Amanda Bissonette- Howe Response

Susan Howe’s book The Midnight discusses many aspects of the self. Howe discusses many aspects of herself and her life that have contributed to the way she lives and her writing. These aspects include her family, her relationship with books, and sleep deprivation. In this book Howe discusses the different themes of her book in two different ways, poems and prose-like sections. She switches between the poems and the prose sections throughout the entire book. Howe also uses illustrations in the prose sections. Howe’s book has so many themes that there are different routes a reader can take when looking at this book.

Howe’s many themes allow a reader to take different paths when reading and in turn Howe has created a piece with different meanings that can be interpreted different ways by the readers. Along with the self, Howe has created the themes of insomnia, sleep, and dreams, books as objects, and family and Irish heritage. Howe does a very good job incorporating all of these central themes into the book and makes sure that they all connect and the reader is left with a better understanding of her book as a whole. “My mother’s close relations treated their books as transitional objects (judging by a few survivors remaining in my possession) to be held, loved, carried around, meddled with, abandoned, sometimes mutilated. They contain dedications, private messages, marginal annotations, hints, snapshots, press cuttings, warnings-scissor work.” (Howe, 60). This is one of the examples of how Howe ties together multiple themes to make connections. Here she is connecting books as objects and family. Howe’s structure of the book allows for more of a connection to be made. The reader must reference back to understand parts of the book, especially Howe’s illustrations. There is almost never a place in the book where an illustration matches up with the surrounding text, but can be found later on. This forces the reader to make connections and treat the book as a whole piece of work and not separate poems. At first, this may cause confusion for the readers because they may be used to reading poetry that flows smoothly, whereas Howe’s poems and proses seem somewhat jagged and random. By the end of the book, the reader may be able to understand the book as a whole better because they were able to go back and make the necessary connections.

I felt complete confusion when I first read the book, but by the end I started to make connections and have a clearer understanding of what Howe wanted me to see. I feel as though if the reader is willing to make the effort and work through the confusion, he or she can get a lot out of it. Although the structure of the book is a little out of the ordinary, especially when you are asked to think of poetry, I could not picture Howe writing in any other way. I don’t think that I as a reader would have a gotten the same out of the book if it was written in a traditional style.

Birdwatching in Wartime Response--Kelsey M.

Jeff Thomson's Birdwatching in Wartime largely follows a journey through the rain forests of South America. Often, the poems are heavily laden with imagery pertaining to the biodiversity of the rain forest, and South American culture. This includes religion, history and the frequent inclusion of Spanish words or phrases. Thomson paints a vivid picture of the South American rain forest, one that is both rich and highly complex, particularly in "Landscape with Footnotes" Thomson also meditates on the nature of language and death, such as in "Twin" and violence in "Ars Poetica with Pain." These themes readily enrich Thomson's views on the South American landscape.

Thomson's book most readily points at the world in its descriptive poems. He readily references the Inca, bees, plants, cartoons, endless birds, Christianity and the Bible, Pizarro, Metaphor. Many poems are rich in imagery, like "Birdwatching in Wartime" or "Landscape with Flooded Forest" which are clear depictions of the rain forest. However, there are poems that do not fall so easily into this category, such as "Landscape with Footnotes." The piece is comprised solely of footnotes which discuss bits of rain forest lore, native animals, South American history. while these footnotes are quite blatantly references to the world, the piece is of such a unique structure that it immediately calls attention tot he placement and wording of the footnotes, and their juxtaposition.

I did enjoy Birdwatching in Wartime for its rich descriptions and the unique anecdotes, but the work as a whole was not as united as I expected it to be. I think that with our recent readings, i have become accustomed to reading books where the poems follow a clear theme; the holistic purpose of the work are easily perceived. In some ways Birdwatching in Wartime read as more as some of Thomson's complied work than as a unified collection. While some themes carried throughout, there were poems that just plain stuck out, such as "American Pastoral" in the first section of the book; I felt it was entirely out of place with a message/intent that was quite different from much of the book. In this way, I was somewhat dissatisfied with the work as a whole, though the poems individually did not disappoint.

Thomson

Jeffrey Thomson’s book Birdwatching in Wartime is an intriguing glimpse into a rainforest atmosphere, which mixes in details about specific animals and plants that can be found in the landscape, such as “tambaqui”, “tapir”, “hornbills” and “bougainvillea.” This book is structured into five different parts, each poem thick and rich with vocabulary of Spanish words, incredible sceneries and animal encounters, all written from one perspective of the single narrator. The style of each poem varies; the first section is pretty much standard poetry, or what we could consider “normal”. The whole second section is a long, 18-page poem that varies in stanza structure and use of punctuation. The fourth section is almost the same, with it all being one poem, except this has a pattern of each page having three stanzas with three lines each, making the reading flow, as opposed to the choppiness and edge to the non-patterned poems of the three sections before this one. To fully understand the context of these poems, I had to be near a computer or have people explain it to me in class, because there are animals I’ve never even heard of before, and connections that I couldn’t quite tie in with my knowledge of the South American rainforest.

