HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND NEW YEAR

Happy holidays, Everyone!

Please finish reading A Prayer for the Dying and work on your short story when you get a chance...

Enjoy the time off, get rested and refreshed...

See you in January--Happy New Year!

Ms. Gamzon

(We'll have donuts then!)

Writing in the second person

Kate's Book Blog




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Books that make me think.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Stories in the Second Person
I’m in the middle of reading a short story collection. It’s a first collection by a young author and on the whole it seems a promising debut. There are some very strong stories in it. But there is one that has me scratching my head. It’s written in the second person and I can’t figure out why the author opted for this perspective in this story. It depicts an individual experience rich with specific detail. But rather than “she does this, she does that” or “I do this, I do that,” the author writes “you do this, you do that” and so on. What purpose does the use of the second person serve here?

It may be that despite the specificity of the experience depicted, the author is seeking to give it an air of universality. If so, I’m sceptical about the second person perspective as a device for doing so. It seems to me that an author can lay out a specific experience attributed to an individual character and in doing so convey the emotion beneath it in a way that makes the reader connect it with his or her own experience without the heavy-handed direction of addressing the character as “you.”

A related possibility is that the author is using the second person to heighten the sense of identification between reader and character. Making the main character “you” literally puts the reader in the shoes of that character. But here too I have my doubts. It seems to me that a first person story could accomplish this more effectively. A story with “I” at the centre situates the reader inside the character’s head and compels the reader to view the world through that character’s eyes. A story with “you” at the centre imposes that character’s experience on the reader from the outside. As a reader, this can make me quite belligerent. I find myself talking back to the story in childish fashion, meeting every “you did” with “no I didn’t.”

I’m not taking the position that there’s no place for the second person perspective in fiction. Indeed, one of the stories in my forthcoming collection is written in the second person. Why did I choose that perspective for that story? The “you” that the story is addressed to is not the reader but a character who features in it. It is essentially a letter from the narrator to an ex-lover. There the reader has the option of standing with the narrator who is telling the tale, or with the character to whom it is being told. Or, of course, the reader can stand outside both characters and relish the role of eavesdropper.

Another instance that I can think of where the second person can work well is in fiction in which the narrator or the author truly is addressing the reader in metafictional fashion.

Now here is the point when I start explicitly addressing this post to “you”! Do you have strong feelings one way or the other when you encounter the second person perspective in fiction? Can you offer up suggestions of novels or stories in which the second person perspective works well or of novels or stories in which you think the second person perspective fails? I’d like to grapple with this issue further and I think that a bit of research is required.
Posted by Kate S. at 9:25 AM
8 comments:

lucette said...

I think 2nd person works if it's well done--but isn't that always the way? Universality: no; no one wants to have universality crammed down her throat with youyouyou. But I do think it can generate some urgency that "I" doesn't--a narrator-reader urgency that if it's done well edges up to being pushy and intrusive, but doesn't go quite that far.
One think abt successful use of 2nd person is that if it works, you start to forget about it as you read.
All that said, I've never felt comfortable writing in it.
12/13/2006 10:16 AM
SFP said...

I generally read second person present tense stories as if the narrator were telling the story to herself. I think second person works well to get across the rawness of a story, one the narrator hasn't processed to the point that she can even tell it in the first person to other people yet. "You're an idiot," a character admonishes herself inside her head, not yet ready to admit to others, "I am an idiot."
12/13/2006 11:02 AM
litlove said...

You know, I absolutely hate the second person. I can't abide being told what to do by a narrative, or being chummily forced into intimacy with it. That being said, some canonical authors use it as a device. I believe Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night a Traveller... uses it, if memory serves me right. And Marguerite Duras used it in La Maladie de la mort (didn't mind it so much then, perhaps because Duras is such an obviously style-driven author). But I'm not fond of it, and can only accept it sparingly, if at all.
12/13/2006 2:48 PM
Pauline said...

Very interesting question! It seems that most people are quite uncomfortable with writing it or reading it... isn't that precisely what the writer wants in this story?
12/14/2006 4:19 AM
Leona said...

