Public Reading – Uwem Akpan’s “Say You’re One of Them”

Surrounded by white painted walls, Uwem Akpan took the stage in the Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery, which was formerly known as Room 100. He had been introduced by his advisor, Eileen Pollack, who tearfully described Akpan’s time here at Michigan. She asked that we consider Akpan not just as a purveyor of important messages, but also as a gifted craftsman in the English language. Luckily, most of the crowd were reading junkies or were associated with the English department in some way or another, so we were able to focus on Akpan’s technical accomplishments in addition to the powerful things he was describing.

Father Akpan, a Jesuit priest, studied theology and English at various schools in Africa and the United States. He mounted the stage wearing an un-tucked black shirt and a beret. The crowd sat stiff and quietly after applauding him. “Good evening, everyone.” Polite silence continued. “You can say something!” He chuckled like a child, and the shoulders of the self-conscious crowd relaxed with laughter. He continued, “A story is not complete until you’ve told it to people.” Akpan’s book, Say You’re One of Them, is a novel-sized collection of short stories and novellas describing the plight of several children from various regions in Africa.

He began by reading an excerpt from Fattening for Gabon, the novella-sized short story that tells the tale of two brothers, one Christian, one Muslim, and describes the dangerous consequences when people try to go where they are not welcome. As he read, Akpan’s voice boomed, except when he paused or chuckled. His prose is potent and filled with imagery. One character contemplates his hand that will soon be cut off for having stolen something. Sitting there, the audience saw his dark room and feels the emotional conflict in the man as he rubs his whole body with his hand for the last time.

At this point, Akpan explained that he would rather use the time for questions and discussion than simply spouting stories at the audience. When asked about how he approaches cultures that he has never experienced, he describes that the human conflict comes first and foremost. “Children feel the same way worldwide,” he says,” [they] are not born with culture.” Akpan explained that once he has written the drama and the main purpose of the story, he continues onto the details. The details, he explained, are where the believability really comes true. And the details come from in depth research and from repeated verification. Akpan ran his work past locals of the region he was writing about until they were surprised that he was a foreigner. I was both perplexed and impressed at this technique. On one hand, it removes the authenticity a little bit in that he has not explicitly experienced these events (although who am I to question what he has experienced in his life). On the other hand, the ability to recreate another person's observations exactly as they remember them is an admirable skill and one to be studied.

Akpan answered several more questions about the viability of the short story and what people can do to help Africans. To this second question, he simply urged us to help those in need around us, that too many people try to rush in and "save" Africa, and that it is a nuisance and a danger to overly impose. I found it interesting that despite having said some pretty intense things, Father Akpan always managed to chuckle and make the audience feel welcome and at home with him. Needless to say, after listening to him, I look forward to reading Say You're One of Them.

Response to Nick Carbó’s “I Found Orpheus Levitating”

I really enjoyed Nick Carbó’s approach in “I Found Orpheus Levitating,” specifically the way that he broke the fourth wall between the author and the character. Equally as engaging is the way that Carbó first convinces the reader that the narrator is actually in the story, but then reveals that the narrator is actually Carbó himself, who is engaged in a strange “cartoonist-cartoon” relationship where the author is in the poem, and the character begins to stare out of the page.

Carbó accomplished this relationship so well, in part, by the descriptions of Orpheus’s experiences with and reaction to Filipino culture. Interestingly, Carbó maintains the authority by the words he uses. In lines 5 and 6, Carbó “…dressed him/in an old barong tagalong and some black pants.” This implies that he did not give him clothes, or direct him towards his closet, but dressed him. Perhaps this is taking liberty with the words, but Carbó did choose dress. It demonstrates the ambiguity of the scene in that, yes, Carbó chose Orpheus’s actions and, yes, Carbó’s poetic self is in the poem giving Orpheus these clothes.

