Of Snow

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Of Snow

In this poem, snow is given a hopeful feeling. It is linked to positive images such as wine, romance, and divinity. In my own interpretation, snow reminds me of the image of children playing in it, making snowballs and snowmen. However, snow can also be hazardous, especially to those who have experienced it long enough. The classic example of it is when someone says, “I wish I could live in a snowy town,” and their experienced friend replies, “Honestly, it’s not that great.”

With images of desert and snow, the poem seems to use snow as something rare, unlikely to occur in the land. “Snowmen…melt and melt…” compares snowmen to soldiers by linking the image of death and melting. The snowmen are placed in the Sahara to suggest a sense of hopelessness.

                “Do you need to make angels, really, who then vanish

                Or are angels all…

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Tropic of Orange: Arcangel the performer

I posted this blog in the wrong section… It should be timestamped?

vincevu's Blog

This blog will focus on Arcangel’s experiences and its connection, through the body, to Asian American experience. This analysis of Arcangel suggests that his performance with his body parallels the model minority mold through the perception of society.

From the beginning of the week in Ch. 7, Arcangel’s chapters are unique in that they contain poetry from the mind of the Arcangel. When I read this, I imagined him speaking to himself in the flowery way poets read their poetry. It described a performance experience where “on the steps of the opera house when Arcangel played the prophet. Chilam Quetzal, he called himself.” This image of the opera connects to the italicized poetry; I visualized the dialogue as if he was performing a monologue. As we progress through his later chapters, he continues this pattern of performing. In the chapter “To Wash,” Arcangel now performs in front of people when…

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Call Me Ishmael Tonight Of Fire

I want to continue to explore “Of Fire,” because I was really drawn to the parallelism of fire and its paradoxes. I want to focus on, “Soldier: “The enemy can see you and that’s how you die.” On the world’s roof, breathless, he defends a glacier of fire.” When I read this stanza, I wonder who is the enemy and who is the soldier defending as well. If, the enemy can see you and that’s how you die, who is the enemy and how will you die? Fire, is one of the strongest elements in this world that is an creator and an destroyer. It can also be exteremly uncontrollable and as the solider defends the glacier of fire, the solider is basically defending something that can not be controlled.

This stanza has several themes going on, the concept of the protector, the enemy, the world as the battle field and the solider’s devout dedication to protect the fire. I think it is important to address this because the idea of the solider is the protector, the world is the people and the fire is normally symbolized as the enemy. However in this case, the solider is protecting and defending the glacier of fire that contradicts the solider’s role as a protector of the world. These two sentences are powerful because it critics the meaning of the solider while the symbolizes the fire as a dangerous source of energy that put the world endanger. The Solider is not always the protector but when the enemy see[s] you, that’s how you die which challenges the power and control of the opposer. 

Call Me Ishmael Tonight

Call Me Ishmael Tonight introduces the reader to  numerous ghazals that holds a great amount of meaning which forces the reader to deeply analyze each poem.  I found this book very difficult to read because I was unable to interpret each line of the poems thoroughly. Although I did find it troubling to read through some of the poems in this book, I was intrigued by “Stars” because  I enjoyed how Shahid  described the stars and used metaphors and personification in order to give the reader a new perspective on how he may see the stars during day and night. “ How grateful you are to stay awake with me till by dawn, like you, I’m ready to sleep stars!”(72) this line in the poem  describes the star as if the author is talking to a human being which is a pure example of one out of the many uses of figures of speech which we discussed in class. The author also uses grammar in order to change the direction of who he is questioning in the poem.  Overall I enjoyed  the simplicity of this poem and Shahid’s use of figurative language.

“Angels” in Call Me Ishmael Tonight

Upon first reading through the ghazals in Call Me Ishmael Tonight, I became somewhat worried about what I could write on. Each ghazal seemed so simple that I was uncertain as to how much I would actually be able to analyze any specific one. What was easier to analyze, however, was the recurring themes throughout the book. The main themes that I noticed seemed to be the questioning of the afterlife and God  as well as time on earth leading up to the afterlife. Specifically in the ghazal titled “Angels” I felt there was a strong emphasis on questioning of the afterlife and also time. Ali seems to portray the Angels as more human than otherworldly, but still portraying that the angels are not completely human. When he speaks of the “new fashions in which it could dress angels,” the angels seem human, however in this same couplet Ali personifies dawn and night. That also seemed to be a strong theme throughout the collection of ghazals: the very close relationship between life and afterlife. The connection seemed to make the mysteries of the afterlife less mysterious. Also, when it came to the concept of time, in my opinion, it never sounded like a very friendly or graceful process. In “Angels” it is depicted as “the air is my vinegar, I, its perfect preserve.” Vinegar being an acid that although preserves, also causes water to be sucked out of whatever object it surrounds, caused me to imagine someone slowly aging and ultimately getting water, or life, drained out of them. In my head it was not only an oddly gruesome depiction of aging, but a slow and depressing one. By connecting the questions of the afterlife and angels with this depiction of aging, the questioning and uncertainty seemed to be something he thought about  as the “vinegar” preserved and drained him day by day.

Call Me Ishmael Tonight (Week 9)

Since poems have never been easy for me, I found it somewhat hard to understand the various poems in “Call Me Ishmael Tonight.” While trying to read the book on my own, I felt that I had no direction in terms what to think about the text. After discussing in class and learning about the style of writing and the author’s background, it felt more understandable.