I saw an effective use of 2nd person in someone's as-yet-unpublished novel: the book begins with the narrator (as sfp says) telling the story to himself. The narrator at this stage seems alienated from almost everything in his day-to-day life, including himself and what he's made of his life. As he goes on his literal and metaphoric quest, he sorts a few things out. By the end of the novel, the narration has switched to first person.
12/14/2006 2:05 PM
melmoth said...

I agree with sfp. The second person can be used very effectively as internal monologue of a character. I often switch between "I" "you" and "he/she" in my fiction. In traditional narration it's actually the third person (singular or plural) that is the mark of omniscient narration, while the first person pronouns are marked by their extreme subjectivity. The second person pronoun "you" can be used as a distancing device to gain objectivity from one's subjectivity; as when the narrator is observing or commenting upon his behaviour or mental state to his or her self. In fact, the narration shifts in a wonderful way from being omniscient to being more of an observation or story one is telling to one's self.
12/16/2006 1:04 PM
Anonymous said...

A delayed remark to this post... Generally I am probably a fairly conservative reader when it comes to style and form, and hence I have never been much of a fan when it comes to 2nd person perspective. However if I should recommend one book where I do think this perspective succeds in creating a certain tension and urgency in the story, it s Gao Xinjiangs "The Bible of a lonely man" ( Disclaimer: I read the book in danish, and the title given here is my direct translation of the danish title. Furthermore, I am not sure about the spelling of his last name, but it is something like that anyway... hope you manage to find it ...)
12/17/2006 2:05 PM
David Hodges said...

I love 2nd person in poetry, where it's a common technique when combined with the imperative.

Claim your reward;
Submit your neck
To the ungrateful stroke
Of his reluctant sword,
That, starting back,
His eyes may look
Amazed at you,
Find what he wanted
Is faithful too
But disenchanted,
Your human love.

But if it's been sustained well over the length of a novel I can't think when.

The same goes for "direct address" in the theater. It served its purpose when the fourth wall needed breaking, but, oh, it can be tiresome to be talked at from the stage instead of shown something.

Wed. 12/17 2nd person short story/Prayer

1. Continue to work on your 2nd person short stories. Due: after break

2. Finish Prayer for the Dying. Test after break when we return.

3. Think about and prepare contest entries: Sokol (poem and/or story), Gannon University (up to 3 poems), Alfred University (12 pages, creative and essay)

4.Read Elizabeth's story for Friday!!!!!

A Prayer for the Dying/ 12/15

1. Read and discuss Ch. 4 and 5. Post a comment about Ch. 5.

2. Work on contest entries: Gannon University (3 poems), sokol (1poem and 1 short story), Lelia Tupper/ Alfred (12 pages, creative and essay)

3. Work on 2nd person short story (4-5 pages minimum--of course you can write more!).
Here's an alternative: write 2 or 3 short short stories like sudden fiction.

Tues. 12/9 O'Nan/Conferences

Period 1 Discuss A Prayer for the Dying and the passage you were to pick out for discussion (reading through Ch. 3)

Period 2 Conferences about poetry cycles. Begin working on a short story in 2nd person point of view.

Stewart O'Nan

1. Work on Poetry cycles--DUE FRI.

2. Go to new links about Stewart O'Nan

3. Post one of the3 poems of your poetry cycle for comments and suggestions from the class.

4. HMWK: READ CHAPTER 1 in Prayer for the Dying

Katy Lederer Poetry

Poet’s Sampler: Katy Lederer

Introduced by Gillian Conoley

I remember the first time I read some Katy Lederer poems. They were immediately intriguing lyrical, Romantic, oracular, meditative, cool, ironic, and deeply honest all at once. I liked reading them. They asked interesting questions, like is this longing? and is the flanged brain more original? The poems cast a wide net over what one could think of as a kind of tonal range of the Romantic lyric, melancholic, passionate, erotic, devoted. In a Katy Lederer poem, one will often hear these romantic tones cast in a cold, cold music, a gesture that sets everything in a sort of relief. And yet the poems escape mere irony. The speculative quality the poems have is one of utmost seriousness.

