i choose this poem already....
Things Haunt
Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
California is a desert and I am a woman inside it.
The road ahead bends sideways and I lurch within myself.
I’m full of ugly feelings, awful thoughts, bad dreams
of doom, and so much love left unspoken.
Is mercury in retrograde?someone asks.
Someone answers,No, it’s something else
like that though. Something else like that.
That should be my name.
When you ask me am I really a woman, a human being,
a coherent identity, I’ll sayNo, I’m something else
like that though.
A true citizen of planet earth closes their eyes
and says what they are before the mirror.
A good person gives and asks for nothing in return.
I give and I ask for only one thing—
Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me.
Hear me. Bear the weight of my voice and don’t forget—
things haunt. Things exist long after they are killed.
Assignment Outcomes · Critically examine a culturally diverse selection of texts, (including but not limited to ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation), including those underrepresented in the Western canon. · Contribute to ongoing discussions about literary texts, building upon a diverse selection of critical interpretation. · Investigate how critical methodologies contribute to the interpretation of literary texts. · Write a clear and coherent essay free from major errors in mechanics and grammar. Introduction For our second essay, we will be focusing more closely on critical interpretations of poetry. That means you will need to use one of the following types of literary theory in your entire essay. You will be choosing one of the following poems and examining one of the aspects of literary theory below. Directions Be sure to read this page before you start on your essay: Writing about Poetry You will need to make two choices for this essay: 1. Choose ONE of the following poems to write about: Modern Haiku Langston Hughes William Butler Yeats Rosanna Deerchild Esperanza Cintrón Joshua Jennifer Espinoza Alma Luz Villanueva Wilfred Owen AND choose ONE of the following aspects of one type of literary criticism: 1. Deconstructionism: Deconstructionism has two major aspects: looking at a Binary and finding a Center Binary: Definition and Examples: As we know from the reading, "binary pairs or oppositions, consisting of two terms placed in some sort of relation to each other...one part of the pair is always given a higher cultural value than the other; one term is marked as positive and the other as negative....Naming binary opposites will usually generate a fairly common list: it might include light/dark, day/night, up/down, right/left,male/female, white/black, etc. In Western metaphysics, the first term (the one to the left of the slash) is valued over the second term (the one on the right)" (Klages 54). For the Essay: Find three examples of a binary in the poem and describe them. Why do you think this writer chose these particular opposites to compare/examine? Center: Definition and Examples: As we know from the reading, "Western philosophy has a great collection of terms that serve as centers to various metaphysical systems: being, essence, substance, truth, form, consciousness,human being, God, unconscious" (Klages 55). To further clarify:"deconstruction reads a text to see where it posits its own center, how it constructs its own system of ‘truth’ and‘meaning,’ and then looks to see where it contradicts itself "(Klages 59). (emphasis added). Here's a good example of a center: "In the Puritan system of belief, God was the center of everything; anything that happened in the world (any event, or unit, of the system) could be referred back to God as the central cause of the event. And nothing in the system was the equivalent of God – nothing could replace God at the center as the cause of all things" (Klages 57). I would also add the Sun as another example of a center in the universe. For the Essay: Analyze the center in the poem from which all ideas flow. Make your argument that this is the center by providing examples from the poem. 2. Feminism: Definition and Examples: As we know from the reading, "Poststructuralist feminist theories examine how gender is socially constructed, rather than natural, innate, or essential; they also see gender as the product of,or an illusion created by, the same structures of language that create the illusion of the ‘I’dentity." (Klages 91). To clarify further: "Since the signifiers of gender help maintain the system of binary oppositions that shape Western thought by dividing the world into ‘male’ and ‘female,’and valuing ‘male’ over ‘female,’ gender can be deconstructed,and the elements that constitute stable notions of gender can be put into play" (Klages 92) For the Essay: How is the author's gender identity revealed in the language, structures, or symbols they choose in their poems? What are some larger implications of these ideas? 3. Queer Theory: Definition and Examples: As we know from the reading, "As the prevalence of the structure of the binary opposition tells us, once you set up a category labeled ‘normal,’ you automatically set up its opposite, a category labeled ‘deviant,’ and the specific acts or identities which fill those categories then get linked to other forms of social practices and methods of social control. When you do something your culture labels deviant,you are liable to be punished for it: by being arrested, by being shamed, made to feel dirty, by losing your job, your license, your loved ones, your self-respect, your health insurance" (Klages 116). Here's some more information: "For queer theorists,sexuality is a complex array of social codes and forces, forms of individual activity and institutional power, which interact to shape the ideas of what is normative and what is deviant at any particular moment, and which then operate under the rubric of what is‘natural,’ ‘essential,’ ‘biological,’ or ‘god-given.’" (Klages 117). For the Essay:What is considered normal, and what is considered deviant in this poem? Who decided this behavior is deviant? 4. Race and Post-colonialism: Postcolonialism Definitions and Examples: As we know from the reading: "Postcolonial theory is thus centrally concerned with examining the mechanisms through which the colonizing powers persuaded the colonized people to accept a foreign culture as ‘better’ than their own indigenous methods of government and social organiza-tion. Among the most important kinds of power/knowledge brought by the colonizers was the construction of the concept of ‘race,’ and more specifically the racial binary opposition of ‘white’ and ‘other’ – be that other ‘black,’ ‘yellow,’ ‘brown,’ ‘red,’ or what-ever other color became the signifier for the ‘otherness’ of the colonized people. In the case of the United States, the ‘native’ population (once the Native Americans had been colonized or killed) was itself defined as white, a fact which deprived the colonizing British of a dominant form of power/knowledge which worked successfully with non-white colonies to produce their native inhabitants as inferior" (Klages 153). Race Definitions and Examples: More from the book: "‘Race,’ as a genetic or biological construct, does not exist. Rather,it is a signifying system wherein physical signifiers become connected with concepts of ability to create the ‘meaning’ of one’s ‘race’ appearance. As in any signifying system, these connections are arbitrary;there is no essential or provable connection between the physical signifiers of ‘race’ and the cultural conceptions (and misconceptions)which we assume those physical signifiers point to" (Klages 154). For the Essay: Name and describe three signifiers you find in the poem, and connect them to postcolonialism and/or race. Borderlands Definitions and Examples: The book "describes ‘the border’ as where two or more cultures,classes, races, ideologies, edge or confront each other. The border is both the space between cultures, classes, races, sexual orientations –the slash – and the place where they meld and mix, where they are both sides of the slash and neither side of it. This marginalized, liminal space is a space of contradictions, a space between and disruptive of defined categories of race, class, nationality, sexuality, and other identity formations" (Klages 162). For the Essay: What two or more cultures/classes/races/ideologies are confronting each other? What examples can you find in the poem? Requirements · 12-point Times New Roman font and 1” margins. · At least 1200 words. · Less than 30% similarity from turnitin.com · An introduction that sets up your analysis of the poem · A thesis which answers the question posed above using direct and concrete language · Effectively organized paragraphs with strong topic sentences and transitions · At least three quotes/examples from your chosen poem · Proper MLA page headers · Proper MLA in-text citations for all quotations from the poem · A conclusion that does not merely restate your thesis but that leaves the reader with further ‘food for thought.’ · A works cited page in correct MLA format (which does NOT count towards your page minimum)