10-27-08 Week Nine 2nd Next Years VWS

Professor Row,

If you are reading this, which I doubt, I was wondering how to go about finding where I stand grade wise in your course. I think Ill bring this up with you in class or office hours as well (that is probably most appropriate) but it was on my mind and I know some other students are wondering as well so I thought I would mention it in my blog and maybe you could explain your grading process to the class.

So today in class we went over the first round of authors and there were some really interesting people brought up. I really liked Arielle Greenberg who wrote the poem about the house/abusive relationship. Also the woman who wrote about the pregnancy test. When reading poetry I typically encounter the assumption of a male perspective and by switching this norm her poem really highlighted the subtle but present male pov that most literature, poetry, culture comes out of.

Taking a pregnancy test and having it be negative is a typically, somewhat universal, female experience, and Rachel Zuker did not explain anything. Most women know what one bar means, men I'm not so sure. The moment of peeing the the stick and looking is played over and over in films and often I feel like they don't get it right, seems like a man directed the scene. The familiarity of the female experience is so implicit to her poem that it is almost too obvious to recognize. I just read it and thought yes, that's how it is. And then looked around at the men in the class and thought, theyre really not ever going to get this. They understand the poem but the expereince is both private and uniquley female out of a mans grasp.

Great class discussion and presentations, really enjoyable as always.