Both intelligence and beauty are present. The subject matter is usually love; one of the central concerns is recasting the language of love. And there is humor,a great generosity of humor at play along the edges of the poem, never fully taking it over, but balanced precariously among the many qualities the poems manage and allow. These poems are a delight to read. It is my pleasure to introduce them to these pages.


Morning Song

You color all. Is this longing?

Or private. Is it private to speak

in the morning, the birdsong
like knives? We sit on this bench

while this wind swirls and billows.
This setting is love, yet we sit on

this bench, yet we listen to birdsong.
This color, your brain, which is bluer

than water. I touch it, your brain,
which is cooler than water. I wonder,

your brain, when it falters will it be
so cold? We buffet one another

with our bodies, with our slackened
hearts. I put myself in it, your body,

which aches. I put myself in it, your
brain, which is cooler than water.


Morning Song

In that other place,
in youth

a calm water
broke.

The culprits were
defacialized.

Intent on getting through
the waves,

I came upon a harbinger,
a black

rotted goat, floating
in water.

In this allegory, we are here,
and here

I saw in morning light a sex
glow red.

The gulls were pressed
across

the waves, across the blue
horizon.

Stretched taut like this drum,
gusted out

like this sail, focused
out like

this eye of a lizard. On the
beach,

the white, liminal edge of
the day,

edge of the sea-squall,
aubade.
Poem
Is the flanged brain more
original?

I wonder when I find a line, do I
pick it up?

There are jumps in the mind,
little ladders

we use to escape these small
fires.

But what if the fires are too big,
and like children,

we hide from ourselves? What if
we put down

our thoughts in perfect ladderings,
but nothing

climbs them but for dull ideas?


Morning Song

It is simply a matter of syntax.
ÏIÓ ÏloveÓ Ïyou.Ó It is simply a matter

of order. The simplest words work
the best for the complex emotions:

ÏLove.Ó ÏGone.Ó ÏLoss.Ó It is morning
and we lie here on this clean, white, pleated

double bed. We are waiting for the sunrise
to unmask us of our sleep. It is lyrical

to dream like this. We ones who climb
like primates up through sleep at night

to dream of light. I dream of you. Black suitor,
gone, like sleep. Like vapid, nothing dreams.

At night these objects take on cast of shadow,
yet we sleep. At night we feel this nothing-new,

this tongue-loll, this exigent sinew, and
I think we must deceive ourselves.


The Epithet Epic

1.
Their thoughts are entirely immersed in resolution.
He resolves to consecrate it with a tree.
He opens his eyes and he finds a place fitting to planting.
It is early in the morning. When he comes he is ethical.
He will remember it. He will give it the epithet epic and leave it.

Where is he?
In the country there are two of them.
Standing immersed in the shadow of love.
Of his motives, he says they are pure.
Of the heavy silence, she thinks it is part of the trueness of their love.
In the winter his motives are altered by a storm.
The two of them purchase a knife.
The blade of it is long and thin.

He commands her to speak in direct discourse.
He indicates that he wants her to express her thoughts concisely and with precision.
He finds this romantic.

They are in the country and her bodice has been cut with the knife.
Part of it hangs off her shoulder. In the distance she hears the sound of a gunshot.
Their speech no longer serves them adequately.

2.
He walks toward her, feels her breast.
He places his lips on hers. Pulls her down. Puts his hand far up her skirt and she sighs for him.
Their skin is taut, bumpy.

He is no longer in a predicament.
She tilts her head back and moans. She lilts her voice slightly and asks him if he loves her.
He does love her. He feels a very true love for her.

He is then quite unable to continue. He is breathing too heavily and doesnÌt want to be speaking anymore.
She is also breathing heavily.
They come. They are happy.


Poem

I think of your face and of its deepest bewilderment.
It makes me sad as if the morning
were a tower or pair
of themÛhaunted and pure,
degenerate, elevated, strange of view
in solitude.

