Amy Lowell

Amy Lowell
Originally uploaded by elizabethanne628.

Amy Lowell, from whom the term “Amyigism” came as a quip by Ezra Pound, had quite an interesting life. She was one of the Lowell Mills heiresses. (The Lowell family owned a vast number of textile mills in Massachusetts which gained them extreme wealth and power---two cities were named for the family!) She called herself “a businesswomen who decided to become a poet”. Coincidentally, she was more remembered for her family’s legacy than her poetry until somewhat recently. Her works were rediscovered when literary scholars began to look back at older works and tried to find same sex relationships in literature. Amy Lowell was never openly a lesbian, but she never married and for a considerable part of her adult life traveled and lived with a female companion named Ada Dwyer Russell to whom Amy wrote poetry containing erotic images. Although Amy took her writing seriously, other imagist poets sometimes made jokes about her work and physical appearance (Ezra Pound called her a hippopoetess). She, however, took the imagist movement to heart and sometimes went so far as to finically support other writers in the movement who were unable to support themselves. Lowell died in 1925 and was remembered for her writing, her extreme eccentric nature and her family’s legacy. Her works contain erotic/ suggestive images set in free verse, and others set in what she called “polyphonic prose”.

hull house

hull house
Originally uploaded by elizabethanne628.

The idea of settlement houses seems sort of nice when you first think about it. They were a place where poor women could live somewhat comfortably. They were safe from people who could take advantage of them finically and otherwise. They were able to work and sometimes even attend college. But, settlement houses were really apart of the nativist attitude that some Americans had at the turn of the previous century. These places stressed American ideals and pushed them onto the borders. They were expected to learn English and follow American and probably Christian cultural norms, which may have vastly differed from their native traditions. These women benefited from the free housing and food from the Settlement house, but at the cost of their individuality.

Language Barrier

In "America and I" and a few of the other recent selections we've discussed the issue of the language barrier. In "America and I" we hear an American woman tell Yezierska that she must first learn English before she can be successful. Everyone was upset by this, and I was too. It didn't seem fair that Yezierska should have to learn English before she could find a job she loved instead of a job she needed for survival.
On the otherhand, I can appreciate what the woman who was "helping" Yezierska was trying to say. America is a collective mass of many cultures, but at some point those cultures have to reach a central point. There has to be something in common for all the different groups of people to identify with. This means that people coming from other places (which is all of us, or our ancestry) have to accept parts of a new culture in addition to their own.
The saying, "When in Rome..." comes to mind. When people come to any country, they are choosing to go there and to assume or violate the norms of the culture. It is naive to think that a whole country should modify itself for the newest members. Immigrants who choose to come to America can also choose to learn English or not, but the choice is theirs. If they choose not to learn English, they are rejecting their new culture. Their culture is not rejecting them.

Railroad Standard Time

I'm sure that most of you know that the title of this story refers to the 1883 adoption of a standardized national time that would enable railroad and telegraphs to be synchronized between different locations. Some argue that this adoption was a significant historical marker of modern progress within the U.S.

So...I'm wondering about the significance of the title of Frank Chin's story as well as the symbolic import of the watch given to him by his mother. Passed down from his grandfather, the protagonist weighs the meaning of this "inheritance." His fragmented thoughts lead us through his complicated sense of his history, largely shaped by his dual identity as both Chinese and American. Why is this "gift" so problematic for him?

Reaction to Howl

In class I was one of the few people who didn't love Howl. I read it for class and then I read it again tonight before class since I got there early. And then we read it in class, too. So, I've given it a chance. It is like the three bite rule we had at my house for food you didn't know about. Try it three times, and see how it goes. After that, it was ok to say, that's not for me. I think Howl is well written. I think the word choice and images are really unique and I understand how Ginsberg did something totally new. I wouldn't mind reading Howl again if I was writing a paper about it, or had it assigned in another class. I think Howl didn't appeal to me at a basic level because Ginsberg did so well what he intended to do. He created a very strong set of images and emotions and I saw them and felt them. I just wouldn't care to do so again soon. I disagree that art has to be pretty or nice or in some way educational, but I do think it is ok to say, "I want the art with which I surround myself to make me feel good or relaxed or excited, etc." I think my life, just like a lot of college students' lives, is busy and stressful. So when I have time to take a break, I want something that doesn't contain images that are hard and sharp and dissonant. I feel like the reaction I had to Howl is much like the reaction I have from a really busy day or a really bad conversation after not enough sleep. The feelings it evoked were powerful, but depleting. I am so tempted to throw in a punn about beat poetry. I won't, but I will say, Howl is the quintessential beat poem for a reason.

