Lisa's assignment 0

I am Lisa Manoogian, and I grew up in part of Greater Boston, Watertown, MA., which I never tell people because they inevitably ignore the ‘MA’ part and ask how I like Watertown, NY. Boston gets a healthy dose of all four seasons, so that by the end of each one it’s inhabitants reinstate the appropriate wardrobe, and pack away the previous season’s ungrudgingly. Forty minutes outside of Boston, the buildings shrink and are replaced by fields and woods. In one such fieldy and woodsy town, Harvard, I have been horseback riding for almost my whole life. Because horses are an expensive hobby, I have spent the past couple of summers teaching riding lessons at a camp in North Carolina, so that teaching itself has become a sort of hobby.

Last spring, I planned to study abroad in Kenya. When the program was canceled, I refused to return to campus and instead took my life’s savings on a whirlwind tour of Europe. Afterward, not only did I promptly add ‘travel’ to my list of interests, but, after struggling to communicate with native speakers of every language I didn’t know, I realized how much I appreciate English. English is my first language, and is by far the one I am most fluent in, which makes it familiar, pliable, and full of possibilities that a stunted vocabulary and poor grasp on foreign grammar do not afford. Having said that, I have had fairly good experiences with English courses so far. My only frustrations arise out of a lack of depth in a course, as in a survey of literature class, for example.

I would like to work with Do, Lawd in my first paper. It is more cryptic than the other poems; I am not sure if the speaker is asking to die, or asking to live one more year, what role his/her father plays, or how literally ‘father’ is being used. I also like that death is addressed in am ambivalent light, especially in the second verse, ending with “and die wid a free good will.” The speaker paints one of the most brutal, painful, unjustified deaths imaginable as one that can be recreated, or re-experienced, at least on some level, by dying peacefully by choice. And, of course, ‘dying by choice’ inevitably brings up the question of suicide, frowned upon in the Bible, but, understandably, an attractive option for someone bound by slavery. Moreover, if suicide is not what the speaker had in mind with ‘die wid a free good will,’ what are the other possibilities? I have a lot of questions about this particular poem, and I think after discussing it in class I will have a clearer idea of how to focus my paper.

By the end of this course, I would like to feel confident about the technical analysis of poems in general, as well as have enough knowledge of the African-American poetry genre to make intelligent arguments about poems’ content, historical influences, and intended message.