WRITING WORKSHOP

Reading: Maura Stanton: "Newborn Baby Girl Tells of Past Life" in Tales of the Supernatural, by Stanton

Maura Stanton: "Newborn Baby Girl Tells of Past Life"*
National Enquirer (Headline)

[i]

I had the shape of nothing, and I lived
With other spirits in the Hidden Valley.
I was invisible, but I existed,
One of the throng that floated here and there
On equal terms with gods and goddesses
Whose substance seemed no different from my own.
I listened to their tales of the human world
Curiously. I thought they made them up.

[ii]

I heard about the men on ships in storms
Pressing their spears into each other's chests.
So that was faithlessness, and that betrayal.
Men built towers, then burned the towers down.
They made each other sad, and then they died
Regretting everything. It seemed too strange.
I rested my lightness on the daffodils,
Glad I was hollow, a breeze to step through.

[iii]

One day a goddess waved a nervous hand
Into my emptiness. "You're going to change,"
She said. "But I won't. I'll never change
I'm always going to gleam like sunbeam motes."
She drifted off. I didn't understand her.
Though I'd seen angels when the nubby wings
Cut through their tender shoulder blades, and sent
Them howling to the Dark woods, home of ghosts.

[iv]

That day the sun seemed bronze instead of gold.
"Will I grow wings?" I asked a water god
Who looked up at me from a waveless pool,
His hair rippling across the glassy water.
He smiled at me, a different sort of smile.
"It's worse than that," he said. "You'll grow a heart."
Then he slid under leaving only clouds
Reflected on the surface. A fish winked by.

[v]

I felt a thickening inside me somewhere
As if I had a space--a length and breadth--
Though I was shadowless and centaurs still
Galloped through me on their silvery hoofs.
At the edge of the Dark Woods I saw the ghosts
Wringing their weightless hands under the trees.
"Why are you miserable?" I asked. "You're free.
The human world is far below us now."

[vi]

The nearest ghost stepped forward. I could see
His insubstantial wavering human shape,
Part smoke, part flesh. "You're a new soul," he said.
"Now look into your future: pain and guilt
Await you, then a fading memory--
And only memory will delay extinction."
I saw the throbbing wound burning his chest
Before he fled back to the swampy woods.

[vii]

I looked across the Hidden Valley then.
I saw a million like me, a million more
Shapeless and pure, soon to be shocked awake.
And then it happened. I felt the descent
Into the body, black and dizzying.
Now I struggle for one last backward view
Before I lose forever that spacious past.
My crib makes bars of shadow over me.

* Stanton. 1988. In Tales of the Supernatural: Poems. By Maura Stanton. Boston, MA: David R. Godine.

III. DISCUSSION GUIDE: "SETTING" in a poem: From Supernatural to Human, Spirit into Flesh: Maura Stanton’s (1988) "Newborn Baby Girl Tells of Past Life," in Tales of the Supernatural, by Stanton.

(Part III of Adult Education Writing Workshop)

(NOTE: Use the questions below as a guide; once the poem makes sense to everyone, and everyone understands how the narrator's world changes from stanza to stanza, there is no need to keep drilling on questions.)

Read the first three stanzas, one at a time.

Stanza i

  1. Where is the narrator in the first stanza? What is "the Hidden Valley"? Why does Stanton call it that? Where do you think it is?
  2. Who else is there? What is 'the Hidden Valley' like, do you think, based on Stanza i?
  3. What is the narrator like in this stanza? What words might you use to describe her?
    Choose from the following list:
    • contented
    • sad
    • glib
    • curious
    • skeptical
    • gullible
  4. What kind of human world do you imagine in the first stanza? Why does Stanton say--in your opinion--
    "I listened to their tales of the human world, curiously. I thought they made them up"?
  5. Are there any clues yet as to what might happen? What about line 6,
    "Whose substance seemed no different from my own"?
    does line 6 give you any clue as to what is going to happen? Why did Stanton use the word 'seem'?

Stanza ii

  1. What kind of human world is depicted in the second stanza? What more do you know about this human world, that you did not know in stanza i? Do humans feel pain when they are stabbed? Or can we tell from this stanza what they feel?
  2. Do you have any new clues as to what is going to happen?
  3. Based on the first two stanzas, what do you think is going to happen?
  4. Where does the narrator rest in this stanza? Did we see flowers, anything, in the first stanza?
  5. Why is the speaker
    "[g]lad" she is "hollow, a breeze to step through"?
    in the last line of the second stanza?

Stanza iii

  1. What is "the Dark Woods" in stanza iii? Who lives there? What do you think ‘the Dark Woods’ is like? How is it different from the supernatural world where the narrator is (in the first couple of stanzas)?
  2. Do you learn more about what is going to happen in the poem here?
  3. Does anything in this stanza add to the authors depiction of the human world, in any way? Is there anything new about it? Does the author tell you anything more about what it means to be a ‘human?’ (See especially the last three lines. Why are the angels howling?)
  4. How does the information about ‘the Dark Woods’ in the third stanza serve to advance the plot of the poem/narrative? (NOTE: advance the plot" means 'to move the action forward')
  5. How does the human world differ from the spiritual world, in these first three stanzas? According to the narrator, what is it like to be spirit? To be flesh?
  6. At the end of the poem, where do you think the narrator will be? In the supernatural world? In the human world?