This strange set up where Carbó appears to be a character, but is really just a puppeteer can be extrapolated from almost every part of the poem. Lines 7 and 8 show another example of this: “Because he wanted new friends in a new land, I introduced /him to Kapitan Kidlat, out local comic book hero.” On an initial reading, it could easily be confused that Carbó is in the scene, performing a “Kapitan Kidlat, this is Orpheus. Orpheus, this is Kapitan Kidlat,” ritual. After a second reading, however, it is arguable that he means that he “cartooned” Kapitan Kidlat into the scene. The same goes when Carbó takes Orpheus to meet Malaka and Maganda, to eat Kamayan, and when they go to the Hobbit House.

When Orpheus finally discovers that Carbó is both in the poem and outside of it, looking in, he is confused. “No, No, I’m not in a movie,/I’m inside a fucking poem!/I can see the poet’s scrunched-up face on the other side/of the computer screen!” Now that the reader is aware of Carbó’s multiple presence, he must try to keep track of which of Carbó’s identities are performing each action. Orpheus is compelled to leave when Carbó asks him “if he understood/the concept of ‘the willing suspension of disbelief.’” This whole scene leaves the reader scratching his head and wondering, “What, exactly, just happened?” just as Nick Carbó intended.

Response to Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”

My reading of Hills Like White Elephants was the first time I had ever read any material by Ernest Hemingway. Luckily I read the introduction to the story before I started reading, or I would surely have missed the point. Since I did read the introduction, however, I was able to appreciate the effectiveness of Hemingway’s focus on understated dialogue and subtly placed clues that describe the atmosphere and the tension in the situation.

Hemingway’s understated dialogue never explicitly describes the fact that the woman is talking about having an abortion, and it doesn’t need to. Hemingway’s point, it seems, is twofold. First, it seems that he is trying to describe a relatively commonplace situation while keeping the reader’s interest. He does this by generating a rapid-fire, back-and-forth dynamic in the dialogue, mainly by using as few tags and intermediate descriptions as possible during the couple’s actual discussion. This makes the reader read faster, which in turn makes the story seem to be moving at a more aggressive pace. Second, it seems that Hemingway wants to generate tension without outwardly generating it. This is generated, in large part, by the characters’ few well-placed actions. Most of these actions involve the individuals or the couple drinking a different kind of drink. Even the conversation focuses on what they will drink in between bouts of argument. Little clues, like the woman’s focus on the hill and the poster and everything except for her boyfriend, demonstrate her nervousness and unease.

Despite the tension Hemingway generates (the white elephant in the room, if you will), his dialogue still shines through the fact that the characters truly care for each other. The playfulness of her conversation, even at the most upset moment, just feels to the reader like something that two people who are very in love would say. An example of this is when the woman is trying to change the subject and says, “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” This is not something said out of scorn, but instead out of frustration and fear. It is said with her desire to be comfortable during the time of the most difficult decision in her life.

Hemingway does not flatly state any of this. It can all be implied strictly from the tone and careful placement of the few words and actions that make up Hills Like White Elephants. After reading this, I intend to read many more works by Ernest Hemingway.

Response to Virginia Woolf’s “A New Dress”

Much like in John Cheever’s The Swimmer, the part of Virginia Woolf’s A New Dress that I found most interesting is ability to maintain the pace of her story and to generate an emotional response in the reader.

Unlike in The Swimmer, where the pace was brisk and pulled the reader along, Mabel’s description of her preparation for and attendance at a fancy party drags the reader along grudgingly. The reader feels angst towards turning the page because he thinks (according to Mabel) that some evil or embarrassment is certainly coming with her attendance of the party. Even when she is at the party, and the worst sort of embarrassment has happened at the hands of Charles Burt, who announces that Mabel has a new dress to the entire party. I think the specific technique she uses to generate this feeling is frequent tone shifting. Woolf describes Mabel’s thoughts of how beautiful she looks in her dress and then immediately crushes Mabel’s spirit with thoughts like “And now the whole thing has vanished.”

