I tried for many years (often unsuccessfully, alas) to encourage students to apply the hook principle even in composing their mundane academic essays. I would acknowledge that I was "hired sympathy," but I advised them to ask themselves, as they wrote, why anyone (including their teacher) would or should care about what they had written. Otherwise their compositions would be predictable, forgettable boilerplate. Needless to say, I still got a lot of boilerplate.
I'm sure I was as guilty as anyone of beginning with "Down through the ages of time..." I recall a particularly encouraging conversation about Whitman (an essay I have in a box somewhere still).
If I might reverse our roles slightly, I'm curious what it was about Edward Taylor's poetry that answered the "so what" question for you? I confess that as much as my graduate professor tried to get me interested in the political dimensions of Michael Wigglesworth's verse, the faint (imaginary?) suggestion of homoeroticism was not quite enough for me.
And more directly to the "so what" question, Taylor intrigued me because he alternatingly embodies and calls into question our assumptions about American Puritanism. His work is a reminder that taking the individual human factor into account often complicates or even confutes our big picture assumptions about other times--especially our assumptions about what we take to be the rigid ideologies of earlier eras.
Fair points. Anne Bradstreet does this, too, perhaps most subversively in "The Author to Her Book" and "The Flesh and the Spirit," where worldly appetites get some full-throated verse. After studying the Puritans for many years, though, I'm not sure the conventional assumptions are that wide of the mark. Sure, there were individuals who managed rich inner lives among the Young Goodman Browns. But there were also the Mathers (every bit as bad as advertised) and figures like Mary Rowlandson whose rigidity couldn't even be shaken by long captivity. I often marveled at Rowlandson's phrase "strange providence" for disasters or hardships. Blessings were proof of God's favor, but not even open warfare could cause her to reflect on how her community might have brought woe upon itself -- in that case, an Indian attack (reprisal for Puritan aggressions) was just God testing those he ostensibly loved. Plenty of that closed loop thinking alive yet today.
Wigglesworth has always been too heavy a lift for me too--not nearly enough return on time invested. In my view, though, Taylor is in a very different league. His thickly doctrinal writing defending "the Old New England Way," whether in prose or poetry, can seem quaint, fussy, and even potentially dangerous (how could people actually fight, die, and kill over these apparently subtle theological differences?). A number of his "Preparatory Meditations," on the other hand, are poetic firecrackers, dazzling and surprising in their imagery, in the mode of Herbert and Donne--though this kind of poetry was already old-fashioned when Taylor was writing. Taylor isn't afraid of showing us his poetic playfulness, sensuousness, and extravagance, which I liked and enjoyed.
Fully agree. There's some nice fatherly love in his poems about children. The Quaker in me also likes "Upon a Wasp..." -- though I don't need the sun to be a metaphor for anything other than an earthly truth.
Agreed! On the other side of the parental coin is the searing anguish of "Upon Wedlock and Death of Children," which offers no sweet comfort in benign Providence, only hard-won resignation to and acceptance of what can't be helped or changed. And I love the wild, unapologetic honesty of
"[When] Let by rain." Not much easy theological or emotional resolution there!
I agree with Claudia. Just after the last bullet, you use the phrase “mostly in isolation,” which sounds like an extension of the bullet. The last bullet suggests to me that a book on a masculine job (fatherhood) offers a version of masculinity that is less gender-isolated, more androgynous and community-oriented. That may not hold, but the last bullet makes me think we’ll get into soul-searching and courage, and maybe fresh pictures of male community, mediated by fatherhood. This is also related to the Y about divorce.
You’ve got me thinking that one of the heartaches of a bad co-parenting/marriage relationship is a man assigning himself a “traditional” role that leaves the woman isolated with everything else. On the other hand, couples who co-parent well are not isolated. I’m fixing on “isolation,” clearly.
I love these possibilities. Thank you! Just who assigns who which role and how assumptions intersect with control is a separate question. You make a great point about how miserable isolation is no matter who experiences it. Breaking that silence is a good reason for this book.
Ah, the hook! During a brief stint in advertising and PR, it was always about the hook...and then the payback. Today, I think more about the story or the poem, and whether people will read it for what it is.
Sounds like we agree. I'm using the term slightly differently here. A hook that holds has real substance to it -- more than the attention-getter that the term typically implies. So if you find that a story or poem holds you, "what it is" runs well below the surface.
Thanks! I do think of writing as growth-enhancing by definition. Discovery will be a big part of this for me. It's the old truism attributed (perhaps falsely) to E.M. Forster, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"
I tried for many years (often unsuccessfully, alas) to encourage students to apply the hook principle even in composing their mundane academic essays. I would acknowledge that I was "hired sympathy," but I advised them to ask themselves, as they wrote, why anyone (including their teacher) would or should care about what they had written. Otherwise their compositions would be predictable, forgettable boilerplate. Needless to say, I still got a lot of boilerplate.
