A Date with a Literary Scholar: Refaat Alareer

On October 21, 2013, Dr. Haslina has invited Mr. Refaat Alareer to give a talk for our course in Falimbani room, FBMK. 

Dr. Haslina gives remarks for the talk

Mr. Refaat is a poet and he owns a blog named http://thisisgaza.wordpress.com/. Here is some of the information about him.

Name: Refaat Alareer

Homeland: Gaza, Palestine

Profession: English Literature lecturer in The Islamic University of Gaza

Mr. Refaat Alreer

During the sharing session, he firstly talked about his homeland; Gaza. He explained further about the history of Palestine and showed the change of map of Palestine from 1946 until now.

image from: http://www.juancole.com/2010/03/map-story-of-palestinian-nationhood.html

Then, he briefly explained about some events and situation that happened in Palestine, mostly in Gaza and West Bank. His briefing about those events for example during Cast Lead in 2008/2009, really open our eyes about the brutality of Zionist army towards Palestine people. Mr. Refaat afterwards told us that for Palestinian people to free themselves from the occupation, they need to find a way and writing is the most effective way to tell about their suffering to the world. Next, he showed a list of Palestinian poets who are active in writing poems:

Poets that write in Arabic language:

1. Mahmoud Darwish

2. Tamim Borgouti

Poets that write in English language:

1. Rafeef Ziadah (We Teach Life, Sir)

source: youtube

2. Susan Abulhawa (Wala!)

3. Remi Kanazi

After that, he told why he writes poems in English instead of writing them in Arabic. His purpose was to let people know and totally view him as who he really was as a Palestinian people. He also told us about his story of initial journey in writing poetry by analysing the surrounding, people and situation, and he gave some tips to write poetry which can be a guideline for us:

1. Read a lot of good and high quality poetry

2. Believe that you can write good stuff

3. Have a will to do so

4. Scribble your thoughts (always)

5. Be yourself (your own style)

6. The importance of freewriting when there is an idea.

during the session

He also talked about “sumud” which means steadfastness that the Palestinian people hold on to when it comes about their life. An hour later, we had the Q&A session with Mr. Refaat. We take the chances to ask questions and knew more about him. These are some of the questions and answers for the session that have been summarized.

Q&A session

1. Q: Who is your favourite poet and why?

    A: John Donne because he is amazing and creative poet. I love his poetry and works and   how he likes to play with words. Then, T. S. Elliot. (another favourite poet).

2. Q: How is the state of education on children and women in Gaza?

    A: Actually women get good education here. There are five universities there and women have same education like men. Since there is the restriction about the education that the children should have, so there is no problem regarding education on children and women.

3. Q: What is the symbol of olive picture in your blog?

    A: For Palestinian people, olive symbolizes the men and land so it is important in our culture. It is also symbolizes the existence of Palestinians.

For me, this talk really provides benefit and inspiration to people who are really serious about being a poet. There is no restriction and limited guideline about being a poet. As far as we have the determination and goals about what we are doing, it is enough. Mr. Refaat also give some other tips about when we start doing something, it is necessary to find the skills that give us potential and expand it with our creativity.

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Image: http://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=3193.0

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!’ he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Someone had blunder’d:

Their’s not to make reply,

Their’s not to reason why,

Their’s but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wonder’d:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro’ the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel’d from the sabre-stroke

Shatter’d and sunder’d.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro’ the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade ?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder’d.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

This poem is about a disastrous historical military engagement that happened in the initial phase of Crimean War between Turkey and Russia, between 1845 until 1856. Under the command of Lord Raglan, British forces entered the war in September 1854 to prevent the Russians from obtaining control of the important sea routes through the Dardanelles. On October 24, 1845, British commander, Lord Raglan ordered Light Cavalry Brigade which consist of 600 soldiers  who rode on horseback into the “valley of death” for one and a half miles to fight with Russia. They were obeying a command to charge the Turkey force that been seizing their guns. Finally, the brigade began charging to act but they went in wrong direction. They were assaulted by the shots of shells of cannons in front and both of their sides. As a consequence, over 100 died within the next few minutes, and British lost possession of the majority of its forward defends.