Woolf keeps the reader attached enough to the story that they will continue reading, even though they feel uncomfortable about encountering the approaching storm of humiliation. This flow contributes to the reader’s ability to get into Mabel’s consciousness.

More important to this awareness of Mabel’s consciousness, however, is in the form of Woolf’s ability to express the frailness and jumpy nature of Mabel’s mind. Woolf does this by employing stream of consciousness techniques, which focus on recreating, in the reader’s mind, the feelings, observations, and thought processes that are going on inside the character’s mind. By using such techniques, she allows the reader to understand the anxiousness that Mabel experiences. The repeated description of the fly trying to escape the saucer is especially effective at this. By the end of the story, the reader almost feels as though they are awkwardly placed at the party and just want to go home.

Response to John Cheever's "The Swimmer"

In The Swimmer, John Cheever maintains a sense of urgency and excitement during Neddy Merrill’s journey home through the swimming pools of his neighbors, up until the very end when Merrill comes to an unfortunate discovery. This is accomplished through two primary means. First, the story never takes a moment for Neddy to rest. Second, each subsequent neighbor interacts with both Neddy and the reader on very different levels.

The perpetual motion in The Swimmer is evident throughout the story, especially when Neddy interacts with his neighbors and when he struggles to escape each new home. The interaction with each neighbor is evidenced in the scene where Enid Bunker vitually drags Neddy out of the pool. As she kisses him and drags him through the crowd of kissing women and handshaking men, Neddy’s anxiousness peeks through. The scene could easily be converted into a short film due to moments like this, along with some neat scenery associated with the changing of the season. The excitement continues as soon as he breaks free and jogs along the garden path. Each interaction has a moment like the one with Enid Bunker—Neddy is glad at first to see his friends, but quickly becomes impatient or frightened and keeps moving. This cyclic building and releasing of tension and “awkward moments” keeps the reader engaged, despite the confusion.

The contrasting interpretations of Neddy’s interactions with his neighbors by Neddy and by the reader lead to an interesting mix of humor, confusion, and sympathy for the strange fate of Neddy. Even the inattentive reader (like myself) begins to pick up on hints that Neddy has been the victim of an unpleasant fate when he arrives at the Halloran household. The elderly (and nudist) Mrs. Halloran kindly welcomes Neddy, but confesses her sympathy over the loss of his house and about the fate of his children. Neddy is confused at this idea, insisting that his girls are at home and that the house is fine. There are seeds before this that something is wrong, but this really puts the nail in the coffin. Poor Neddy has lost his mind. All the same, Cheever’s presentation of Neddy’s excitement for his journey makes it hard not to like Neddy and hope that he really is just on a journey home.

In summary, Cheever generates a remarkable response in his reader by keeping the story moving with an exciting, though not entirely realistic, story line while grounding the story in the sad tale of Neddy Merrill.

Response to Pink Floyd's "Echoes"

I wanted to analyze a poem with powerful imagery, so I started looking through the Seagull Reader for the right poem to review. Then it occurred to me–why not analyze the imagery of one of the poems most familiar to me? I decided to dissect the imagery of the lyrics of Pink Floyd’s Echoes.

The song is an epic 23 minutes and 31 seconds of soaring guitar and keyboard solos, carnival sounds, and thick atmospheric vocal harmonies. For years, I have appreciated the ability of the sounds and the music in Echoes to produce a powerful emotional response in the listener. However, I have never spent the time to analyze the effect of the lyrics themselves. By examining the rhyming patterns and use of potent imagery, I discovered a potent, poetic piece of literature that even further contributes to the sense of atmosphere and generates emotional response from the song.

Despite the length, there are only three vocal sections—each consisting of a verse and a chorus, which consist of six lines and four lines respectively. Each verse line is of inconsistent length, but they all use iambic meter, with extra stresses on the first syllable of the first and fourth lines of each verse. The choruses are strictly iambic, although the words “And no one” that begin almost each line of the chorus are nearly anapestic in the way that they are stressed in the recording.