One of the poems that intrigued me was “Of It All.” The lines “After Algebra there was Geometry – and then Calculus – / But I’d already failed the arithmetic of it all” (Ali 30) and “Across the world one aches for New York, but to long for New York in New York’s most tragic of all” (Ali 31) reminded me of the 9/11 attack in New York City. I am not sure if it was written before or after the attack since Shahid passed away later that year. For some reason, the mention of math classes reminded me of what I was doing on the day of 9/11. I remember waking up and seeing the attack on the news and not having to go to school. It was like everyone was just going about their daily lives when this tragic event happened.

The lines in this ghazal seemed to represent a lot of contradictions within the ideas, especially the words choices. I think the words “of it all” seems to imply that of all the things that could possibly happen, these specific things happened. Perhaps it implies that certain things happen for a reason, especially since there are so many other things that could have possibly happened.

Calling Ishmael Tonight (the chapter, Of It All)

Taking a look at the chapter, called Of It All on page 30, makes us think about what a tragic incidence changed South Asian’s life in the US September 11^th 2001 and physical and emotional separation between South Asian countries and the US. At the very beginning, the chapter mentions that “I say This, after all, is the trick of it all when suddenly you say Arabic of it all. ”(30)   Behind those sentences, some sort of typical Arabic or South Asian cultures such as Geometry, Calculus, curries, are mentioned. Then the chapter also states that “What makes yours the rarest edition is just this: it’s bound in human skin, final fabric of it all.” (30) This sentence makes readers think about people of color as if the chapter would show how Arabs or South Asians are portrayed by people in the US such as images of math, curries, and skin color. On the next page, the chapter mentions that “Across the world one aches for New York”(31) This implies a catastrophe happens there. The catastrophe makes Arabs or South Asians fine enemies for the US. A sentence states “The sudden storm swept its ice across the great plains. How did you find me, then, in the thick of it all.” (31)This reminds us of racial profiling for Arabs or South Asians. This chapter uses much metaphors, implying the separation between the US and Arabic or South Asian countries. The chapter also makes us imagine that how emotionally separate Arabs or South Asians are from people in the US by mentioning “I’m still cut off from you” or “I’m fine Enemy, in your isolate mirror”. 

Blog #6: Call Me Ishmael Tonight

The poem that captivated me the most in Call Me Ishmael Tonight was “Land.” The author, Shahid, is referring to two different lands in this poem – one is the United States and the other is his homeland. I interpreted it as he was longing for his homeland because he felt that there was no freedom in the United States, but at the same time, he bitterly describes how his homeland had changed and how the United States negatively affects his homeland. He sounds a bit angry from feeling deceived by United States because the United States was supposed to be a promise land filled with goodness and freedom. He realized the United States was not as wonderful as it had seemed. In the couplet that reads, “Do the blind hold temples close to their eyes when we steal their gods for our atheist land?” Shahid indicates his bitterness towards the United States for imposing their control over his homeland through the West plundering the East. The way Shahid has written this poem makes it seem like he is speaking to someone who has tricked him. His tone sounds bitter and accusing as if he was angrily asking why the United States deceived him and why they were influencing his homeland badly as well.

Call Me Ishmael Tonight

Call Me Ishmael Tonight by Agha Shahid Ali introduces readers to not only the structure of the ghazal but also the opportunity to interpret and formulate an understanding for his ghazals. As with many of the other students in class, I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of meaning and interpretation that each and every poem has within the collection. As brought up in class, one of the poems that explored the issues related to love was “As Ever” (after Ahmad Faraz) Ali (48 Ali). Reading it on my own, I saw the rhyming that was taking place during the second line of each stanza following the “-ain” ending sound. What was most unique about our discussion in class was the fact that in each couplet, there is always a task whose purpose is not accomplished. An example from the poem is in the fifth stanza when it states “I laughed when they said our time was running out -/I stirred the leaves in the tea I’d brewed to drain” (48 Ali). The tea that has been brewed had remained incomplete because it never went to the recipient that was supposed to receive the tea. Another example is the last line on the last couple. It says “To put out this last candle, come, it burns in vain” (49 Ali). This last line evokes the sheer heartbroken nature of the poet. What put it into context was what Professor Kunte explained; in which Ali was actually going to die and so there are pieces of his ghazals that are attached to that struggle. In all honesty, I found myself realizing that I had to critically analyze more of his other ghazals to develop a theory or interpretation of them. But with this one poem, I found an emotional struggle that lay within Ali and personified into an individual that he misses dearly.

Call Me Ishmael Tonight

                    Personally, I find reading poetry quite challenging because as we learned in class, the content is up for interpretation and it leads to much “excess”. This “excess” is what frustrates me the most because there is potentially no “correct” meaning and leaves me questioning everything. When I was reading Call Me Ishmael Tonight, I was intrigued by the strict structures of the ghazals and what effect it had for me as a reader. All of the poems had the same forms of parallelism or assonance and I found it interesting as much as I found it distracting in a way that I kept questioning what it meant to keep repeating that one phrase. One ghazal that stood out to me was “For You”. In “For You”, the second line of every stanza ends in “for you”. The poem is dedicated to Michael Palmer an American poet, which implies that the “you” is Palmer, and even directly addresses Michael in the last stanza. However, in the middle of the poem, Ali seems to be using an apostrophe by addressing the U.S country, as he says “dear America”. My interpretation this was that the “you” was someone American, and perhaps because Palmer is an American that he was appropriately acknowledged. It seemed to me that the poem was about Ali’s experience as an American immigrant who left his home country because of political strife and the difficulties he faced. He mentions “The birthplace of written language is bombed to nothing” in the seventh stanza, perhaps referencing South Asia where some of the oldest known written language is from, and mentions a “visitor’s card” and asks the questions “Who was I? Who am I?” in the ninth stanza.