Antonin Artaud’s manifesto “Here Where Others…” resonated the most with me.  I believe this manifesto is about the mind as well as how the mind and life communication and work as one.  The line that most speaks to me in this manifesto is “Life is a burning up of questions,” this line could not be more accurate.  The questions all of us have for life start as soon as we are born, but life has no road map of which way to go.   Life has hundreds of obstacles for us to face on a daily basis, and once we overcome one there is another one waiting.  There are many different paths to take in life, and we often have questions on which one to take and which is best for us, but no one can know that for sure.  Life has no map nothing in life can be planned perfectly.  What also doesn’t have a map is the mind, Artaud even states this in his manifesto when he writes, “I don’t recognize the existence of any map of the mind.”  Not only is life confusing and hard to figure out, but so is the mind.  The mind helps attempt to figure out life and overcome it Artaud believes, “the mind and life communicate at all levels.”  If this is case does this mean that our lives are already planned out for us? Do we not control the choices we make?  These are the questions I’m left with after reading Artaud’s manifesto, using his analogy, maybe we are just a single icicle in the world of millions.

Emily Dickinson’s Poem “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun” this poem is very interesting to me because the underlying theme of the poem is anger, which is something we all know very well.  In the first stanza of this poem Dickinson is comparing her life to a loaded gun, and “the Owner” which carried her and her life away is her anger.  It is easy for our anger to get the best of us and get swept away by it.  This is something that happens to me very often to me, as I’m sure it does for many of you.  The next stanza depicts hunting a deer in the woods, this is a violent act which anger can cause someone to be very violent.  When Dickinson writes “every time I speak for Him –” she is referring to when she speaks for her anger (the anger is “Him”).  Her speaking for the anger is when the gun is shot since anger can explode and make a person blow at any time.  When she writes “the mountain straight reply –” this can be seen as the echo a gun makes when it goes off in the woods, but also the ripple affect someone actions when they are angry can have.  The next stanza after this contain the lines “And do I smile, such cordial light” when Dickinson writes this she is describing how after a while the and the anger dissipates she can let out a smile to become friendly again.  Like many of Emily Dickinson’s poems, we can relate to them especially in this case with the underlying anger and problems it brings.

The poem I chose to write a response to was Emily Dickinson’s Wild nights – Wild nights! Right off the bat, the titled caught my attention by making me question two things. One, why does she repeat wild nights? And two, why does she scream those words? Interestingly, she says the title in the first line which presumes that these “wild nights” are the main focus of the poem. I get two images from the first line to represent the “wild nights”. It can either be a scene of a place inhabited by only wild life at night or a scene of people partying at night. Reading thru the rest of the first stanza I believe she regrets not having been with or at “wild nights”. Also, she goes on saying that “wild nights” should be a luxury making me believe that it is something we all have but we do not treasure it.

The second stanza, I believe she is describing her feelings of affection for something or someone. The winds she describes are obstacles that are futile to literally, her heart. Saying she’s done with the compass and chart means she does not want to follow the rules or roles in her life but to follow her own feelings.

In the last stanza, I believe she is referring to herself being in the unknown since she threw away the things in her life that tied her down. The place where she wants to be she is there for only that night.

I hope your Spring Break is off to a great start!!

Because of Spring Break, we’ll next see each other on Thursday, April 20th (which Baruch is running as a Monday scheduled)

By Thursday, April 20th at 9am, please complete the following:

2. Post 250 words in response to one of Emily Dickinson’s poems.
3. Please read the Manifesto packet posted under course readings and complete the following:
   1. Pick a manifesto or excerpt of a manifesto that particularly resonated with you and write a blog post detailing your response to it / why it resonated. Your post should be approximately 250 words.
   2. Write a manifesto inspired by the form of one of the manifestos included on a topic that is important to you. You might choose to write about literature, sports, politics, food, etc.
   3. Post your manifesto and one paragraph analyzing the ways in which your manifesto pulls from the form and strategies you encountered in the packet.
4. Read Kafka’s Metamorphosis and two other stories from you edition.