Katy Lederer edits the magazine Explosive and a series of limited-edition chapbooks under the imprint Spectacular Books. Her first book for poems, Winter Sex, was recently published by Verse Press. Gillian Conoley’s most recent book of poetry is Lovers in the Used World. She is founder and editor of the magazine Volt.

Monday, 11/24 Test/Write/Read

1. Test on Thomas and Beulah

2. Period 2---Get Stewart O'Nan's A Prayer for the Dying--begin reading over the break

3. Read Katy Lederer's poems for tomorrow's Master Class periods 2/3

4. Work on poetry cycle--Due on or before Fri. Dec. 5

Friday, 11/14 Rita Dove/Queen of the Mist

1. Read the Beulah section of Thomas and Beulah aloud, discuss, analyze.

2. Read Joan Murray's "Queen of the Mist"

3. Reader Response to a Poem:
Select one of the poems in "Thomas and Beulah". How does the poem make you feel? In what ways can you relate to the poem? What has Rita Dove with imagery, form, theme, rhythm, language, etc. to make this poem work? Any lines that particularly strike you as interesting or powerful?

4. With remaining time, work on poetry cycles.

Wednesday, Nov. 12

1. Continue to read and discuss Zoe Johnson's story

2. Thomas and Beulah. Test on Friday!

3. Work on poetry cycles. Poetry cycles due Tuesday, Nov. 25.

4. Plan on having a Master class w/ BOA poet on November 25th.

11/5 Acceptance/Concession speeches

1. Listen to Obama's acceptance speech and McCain's concession speech. think about the fact that both speeches were written for the two men by WRITERS. actually, the writers wrote two speeches that both men looked over during the past week and commented on and revised with the writers.
Aften listening to these speeches, post a personal response regarding what you felt was the most compelling aspect of the speeches--what words, phrases, moments stand out in your mind? What was the overall effect of the speech upon you, the listener?

2. POETRY CYCLE PROPOSAL: Please hand in an outlined or narrative proposal regarding your poetry cycle. What will it be about? Any thoughts about a title? A chronology? Key moments that might become poems? Is it based on your life? the life of a historical character? a totally imagined set of characters and situations?

This should be a PLAN FOR YOUR PROJECT that you can follow!

Agenda 11/3

Finish Keonia Cooper's short story---discuss

Read aloud 5 more poems in Thomas and Beulah.

Begin working on Poetry Cycle assignment:
Similar to Thomas and Beulah, consider some characters in your own life, imagined characters, or actual historical characters. Imagine the significant chronological dates in their lilves--high points and low points. consider how to construct a series of 8-10 (preferably more) poems that tell a story (narrative poetry) and explore these key moments and occasions.

• a. Your poetry cycle should consist of 8-10 poems
• b. Your poetry cycle should be accompanied by a chronology to support the key dates and occasions you chose to write about.
• c. At least two of the poems should explore the same event from two different perspectives or viewpoints (like "Courtship" in Thomas and Beulah). These poems can have the same title.
• d. Place one poem per page, single-spaced, 12 point type in a clean font and be sure to title each poem. you may want to title the entire cycle as well. Use italics for dialogue, songs, memories, etc as you observe in Rita Dove's work. Experiment with different stanzaic forms and poetic styles.
• e. Poems can, of course, be narrative or lyric, but remember that the overall cycle is a narrative and must tell a story of a life or lives although we only see "fragments" or moments/snapshots of those lives.

HMWK: Finish "Mandolin" section of Thomas and Beulah

Agenda 10/28-10/30

Begin reading Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah.

Writers Workshop: Hayley Van Dusen and Keonia Cooper "Fugitive Pieces" stories

Coming Soon Rita Dove

Rita Dove Profile Former Poet Laureate of the United States	Print Profile

"I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers."

Today, all Americans who love poetry may feel they know Rita Dove. In addition to her writing, and her television, theater and music projects, she holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Her collection of poems, Thomas and Beulah, based on the lives of her grandparents, earned her the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She is only the second African-American to win this prize.

