August Wilson - Fences

I enjoyed reading the play “Fences” by August Wilson.  This play is full of comedy and drama.  The language that was used was English with African American dialects.  This play was developed between 1983 and 1987 in the Unites States.  The play was first published in June 1986.  There is not a narrator on the play but the stage directions do lend an omniscient voice at times.  The tone of the play is loosely autobiographical which emphasizes links between the aftermaths of slavery as well as legalized discrimination and African American lives during the 1950’s.  The setting of the play is the dirt-yard and porch of the Maxon family’s house in Pittsburgh, PA.  The two main characters in the play are Troy Maxson and Cory Maxson.  Troy and Cory's differing views on how Cory should spend his future declines after Troy forbids Cory from playing football and going to college. Their relationship collapses further when Troy reveals that he has been cheating on Cory's mother with another woman and gotten her pregnant and signed papers permitting Cory's Uncle Gabe to be committed to a mental hospital while Troy lives in a house paid for by Gabe's money. Troy tells his affair with Alberta to his wife, Rose. Rose lectures Troy. Troy violently grabs Rose's arm and will not let go.  Cory surprises Troy by attacking him from behind.  Cory and Troy fight.   Troy wins the fight and warns Cory that he has one more strike to spend.  Rose tells Troy that Alberta died having his baby.  In Act Two, scene four: Troy picks a fight with Cory.   Cory displays his disgust for Troy's betraying behavior towards Rose, Gabe, and Cory.  Troy and Cory fight with a baseball bat and Troy wins and kicks Cory out of their house.  A theme that is present in this play is the coming of age within the cycle of damaged black manhood.  Another theme is the interpreting and inheriting of history and the choice between pragmatism and illusions as survival mechanisms.  Some motifs in the play are death and baseball, seeds and growth, and the blues.  Some symbols that are revealed throughout the play are trains, fences, and the devil.  In Act One, scene one, Troy says without humility, "Death ain't nothing," but he eventually dies before the play ends. In Act One, scene two, Gabriel talks in songs and strange stories about his friendship with St. Peter. But sometimes his words appear to foreshadow Troy's death. Gabe sings to Troy, "Better get ready for the judgment." In Act One, scene one, Bono inquires about Troy's relationship with a woman names Alberta. Troy denies his affair with Alberta, but Bono says he has seen Troy buying her drinks and walking near her house when he says he's at the bar, Taylor's. Bono's questioning foreshadows Troy's foreseeable helplessness to hide his secret.

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fences.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 3 May 2011.

August Wilson - Introduction

August Wilson was a playwright.  He was born on April 27, 1945.  He grew up in a working class area of Pittsburgh.  His father was a German American baker and he abandoned the family when August was only five years old.  His mother remarried and the family moved to a mostly white suburb.  August dropped out of school at the age of sixteen because he was fed up with racial indignities.  It was then when his education started in the local library.  He was a confounder of Black Horizon’s Theater Company in 1968.  At this time his voice was expressed in poetry.  He moved to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1978 where he wrote his first major play, Jitney.  August is a soft-spoken man but he is also a man of strong convictions about the role of the blacks of his country.  From the beginning he had involved himself in “trying to raise consciousness through theater.”  He has an astonishing memory and equal abilities as a mimic.  With supreme skill he can shift his voice into the rich languages of the South which stands hardly a trace of a regional accent.  He impersonates the railroads keepers that he met as a boy in Pats’ Place in Pittsburgh.  Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  referred August Wilson as “the most celebrated American playwright now writing, and . . . certainly the most accomplished black playwright in this nation’s history.”  In 1959 he was the only black student in Central Catholic High School but threats and abuse drove him away.  Connelly Vocational proves to be unchallenging.  In 1960 he dropped out of Gladstone High school in the 10^th grade when a teacher accused him of plagiarizing a 20 page paper on Napoleon.  He gets his own education at the library and on the street.  Between 1962 and 1963 he enlisted in the U.S. Army for three years but he leaves after one.  He had several jobs such as a porter, short-order cook, gardener, and dishwasher.  He discovers the blues in 1965.  His biological father also died and he changed his name in 1965.  He bought his first type writer for $20 and began writing poetry.  In 1969 he marries Brenda Burton and his stepfather dies.  His first daughter was born on January 22, 1970.  Their marriage ends in 1972.  He moved to St. Paul, Minnesota where he landed a job writing for a Science Museum.   In 1980 he had a fellowship at Minneapolis Playwrights Center.  He marries a social worker in 1981.  His mother, daisy Wilson died in 1983.  He won his first New York Drama Critics award in 1985 form “Ma Rainey. In 1987 “Fences” opened on Broadway and it won the Pulitzer Prize.  “Fences” grossed $11 million in its first year.  He was named the 1990 Pittsburgher of the Year by Pittsburgh Magazine in 1989.  In 1990 gave a speech at the 1990 Pittsburgher of Year award and “Piano Lesson” opens on Broadway and wins the Pulitzer Prize.  His second marriage ends in 1990 and he moves to Seattle.  In 1992 he receives honorary degree from Pitt and he speaks at the Honors Convocation.  He marries for the third time in 1994 to Constanza Romero a custom designer.  In 1995  “Piano Lesson” broadcasts on Hallmark Hall of Fame.  He had a public debate in New York City with Robert Brustein on status of black theater in 1997.  In 1999 he was honored at the 100^th anniversary of Hill District Branch Library.  He was also named by Post-Gazette as top Pittsburgh cultural power broker.                                                  