There is no strictly consistent rhyme scheme during the verse, although the second two verses use end rhyme on the first and second lines, while the first verse rhymes on the second two lines. The chorus uses end rhyme between the second and third lines, all of which rhyme with “eyes.” The chorus also repeats the phrase “And no-one” at the beginning of all but two of the twelve lines of chorus. This creates a sense of repetitiveness that lulls the listener into the cyclic motion of the music. While the rhyme and repetition of the lyrics of Echoes certainly draws the reader into the repetitive motion of the music, the real magic of these lyrics lies in the imagery that they create.

The first verse defines an image of an albatross flying over the green water of a coral reef. This coincides with “birdcalls” generated by David Gilmour’s guitar playing. All of the choruses don’t directly interact with the adjacent verses, but instead call out about the fact that no one is in control of how we act. The second paints a picture of “Strangers passing in the street/By chance two separate glances meet.” The verse continues to discuss the concept that both of these people are one and the same and together, despite their apparent separation. The third verse generates an image of the waking narrator who is invited and incited to rise and see the sunlight in the form of “A million bright ambassadors of morning.” Interestingly, this verse almost directly mimics a verse in The Beatle’s Across the Universe:

Sounds of laughter

Shades of life are ringing through my open ears

Inciting and Inviting me.

Limitless undying love which

Shines around me like a million suns and calls me on and on

Across the universe.

Perhaps this verse is a tribute, considering that Echoes was published in 1972, only three years after the 1969 release of Across the Universe on the Let It Be album. Either way, it is an effective scene and generates a strong desire for the listener to almost stand and check the nearest window.

Like much of Pink Floyd’s early music, Echoes is probably best not thought of as a story, but instead as a serious of images and mindsets that can be contemplated as a unit or in separation. However you listen and associate these verses to one another, there is no doubt that your mental state will be filled with some form of elaborate images over the course of the epic Echoes.

First Thanksgiving (A Prose Poem)

The fire still licked at the stone; the rock hard stone that was covered in flammable juices. On it, her skin sat before them: browned, steamed, smoked. She smelled of fat that dripped off her sides. The skin felt crisp, a drying leaf bending just a little before breaking. Below the smoking blanket rests a deep, white mattress of flesh. Chunks of parallel running fibers tear from each other by little fingers. Little fingers attached to little hands attached to little arms controlled by a little brain of a little human: eyes wide and savage, mouths wide and dripping saliva. As flesh led to flesh led to flesh, the hungry fingers tore and tore and tore, ripping chunks of moist, fibrous joy; joy that was still hot enough to scald the little fingers; joy that was placed onto the cold, dirty floor. The big human with the big beard and the big hair, flowing from head to back to foot, called out a note from the horn in his neck. He spoke no coherent sentence, but the little humans understood—they stood back. Big human picked up a rock: gray, cold, sharp, rough. Hacking away, one bone came off, covered in dark, moist flesh and black skin. Then another, and another, and another, and then there were four piled on the ground. Limbs made a fire pit over the tinder of flesh. Big human picked up a limb, smelled the bone, and slammed it into his beard. They all jumped onto the platter and devoured the fire. So went the First Thanksgiving.

Post-writing analysis:

I thought that writing a prose poem was a unique experience, one that is quite different from either traditional poetry or traditional prose. I’m glad that I tried it after having gone through both units, because it gives me an appreciation for the hybrid nature of the form. I feel that it is less structured than either traditional form, which frankly I don’t like. I like the structure because it gives me a tangible framework within which I can focus my efforts.

Also, I find that poetry lets me express emotional states and sensual states, while traditional fiction allows me to create a sense of character and empathy. With the prose poem, the only thing I felt I was able to develop was an awkward sense of trying too hard to be both poetic and syntactically logical. I don’t think I plan on writing more prose poems any time soon, although I like the concept of writing traditional short stories with some amount of rhythm, and potentially with rhyme… What a cool idea! (The Greeks were smart J…)