The mad lib exercise was a very interesting experiment with words; the major aspect that jumped out at me was the simplicity of what was happening. We do not really ever take into consideration the sensitivity of poetry and how even the slightest change alters pretty much everything. So the word that I think made the biggest difference was the changing of the words “plums.” “This Is Just To Say” goes from this snarky poem about someone eating plums to almost anything else in just a click. By altering the plums the poem immediately changes moods with its infinite potential to become something else. It was certainly jarring to see it go from “I have eaten / the plums” to “I have eaten / the heads.”

I’m sure this would be a fun tool to use on poetry by writers like Edgar Allan Poe. In that, I feel like deformance is a very strange way to look at poems and literature from different angles. Being able to generate what is essentially the same piece under different circumstances can enhance your perspectives on tiny details of the same poem. However, though this may be helpful to plenty of people analyzing certain works, it may totally backfire for others. I feel as though using a method of deformance could be very counterproductive for people who are already scatter brained. This method presents you with infinite alternatives to the original work you read and that could easily overwhelm many types of learners. If you can manage it though, by all means use it, I believe it has potential to be super helpful in understanding literature.

If you all couldn’t tell from previous posts, I love writers who discuss the social constructs and problems developed by the church. In “A Little BOY Lost,” by William Blake, we receive a telling of a story about a young boy who is praying to his God, when a priest overhears him and punishes him. The second stanza begins the story with “And Father, how can I love you, / Or any of my brothers more?” (Lines 6-7), which can be interpreted as that moment in all of our lives where we begin to question what our beliefs actually are. His priest overhears his prayer and does not approve of his questioning God, so he yanks him right out of his prayer. Later Blake writes “They strip’d him to his little shirt. / And bound him in an iron chair. / And burn’d him in a holy place.” (20-22). These clergymen are punishing a young boy basically for stepping outside the line and thinking on his own, and it’s not just a slap on the wrist. He’s being tortured. Blake repeats the line “The weeping parents wept in vain” (19/24) in the final two stanzas to emphasize the lack of mercy on this child for questioning God. It’s also reflects on how often in history people are burned in the name of religion.

Looking at the engravings of the poem Blake did, we actually notice a shift as he repeats the drawing. With each engraving done, the flames and smoke surrounding the words become much more heavily emphasized and have an increase in contrast. Also, notice the shadows casts on the praying figures and how it grows darker and darker only to fade again. The figures in the images are almost being engulfed in the flame that is religion.

An archive changes how we study literature because we are able to call upon several other works of the same category or by the same writer almost instantaneously to support any claims we may make. Also, unlike a textbook or anthology, it is constantly being updated and much more widely available to students/scholars everywhere.

In “A Ballad of Religion and Marriage,” by Amy Levy, our writer challenges the widespread tradition set up by the church generations ago. Levy writes this ballad in response to the treatment of women who are not married off by a specific point in their lives. They are given the title of “spinster,” or more specific to the Victorian era, “fallen woman.” A fallen woman was considered to have lost her innocence and value, which is a concept Levy wants to argue against. She writes lines such as “Monogamous, still at our post, / Reluctantly we undergo” (Lines 9-10), which can be interpreted to state how we are monogamous creatures unwillingly because we are to follow these rules and traditions imposed upon use by religion. Another thing to notice, later in the piece Levy writes “The flame of love shall glance and glow. / Nor let nor hindrance man shall know” (20-21). One could interpret this to say that no love’s glow will be obstructed by the religious standards, meaning that same-sex love will be valid in society.

Lastly, there is almost a “slanted” repetition of the final line in each stanza. A variation of “Marriage must go the way of God” (16) is repeated and I believe Levy wrote it that way to create a sense of chanting throughout the work. I perceive the line meaning that the concept of marriage must go where “God” is, meaning the afterlife, death. Levy’s piece overall expresses the peace and equality in the fall of the ideal set up by religion and marriage, an end to shame and oppression.

Reading through “The Weary Blues,” by Langston Hughes, I definitely interpreted it as a slow, peaceful piece. There is a presence of a lot of long, dragged out “oo” sounds, so I got the relaxed tone from that. However, it wasn’t until I heard the piece spoken by Hughes himself that I picked up on the very depressing connotations of its content.  The first line itself sets the entire tone for the poem. Hughes writes “Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,” drowsy is actually the exact word I would use to describe the rest of Hughes’ reading of the piece. He speaks in a slow and unsteady form.  Alongside drowsy, syncopated also describes the sound the poem makes as it is spoken. Syncopated means that the beats are displaced so that strong beats become weaker and the tone Hughes is speaking in is very weak.  Hughes maintained the same emotion throughout the reading, very slow, weak, and weary.

I also noticed that Hughes’ tone goes well with what he is describing in the poem. His tone also expresses a form of melancholy, a term he uses in line seventeen. Melancholy meaning sadness, he is definitely expressing some kind of mournfulness. Perhaps Hughes is using the sad pianist in the poem to represent his own self? The pianist “moans” his tunes about how he has nobody in the world, even wishing for death. So I hear it as Hughes heavily relating to this man’s emotion by “moaning” his own tune through “The Weary Blues” itself.

Approximately 6.7% of Americans over the age of eighteen years old are affected by depression in one year’s time. That may not seem like much, but that equals roughly 21.3 million people. Even more people that that experience severe anxiety.  10% of teenagers and 40% of adults have an anxiety disorder of some kind, equaling about 127.56 million people in the United States. People don’t necessarily like to talk about these subjects because they do not understand it and people who experience symptoms don’t talk about it because it means that there is something “wrong” with them. The reality is that there are many people experiencing the same exact thing.

At the 2014 National Poetry Slam held in Oakland, CA Sabrina Benaim performed her piece, “Explaining My Depression to My Mother,” which now has been seen by millions. Benaim performs this piece as a conversation between her Mother and herself. It shows the missed connection between someone trying to explain feelings of anxiety and depression to someone who cannot relate or understand. Everything about the performance emphasizes the effects of anxiety and depression. The performance starts at a slow, calm pace, but very quickly Benaim begins to pick up the pace the same way one’s anxiety escalates out of nowhere. On top of speaking faster, she begins to develop a wobble in her words. The nervousness is represented in her words, explaining what is beginning to physically happen to her. Her body eventually begins to shake as well, she develops a nervous twitch, and her voice gets louder and louder. She uses excellent similes and metaphors to describe the feelings of depressions grip.

Benaim describes the nervous tendencies beautifully with the line “my mouth a bone yard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves.” She repeatedly uses the term “hollow” to describe herself (example: “the hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat”) and how she feels often. Her Mother’s side of the conversation is attempting and failing at understanding such emotions, thinking it is on her daughter to try and be happy when that’s not at all how it works. In the final moments of the performance, Benaim burst out in frustration, but not at her Mother’s lack of understanding, but at herself for being this way. Sabrina Benaim properly expressed what people all over experience every day of their lives in a matter of 3 minutes in this incredible performance.