After reading, it became clear to me that Thomson was using language to look at the world. Though you couldn’t begin to classify this book as solely “clear” glass or “stained”. This collection has a very good mix of both. From the first poem, “Landscape with Swelling and Hives”, the sheer volume of words on the page makes the reading slower, and the poem more dense, just like Thomson implied in class: the rainforest is dense, so the poems should be, too. He also said in class that over four thousand (or was it forty thousand?) types of insects were found in a single tree. It’s no wonder there were an incredible amount of layers to each poem. The rainforest itself is composed of layers. I think this book was successful in its attempt to convey thickness and complexity of nature. It really made me dig for meaning, which I think is a great discovery for readers. Even with the poem, “Twin”, where it doesn’t necessarily take place in the jungle, there is a sense of being universal: “They exist together / …witched together by possibility’s spell.” (21). This idea of a split person is interesting, because there is a light and dark side to everyone, and that idea is one that is a prominent idea of Thomson’s. There are these parallels of good and bad with every situation, which is the main theme I got out of the book. Even in “Ars Poetica with Pain”, it rivals Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam with Greek Mythology. The cartoon, in general, is innocent, but the context of Yosemite Sam being hung is a sense of harsh reality. Thomson is great at that duality complex, such as when I mentioned before that this collection is both clear and stained glass.

My evaluation is simple: this book really didn’t have too much of an effect on me as a reader. I’ve never been to South America, nor did this book really make me even want to go there. Though, having Thomson in class sparked ideas of my own, specifically when he said the quote that “Only gods can say what something is. Writers can only say what it looks like.” He has the mind-set of Williams when he said that. I have to give him credit, he does have an interesting and unique style, but I probably wouldn’t have read the book if it weren’t assigned for class. Thomson’s poetry deals with too much of nature sometimes, and I would love to see the retrospective reflection on the aftermath of the trip, not always being there and experiencing it. Also, my interest in poetry wanes if it is too dense and Thomson’s poetry has a lot of words. I’m more of an Armantrout kind of person. Although, I do enjoy the duality he brings-- it shows that life is complex, and so poetry should be, too.

Courtney Johnson
November 1, 2010

Birdwatching In Wartime-

In Jeffery Thomson’s book Birdwatching in Wartime he unfolds his own very new way of poetry. His structure resembles that of a classic poem; they have normal stanzas and most even have the over all look of a typical poem. His style of writing is in a way a cross between a “stained glass window” style along with a “clear glass window” style. He uses rich language that unfolds to be even richer, not only in meaning but also in tone and all over feel for his text. He uses imagery, which is strong in detail, providing a vivid picture.

His book is about his real life experiences in South America, mainly including Costa Rica along with Brazil. He writes about the environment that he sees and feels. His goal is to be informative; he believes that behind everything is something else. He believes there is always something hidden. And that in order to show such an idea he needed to not only have his book be about content but also about structure. He wanted to show you that as much as his book is structured and well put together that most poems are also spinning out of control. He also brings in culture with his work, there are a lot of references with in his poems, some you already have past history on where others you need to actually look up, this not only helps refresh your knowledge it also helps you learn. One thing I really enjoyed about this read was that as much as his poems have a glance at beauty he also throws in a splash on violence. I found it rather amusing at how you can relate to totally different ideas into one.

A poem can not be just random for it would be boring, a reader needs to feel as if they are reading for a purpose and to gain something from a book, and that’s exactly the feel I got when reading this book. I think Jeffery Thomson has done a spectacular job writing this book, and after hearing him speak in class I feel very strong towards the fact that what he was trying to do with this book he succeeded to the highest.

Birdwatching in Wartime

Jeffrey Thomson’s Birdwatching in Wartime contains such rich detail of the South American flora and fauna that after reading, one can close their eyes and truly visualize the landscape. He started to write many of these poems while traveling in Costa Rica and Brazil, and his knowledge of the ecology of the region truly shines through in the poetry. Most of his poetry is written in a traditional form, with verses made up of uniform numbers of lines. One notable exception to this is “Landscape with Footnotes,” in which Thomson writes a poem consisting entirely of footnotes. Most every one of the footnotes is a reference to something in another poem, like the Amazonian bees that he gets stung by in “Landscape with Swelling and Hives.” The rest of the book is the landscape Thomson talks about in this poem, and he has managed to tie one single poem to every other one in the collection.

