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.
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8 comments:
I like the poem Dusting by Rita Dove. I can relate to this poem because I too go through memories in my head a lot. I have gone through my old belongings and been brought back through time. "...patient among knickknacks,/the solarium a rage/ of light, a grainstorm/ as her gray cloth brings/dark wood to life." This part of the poem is definitely an ode to the many afternoons I've spent alone or with family going through pictures and objects and secret journals.
Rita Dove uses lots of imagery, having Beula wipe away dust to reveal the past, relive a date she'd had with a boy named Maurice years earlier. The language is appropriate and beautiful; phrases like, "rippling wound", "each dust stroke a a deep breath", "locket of ice", "crests gleam", etc.
One more line that I thought was really good was "...she rushed/ the bowl to the stove, watched/ as the locket of ice/ dissolved and he/ swam free."
I love the peom Obedience. When i read it i thought of me thinking about me identity and how i could find it. I like the line Her body's no longer tender, but her mind is free. Rita Dove meant that she know realize taht she has a husband and children. Also she need to live life as it is.
MotherHood
I especially like this poem because i can relate to a mother being over protctive of her child. My mother as very protective of me and this poem reminded me of her. This poem was kind of sad because it was a bulah's nightmare and it seem as though she was afraid of loosing her baby and she didnt want that to happen. My favorite line in the poem "the small wild eyes go opaque with confusion and shame, like a childs."
I really liked the poem Daystar. It really captures the moment when Beulah is feeling unhappy and accomplished. At this point Beulah seemed to be a little overwhelmed with her life because she feels like she hasn't accomplished any of her goals. Also there is a sense that her children have become a barrier between herself and her dreams. Don't get me wrong when I say her children have become a barrier. She does love her children but she just isn't satisfied with the way things turned out. I also get a sense that she loses that connection she once had with her husband; she was not enjoying the sexual intimacy they shared.
3). "Daystar"
I love the quiet honesty of this poem. Dove uses descriptive details to tell the story of Beulah's motherhood. This poem explores the mundaneness of everyday life for Beulah. She only has a short time in the afternoon to herself, which she spends dreaming about her lost wish (to go to Europe). Dove is a very subtle poet. She uses imagery to tell the reader what is going on, and where they are in the characters' lives. In "Daystar", there are images of "diapers steaming on the line" and "a doll slumped behind the door", which show the readers that Beulah is a mother with young children. The use of the word "lurch" to describe Thomas and Beulah's lovemaking shows the readers that there is no romance in their love life -- it is empty sex. This poem really just shows the sad typicality and (as said above) emptyness of Beulah's homelife. She wants something more.
Great comments on poems:
Hayley, "Dusting" is one of my favorite poems, too. It's a great literal and figurative metaphorical image.
Rasheed, do you think things change for a woman when she gets married and has children? Did Dove want us to think about how Beulah lost her "freedom" and dreams in order to became "Obedient"?
Denisha, "Motherhood" is a poem that I will never forget. Imagine the fear that a young mother has about the dangers her baby might face and how she must protect it!
Hannah and Pendle, excellent interpretations of the poem "Daystar." Yes, there is a barrier
between Beulah and her family. She still needs to be able to dream and
imagine a different life. Dove is subtle as she creates a sense of Beulah's inner frustrations through language.
"Straw Hat"
The first time I read this poem I was oberwhelmed by this image: "To him, work is a narrow grief/ and the music afterwards/ is like a woman/ reaching into his chest/ to spread it around." Still, when I read this poem, I find shivers of pleasure running up my spine every time I come to this image. Dove's description of grief as "narrow" is delightfully accurate, and makes Thomas's pain seem acute, rather than blunt.
The poem opens with a series of striking images: "the saw-toothed leaves of and oak" and "the moon's bald eye opposing." In this poem, Rita Dove is presenting us with a picture of Thomas's life as a traveler and worker after Lem's death. The poem is pierced with images of Thomas's restlessness, his inability to sleep or shake off the sharp sting of sorrow that he feels after Lem's death. The images in this poem were incredible; for me, they were some of the most striking in the cycle.
I like the poem "The Stroke". The imagery she uses about Thomas's take on death and how he thought it was Lem pulling him into death was very powerful. I think this poem also gives the reader a strong sense of how Thomas would actually be happy in death (he says it was like a daydream about the summer Beulah was pregnant with their first child -- a happy time for him)
The first stanza of this poem is especially my favorite because of how she describes his stroke as someone squeezing his hand so tight that he falls to his knees and Death tells him to get up and keep going. I love this image.
zoe c
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