Rawson, Chris. "August Wilson - a Timeline." Post-Gazette.com. 5 Dec. 1999. Web. 04 May 2011.

Billy Collins - Introduction To Poetry

     I enjoyed reading the poem Introduction To Poetry by Billy Collins.  This poem describes how to find out what a poem means, how to look at the world, without stating the facts in plain words.  The ending describes how some people look at a poem with only one point of view.  Some people read the poem exactly and when an answer doesn’t appear they repeatedly run into a brick wall of determination to try and get a meaning of the poems.  The author suggests looking through the meaning of the words or reflecting the meaning onto something else that is occurring to get a sense of what the author is saying.  The author also suggests that each part of the poem, each word, works to a better sense of meaning.  If you start in the middle and look at things in a random order then as you work your way across the poem you could bring a new meaning into view.  He uses the metaphors of water skiing and torture to illustrate the picture that he is painting for the reader.  The waterskiing across the surface while waving to the author’s name gives the idea that the author started the reader on interpreting the poem.  I think that the author wants the reader to study his poem and not strangle it.  By holding the colored slide to the light means to see the brightest colors and strongest meanings.  The author wants the reader to listen to the poems secrets like you “listen to a hive.”  He wants us to put our thoughts inside the poem and let them dart around like a mouse inside of a maze.  He wants his readers to listen to the poem and not destroy it.  There is a lot of imagery in this poem.  This poem offers itself as a color slide, a hive, a dark room, a lake, a knowing, but silent, defendant.  The poem wants us to engage in all these different images - except the last one – so that we might see into the heart of a poem without beating the poor thing to death.  I am sure that we all know the feeling of being the mouse dropped into the poem, trying to probe its way out.     

Billy Collins - Winter Syntax

     I enjoyed reading Winter Syntax by Billy Collins.  In this poem, Collins writes about the difficulties of writing literature through the representation of a “lone traveler” and his adventures through a blizzard.  He talks about the important features of good writing.  The poem starts off stressing the importance of the first sentence and how it is similar to a lone traveler going through a tough blizzard.  Collins allows readers to vicariously imagine the difficulties that a writer goes through while writing by using the relation of the traveler.  The snow is similar to a white page where the poet writes down their creative ideas.  The poem ends by saying “the man will express a single thought” as if to say that he had finally finished explaining the difficulties of writing.  The setting in this poem plays a very important role since it is significant because it makes the poem viewed in a different way.  This is a very different poem because it is talking about a sentence; it gives it life, and gives it a setting.  The setting is described as cold, like the cold of a forest or mountain in the winter time.  The cold weather makes us able to play with our imagination.  The text in the poem mentions a man and if we relate it closely then we can say that the man is the sentence that has taken life.  We are given mental pictures through the images of the snow, cold weather, and the lonely man.  Continuing to read on the author not only talks about the cold places.  The author mentions “the desert heat” in the second stanza.  This whole poem is like a journey.  It is like there is a journey involved and that the author himself is learning something about it.  He makes it seem as if writing is a journey.  A journey that has a beginning and an end.  The author also mentions that for every winter there is always a spring.  Comparing all this to a sentence relates to the finished sentence of a complete thought.               

Billy Collins - Introduction

     Billy Collins was born on March 22, 1941 in New York City to William and Katherine Collins.  He is the author of several books of poetry.  He earned a BA from the College of Holy Cross.  He earned a MA and PhD from the University of California-Riverside.  He co-founded the Mid-Atlantic Review with Michael Shannon in 1975.  He published throughout the 1980s.  His poetry has appeared in anthologies, textbooks, and a variety of periodicals, including Poetry, American Poetry Review, American Scholar, Harper’s, Paris Review, and The New Yorker.  In 1997, he was recorded reading thirty-three of his poems.  His work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize anthology and has been chosen several times for the annual Best American Poetry series.  He was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 2001.  He was named “the most popular poet in America” by Bruce Weber in the New York Times.  Collins is famous for casual, entertaining poems that welcome readers with humor.  He admits that his poetry is “suburban”, domestic, and middle class.  His level of fame is almost unprecedented in the world of contemporary poetry.  His reading regularly sells out and he received a six-figure advance when he moved publishers in the late 1990s.  He served two terms as the US Poet Laureate from 2001-2003.  From 2004-2006 he was New York State Poet Laureate and he is a regular guest on National Public Radio programs.  The first collection that he published outside the US was Taking off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes.  He is a Distinguished Professor at Leham College of the City University of New York and has taught for the past 30 years.  He is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute in Florida.  In 1992 he was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library.  He was selected as the New York State Poet for 2004-2006.   He is also a writer-in-residence at Sarah Lawrence College.              