Something German we don't have in English

For my Single Author Research project I took a closer look at James Weldon Johnson...one of the many contributions he made was to introduce new parts of lanuage in to American English. I started to think about why we have the words we have.
In my German class we learn so many vocabulary words that we can see in English or we can at least translate. Then, there are words that don't translate directly. For example, "gemutlichkeit" is a really nice word. In German it suggests a feeling of warmth and comfort and joy, all in one. We don't have a word that means all those things in English. Another word, one that I think it used occasionally in English (it is a word journalists love...) is "schadenfreude". It means, literally, damage happiness. In most dictionaries it is translated to mean "gloating" but really, "schadenfreude" means something different. It is the feeling you have when someone you dislike suffers a setback or misfortune...when you find a secret happiness over someone's misfortune. I was thinking, why don't we have a word in English to mean "gemutlichkeit" or "schadenfreude"? I immediately thought of our discussions about Franklin's autobiography. We have dicided that he tried to/ did set American ideals in his autobiography. He liked the idea of moderation. Don't eat too much, drink too much, sleep too much, etc. Could he also have meant not to love too much, gloat too much? Is it possible that we don't have words in American English to mean the things that "gemutlichkeit" suggest because to be that warm and fuzzy is too much? In the same way, s 'schadenfreude" too negative? It would be almost unamerican to have a feeling like that. This idea explains why even though most of us have had such a feeling at one point or another, we don't talk about it, and we would rather not admit it at all.

The American Tradition of Silent Suffering

Tonight I began training at the Rappahanock Council Against Sexual Assault. We began training by discussing some statistics about the prevalence of assault among different age groups. We learned about the sad cycle of incest and abuse among generations of families and about how few resources exist even now for people who are sufferers. I began to think about how sexual assault has impacted our culture and our American identity. We've seen in our readings that part of being ideal Americans is being able to pull ourselves out of the bad circumstances in our lives and keep going toward greatness. This way of thinking, while sometimes inspirational, hinders the process of healing because it discourages us to seek resources outside of ourselves and maybe our family. So often sexual assault is a family problem because survivors are victimized by someone they know and trust, sometimes even by someone within the family. But even now that families are less isolated than they've been in the past, men and women still have trouble asking for help for so many taboo issues like sexual assault. It has always been part of our American identity to silently overcome our personal obstacles, and while we're moving away from suffering alone, so many victims of sexual abuse and assult still cannot speak up. What does that say about our culture? Are we really as open and foreward thinking as we think we are?

If you're interested in using the resources at RCASA or to find out about volunteer opportunities you can call them at (540)371-1666 or you can email me at tizzylizzy628@hotmail.com

The House of Usher fell, and the point is???

Over a cup of tea, I read The Fall of the House of Usher. Then, I wondered, where is the allegory? This short story isn't like Young Goodman Brown where the themes are seemingly endless and the moral of the story jumps out at you like an Aesop fable. To trace my thought pattern: The Usher family destroyed themselves...because...they had incest...which caused them to all die. Huh. But, the allegory can't just be "Don't inbreed" because that wouldn't be very applicable and way too obvious, no English students are that lucky. How did the Usher family really come to their demise? (I was still drinking tea, but it was now cold from sitting on the window sill for too long) They tried to defy nature. We can make tea hot, but if it is by the less than airtight windows of Virginia Hall on a cold night, it cools quickly. The Ushers wanted to keep wealth and power within their family. I propose that the house of Usher fell because the family, even with their money and power, was not strong enough to rule the natural laws of the world.