Friday
It has been revealing to teach a college literature class again after a gap of two years, during which time I worked full throttle on a book where I emphasize that literature is meant to be applied more than it is meant to be interpreted.
Not that interpretation is unimportant. In fact, it helps us apply works to our lives. But if one starts with the premise that literature above all is meant to open eyes and change lives (oh, and to delight us), then the focus shifts. Don’t worry about coming up with original readings, I have been telling my students. Discuss how the works give you a way of talking about things you care about.
Once one does that, then layered symbolism becomes, not a set of hoops to leap through, but a helpful attempt to fully articulate the situation.
Having just completed the poetry section of “Introduction to Composition and Literature,” I’ve seen my students find invaluable life advice in poems by Mary Oliver, Lucille Clifton, and Adrienne Rich. I share some of the stories below, speaking sometimes in vague terms to protect the students’ privacy.
A couple of students recognized, from reflecting on Oliver’s “The Journey,” how enabling the neediness of others can stunt one’s own growth. They also took heart from Oliver assuring them that it’s possible to break free of dependent relationships. As the poet puts it,
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
–One student learned, from reading Clifton’s poem about her autistic grandson, that assisting people with disabilities can be a two-way street. One thinks one is helping others, only to learn that one is being helped in return.
–Another discovered, from Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck,” that there’s a way to articulate and process the dark feelings that arise from life having dealt one a bad hand. The student particularly liked the passage,
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
–A male student appreciated how Rich understands, in a poem like “The Knight,” the pressures upon men to be knights in shining armor—which is to say (when it comes to college men) stellar students who, upon graduation from college, land high paying jobs that make their parents proud of them. The student liked Rich’s description of the knight being pressured by “the walls of iron, the emblems crushing his chest with their weight.”
–A foreign student saw the drama of his deciding to leave his small village in a poor country and come to be educated in the United States in Rich’s “Prospective Immigrants: Please Note.” While the student is not an immigrant, he saw himself in the immigrant’s choice:
If you go through [the door]
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
–A female student gained new courage with regard to body and beauty issues after reading Clifton’s “what the mirror said.” She found inspiring the self-confidence of a woman who, although large, black and poor, can say to her image in a mirror,
listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
–Finally, there was the student who gained new insight into the confidence that people see her exuding—even though she herself doesn’t feel confident—from Clifton’s poem “questions and answers.” Clifton doesn’t provide a definitive answer but, for the student, it was enough that the poet described the situation:
what must it be like
to stand so firm, so sure?in the desert even the saguaro
hold on as long as they cantwisting their arms in
protest or celebration.
In our revision conference, we did a dive into the cactus symbol. I suggested that she stand with her eyes shut (not in my presence) and imagine herself as a saguaro (see picture above), which can grow to 20 feet in the desert and yet has a root system that goes only inches deep in the unpromising soil. I suggested she throw up one arm in defiance of all that life has thrown at her and one arm in celebration that she has triumphed in spite of it all. She reported that Clifton captures the experience perfectly.
In other words, while my student did what we ask our students to do—unpack suggestive metaphors—she was doing so in the context of a pressing question. In fact, all the students did so. It was interpretation performed in the service of an urgent purpose.