Work cited:

Tennyson, Lord Alfred. The Charge of the Light Brigade. 2013. October 13, 2013. 

            http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/tennyson/section9.rhtml

What is drama?

What is drama?

Drama is a literary work of art which involving conflict, action crisis and atmosphere designed to be acted by players on a stage before an audience. This definition may be applied to motion picture drama as well as to the traditional stage. Besides, drama is a unique tool to explore and express human feeling. In addition, it is also the essential form of behaviour in all cultures; it is a fundamental human activity.

Image: http://framptonwiki541a.wikispaces.com/Group+Three

Types of drama

·         Tragedy

Tragedy involves the ruin, weakness or devastation of the leading characters. In Greeks tradition, the tragedy meant as the destruction of the noble person based on fate. Nowadays, modern tragedy just showing that it is not of the strong and noble but of the weak and mean. The example of tragedy is "Othello, the Moor of Venice" by William Shakespeare.

·         Melodrama

Melodrama is a kind of drama that has the musical elements as the accompaniment to intensify the effect of certain scene. For example, in the scene of Beethoven’s “Fidelio”, the orchestra plays the musical elements as the actor speaks in the grave digging scene.

 Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. "Othello, the Moor of Venice." Portable Legacies. Eds. Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik and Lynne Crockett,
Boston: Cencage Learning Wadsworth, 2009. 722

Life Stream Center. Drama. n.d. 5 October 2013. <http://drb.lifestreamcenter.net/Lessons/Drama.htm>.

What is poetry?

What is poetry?

Poetry comes from ancient Greek word “poieo” which means I create. It is a part of art that formed in human language in oral or literary works that is used for artistic qualities.  The purpose for the poetry to be formed is either to express the emotion or ideas to the readers or listeners. The things that should have in the poem are the imagery, words used, and musical qualities.

Poetry is well-known for its difficult understanding of content for most readers because of its nature. Poetry has the nature that less in emphasising linguistic form so it is quiet difficult rather than short story or drama.  The most important element in poetry is the sound, which is rhythm.  There are different types of meter played keys of lines in Old English, Early European and Modern poetry.

Image: http://easy4us.wordpress.com/category/poetry/

Type of poetry

·     

          Carol

A hymn or poem often sung by a group, with an individual taking the changing stanzas and the group taking the burden or refrain. For example many traditional Christmas songs are carols, such as “I Saw Three Ships” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

·         Romance

It is originated from French; a genre of long narrative poetry about medieval courtly culture and secret love. It triumphed in English with tales of chivalry such as Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” and Troilus and Criseyde.

·         Haiku

A Japanese verse form of three without rhyme lines in five, seven, and five syllables. It creates a single, memorable image, as in these lines by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Jane Hirshfield:

                  On a branch

        floating downriver

        a cricket, singing.

Works Cited

 Poetry Foundation. Glossary of Poetic Terms. 2013. 5 October 2013. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms?category=forms-and-types>.

Poetry Organisation. What is poetry. 2005. 5 10 2013. <http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm>.

Turtle Soup by Marilyn Chin

Turtle Soup

You go home one evening tired from work,

and your mother boils you turtle soup.

Twelve hours hunched over the hearth

(who knows what else is in that cauldron).

You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;

that turtle lived four thousand years, swam

the Wei, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.

Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,

grazed on splendid sericulture."

(So, she boils the life out of him.)

"All our ancestors have been fools.

Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles

to kill a famous Manchu and ended up

with his head on a pole? Eat, child,

its liver will make you strong."

"Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."

Her sobbing is inconsolable.

So, you spread that gentle napkin

over your lap in decorous Pasadena.

Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.

The golden decal on the green underbelly

says "Made in Hong Kong."

