie Pummill

Hi! My name is Katie Pummill! I am a Secondary Education and English major! I aspire to one day become a high school English teacher! I am definitely a lover of all things Literature! I am a huge fan of Mr. Shakespeare! Macbeth and Othello are probably my favorites along with the sonnet “I Consider Everything That Grows.” I am also a huge fan of Maya Angelou! I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings speaks to my soul every time I read it! I enjoy mixing it up with young adult Lit every now and again too! I absolutely love Jeanine Cummins’ A Rip in Heaven. I also enjoy reading novels that challenge me to explore the natural world. Most recently I have read Sacred Feathers, a compilation of short stories reminding us of the subtle endowments given by Mother Earth! I am very interested and excited to read and discuss The Road! I have heard great things about this novel. An interesting fact about myself is that I am a vegan hence the interested in the natural world! I have also begun my first year working with Special School District and Rockwood School District as a paraprofessional! 

  I can’t wait to read all the blog posts and discuss with everyone :)

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Hello everybody! My name is Cory Robinson. I'm finishing up my last year at STLCC, and I'm so excited to be taking this class with all of you! My favorite author would have to be, well, a lot of people! The book I've been reading avidly as of late is Seinlanguage by Jerry Seinfeld. Talk about stitches in your side! Aside from that, I'm a big fan of the classics. As well as some modern authors, such as Haruki Murakami. I have a Thomas Pynchon tattoo, so safe to say I love him as well. I'm excited to finally be taking a literature course again! I'm hoping to discover some new authors, as well as some new literature to add to my bookshelf! An  interesting fact about myself: I run a record label called Carucage Records, and I'm a College Marketing Representative for Sony Music Entertainment. Got my foot in the music business door, so I'm pursuing that as a career (although I'd rather have been an author), it's just what makes the most sense.

Looking forward to discussing with all of you!

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Kayla Hilliar

Well hello there, my name is Kayla Hilliar, but I just prefer Kayla. We can skip the formalities. Who's my favorite author? That's a pretty tough question, I have a love/hate relationship with Chuck Palanuick. He's best known for one of his worst books (it's good but he's got much better) Fight Club. My favorite book however isn't written by him. It's written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, yep I'm a Gatsby fan. It's a pretty amazing book when you look into the historical significance of the time and everything that was happening. I think everyone should read it at least once and as much as I love Leonardo DiCaprio , the movie doesn't count. I'm interested in books I love to read and learn more about context and authors and I'm excited to do that in this course. Something unique about me would be that I'm 23, happily married to a United States sailor and looking forward to having him home from his second deployment before this course is over. So that's pretty soon in deployment terms and pretty exciting if I do say so myself. I look forward to reading everyones blogs and sharing my own thoughts in my posts. 

good luck on the semester everyone and may the odds be ever in your favor!!

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Intro

My name is Landon Tatum.  My favorite book is The Hobbit.

The only reason I read it was because my brother basically forced me to, and I had no interest in it at all.  By the time I was done with it I loved it.  I chose this class because I am not too familiar with this subject in  general, and it is something I decided I want to learn about.  I am currently getting my bachelors in Health Information Management at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, and have a degree in Health information Technology from STLCC.

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