Complacencies of the peignoir...

     I was first exposed to the poems of Wallace Stevens in my Modern American Poets class during a past undergrad semester. I fell madly in love with him. Amidst Plath, Lowell, Moore, and Bishop, Stevens stood out to me through his beautiful verse and imagery. Stevens Poem, "Sunday Morning", has really become one of my favorite poems and piece of literature for that matter. The poem is a juxtaposition between christian ideologies and finding a divine fulfillment within oneself and in nature. The speaker of the poem is a female, lounging in the late Sunday morning sun: "Complacencies of the peignoir, and late/ Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,/ And the green freedom of a cockatoo/ Upon a rug". She finds pleasure in her outstretching day, breakfast, and the natural world around her. Her mind wanders to the values, issues, and moral discoveries of Christianity and what she needs to feel divine fulfillment: "Why should she give her bounty to the dead?/ What is divinity if it can comes/ Only in silent shadows and in dreams?".The speaker urges that she can find the holiness she needs in the natural beauty of the world around her which should be viewed as heaven.
     This poem  has spoken to me on a deeper level and stayed with me for many years. It is a poem I revisit often and it always seems just as new and beautiful the first time I encountered it. The poem has eight stanzas which move the reader through the progression and juxtaposition of the the woman's thoughts and feelings. Below are stanzas one, two, and four, which are my favorites. Enjoy!

I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.


IV

She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

"Flowers For Algernon"

      I was lucky enough to be apart of the "Flowers For Algernon" unit when student teaching. This is one of the most touching stories I have ever read, and it was even more rewarding to see how this story touched my students' lives. "Flowers for Algernon" is written by Daniel Keyes and was later expanded into a novel. It is a science fiction tale about Charlie, a man who was born mentally slow (I wouldn't say completely non functioning as he does have a job). People often make fun of him, pull pranks on him, and down right torture him for his "slowness". Through Charlie's night school classes he meets Miss Kinnien, his teacher, who is also involved in science and psychology. She admits Charlie into a special program where he meets Algernon. Algernon is a little white mouse that was born "slow".  However, Algernon received a brain surgery which has made him smart. Charlie subsequently receives the same operation and begins to progress to the point of pure genius. I must warn you-- this story does not have a happy ending!

      For the unit, we purchased a little white mouse for a class pet and raffled our "Alegernon" off at the end of the unit. We also conducted many free writes prompting critical thinking questions and class discussions such as "Would you have an operation to make yourself smarter? Why or Why not?". We also discussed how Charlie was treated differently before and after the operations. The story is told through Charlie's journals. We see his spelling and sentence structure change throughout the story. This allowed the students to see Charlie's progress after the operation. After reading the story, it was clear that my students' were touched and would think differently about their peers and people in general who suffer from disabilities. This story is a great tool for teachers to express many literary devices and discovering humanity in general.

You're Such a Doll!

One of my all time favorite novels is Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. Published in 1966, Valley of the Dolls was the first "chic lit" novel of its' time. It sold nearly 30 million copies making Susann the first woman to achieve this many book sales. Valley was considered quiet risqué, as teenage girls would find themselves hiding in their closets, reading, bathed in candlelight. The Three protagonists, Jennifer, Anne, and Neely Spend most of the novel struggling to chace what is nearly always out of reach. Their internal and external struggles highlight the plot line with juicy love affairs and later, their affliction with "dolls" (Speed pills and sleeping pills). The old Hollywood glamour is contagious. In fact, Susann caught some heat from Hollywood because the three protagonists aptly resemble the late Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, and Brigitte Bardot. Susann then paved the way for other female authors such as Jackie Collins and EL James, the author of my beloved Fifty Shades. Susann's other books Once is Not Enough and The Love Machine are equally fabulous in their own right!

What a Novel Idea...

Gallo said it best in his article, How Classics Create an Aliterte Society, "I'd like to see the love of reading listed as the number one goal of the English curriculum at every grade in all school systems. What a revolutionary idea!". I teach novels to foster the love of reading in my students. In order to really foster this love of reading, we need to start out our school years with fresh new books to peak our students' interest from the get go. By introducing young adult novels into the classroom we can, as Gallo states, "teach the same literary concepts and develope the same analytical skills, but perhaps in a better way" (36). Novels have always given me the ability to explore magic, vampires, court hearings, and unforgettable romances. They have taken me to Iraq, Europe, Paris, New York, and London. I want to teach novels to give my students the sense of adventure, fulfillment, and enjoyment novels have always given me.