August 6, 2007

Postcards from Carolyn


Dear ones, the journey home was smooth and light, my spirit suffused with gratitude for all of you, the lotus blossom still close to my heart. I think the autumn choice of William Shakespeare is wonderful, and may I suggest that as our text we choose "The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets" by Helen Vendler? She writes most insightfully on the sonnets, illuminating the form structures and amplifies the meaning (in each poem). A most enthusiastic yes! I'm thinking about Wallace Stevens for winter, whom my friend Marilynne considers possibly the most important poet of the 20th century.

I'm off at the end of the week to visit my sister at the beach in N. Carolina, and will write upon waking each morning as I have urged others to do! Here is a photograph of my dogs, Puck (left) and Lyra (right) with their friend Max in the middle, playing frisbee on this very beach two summers ago. I thought, while we were sharing pets...

More soon! I will try to find and send a list of suggested exercises.

Much love, Carolyn

4 comments:

veg*nation said...

i really like the idea of reading the vendler book, with a critical context to focus our reading.

i'm in! :)

Anonymous said...

What wonderful dogs! If only they had been in workshop with Micah. Together they could have inspired the Coffman facilities staff to utter some truly poetic lines!

CX said...

OK, being one of those English majors (in British lit), I really cringed at the thought of Shakespeare, but this sounds delicious, I'm game, and like I said to Molly's original posting on the seasonal read, I will go any direction, the community read sounds too good to be true...OK, and I confess, my first job out of undergrad was teaching 6th grade English, which I told Georgia walking around the table getting our mss. but didn't tell anyone else...you know me! Mostly I just want to be a poet, like those marvelous 6th graders who taught me so well all those years.

veg*nation said...

yowzie! the vendler book (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/venart/home.html)arrived, and it looks fabulous. it's making my mouth water. :)