Read the next three stanzas, as a unit.

Stanzas iv-vi

  1. After reading these three stanzas (iv-vi), who seems happiest, (a), gods and goddesses, (b), living humans, (c), ghosts? Who seems unhappiest? Can you decide who is unhappiest?
  2. What happens in the fourth stanza? How does the sun seem? What about the fifth? What happens to the narrator?
  3. What more do we learn about the ghost in the fifth stanza? Where else have we heard about wounds or anything related to wounds? What different thing do we know about the would in this stanza, that we did not know about wounds and stabbing before? (Clue: did we know wounds were painful in the second stanza?) Why do you think the author waits till this stanza to describe the ghost’s wound?
  4. What images do we glimpse of the supernatural world in the fifth stanza?
  5. What about the natural world? Do we hear anything about the natural world in these stanzas? What? Have we had any images from the immediate natural world before? Pay particular attention to the fourth stanza. What images do we get from the natural world? Why, in your opinion, do we get these images here?
  6. Where is the narrator in these stanzas? Is she far off in the sky or nearer to the earth?

Read the last stanza.

Stanza vii

  1. ACTIVITY: Words for Two Worlds

    Use the words below to describe the supernatural world and the human world in Stanton's poem.
    • darkness
    • light
    • heaviness ('weight')
    • lightness ('weightlessness,' 'lack of weight')
    • shadow
    • flesh
    • spirit
    • contentment
    • malice ('meanness')
    • pain
    • sorrow
    • freedom
    • enslavement
  2. What kind of world is described in the last stanza? Why do you think the author says, ‘bars of shadow?’
  3. Where is the narrator located in this stanza? How far is it in space from 'the hidden valley' where she was at the beginning of the poem?
  4. What about the language in the last stanza? Do we get a 'rich' description of the narrator's new surroundings? Or is the description 'spartan?' Why in your opionion, did the author choose to describe the newborn's surroundings this way in this stanza?
    (NOTE: This is strictly an opinion question. There are many possible answers. I'd like to add here that some writers [Eric Auerbach is the most famous] have argued that the description in the Bible is spartan, whereas the description in Homer's Odyssey is a bit richer--with details, it's very graphic.)
  5. Activity: Moving Through the Stanzas:

    Look at the words in question 1. What stanzas in the poem can you associate each of these words with? (HINT: there may be several words associated with a stanza and several stanzas associated with a word.) The words again (in a different order):
    • spirit
    • contentment
    • freedom
    • lightness
    • light
    • malice
    • pain
    • flesh
    • shadow
    • sorrow
    • heaviness
    • enslavement
  6. Which stanza do you like best? Why?

LESSON OUTLINE

I. Hand out headlines from the National Enquirer.

II. Brainstorm ways to create a setting for some of the headlines.

III. Read Maura Stanton’s Poem, focusing on its ‘setting’ and the way setting advances plot and prepares us for the human world of pain and flesh, stanza by stanza.

IV. Go over ways setting contributes to a story: helping to create the atmosphere, the mood, helping to advance the plot.

V. Reading: excerpts from my work.

VI. Discuss how I created setting for "The Vampires of Hoi An," how it advanced the plot; and how I used math to help create the setting for my general story on life in the middle of the 22nd century, how knowing how fast things could accelerate, how long it might take to get from point a to point b accelerating at certain rate (the rate the produces the effect of earth's gravity--1 g) advanced the plot.

VII. Refer students to article on setting. http://www.eclectics.com/articles/setting.html

VIII. Go back to brainstorming setting as a class. If we choose a particular setting for a particular headline, what kind of mood might be created? What kind of a story might we have? How might that setting move the story forward?

IX. Students begin writing, 1rst brainstorming a setting for the headline of each student's choice.

X, Students get with a partner, read one or two paragraphs aloud to partner, and discuss ways setting is helping to create the mood and/or advance the plot.

Reading List: Science Fiction & Fantasy, the Supernatural, and Contemporary Poetry

(If you get time, pick one of these to read!)

Another poem about the 'supernatural'--in Spanish

I always wonder where it all began? Some thoughts:

  • Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (http://www.bartleby.com/126/55.html) enters the realm of the supernatural (this was a theme as early as the 17th century, in the fairy tales, there was another world from which it was difficult to return; this might coincide with all the voyages to far off lands in search of exotic goods on Europe's part).
  • E. A. Poe, "The Masque of the Red Death" (story) Here is where sci-fi and horror becomes for me a form of protest! Published by: The Edgar Allen Poe Society of Baltimore. The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. http://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/masquec.htm Rpt. from The Works of the Late Edgar Allen Poe.

In Spanish, I hear that science fiction is not the primary 'protest genre;' mystery is. How might the English mystery genre, with no real changes, perhaps just a minor tweak, become another genre of protest?? (Clue: just have life go awry temporarily in a way that underscores a social or environmental problem; then solving the mystery involves investigating the problem. Other solutions?)