In 1993, she was appointed to a two-year term as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She was the youngest person, and the first African-American, to receive this highest official honor in American letters.

Agenda 10/24

1. Quiz
2. Finish Bloodsucking Fiends
3. Monsters and fears--Think about the "monsters" or fears in your life. Any inspiration for
writing? What are the real fears that most of us deal with in our lives? Can your writing touch upon these issues?

Agenda 10/22

1. Continue with posting answers to Bloodsucking Fiend questions. We will discuss.

2. POST a response to the second question from Monday regarding our fascination with scary characters and the horror genre.

Agenda 10/20 Monday

Bloodsucking Fiends:

1. Look over the discussion questions for Bloodsucking Fiends. Start a discussion going by posting your answers to Questions 2, 3, and 4 of "More Questions" and responding to the comments of others.

2. What fictional or mythical characters could you possibly write about? Why do we think about ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other monstrous creatures around the Halloween season? Do you enjoy "scary" movies? Can scary and fearful personifications be dealt with humorously? As a writer, why do you think people enjoy reading or seeing movies that portray these characters?

3 HWK:Finish Bloodsucking Fiends (if you haven't already done so).

Agenda 10/08

1. Please be sure that you have posted replies to Fugitive Pieces . Answer 3 questions for credit 9/29 (most of you have posted already--thanks!)

2. Look at the questions for Bloodsucking Fiends. There are two sets of questions posted.
Please be sure you have answered one Question #1 about vampires and Jody in Bloodsucking Fiends for "blogging" credit. Post your answer.

3. Writers Workshop: Share your Fugitive Pieces short story with your workshop members.

• Make 3 copies of your story and save them into Gamzon/Contemporary Writers folder.
• Read the short stories of your writing group members.
• Write comments and highlight on your Writing workshop members' short stories.

4. Homework: Read to pg. 148 (Ch. 20) in Bloodsucking Fiends for Tues. !!!!!!

Agenda 10/06

• 1. Please post a response to the Fugitive Pieces questions--(answer 3 of them)--so that we can move on from this book.
• 2. Finish Fugitive Pieces short story! DUE TODAY!
  
• 3. Begin reading Bloodsucking Fiends. Post a response to either question #1 in the two sets of BSF questions.

More (Moore) Questions Bloodsucking Fiends

Questions for Discussion

1. Everyone has been exposed to Vampire lore, either through books, movies, or television. How does Jody''s transformation into a vampire differ from how you always thought someone became a vampire? In what ways is it similar?

2. Jody and Tommy''s relationship moves at a rather alarming pace, and within a week of meeting each other, they are in love. Is love at first sight possible? Or in their case, at first bite? Why do they connect so instantly?

3. The book is filled with religious connotations, whether intentional or not -- from the mention of "the pyramid" (The TransAmerica Tower), to the use of crosses to ward off vampires, to the Animals being referred to as "Crusaders." How intentional do you think this was on the part of the author? What do these add to the story?

4. The book touches upon the idea of euthanasia -- the practice of ending the life of a terminally ill person in a painless or minimally painful way in order to limit suffering -- in that Elijah Ben Sapir, the vampire who creates Jody, only kills those who are about to die or whose lives are limited in some way. What are your feelings about "mercy killings"? Do vampires have an ethical standard?

5. When Simon threatens Jody after she refuses to turn him into a vampire, she ends up killing him in the front of his truck. Jody then blames the killing on Elijah, however, and never confesses it to Tommy. Why not admit to it when Elijah has been restrained?

6. Why are Jody and Tommy "set up" as the culprits in the recent crimes? What would it mean if they were caught? Why do these crimes need to be pinned on anyone? Couldn''t the criminals cover up the crimes in another way?

7. By the end of the novel, both detectives -- Cavuto and Rivera -- begin to believe in the supernatural and that vampires could exist. To what extent do you believe in the supernatural, either vampires, ghosts, or even just that some people may or may not have psychic ability?

