Figurative Warriors

Response 4 — Due: F 20-Feb

 
Part I due by class-time Friday, posted on blog.
Part II (separate entry) due by 6pm Sun 22-Feb.

See description below.

Bixby Creek Bridge, Big Sur, CA

 

 

 
 

Creative Writing Assignment
(in which we exercise our capacity for figurative thinking and expression).

 
Part I (400-500 words min/max)

 
Within the context of The Cold War chapters 5-6,
compose a literary piece, employing figurative expression to convey the subjective condition of experiencing a specific situation that McMahon describes.

Recall from Monday’s class, we first need to imagine individuals’ “living through” the circumstances — not to say “what it was like,” but to express their experience as we might imagine it (through intuitive and deductive reasoning); again, we’ll want to avoid generalizations and try to perceive with a specific or concrete focus.

 
This is simultaneously “open-ended” and “formulaic” — composition notes:

 
1) Content choices are extremely open-ended — use “vehicles” that you think are appropriate and effective.
With this said, you should certainly reference, but need not explicitly quote, specific aspects from McMahon, (implicitly illustrating how your reading informs this creative work). Remember: use the indirect style/mode, over explicit articulation (or explanation for that matter!).

 
2) In addition to our figurative mode (using metaphor, metonymy, image),
our formal style is fragmentary; this can be written as fiction, poetry, or a combination.

(Suggestion: think “vignette” over a short-story with a developed plot. WP’s entry on this is fairly good, especially contrasting other search results. Overall, don’t worry about conventional literary forms…)

 
3) Use figures from our readings (required) — at least one from this week (Kerouac, Ginsberg, O’Hara, Ashberry);
any additional figures can derive from the previous two weeks (2/2-2/13).

These can be images, characters, phrases, as well as techniques — key criterion is figurative expression: leaving out (or under-stating) the tenor; this is the affect, the subjective dimension of experience.
Recall Bishop’s protesting Lowell’s trying to say “this is what we are like in 1972” — we take heed in our conveying the experience that we imagine.

Caution: we are not reiterating stereotypes, cliches, or composite images that we’ve inherited from our paradigm {family, education, culture}. (we’ll engage with this problem later)
The present task calls for “intuitive empathy” — imagining the condition of experience, which McMahon leaves out (or only implies). If our established views are imposing upon us, we use this as “contrast,” the point from which we diverge. (So, for example, I am not simply repeating a parent’s account — to repeat their saying “this is what it was like when…” is passive, uncritical; I stop and interrogate my role.)

 
 

Part II (100 words min.)
— Post as a separate entry on your blog.

Read a classmate’s entry; describe the affect (tenor) that you intuit from their work, concerning the subjective experience that they express. Also mention the effect of the figurative expression at work in their response, (and perhaps the “effectiveness”? though not required). To what extent does this function as “para-doxa,” an alternative form of discourse{thought+expression}?

—Note: Remember that this is part of your (graded) response; thus, credit is not guaranteed and will not be applied for expressions of opinion (e.g. “I dis/liked,” “it’s good/bad/etc”). “Feedback” on the entry is better suited for a separate comment to the writer, on her/his blog! (rather than part of your response, which I am reading/evaluating)

 
Practical/technical notes:
1) Ideally, please discuss an entry that has not been read, (so that everyone’s is read and analyzed).
2) To this end, leave your classmate a comment on their blog, (as soon after class as possible), so that everyone (including me) knows that you plan to analyze this entry.
3) Finally, please link to the entry that you discuss — both for my convenience, and for your classmate to see when you’ve posted Part II (via Pingback, hopefully).

 
More coming soon, if necessary.