The many layers of meaning Thomson has written may seem daunting to some readers, who may not wish to run to Google or Wikipedia whenever they encounter a new term (which happens quite often), but those layers are necessary. The poems aren’t dense just for their own sake; they need to be dense in order to show the density of the rainforest. In the rainforest, you have the canopy, which includes hundreds upon hundreds of animal species who never reach the ground, the tall trees themselves which provide shelter for more species, and the plants and animals that inhibit the ground. These layers of flora conceal so much that it is estimated that there are millions of undiscovered animal species. Just like there are many undiscovered animals living in the rainforest, there are many undiscovered meanings in Thomson’s poetry, hidden by the layers. The poet said it himself: “behind each story there’s another story.” Take, for instance, his poem “Underwhelmed.” Upon first glance it seems like it’s a poem about just a man and a woman, sitting underneath a night sky. When you look at it closer, however, you might find a line that you missed reading through it the first time: “the miscarried child left in the bowl.” The poem takes on an entirely different meaning once this layer is uncovered.

Thomson was very successful with writing pieces that are at one time “clear-glass” poetry, which looks out to the larger world, and “stained-glass” poetry, which looks back onto language. The many layers may frustrate some, as well as the occasional necessity to look something up, but once the reader looks past that, they can truly see a clear portrait of the South American landscape that Thomson wanted to share.

Jeffrey Thomson: Birdwatching in Wartime

This poetic text written by umfs own creative writing professor Jeffrey Thomson is similar in its description of nature to themes discussed in Gluck’s the Wild Iris, in density it is similar to Larry Levis’s Elegy apart from these two characteristics Thomson’s work stands apart from other texts that we have encountered thus far into our exploration of recent American poetry. The book is divided into five subsections and are each distinctly different from each other, part IV of the book is all short poems, parts I has longer poems filled with natural imagery that are a reaction of the authors time in Costa Rica. Found in these images are the “jesus Christ lizard,” the tsawaim, hoatzin, etc. Part II of the book is all actually one long poem with many different voices (a new voice or style every page.) Part III is longer poems (than the shorter pages of section II) the imagery is full of places in Costa Rica parts of Spanish history and more. Part V is the last subsection of the book and the poetry found in the last pages is some of the more complex and interesting poems of the book with themes like ars poetica (or the art of poetry) Stalin, and reoccurring nature themes.
In this collection of poems Thomson is trying to create and allow to exist a dualism in his poetry he is trying to use language in order to create a poem or work (stained glass window) while at the same time showing the reader a world that they do not know, he tries to use his poetry to show the outside world (birds of costa rica, or landscapes in a different country) I really enjoyed this dualism of the poetry being both that of a stained glass window and as a clear glass window to show a different part of the world. In many cases Thomsons poetry is dense and dark (Like ars poetica pg75) not only does the plot have three different levels of story going on (the story at hand, bugs and Yosemite sam, and Orpheus and Eurydice) it is also quite dark (Elmer fudd pisses himself as bugs bunny is about to shoot off his kneecaps with a shotgun) Overall the major theme of the book is Thomson creating works of poetry that use imagery that the reader is not familiar with in order to show a different side of the world and perhaps give readers a new take on the world. As such it is useful to attempt to digest this book nearby a computer as there are many objects, places, and themes in the book that will needed to be looked up in order to see the poems as they were intended to be understood. There is also a sense of intertextuality that resonates in the book (although Thomson said that this was not his intention when writing and editing these works.)
This text was very successful in accomplishing its goal of existing as a work of art in itself (stained glass idea) and as a means to tell an interesting story about other areas and aspects of the world (clear glass window idea) I found myself very rarely identifying species and plants described in the text (i.e. I had to learn about them before the poems made sense) leading me to do outside research about the areas that Thomson was describing; at the same time I found the density and eloquent (though dark) style of Thomson’s writing to be very artistic and even when I needed to look up definitions to understand the content of a sentence I could still very plainly see that the sentence in itself was something to look at and consider as art.

Thomson

Birdwatching in Wartime is filled with the rich, vivid details of the South American landscape and jungle. Animals reside next to human history and they are all captured by the curious and particular eye of the poet. Upon first glance the poems feel straightforward enough but upon closer inspection unfold into multiple meanings and detailed narratives with profound introspection as rich as the landscape they describe.

Thomson is an adept at layering. Beginning with the Latin names of animals and descending into stark vernaculars, he is able to paint pictures of the Amazonian landscape that both invite and challenge the reader. In “Landscape with Footnotes” we are given a poem that doesn’t exist and only presented with the footnotes to this invisible poem. The poem instead unfolds within the facts written in the footers and in the relationship to other poems. “4. Dios te de! The Spanish for the toucan’s call translates, ‘God keep you!’” reappears from mention in an earlier poem, both tying the two together and giving each more meaning. Thomson is a master of including traditional forms and motifs with his inventive ones. In “Ars Poetica with Pain,” Eurydice is next to Bugs Bunny in a seemingly simple poem composed of violent couplets. In the end Thomson has contemplated death, existence, multiplicity, poetry, madness and aging.

A good portion of the success or failure of this book depends upon the reader’s willingness to have google at his or her fingertips. While each poem is easily accessible on certain levels without delving into the background knowledge of species and place, it is in the intertextual references and scientific specificity that the heart of each poem lies. In this way, Thomson succeeds in educating us in his style of poetry and constructing meaning dependent upon our understandings of language operating on the world.