Diving into the Wreck- Adrienne Rich

A little background information, I am horrible at reading poetry, I never seem to know what they are talking about because I generally lose interest fairly quickly. That being said I actually really enjoyed reading Adrienne Rich's, "Diving into the Wreck." It was easy to read which I could really appreciate due to the fact that I have deemed myself poetically-challenged. As I mentioned in a comment a couple blogs back I originally thought after reading the first couple lines it was going to be about this character murdering someone, which could not have been further from the case. I guess I should have used context clues from the title to realize it is obviously about diving. I really enjoyed the part about her climbing down the ladder when she mentions that it is always hanging there, innocently then proceeds to contemplate whether she was blacking out or not because as she descended further and further blackness takes over. One thing I was confused about she kept saying she was there for what she came for, which she mentions she was there to see the shipwreck, but as she continuously talks about the thing she came for it seems like that thing changed over time? I was a little confused during that but hopefully she found what she was looking for. Overall this was definitely one of my favorite poems in the class this semester.

How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl or Halfie) - Junot Diaz

This story is a how to, basically for young guys to "get the most" out of their dates. It generalizes that women of different ethnicities and social status will do different things for boys. White girls are the easiest and brown girls from your own neighborhood won't be so quick to let these boys in. This story tells young guys how to prepare for a girl that is coming over. First you want the house to yourself, no interruptions. Then you make sure anything that would make you look poor needs to be put away where it will not be seen. And you also want to put away anything that could potentially be embarrassing. Once  you have covered these areas you are well on your way to getting into the pants of whatever girl you can get to come over.

I thought this story was kind of funny. I love how this young guy has all these ideas about what you have to do and how he is able to categorize the girls into races. Reading this story I think it is brought to our attention how we can all categorize people into races sometimes, however unintentional it may be. I feel that that could possible be a reason for the story, to show us how silly it is. Everyone is an individual and will react differently to different situations.

Cathedral Raymon Carver

Cathedral by Raymond Carver was a really interesting story to read.  It starts off in a flashback with a man's kind wife that finds a job reading to blind people.  In this job she not only helps a blind man but also gains him as a new friend from it.  When she moves from him because of her old husband being in the military, she lets the man touch her entire face including the neck.  To keep in touch they used tapes to send each other back and forth.  The blind man's wife dies and he is visiting her and the narrator's house.  The narrator does not seem too fond of the idea because of his assumption on blind people.  Yet the narrator does not have many friends of his own. This to me stuck out because when an idea springs up that nobody likes, hardly anyone would give it a chance.  Who knows, there might be more then what meets the eye.

The story progresses and when the blind man is there, the narrator seems to be enjoying his company.  They end up smoking marijuana together and go into deeper conversation.  The wife falls asleep, and they continue  to watch TV.  The man suggest to draw something while the narrator's eyes were closed.  When the narrator does so it seems like he is putting himself in the blind man's shoes.  When he is done the man tells him to take a look but the narrator keeps his eyes closed, as well as understanding the man more, and tells him "it's really something."  This part was very interesting to me and I enjoyed reading this story.  Never judge a book by its cover.  The narrator and the reader learned very important lessons and I'm sure the narrator's wife won't be the only one talking on the tapes for the future.

Cathedral - Raymond Carver

This story is about a blind man named Robert coming to visit an old lady friend of his.  The lady friend happens to be the wife of the gentleman telling the story from his point of view.  I find it rather touching and emotional.  At first the man telling the story has very little interest in the wife’s blind friend.  He makes this obvious to readers when he says he doesn’t really care about some of the things his wife is telling him from their past together.  They had been sending each other tapes by mail; letters of course were out of the questions because the bling man could not read them.  They were everyday conversations, nothing too entertaining…  but of importance because the lady and the blind man were close friends. 

The second half of the story takes place at the woman’s house when Robert comes to visit after his wife died not too long before.  What is touching is not what they talk about at dinner, nor the mention of them smoking weed together (something the blind man had not experienced before.) it is what the man and Robert do when the wife falls asleep.

They draw a cathedral together, hand in hand, so the blind man can understand what one looks like.  Two people that do not know each other at all, have this moment when they almost become one.  Robert tells the husband to close his eyes and he keeps them closed after he finishes drawing.  The whole story seems pointless until they get to this point in the end.

Junot Diaz

"How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl,o Halfie)" by Junot Diaz was very funny and amusing to me. It seem like a conversation that i would've had with an older friend years ago while growing up in Queens, NewYork. To me it was just a funny story about to young inexperienced  teens trying to be casanovas with the girls. One so called expert trying his best to help his buddy get lucky with a girl. I don"t think the one guy giving the advice really had any more luck with the girls then his friend. This all seemed like stuff that the boy had seen on TV and was telling his friend so he could look like a big player, when in realty i think both boys still had plenty to go to get that "Date". It was not to serious and used everyday language and i thought it was a good last story for the class.

Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove

Having read very little poetry in my life, Thomas and Beulah was a welcome change from the majority of the poems we've read over the course of this class. Told with gut-wrenching emotion, Thomas and Beulah is the story of the lives of two black folks, one southern, one northern, who meet and ultimately marry. Throughout their lives together, they seem to experience very little true happiness. Their marriage seems loveless, and their hopes and dreams never come to fruition.
The story of Thomas is told first, and starts of with Thomas enjoying a wonderfully drunk moment with his best friend, Lem. The are aboard a steamboat headed north, when Tomas dares Lem to jump and swim to an island, a dare that Lem accepts. Lem quickly drowns, and references to Lem are made throughout the poem. Throughout his life, Thomas is seeking to somehow replace Lem in order to lessen his suffering over the loss of his friend.
        Beulah, the pretty northern lass that captures Thomas' heart, has dreams since childhood of visiting Paris. As we read, this dream is ultimately unrealized, which lends to her sorrow throughout her life. Yet, Beulah continues to hold onto these dreams, as they tend to make her life from day to day a bit easier. Thomas and Beulah go on to have two little girls, which is a bit of a disappointment for Thomas, as he wishes to have a boy to somehow replace Lem, but finds in a son-in-law a kind of replacement for Lem. Towards the end of the story, the characters seem to realize that they did truly love one another, and reflect on how fortunate they were to have one another.

Adrienne Rich "Diving into the Wreck"

Well starting the poem off with a camera, checking the edge of a knife and a black suit, I was already thinking that this was going to be about killing someone and recording it for their own personal satisfaction.  Boy did I get the completely wrong idea.  Once I read the flippers and mask I started to realize that the person is about to go scuba diving.  The line "awkward mask" made me think that the narrator is not use to a scuba diving mask so I think it's different from previous ones or it is the first time scuba diving.  Once the narrator starts heading down the ladder I get the feeling he/she might feel a little nervous and confused.  I feel as if I'm being put into their shoes.  Once the narrator is in, it seems like they are not too fond with the feeling of water pressure as they sink deeper into the dark sea.  I know I would feel weird floating around and still able to breathe underwater.  The line "it is easy to forget what I came for," tells me that the narrator is getting use to being under water now.  Like all other things you let happen like riding a roller coaster or driving a car, you get use to it and ignore whatever feeling you were not use to before.  This story gave me the feeling of comfort because every knew thing we experience eventually comes easy to us.