Who Wrote That Thing
On December 3, the wind changed overnight, and it was winter. Until then the autumn had been mellow, soft.
DuMaurier, The Birds
What is one of the key issues Ted Hughes' Crow deals with?
How does Audre Lorde's "The Brown Menace" compare to Major Jackson's "Pest"?
Pest uses the comparison between bugs and humans to show how the police officer in the text is viewing the speaker of the poem.
Lorde turns the metaphor on its head and uses the roach as a symbol for survival.
Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank -
A horror beyond redemption.
The agony did not diminish.
Man could not be man nor God God.
The agony
Grew.
this needs to include something about grief and how Ted Hughe's was questioning the nature of the world
But most disturbing of all, in Blue's large brown eyes was a new look, more painful than the look of despair: the look of disgust with human being, with life; the look of hatred. And it was odd what hatred did. It give him, for the first time, the look of a beast.
There needs to be something about race, about humanity, about our obligations to non-human beings
in your final, this would be a great text to compare with Black Beauty
[...] there was a different look in his eyes. A look of independence, of self-possession, of inalienable horseness.
Alice Walker, Am I Blue
What is the historical context surrounding Crow?
written in the 70s, post war, also written after the death of Hughe's wife and daughter
What is some of the historical context behind "The Brown Menace"
It's important to know that Audre Lorde was an intersectional feminist poet and an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.
there should be something here about structure and about how the jaguar is able to transcend his cell
Black and white, jackdaw and gull, mingled in strange partnership, seeking some sort of liberation, never satisfied, never still. Flocks of starlings, rustling like silk.
It would be great if you could have something about structure and alliteration here!
The smaller birds were at the window now. He recognized the light tap-tapping of their beaks and the soft brush of their wings. The hawks ignored the windows. They concentrated their attack upon the door.
DuMaurier, The Birds
What is one of the key issues in Ted Hughe's "The Jaguar"?
imprisonment, the autonomy of animals
this poem was big for the animal rights movement!
What are some of the key issues in The Birds? Historical context?
Fear of swarms, fear of foreign invasion, post WWIi context, post blitz
Hearing it, too, the cop behind me shoved me
aside for he was an entomologist
in a former lifetime & he know the many
song structures of cicadas, bush crickets &
fruit flies
what argument is this text making about the relationship between the speaker and the cop?
"I'll smoke that last cigarette," he said to his wife. "Stupid of me - it was the one thing I forgot to bring back from the farm."
something about how the end times have come, how this is the moment he will need the most comfort. something about the blitz
When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven.
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.
But Crow . . Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing Heaven and earth together -
Ted Hughes, poems from Crow
What is one of the key issues in Major Jackson's "Pest"?
What are some of the key issues in The Pride of Baghdad?
you learn to honor me
by imitation
as I alter—
through your greedy preoccupations
through your kitchen wars
and your poisonous refusal—
to survive.
there needs to be something here about the reappropriation of the roach comparison towards empowerment here
The sight of the kitchen reassured him. The cups and saucers, neatly stacked upon the dresser, the table and chairs, his wife's roll of knitting on her basket chair, the children's toys in a corner cupboard.
something about the comfort Nat is taking in human technology, something about how this counteracts what is happening with the swarms of birds
Call me
your deepest urge
toward survival
call me
and my brothers and sisters
in the sharp smell of your refusal
Audre Lord, The Brown Menace
What is some of the historical context behind Major Jackson's "Pest"?
Major Jackson is a contemporary poet and the context of this work should be familiar to you - it has happened during your lifetime!
What is the historical context surrounding The Pride of Baghdad?
The Gulf War, The Iraq War
And I thought, yes, the animals are forced to become for us merely "images" of what they once so beautifully expressed.
there needs to be something here about race, about how animals are treated in modernity, how the human/animal barrier is not robust
Crow
Decided to try words.
He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack-
Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained,
With strong teeth.
You could not find a better bred lot.
He pointed out the hare and away went the words
Resounding.
Crow was Crow without fail, but what is a hare?
It converted itself to a concrete bunker.
The words circled protesting, resounding.
something about language, something about how language is unable to define things (maybe the grief Hughes was feeling after the death of his immediate family), something about the structure.