Is there nothing left but the shell

and humanity's strange inscriptions,

the songs, the rites, the oracles?

Explorations of the Text

1. Notice the author’s choice of the word “cauldron” in line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chosen “cauldron” rather than pot?

Cauldron means large cooking equipment that made from metal with a lid and handle. It is used for cooking over an open fire. In the poem, the author uses the word “cauldron” instead of pot because the cauldron is synonym with the use for making the potion or medicine.  The mother cooks the turtle soup for twelve hours which is requires a lot of time in the cauldron solely for her daughter’s health which is unacceptable by the daughter as in line 4 “(who knows what else is in that cauldron).”

2. Chin refers to “the Wei”, “the Yellow” and “the Yangtze.” Why does she reference these rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?

Chin refers to the Wei, the Yellow and the Yangtze as the reference because in this poem, the rivers are the important rivers that are significant to the Chinese identity.  “That turtle lived four thousand years swam the Wei, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.” reflects the historical places in China.

3. What is the tone of this poem?

The tone of this poem is ridicule. The mother and the daughter have the argument of regarding the turtle. The daughter said  "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life” as the mother boils the turtle because the narrator finds that the idea  is totally ridiculous due to her understanding in Chinese culture. She  believes that turtle is a symbol in Chinese tradition. In line 17 “her sobbing is inconsolable” shows that the argument between them has leads to the mother’s cries.

 Ideas for writing

1. “Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice.” Write about this quote within the context of an immigrant family. What might a family gain or lose by moving to a new land?

Based on this quote, mostly the purpose of migrating to another country is because in search of better life for the sake of family and loved one. In order to gain the benefit that they seek for, they have to lose on something precious as the exchange. They not only have to leave their homeland, but there is something more important beyond that, for example their identity. Sometimes, when an immigrant is moving to new land, they also have to sacrifice their culture in order to survive and accepted by the society.

The quote “Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice” in his poem indicates the fate of their culture when they migrate to certain country, far from their homeland, China to settle down in Pasadena, America. The author made this quote as a question of whether the culture which they have practice for a long time ago will be preserved or it will be fade away through the time In this poem, the mother cooks the turtle soup as the symbol of sacrificing the culture because she has grown up in China but then migrates to America. So, the daughter thinks that she has an important role  to keeping it alive by reminding her mother about their culture. Through this poem, the narrator emphasizes that the turtle’s fate as the symbol of Chinese tradition is unpredictable which reflects to the immigrants who still can practice their culture and tradition or it end up with the cultural extinction.

Group members: Farid (leader), Yvonne, Izu, Mira

Work cited:

Chin, Marilyn. "Turtle Soup." Portable Legacies. Eds. Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik and Lynne Crockett,
Boston: Cencage Learning Wadsworth, 2009. 419

Exploration of the Text based on " Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" by Amiri Baraka

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note


Lately, I've become accustomed to the way

the ground opens up and envelops me

each time I go out to walk the dog.

Or the broad-edged silly music the wind

makes me when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars,

and each night I get the same number.

And when they will not come to be counted,

I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up

to my daughter's room and heard her

talking to someone, and when I opened

the door, there was no one there...

only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.

image from http://fromthemommyfiles.wordpress.com/category/4-year-old/

Exploration of the Text

1.  What is the mood of the speaker in the opening lines? what images suggest his feelings?

The mood of the speaker in the opening lines shows the emptiness in his heart. He feels meaningless towards his own life, causing him to not care anymore about the surrounding. the images in line 1 “Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way” indicates that anything that he has done seems like a routine and did not bring happiness anymore in his life.


2. What is the significance of the daughter's gesture of peeking into "he own clasped hand"?

The significance of the daughter’s gesture of “her own clasped hand” is the belief towards God. When the speaker seeing her daughter is pray and asking the God to fulfil her wish when he is in the despair, it gives the impact towards him as he realises that there is God to depend on.

