matching tracksuits

I have not been “into” poetry for some years now. I once thought I might be a poet at heart, but I can’t even write compelling blog entries, so that is a dream long lost.

I do have to teach poetry, though, and I discovered, while teaching a unit on imagery, my new favorite poet: Billy Collins. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, he is accessible, witty, and charming.

The poem we read in class was “The Country.” While searching for an online version, I found an animated version of the poem. Then, I discovered “Forgetfulness.” It has all the elements of a poem of genius: enlightening observations, a uncommonly commonplace topic, perhaps even a cliche turned inside out.

There are several more animated poems available here.

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In a study entitled “Vanishing Shakespeare,” the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that 55 out of 70 “English departments at the U.S. News & World Report’s top 25 national universities and top liberal arts colleges, as well as the Big Ten schools and select public universities in New York and California” don’t require English majors to take a course in Shakespeare. Instead, we’re replacing the Bard with Madonna:

Increasingly, colleges and universities envision a major in “English” not as a body of important writers, genres, and works that all should know, but as a hodgepodge of courses reflecting diverse interests and approaches. See Appendix B.) After redesigning the English major at the University of Pennsylvania, for example, the department’s undergraduate hairman told The Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper that “We might not agree on what we think English is, but we could all agree that our curriculum should reflect the makeup of our faculty.” Such a philosophy results in course offerings being driven not by the intellectual needs of students, but often by the varied interests and agendas of the faculty. As a consequence, it is possible for students to graduate with a degree in English without thoughtful or extended study of central works and figures who have shaped our literary and cultural heritage.

It’s difficult for me to imagine not studying Shakespeare as an English major. Shortly after I graduated, the professor who taught the Shakespeare course at my small liberal arts college introduced a second Shakespeare course in which students spent a whole semester studying a single play, with the ultimate aim of performing it. It was offered every other year, with a more traditional, 12-play Shakespeare course offered on off years. I wish I’d had the opportunity to take both.

But not to study his work at all? “A degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. It is tantamount to fraud.”

“Vanishing Shakespeare“

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Madeleine L’Engle, author of one of the most famous books in the adolescent literature canon, A Wrinkle in Time, died last week. (Madeleine L’Engle: News)

A Wrinkle in Time was one of the first science fiction books I ever read, and it’s one that has stayed with me for twenty-some years now. I read it again in college for the required course on adolescent lit, and it was just as enchanting in my early twenties as it had been twelve or so years earlier.

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In Poland, the Catholic Church is very much against Harry Potter — sort of like religious conservatives here.

Why?

We all know the standard reasons: wizards and sorcery are simply forbidden in the Bible. It’s that simple.

Yet K pointed out the “real” reason Potter worries the Polish church. I read the BBC News article opening to her:

The seventh and final Harry Potter book has broken sales records on both sides of the Atlantic, selling 11 million copies in its first 24 hours.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US. (BBC)

She responded, “See, that’s why the Polish church is so scared of Harry Potter. That’s real power.”

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Frederick Wirth writes in Prenatal Parenting of an experiment Anthony Casper conducted at the University of North Carolina regarding parental reading and prenatal development. He had mothers read Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat to their unborn children twice a day. A few days after birth, the infants were given a chance to hear the story again. However, using a device fitted with a special nipple, the infants could change the story being read by changing the rate at which they were sucking.

As demonstrated by their sucking speed, the newborns remembered The Cat in the Hater. Furthermore, they preferred it read forward instead of backward. (Wirth, 37)

So I guess in a way I was wrong when I suggested that our daughter might prefer Shell Silverstein to Robert Frost.

Or, looking at it another way, here’s a chance to get my daughter interested in all the nerdy literature I love.

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav’nly Muse

I aim to give L a headstart on senior lit…

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In my “Currently Reading” pile of books lies Prenatal Parenting by Frederick Wirth, M.D. Most interesting so far have been the sections on fetal sensory development, particularly the development and growth of the auditory system. Wirth writes that at “twenty-two weeks of gestation the developing infant will respond to sounds from outside the womb. By twenty-eight weeks the infant responds to sound in very consistent ways.” (28) And so K talks to her walk driving to work, and I press my cheek to K’s belly nightly and tell our daughter how much we’re looking forward to meeting her.

K and I have been playing a little music box for our daughter nightly for some weeks now, but recently, we’ve added reading to the ritual.

It should have a noticeable effect:

I can always tell which of my full-term newborn infants have been read to. They have more mature orienting behavior to auditory stiumli. I can even tell which fathers have been active in reading to their unborn child. I do this by holding the infant between me and his father while we compete for the infant’s attention by calling the child’s name. If the dad has been actively involved in the reading and singing, his child will turn his head toward him, looking for the source of the sound. Invariably, when their eyes meet they both react positively. (Wirth, 29)

Often, it’s selections from Where the Sidewalk Ends, not so much because L will like it more — obviously, fetal brain development at this point is not that advanced — but because K likes Silverstein’s playful language.

Tonight, Robert Frost, concluding with one of his best, one of the best, period: “Mending Wall.” It has one of the truest passages ever written:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’

Such concerns seem largely forgotten these days.

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