here we go!

Obviously, I've been less than diligent with this blogging stuff so far. I don't think I really have anything deep literary comments to offer, but I'll try to recap my thoughts about the first couple of readings from Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. Due to a high school American Lit class, I'm somewhat familiar with Dickinson. I don't remember covering much of Whitman though. As cheesy as it is, the extent of my exposure to Whitman was the parts in the movie The Notebook where Noah reads bits of Whitman's poetry. He has some interesting views on life and death and God. Some of his lines are quite beautiful; some of them bothered me a little. For example, the following lines jumped out to me because it reminded me of Romans 1:20, which says, "For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." (New Living Translation).

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and rememberancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and
remark, and say Whose?

-Song of Myself, section 6

I particularly liked Emily Dickinson's #320 (or #258?), because it seemed to capture the gloominess that comes along with those long winter afternoons when dusk sets in early and a person nearly goes crazy from lack of sunlight. I read it on one of the days were the temperatures dropped into the negatives, and I had gotten to the point of wondering if spring even existed anymore. The poem gave me a mental picture of a person from long ago sighing sadly and staring out the window into the gray. My favorite lines were:

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons-
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes

and:

When it comes, the Landscape listens-
Shadows - hold their breath-
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death -