   

Poetry Foundation. Web. 26 Apr. 2011.

Bobbie Ann Mason - Shiloh

I enjoyed reading the short story Shiloh by Bobbie Ann Mason.  This was a very interesting story and I was drawn into to it from the beginning.  One theme that I noticed in this story was the persistence of grief.  The death of their child, Randy, happened years before this story took place.  The death of their child continues to invade the consciousness of Leroy and Norma Jean.  The two of them never speak of their child’s death and Leroy’s memories are very fuzzy of their child.  There is still grief about that tragedy that persists.  Leroy tells every hitchhiker he picks up about Randy until it begins to seem self-pitying.  When Leroy sees grown-up kids the same age as Randy, he is reminded of his son.  Every time Leroy sees Mabel he thinks of his son.  Mabel believes that Randy’s death was a cruel trick of fate because she opposed Norma Jean’s pregnancy from the beginning.  She tells a nasty story about a dog killing a baby and claims that the mother was to blame for the disaster.  Leroy and Norma Jean assume immediately that she is taking a jab at them.  With their sensitivity to Mabel’s suggestions implies that Randy is always at the front of their minds.  The death of their child donates to the ending of Leroy and Norma Jean’s relationship.  The routine of avoiding any mention of the baby becomes an overwhelming force in their marriage.  Leroy considers mentioning something about Randy to his wife but is unable to bring up the topic.  Norma Jean complains about her mother’s spitefulness while Leroy pretends not to know what she is talking about.  Their silence between the two drove a wedge between them.  At the very beginning of the story, Leroy thinks about how lucky they are to be together despite the tragedy of their child.  Leroy has heard that the death of an infant can spoil a marriage.  At the end of the story, it seems that Leroy had been overconfident.  The death of their child has affected them both exactly as it affects most couples.  There were a few symbols that I noticed in this story.  One symbol is the log cabin that Leroy dreams of building for his wife.  The cabin is an unreasonable idea.  Norma Jean is of no interest in the building of a cabin. Leroy embraces his dreams of building the cabin with the same touching and misplaced determination with which he clings to his wife.  There is nothing that discourages him, not even the straightforward words of Mabel and Norma Jean.  They repeatedly tell him that living in a cabin is unpleasant, that new developments would not allow such a structure, that building is too expensive, and that Norma Jean hates the idea.  Leroy won’t let go of the idea of the cabin even though there is strong opposition.  Leroy won’t give up on his marriage although his wife has.  At Shiloh, Leroy realizes that his marriage is as hollow as the boxy interior of a log cabin.  He then realizes the link between his dreams of a cabin and his failed marriage.                                        

 SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Shiloh.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.

Bobbie Ann Mason - Introduction

     Bobbie Ann Mason was born in Mayfield, Kentucky on May 1, 1940.  She is an American short-story writer and novelist.  She is known for her recreation of rural Kentucky life.  She was raised on a dairy farm.  Her first experienced life outside of Kentucky was when she traveled through the Midwest as the teenage president of the fan club for a pop quartet, the Hilltoppers.  She became interested in writing as a child, when she wrote skits of the mystery series novels that she read.  In 1962, she graduated from the University of Kentucky, Lexington with a B.A. and moved to New York City.  In 1966, she attended the State University of New York at Binghamton and graduated with a M.A.  She also attended the University of Connecticut, Storrs and received her Ph.D. in 1972.  She was an assistant professor of English at Pennsylvania’s Mansfield State College from 1972 to 1979.  She then began writing full-time, publishing stories in The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and in other places.  In her first collection of stories she describes the lives of working class people in a shifting rural society now dominated by chain stores, televisions, and superhighways.  She has received critical praise from Shiloh and Other Stories which were her first collection of stories.  Her first collection of stories won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was nominated for the American Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.  She received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and she received an Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  Her first novel, In Country, is also immersed in mass culture, which led one critic to speak of Mason’s “Shopping Mall Realism.”  This novel is taught widely in classes and was made into a film.  Many critics praised her realistic regional dialogue, although some compared the novel unfavorably with her shorter works.  Mason published Spence + Lila in 1988 which was a story of a long-married couple.  She is a writer-in-residence at the University of Kentucky.                   

"Biography - Bobbie Ann Mason." Home - Bobbie Ann Mason. Web. 25 Apr. 2011

"Bobbie Ann Mason." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 25 Apr. 2011