ENCW 306: Fall 2018
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 8th, 2018
In reading Lorna Goodison’s poetry, I found that the Jamaican female experience is present throughout most of the pieces. I really enjoyed the way she took her own experiences and observations and translated them into poetry in a way that feels visceral and emotionally complex. One of my favorite poems from the selections is “Birth […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 8th, 2018
There were numerous interesting differences between Goodison’s poems, specifically “The Road of the Dread” and “Songs of the Sweet Fruits of Childhood.” After reading about Lorna Goodison, it is clear to see where she got her inspiration from in the stylistic and linguistic differences presented in the poems. The most noticeable difference between these poems […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 8th, 2018
From reading these poems selected, I found a common theme I found is her use of food/drink to convey a meaning. (?) The first poem I am going to discuss is “From the Garden of the Women Once Fallen.” I find her use of wording haunting as she conveys the image of a woman feeling […]
Posted in Poetry on Nov 7th, 2018
“The Road of the Dread” is the most interesting of the Lorna Goodison poems in the collection for class. It is written in the phonetic Jamaican dialect, which made it a fun challenge to read. Like everyone else who has posted so far, I had to read through it a few times to make sure […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 7th, 2018
Lorna Goodison’s “Songs of the Fruits and Sweets of Childhood” is undeniably lovely in its language and tone of nostalgia. The first stanza, which reads, O small and squat with thin tough skin containing the slick flesh of mackafat which makes fillings like putty between the teeth. immediately grabbed my attention. I had to google […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 7th, 2018
In her collection of poems, Lorna Goodison makes the writing audible. Indeed, she writes in English which is the language spoken in her country, Jamaica but uses the one that is spoken in Jamaica and that is different from the one from the United States for example. This makes her style very recognizable but also […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 7th, 2018
The poems by Lorna Goodison are different than the poems we have read by other poets. Not only are they different in theme, but the author chose to write in an accent, which is not a style found often. This distracts the reader, but it brings an interesting point of view for the characters. It […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 7th, 2018
Much of Lorna Goodison’s poetry is about the familiar. It is about her home and her culture, it is about food and tradition. Goodison immerses the reader in her world using several techniques. In “The Road of the Dread,” Goodison uses dialect. This is a clever tool that puts the reader in Jamaica without Goodison spelling it […]
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized on Nov 6th, 2018
The selected poems we read by Lorna Goodison are fascinating in their contrast. “The Road of the Dread,” for example, is vastly different than any of Goodison’s other poems because it is written with phonetic spelling in the dialect of her native Jamaica. And look no fi no milepost fi measure you walking and no […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 6th, 2018
“Songs of the Fruits and Sweets of Childhood” is by far one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. Goodison’s prose is unbelievably lovely, each stanza so superbly written that they could be poems of their own: Cream pink pomander Like a lady’s sachet Is the genteel roseapple Scenting the breath. Jade […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 5th, 2018
I interpreted Maria Elena Cruz Varela’s poem “Love Song for Difficult Times” not as a poem addressed to a person, but to her country. As can be read in the biography listed before the poems, Cruz Varela was beaten and imprisoned for publishing a manifest against the Castro regime. She wrote, “Here I am: forty-one […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 1st, 2018
What makes this novel so fascinating is the backstory of the two main characters, and their experiences in the present tense. My first impression of Huda was that she is very timid and nervous, not the type of woman who would have any sort of sexual adventures whilst on holiday. When Yvonne was flirting with […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 1st, 2018
I didn’t appreciate this novel as much as I hoped I would due to the title. While I do agree with other blog posts that this is supposed to be a novel about two liberated women overcoming hardships and pursuing their careers, I don’t this book is as feminist as it should be. I think […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 1st, 2018
Yvonne hurries over to introduce herself to the young Arab man, thinking to herself young Arab men don’t bother withdrawing before they come, relying on women to take precautions. In her book, Hanan al-Shaykh depicts two women with different backgrounds. Indeed, Yvonne is a European, lives in London and she is thirty-seven. Huda is a […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 1st, 2018
The sexual component of The Occasional Virgin is clear from before I even open the book. My first thought about this novel and the sexual component in Hanan al-Shakyh’s work “I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops.” The narrator in “I sweep the Sun Off Rooftops” had moved to London and has culture shock in the […]