Other Sci-Fi I Like

  • Doris Lessing, Memoirs of a Survivor. (What exactly happened to this bleak society where no one knows how to make anythign work and gangs rove the streets is never clear; Lessing protests the breakdown of society, the social order, where technology is not understood and hence lost. It's really well done and believable.)
  • Robert Cormier, I am the Cheese. (Is this a protest of a totalitarian society or a description of a journey into madness? It's never made explicit. Again it's believable.)
  • R. L. Stine, The Beast. (Two youngsters go on a ride on a famous ferris wheel and get caught in a time warp, revisiting a fire and more, but can they ever exit the go-round? With R.L. Stine, it's not clear they can exit. The story of the fire is quite sad; but Stine takes little time to protest early 20th century poverty or anything else touched on.)

Contemporary Poetry

  • Stevie Smith, "Mother, Among the Dustbins" & "To Carry the Child"--another poem about birth, a bit humorous, lots of big words. (Smith is among my favorites; she's British; not quite contemporary; see http://www.bookofjoe.com/2007/10/to-carry-the-ch.html.)
  • Derek Mahon, "Van Gogh Among the Miners." (An Irish poet.)
  • W. H. Auden, "Casino," & "Brussels in Winter." (Auden's a British poet and a U.S. poet too--he moved a bit; not quite contemporary.)
  • Judith Wright, "Black Swans," "The River," & "And Mr. Ferritt . . . " (More on Judith Wright at: http://www.poemhunter.com/judith-wright/ ) (An Australian environmentalist; "Black Swans" has an element of the surreal in it, but it's about drought and the land!)
  • Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool." (She's from the U.S.; see http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-real-cool/ or http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/165)

1920's, & the Harlem Renaissance in America

  • Langston Hughes, "Genius Child" (http://xar.us/stuff/poems/genius_child.html or http://www.susanneangst.com/poetry/hughes/index.htm), Dustbowl" & "Dream Variations" (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dream-variations/).
  • Countee Cullen, "Singing in the Rain" & "Incident" (http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1304.html). (See the Harlem Renaissance site for more about Hughes and Cullen http://www.tesd.k12.pa.us/stoga/dept/Barry/Barry4/lit/Harlem/poetry.html )
  • Carl Sandburg, "Jazz Master," "Chicago" (http://carl-sandburg.com/chicago.htm), & "Fog" (http://www.bartleby.com/165/56.html).
  • Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Justice Denied in Massachusetts"(http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/justice-denied-in-massachusetts/)

Caribbean Authors

  • Derek Walcott, "The River"--alas, for some the word order in this poem has proved difficult, but like all Walcott's poetry, it's beautiful! (http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG-snh/Caribbean/Barbados/Poetry/walcott9.htm).
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GARCIA LORCA: Tale of the Moon, Moon

For Conchita Garcia Lorca

(Transl. cew; original text at "Romance de la luna, luna" by Federico Garcia Lorca [from Romancero Gitano], at Maux-de-je Poésie)

The moon comes to the forge
with her bustle of spikenards.
The child looks at her, looks,
the child is looking.

In the moving air,
the moon moves her arms
and instructs, lubricates, and cleanses
her wombs of hard tin.

Run, moon, moon,
If the gypsies come
they will flee (make off) with your heart,
necklaces, and white rings.

Child, let me dance.
When the gypsies come,
they will find you on the anvil
with your eyes closed.

Run moon, moon,
for I hear now their horses.

Leave me child, do not trample
my starched ('almond'?) whiteness.

 . . .*

[The riders 'horsemen') come,
beating their wooden drum.

Through the olives they come,
bronzed and drowsy the gypsies,
with their heads held high,
with their eyes half-shut.]

How the nightbird cries,
how it cries in the tree!
Through the sky the moon goes
with a child by the hand.

Inside the forge they cry,
they cry out, the gypsies.
The air keeps watch, keeps watch.
The air is vigilant.

 

 * ' . . . ' is used to indicate that several stanzas appear to have been omitted from one of the online versions of the poem (http://dan.drydog.com/helen/romance_de_la_luna.html). The English for the missing stanzas is provided in brackets.

Also, note that I've translated està' velando" as "is vigilant" for rhythm; there's no indication that Lorca meant to indicate that the air was in any way a 'vigilante' seeking revenge against the moon for getting the child, or putting it to sleep. Forgive my taking such 'poetic license.'

It's never clear to me what the moon does in this rather surreal story of the moon so characteristic of Lorca; the gypsies were famous for child snatching (in the romanticized tales of gypsies, they not only stole bracelets and such, but snatched blonde blue-eyed babies from their cradles, replacing them with their own generally dark-eyed babies; because the gypsies migrated often, they learned to keep the wheels of their carts in good shape, and became associated as well with blacksmithing and forges). Lorca seems to make the moon--itself famous for roving with 27-to-29 day cycles around the earth--a sort of gypsy moon.

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