8. Tommy uses Anne Rice''s The Vampire Lestat, which of course is fiction, as his "Owner''s Manual" for learning about Jody and her new powers. Discuss the author''s use of fiction within fiction in order to tell a story. Have any members of your group read The Vampire Lestat? How do the two books compare?

9. Once Jody becomes a vampire, she finds that she has many new and different abilities, including superstrength, heightened senses, and superspeed. Which do you think is her most needed new superability?

10. Though Jody finds herself immortal, she also retains many of her normal human characteristics and failings, including vanity, fear, anger, and disgust. Discuss how even though she has become immortal, and can protect herself from many of the regular dangers of everyday life, she is still unable to disassociate herself from normal human emotion.

11. At the end of the book, the reader is left with the impression that Jody is about to turn Tommy into a vampire. If she does change him into a vampire, how do you imagine their story continues? How would it continue if she does not?

Enhancing Your Bookclub

1. Would you be willing to give up your normal life -- being able to go out in the daylight, not being immortal -- in order to become a vampire? You''d be able to live forever, have superstrength and -speed, among many other different gifts. Would it be worth it? Why? Why not?

2. To read more about vampires, take a look at the following titles: The Society of S by Susan Hubbard, Vamped by David Sosnowski, The Book of Renfield: A Gospel of Dracula by Tim Lucas, and Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Costa.

3. Learn more about vampires: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampires.

Bloodsucking Fiends Discussion Questions

BLOODSUCKING FIENDS - Book Guide Questions

1. Jody is totally unprepared for being a vampire. How do you think you would react to waking up one day having been changed into a vampire? Would you try to live a normal life? Once you adjusted to being a vampire, do you think youd want to change back into a human being if the opportunity was offered?

2. Jody has obviously had a tough time with the men in her life; do you think this affects how she reacts to becoming a vampire? Was the way Jody thought about herself shaped by how men reacted to her? How did you feel when Jody started to come into her own as a vampire and enjoy her powers?

3. The Emperor seems genuinely concerned about the well-being of the residents of his city, despite the dire circumstances in which he lives. What does this say about mental illness? Do you think the Emperor went crazy from being homeless, or is he homeless because he is crazy? Is it possible that being crazy isnt always such a bad thing?

4. Toward the end of the book, it looks as if Jody may run off with the old vampire. Did you think that was a possibility? If she did it for the right reason (i.e., to save Tommy), how do you think that would have worked out?

5. At the end of the book, it seems that Jody has decided to turn Tommy into a vampire. Where does their life go from there? Will they stay together? Will they stay in San Francisco? If not, how do you handle travel as a vampire, short of owning a multi-million dollar yacht? Where would you send them?
_________________

Christopher Moore Website

Go to www.chrismoore.com

Agenda 10/2

1. Discuss Fugitive Pieces Part II and post replies

2. Pickup Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends

3. Continue working on short story and play. Short story is due on Monday.

Agenda 9/29

Period 1: Work on short stories. Due Monday, Oct. 6.

Think about entering writing contests: Hollins, Bennington, Scholastic

Check out Hollins and Bennington websites.

Period 2: Continue reading Fugitive Pieces.
Post a response to 3 of the following questions:

10. What does Fugitive Pieces say about the condition of being an immigrant? Jakob never feels truly at home anywhere, even in Greece. Ben's parents feel that their toehold in their new home is infinitely precarious, an emotion that communicates itself to Ben. Does Michaels imply that real integration is impossible?

11. Can you explain the very different reactions Ben's parents have had to their experience in the Holocaust? What in their characters has determined the differing ways they respond to grief and loss?

12. The relationship between Ben and Naomi is a troubled one. Why is he angry at her for her closeness to his parents and her attention to their graves? Why does he reject her by leaving for Greece without her? How can you explain his intense desire for Petra--is his need purely physical? How do Petra and Naomi differ? What is the significance of their names?

13. Science has as important a role in the novel as poetry and music. Why is geology so important to Athos, meteorology to Ben? Does science represent a standard of disinterested truth, or does it merely symbolize the world's terrifying contingency?