I'm sure I was as guilty as anyone of beginning with "Down through the ages of time..." I recall a particularly encouraging conversation about Whitman (an essay I have in a box somewhere still).
If I might reverse our roles slightly, I'm curious what it was about Edward Taylor's poetry that answered the "so what" question for you? I confess that as much as my graduate professor tried to get me interested in the political dimensions of Michael Wigglesworth's verse, the faint (imaginary?) suggestion of homoeroticism was not quite enough for me.
And more directly to the "so what" question, Taylor intrigued me because he alternatingly embodies and calls into question our assumptions about American Puritanism. His work is a reminder that taking the individual human factor into account often complicates or even confutes our big picture assumptions about other times--especially our assumptions about what we take to be the rigid ideologies of earlier eras.
Fair points. Anne Bradstreet does this, too, perhaps most subversively in "The Author to Her Book" and "The Flesh and the Spirit," where worldly appetites get some full-throated verse. After studying the Puritans for many years, though, I'm not sure the conventional assumptions are that wide of the mark. Sure, there were individuals who managed rich inner lives among the Young Goodman Browns. But there were also the Mathers (every bit as bad as advertised) and figures like Mary Rowlandson whose rigidity couldn't even be shaken by long captivity. I often marveled at Rowlandson's phrase "strange providence" for disasters or hardships. Blessings were proof of God's favor, but not even open warfare could cause her to reflect on how her community might have brought woe upon itself -- in that case, an Indian attack (reprisal for Puritan aggressions) was just God testing those he ostensibly loved. Plenty of that closed loop thinking alive yet today.
Wigglesworth has always been too heavy a lift for me too--not nearly enough return on time invested. In my view, though, Taylor is in a very different league. His thickly doctrinal writing defending "the Old New England Way," whether in prose or poetry, can seem quaint, fussy, and even potentially dangerous (how could people actually fight, die, and kill over these apparently subtle theological differences?). A number of his "Preparatory Meditations," on the other hand, are poetic firecrackers, dazzling and surprising in their imagery, in the mode of Herbert and Donne--though this kind of poetry was already old-fashioned when Taylor was writing. Taylor isn't afraid of showing us his poetic playfulness, sensuousness, and extravagance, which I liked and enjoyed.
Fully agree. There's some nice fatherly love in his poems about children. The Quaker in me also likes "Upon a Wasp..." -- though I don't need the sun to be a metaphor for anything other than an earthly truth.
Agreed! On the other side of the parental coin is the searing anguish of "Upon Wedlock and Death of Children," which offers no sweet comfort in benign Providence, only hard-won resignation to and acceptance of what can't be helped or changed. And I love the wild, unapologetic honesty of
"[When] Let by rain." Not much easy theological or emotional resolution there!
I find the last bullet point from your ‚Y‘ list compelling.
Thank you, Claudia! May I ask what resonates particularly about that angle, or what you'd like to hear more about on that count?
I agree with Claudia. Just after the last bullet, you use the phrase “mostly in isolation,” which sounds like an extension of the bullet. The last bullet suggests to me that a book on a masculine job (fatherhood) offers a version of masculinity that is less gender-isolated, more androgynous and community-oriented. That may not hold, but the last bullet makes me think we’ll get into soul-searching and courage, and maybe fresh pictures of male community, mediated by fatherhood. This is also related to the Y about divorce.
You’ve got me thinking that one of the heartaches of a bad co-parenting/marriage relationship is a man assigning himself a “traditional” role that leaves the woman isolated with everything else. On the other hand, couples who co-parent well are not isolated. I’m fixing on “isolation,” clearly.
I love these possibilities. Thank you! Just who assigns who which role and how assumptions intersect with control is a separate question. You make a great point about how miserable isolation is no matter who experiences it. Breaking that silence is a good reason for this book.
Ah, the hook! During a brief stint in advertising and PR, it was always about the hook...and then the payback. Today, I think more about the story or the poem, and whether people will read it for what it is.
Sounds like we agree. I'm using the term slightly differently here. A hook that holds has real substance to it -- more than the attention-getter that the term typically implies. So if you find that a story or poem holds you, "what it is" runs well below the surface.
Love this….. it’s sort of : So You’re become a Dad, Now what?
Love it, love it.
it will surely speak to many. And could be more than a memoir, might also be growth enhancing! The more help men have the better.
Thanks! I do think of writing as growth-enhancing by definition. Discovery will be a big part of this for me. It's the old truism attributed (perhaps falsely) to E.M. Forster, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"