3. What does the title mean? How does it explain the closing line?

The title “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note” means the short introduction or foreword of the notes that the speaker has written. It explains the emotion of speaker in the closing line "Her own clasped hand" as he realises that there is still hope that left for him.

4. Why does Baraka have three short lines, separated as stanzas? How do they convey the message of the poem?

Baraka has three short lines, separated as stanzas because they show different of emotions highlighted in every stanza in the poem. In line 6 “Things have come to that”, the speaker feels ignorant for everything that he has done as he cannot feels the extraordinary things in his life. Then, in line 11 “Nobody sings anymore”, he starts to give up on his life. He is totally in emotional conflict since he not has any curiosity as before. The last line “Her own clasped hands” indicates the ray of hope on the existence of God that feels by the speaker at the end of the poem.

5. Why does Baraka begin stanzas with "Lately", "And Now", and "And Then"? What do these transition words accomplished?

Baraka begins stanzas with “Lately”, “And now” and “And Then” to signifies the speaker’s emotion based through time. At first, he feels there is nothing that the life can offers him as he feels the emptiness in his heart. Then in second stanza, he stops himself from being curious about anything that occurs in front of him. However, his feeling change as he saw his daughter prays to God in the third stanzas.

6. How does the speaker feel about his daughter? What does she represent to him? 

The speaker feels that his daughter gives him a slight of hope to continue his life. When she clasped pray to God, the act itself represents the existence of God to the speaker. Even though the speaker does not mention about the decision that he made whether he still want to continue to live or not afterward, he actually affected by his daughter’s act.

Works Cited

Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik and Lynne Crockett, eds, Portable Legacies. Boston: Cencage Learning Wadsworth, 2009.

Baraka, Amiri, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note. Schmidt and             Crockett, eds.

Exploration of the Text based on "Incident" by Countee Cullen

Incident by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That's all that I remember.

Exploration of the text

1. What is the nature of the interaction between the two boys?

In my opinion, the nature of the interaction between two boys in the poem is based on racial context. The racial status at that time leads to the attitude of the Baltimorean towards the black boy. It can be seen as the Baltimorean is impudent by keep look at the black boy, poked out his tongue and called him “Nigger”. 

2.  Why does the speaker remember nothing more than the incident even though he stayed in Baltimore from “May until December”?

The speaker does remember nothing more than the incident even though he stayed in Baltimore from “May until December” because at that time he was eight year old and still young. The effect of being judged from the Baltimorean boy is deep in his mind rather than others event.

1.  In a paragraph compare your experience of prejudice with the persona in the poem.

The Reading/ Writing Connection

The persona in the poem faces the prejudice act because of his race. As stated in the poem, the Baltimorean called him “Nigger” which is rude and intolerable. My experience of prejudice not based on race like what happened to the persona of the poem, it is based on gender. When I was in form 1, I was appointed to be a leader for my group in a science project. Just because I am a girl and my physical appearance was like 9 year-old child at that time, the members of my group, mostly they are boys, they act prejudice towards me.

Ideas for writing

1. What do its form and rhyme add to this poem?

The form and rhyme give effect to this poem as they clarify the tone of the speaker. For line 2 in the poem “Heart-filled, head-filled with glee”, it shows that the speaker is happy and bright. Then, the feeling is replaced with feeling when he sees the Baltimorean boy as that boy act prejudice towards him from line 8, “And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

2. What is the power of language? What are the effects of the use of the term “nigger”?

The power of language in this poem shows the usage of offensive and confrontation words for example, the usage of “whit” which mean not at all. The poem shows that the Baltimorean is in the same size or should be in social status of the persona. Even so, he is being prejudice and not has respect towards the persona as the white power in that time is bigger. Next, the word “nigger” who means black people that is described in impudent manner.

Works Cited

Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik and Lynne Crockett, eds, Portable Legacies. Boston: Cencage Learning Wadsworth, 2009.

Cullen, Countee. Incident. Schmidt and Crockett, eds.