14. Why might Jakob have named his collection of poems Groundwork, and in what way does that title relate to his life? Jakob calls his young self a "bog-boy" [5]. Why does Ben take such an interest in the preserved bog people he reads about [221]?

15. The last line of the novel is Ben's: "I see that I must give what I most need." What does he mean by this? What does he most need, what will he give, and to whom?

16. What is the significance of the novel's title? What do "pieces," or "fragments," mean within Michaels's scheme? Where in the novel can you find references to fragments?

Agenda 9/26

Double Period writing short stories.

Continue to read Fugitive Pieces. Finish Part II for Tuesday.

Coming Soon! Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley Dumpster with a badly burned arm, an aching neck, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realizes the decision has been made...

Agenda 9/24

Discuss Part I Fugitive Pieces.
Work on stories.
For next Tues. 9/30---Finish Fugitive Pieces, go over the Reader's Guide questions.
Friday will be a writing day.

Quiz--Reading

A. Identify the following characters in Fugitive Pieces. In a few sentences, describe the role they play in Jakob's life and how they contribute to the narrative.

1. Athos
2. Bella
3. Alex
4. Michaela
5. Maurice and Irena
6. Kostas and Daphne

or

B. What has been Jakob's struggle as a boy and as an adult throughout Part I of the novel? How is it finally resolved? Explain the significance of the ending of Part I.

Naomi Shihab Nye/Go to link

Reading at Eisenhart Auditorium---Sunday, Sept. 28
www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/174

Reading Assignments

For Mon. 9/22/08

Finish Part I of Fugitive Pieces


Read to page 195. Read Chapters Phosphorus, Terra Nullius, the Gradual Instant.

Read this short article

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2007/09/07/tiff-fugitive-pieces-cast-submit-their-book-reports.aspx

Thursday 9/18 Discuss and respond

1. "I already knew the power of language to destroy, to omit, to obliterate," says Jakob. "But poetry, the power of language to restore: this was what both Athos and Kostas were trying to teach me" [79]. What instances does the novel give of the destructive power of language? In what ways does writing—both the writing of poetry and of translations—help to heal and restore Jakob? Does silence—the cessation of language—have its own function, and if so, what might it be?

2. "We were a vine and a fence. But who was the vine? We would both have answered differently" [108]. Here Jakob is speaking of his relationship with Athos; of what other relationships in the novel might this metaphor be used? Does Michaels imply that dependence is an integral part of love?

Quickwrite

For your first post, please respond to the following quote from p. 95, Fugitive Pieces:

"Language. The numb tongue attaches itself, orphan, to any sound it can: it sticks, tongue to cold metal. Then, finally, many years later, tears painfully away.
There's a heavy black outline around things separated from their names. My lame vocabulary consisted of the variety of staples--bread, cheese, table, coat, meat--as well as a more idiosyncratic store. From Athos I'd learned the words for rock strata, infinity, and evolution--but not for bank account or landlord. I could carry my own in a discussion of volcanoes, glaciers, or clouds in Greek or English, but didn't know what was ,eant by a "cocktail" or a 'Kleenex.'"

What words are "staples" in your vocabulary? What words are "special" in your vocabulary?
What words remain elusive for you? As a writer, what special significance does language have for you?

Fugitive Pieces Writing Assignment

A major writing assignment for this Marking Period is a short story utilizing some of the techniques you are exploring while reading Anne Michael's Fugitive Pieces.

Let's call this assignment "The Story in Fragments":

1. Your short story should be at least 5 pages long, double spaced, 12 point standard font.
2. Traditionally, it should have a central character (protagonist) dealing with some sort of conflict (self vs. self, self vs. other, self vs. society, self vs. nature, etc.).
3. Nontraditionally, the story should exhibit some of the storytelling devices we have been exploring: stream-of-consciousness, memory, poetic prose, flashback, flash forwards, nonlinear structure, excerpts from history, descriptive verbal photographs of people and places, songs, poems, etc.
4. Along the way, be prepared to share drafts and discuss your story with members of the class.

Due date: Week of Oct. 6 (for peer review)

Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces