Last semester I took a Women’s Travel Writing class. I remember sitting in Barnes and Noble last Spring in Massachusetts reading through the course descriptions. Of course, being the anxious and sometimes overly excited student that I am, I choose about 6 courses knowing I would drop three. I didn’t drop the travel writing class. I had hoped to write about my past travel experiences and maybe even the most recent one; the three week road trip across the country,  but the class didn’t turn out to be exactly what I thought it would and I’ll leave it at that (sparing all the juicy details). It did turn out to be a great class for my first few months in a new city. Each week we had to conduct an assigned form of travel and write about it. It helped me explore Oakland and jump out of my comfort zone right away. 

      It started at 9:00am on Saturday morning and I arrived on time, an obvious sign of a first timer. I walked in to find a friendly pregnant woman behind the counter  of the church’s cafe. She was attempting to set up a coffee bar. After we swapped names, I picked up some mugs and followed her into the other room.  I sat on the couch and waited for the rest of the women to arrive. The morning sun was shining through the windows of the large room that reminded me of the living rooms I’ve had since college. There were large chairs that looked like they were restored from a castle and damaged again, different colored couches and hand sewn pillows, along with a trampled ikea rug and modern coffee table. The circle was clearly mismatched, and arranged for talking.   

      I had attended services in the adjacent sanctuary for the last few Sundays and I figured going to a women’s group couldn’t be a bad thing. I just didn’t know what a women’s group was exactly, but this assignment gave me the extra push to try it out.  It started off with a welcome and explanation of the next hour. One of the women in the group would share her testimony, the story that brought her to a belief in God and her choice to devote her life to Him. There was also a reminder that the group was confidential, the words would fall on the large chairs, coffee table, and couches and reside inside that room. 

      As the woman jumped immediately into her story, I sat there wanting to sink further into the couch cushions, hoping they would swallow me so I would be gone from an immediately intimate scene. Tissues were passed as she spoke. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that as she thought through this moment, she probably hadn’t anticipated an unrecognizable face. Was I an intruder they felt they needed to welcome? Should I have emailed before I came? She remained calm as she spoke.

      Just as I was starting to feel less invasive and simply listened, she was finished. The host thanked her for sharing her experience and  announced that now we would go around the circle to share about our weeks or respond to the testimony given. More tears streamed and tissues passed as the different voices continued around the circle. I was stunned again at the willingness of vulnerability these women exemplified.

      Hearing my voice in a new group normally puts me in a state of panic, but I felt I had to say something. Should I share about the difficulties I’m realizing, that come along with moving across the country, about my father’s new heart condition that makes it hard to be away, about the new reality of being a wife, about my uncertainties on the price tag for school, especially when I’m experiencing writer’s block? I would introduce myself, no need to dive into the thoughts I’ve pondered alone over the course of the week. “I’m Jenelle.” I hear myself say. I turn to the woman who shared and thank her for the courage it must have taken to do that, especially when someone she’s never seen before is sitting in to listen. “I just moved here from Boston and…” as if the thoughts I didn’t share demanded to be let out, I cried in the middle of my sentence. It was one of those breathy cries not allowing me to get too many words out. “Thank-you-for-letting-me join you today.” I managed to pull it together. “I’m not quite sure why I’m crying.” I said followed by an embarrassed laugh. “Don’t worry, you’re in good company.” Said the woman next to me and we moved on. 

      As I pedaled home, I thought about all the very personal stories I now held in my mind of women I didn’t know, and wished that there was a way I could leave them to be contained in the walls of the room. I was overwhelmed by it, unsure if this amount of instant vulnerability was a healthy thing. I thought about my reaction to it, my refusal to reciprocate, and the desire to simply get through my turn. I never thought of myself as a closed person, but the liabilities of revealing self take over my mind in new situations. This isn’t the only place that has brought those liabilities to my attention. It happens in new classrooms, new work environments, social situations, etc. I’m so ready to be passed that, to let go of anxious feelings and simply be in those moments. I may go back again and the circle may become more comfortable, but I’ll probably have to share more than my name next time. I wonder if being vulnerable with other people impacts the softness of your heart, allowing spiritual change.

I have always been interested in prose form but didn’t fully understand the form because after all, isn’t poetry just the opposite? Well I’ve been reading and learning and mixing genre quite a bit this year. I love the prose form. Here’s my first attempt at it after reading Johnson’s book. 

Suddenly Becoming Small

Near the display of  Valentine paraphernalia and chocolate boxes I looked up and saw him peeking at me through colorful mugs, tins of tea. My glance apparently became an invitation he accepted, slowly stepping around the shelves, revealing gray strands that seeped through his natural color. He smiled, stared, waited, for me to make eye contact and when I did: “I bet you want a box of those, don’t ya?” jumped through his half grin and was punctuated with a wink. I chortled and looked back at my magazine— mute, still, shy before a stranger, the kind they inform you to run away from screaming. And my feet frozen to the tiles made me see myself wearing light curls pulled back by bows and a party dress puffed with toile, while he stood leaning down, hovering, a hairy face in the shoes men wear to work.

This may be my favorite collection of poetry. If not my favorite, it is certainly in the top five. That may be in part because I feel such a connection to the content of this book, which shares moments of Johnson in the church as a child. I have been writing through this aspect of my own history recently and Johnson’s become a new model. Her use of the prose form was something I hadn’t tried prior to reading her collection but with a better grasp on the form I gave it a shot. One of the biggest things I’ve been thinking about in my own work since starting an MFA is how I can represent my personal story without alienating an audience. I want my work, even if personal at time and narrative, to be accessible to a reader. So I decided to explore Johnson’s craft with this in mind. 

      Jubilee by Roxane Beth Johnson is one of the best collections of poetry I’ve ever read. I’m intrigued by her use of the non-linear narrative she develops throughout the book. Although her story is highly personal the details through which we collect her as a character, focus on experiences she observes and re-tells, and it is not until the end that we get a better sense of her and the pivotal moments in her story. There are many craft tools Johnson uses in order to make this autobiographical narrative extend beyond herself and draw the reader in. For example, she uses sensory language that helps the reader experience the moment. She also often puts us in the present tense as she reveals a moment. Finally, many of the poems carry a commanding tone for the reader to follow.  Johnson pulls the reader into her autobiographical narrative by allowing them to engage with moments revealed in the present, using a commanding tone, and relying on sharp sensory language. 

      In the poem Aunt Connie the reader receives so many physical senses that supports and conveys the emotion felt by the I. She makes a metaphor between her Aunt Connie who has died and a rotten orange, but there is also a play on color in this poem. “Mother takes a lilac dress from things the husband sets out” (21). Johnson makes the metaphor with color but also with fruit. “Some everlasting beauty is always needed - like wax fruit or a photograph: a memory too small to wear” (21). Connie can’t be kept by the dress, nor can she be kept like a piece of wax fruit. Both would be a false sense of her, mirroring some similarity. The feeling of weighty loss is created through this metaphor. Johnson also inserts dialogue in the piece; a conversation between Connie and her mother evoking sound while conveying something about their relationship. We know it is cold on the day of her funeral because of the “sky like frost on car windows” (21). The details evoke the five senses. The metaphor and sensory language used makes the moment come to life and evoke the emotion the narrator experiences. Therefore, while this is a highly autobiographical moment Johnson creates it in a way that allows the reader to step into or see the situation closely.

      Many of the poems in the collection are also written in present tense; this allows the reader to follow the action as it occurs. Using the present tense gives the moment life every time we read it. In the poem Holy Water we are introduced to a new character. “Perry and I go with Grandma Ella to her church, St. John of the/ Cross” (32). I assume this is the narrator’s brother but either way I am not phased by the surprise. I simply follow the snapshot as it unfolds and see the I take in a new church experience that she compares to the predominant ones in the first section. “…Grandma puts her fingers in a stone bowl of water…Perry looks inside…People laugh..I ask Perry” (32). By seeing the situation unfold in the present tense I feel like I am a part of the moment in some way.

      Another way that Johnson pulls the reader in, is by using commanding language. Perhaps beyond using it as a tool to pull the reader in, it is also threading the collection by drawing on her beginning experiences in the collection. In the poem Mother And Father, 1965, she writes “Don’t look at them…Don’t watch as she takes the/ ring, puts it on…Stop them now…Look at me” (39). This kind of command shows up throughout the collection but here it focuses on the moment her parents commit to each other and conceive her. At this point in the collection we receive the difficulty of that relationship and a glimpse of the abuse she has experienced in her childhood. These commands seem desperate in a way. They draw the reader in but in the same way makes us powerless to change the narrative. This provides another opportunity where we see Johnson’s language evoke emotion. The commanding language is another craft tool Johnson uses to pull the reader in.

      Johnson’s collection Jubilee is an autobiographical narrative, however she uses a variety of craft tools to extend her experience beyond herself and engage the reader. She uses sensory language that gives life to the moments she captures, which in turn evokes emotion through the way she reveals the situation. Many of her poems are written in the present tense, allowing the reader to experience the moment as it unfolds. Finally, some of the poems included in the collection use commanding language that draws the reader into the narrative but also makes them powerless to intervene. All of these tools evoke emotion and response from the reader. In a collection of autobiographical snapshots that thread together to reveal the I and her family, I do not feel like simply an observer, but instead an engaged reader.

Johnson, Roxane Beth. Jubilee. Anhinga Press: Tallahassee, FL. 2006. Print.

The Poems of Paul Celan were interesting and at times emotionally challenging to read through. This survivor of the Holocaust writes through the events he witnessed and this horrific moment in history. In the piece below I discuss the use of repetition in his work which evokes the emotion in these situations.  

      Paul Celan’s compilation entitled Poems of Paul Celan reveals a man’s continuous process through grief caused by oppression. I find it especially interesting that his work is written in German, the language of his oppressors, and admire the power Celan’s language gains through his poems. His writing shifts and changes throughout the collection, but one mode used that shapes the poets’ voice is repetition. This repetition seems like an intentional craft element Celan used in his work, and he pairs it with different grammatical strategies in a variety of ways. This creates poems with different tonal qualities. For the purpose of this paper I will focus on three poems from Mohn und Gedachtnis. This use of repetition paired with grammatical choices allows Celan’s voice to process through the continuous grief, causing his language to convey a depth of sadness, charged power, and self-reflective moments that pause. 

      The poem Aspen Tree contains repetitious patterns and uses traditional rules of grammar to create a tone of deep sadness. The poem’s content deals with the death of Celan’s mother which was much too soon and violent. “Aspen Tree, your leaves glance white into the dark. My mother’s hair was never white” (9).The repetitive pattern in this poem is created by four more stanza’s that continue with a line of life in nature and a comment of Celan’s mother. The syntax of the poem obeys the rules of proper grammar. I wonder if this enters into the depth of sadness. His mother was killed because of Nazi oppression but while that rule took her physical life, she is still remembered and embodied in some ways for her son through this poem. By using the rules of language and forcing the content (his mother) under these restrictions, it captures a push and pull that occurs in the poem. As strong as those restrictions are in the poem they don’t rule it. Instead, they slow the poem down and provide the opportunity for the poet and reader to reflect on the situation and ultimately his mother’s life. Therefore, the poem contains two forces, the grammar that structures the content, but the repetition that manipulates that structure to create a tone that conveys Celan’s grief. As a reader I grieve with him as I read the pattern and in this way it provides an opportunity to release his mother from that strict oppression that took her life.

      The poem Death Fugue continues to use repetition but in quite a different way than Aspen Tree. The poem contains a chorus that is repeated throughout the poem, as well as, repeated phrases within the stanzas and lines. The repetitive nature of the poem offers a glimpse into the reality of the content which discusses the daily nature of oppression by the Germans. There is a constant drinking “Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown” (31). Unlike Aspen Tree, this poem does not adhere to any rules of grammar. The horrific story revealed through this daily routine is carried in the repetition, and the long line length repeated without any punctuation makes the form circular and never-ceasing. This provides an understanding of the continual nature of the suffering. The long lines and choruses containing repetition along with the lack of punctuation create an important tone in this poem. The form allows the language to charge ahead and carry strong momentum, maybe even carry a bit of delirium throughout the poem. The anger is not held back.

      The poem Eyes displays another form of repetition and provides another tone of voice for Celan. Eyes and other physical features were part of consistent descriptions in Celan’s work in the collection.  In this poem the repetition of the word “Eye” begins each stanza and is followed by a colon. This significantly slows the poem by setting up each stanza to stand independently. It allows the “Eyes” to display different views and moments that build in the poem. Because of the colon it also creates a sense of definition, allowing for self-reflective moments of the I through the “Eye”. The repetitive pattern in this poem again, supports the content.

      Celan’s poems carry a thread of repetition that when paired with punctuation create various tones that speak of his experience. At points these moments of repetition occur through patterns, at other times the poems contain repeated language within the line and chorus refrains throughout the poem, and finally represented in this paper, through a repeated word. Many poems from Celan’s collection included this craft element of repetition and pattern. Through this tool, in combination with Celan’s use of grammar, the poetry carries multiple tones that display different aspects of his grieving process. This allowed Celan to create work that is rich with emotion and captures a unique level of humanity. 

Celan, Paul. Poems of Paul Celan, Revised & Expanded. Persea Books, Inc: New       York, NY. 1972. Print.