Rise Above Plastics Found Poem

On a Saturday morning in Marina Del Rey,
A motley group of teachers took to the beach
Cleaning up trash for art
Winchell’s Styrofoam coffee cup
Taco Bell Border’s Sauce FIRE
“Help! I can’t tell where I am. It’s dark and I can hear laughing.”
Dubble Bubble in a corporate misogynist society
With Heineken Beer, Party Time, Thank you for choosing TOP tobacco products
Disney Chip the cup starts ‘em young
This is our idea of fun
But plastic rings are strangling Mae the turtle in half
Disposable plastics which never go away
Because where is away?
After World War II,
Plastics took over for Rosie the Riveter
“We Can Do It”
Women stuck back in the home
Tired of washing dishes
After working in the factories while the men were away
So depressing
Our environment in decline
Feminism a buzz word like a dime
My incomplete hanging over my head in time
Shipping water bottles to China
The bottom line
Money and greed
Why did I even go into teaching
To fill a need?
The state thinks we’re disposable
While our governor’s love child
Is exposed
Distraction from the real issues
The people have been sold.

Now it's your turn! Service learning opportunity: http://www.plasticsareforever.org/learn/youth-presentation/

Macbeth Feminist Essay

It is all too convenient, for a misogynist society to point the finger to Lady Macbeth as the woman responsible for Macbeth’s downfall. She is considered manipulative, mentally ill, the impetus behind the murder. As readers, however, we must remember the context of women’s roles in Shakespeare’s day. Women were not allowed on stage, so young boys played the female roles. Within this patriarchal, historical system is blatant sexism. There is also a layer of homoeroticism within the historical context of young boys playing women’s parts. It is well know that Shakespeare had male lovers in addition to his wife. Therefore, we must look at who is writing the play, just as we must look at who is directing the film, in order to deconstruct layers of meaning behind the character. Perhaps, Shakespeare intended Lady Macbeth to be a literary device to facilitate the murder of Duncan. Perhaps, it was not acceptable to have a male lover urge the killing of a king. Perhaps, it was all too convenient to make Lady Macbeth the scapegoat, fulfilling men’s fantasies of how women are, the actions they take, the role they play mirrored on stage as in their society.

The misogyny begins at the beginning of the play with the (female) witches as opposed to warlocks, spewing the prophecy, “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!” (I.3. 49) By calling him Thane of Cawdor, the witches are implying he will rule Cawdor and “that shalt be king hereafter!” (I.3. 50) In Shakespeare’s day, the actors were only given their sides of their lines. There were no stage directions. Therefore, we are reading through an editor’s lens (McDougal Littell) when we read, “She is determined that Macbeth will be king. However, she fears that he lacks the courage to kill Duncan. After a messenger tells her the king is coming, she calls on the powers of evil to help her do what must be done.” When looking directly at the text, Lady Macbeth asks, “Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,/ And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood./ Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,/ That no compunctious visitings of nature/ Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between/ Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts/ And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers) (I.5 37-45) Lady Macbeth is actually asking for her emotional, feminine nature to be removed in order to replace her maternal sense with a murderous one.

In fact, if anything, Lady Macbeth cleans up the mess which Macbeth has started. “Go get some water/ And wash this filthy witness from your hand.—Why did you bring these daggers from the place?/ They must lie there. Go carry them and smear/ The sleepy grooms with blood.” (II. 3. 44-48) If it weren’t for his wife, Macbeth would have the bloody weapons of the crime scene in his possession. She also keeps it together in the banquet scene when Macbeth losses it when he sees the ghost of Banquo. “Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus/ And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat./ The fit is momentary; upon a thought/ He will again be well. If much you note him/ You shall offend him and extend his passion./ Feed and regard him not.” (III. 4. 53-58) Once again, if it weren’t for his wife, Macbeth’s criminal insanity would be transparent to the entire group. But all too often, Lady Macbeth is interpreted to be the one mentally ill.

In Roman Polanski’s film, produced by Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, Lady Macbeth is naked while saying the speech, “Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. Why then, ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (V. 2. 28-33) One might wonder the auteur’s choice in making Lady Macbeth a nude sexual object during the scene, but then one might also consider the source from which such a choice was made. Polanski, whose parents were killed in the Holocaust, whose pregnant wife was slaughtered by Manson’s clan in 1969, who was accused of sodomizing a 13-year-old girl in 1977 may just be a brilliant director with some deep seated issues regarding women.

Explode the Moment

My cousin and I were pushing a baby carriage down the dirt road when everything went blurry. Dance club disco ball spins in my vision and consciousness, only I was too young to disco. It was 1980 and disco was not yet retro, but at five, who even knows what retro means. These things become prior knowledge at thirty-five, but back to the dirt road. Surely I felt pain, but the initial shock of a bee sting on your eye lid, instinctively shutting to protect the pupil. The swelling came later.

Aunt Chris said I would live. I didn’t have allergies like my cousins that I knew of, but I haven’t thought of that bee sting for years. Bzzzz. Onomatopoeia. That’s not how it sounded at the time. Can’t remember a rhyme. Give me a dime. Or a dollar to holler. Seemed like a lot to a kid, this brush with death, this dance of pain, brushing the brain—schema from long ago.

Uncle Tom is now dead as of July. Cancer rotted through his eye of life with Aunt Chris, now alone, connected by phone to Michigan. Dreamt about him just this past week, blurry like the bee sting that summer day. Disco balls of consciousness clouding my brain, hurting to remember this strain.

Every Day Is A Holiday

One day at a meeting a few months ago, I was telling Ms. Redd about how I was hiring someone to put new floors in my abode. She asked, “Why don’t you do it yourself?”

I said, “I have no clue how to put in wood and tile floors.”

She said, “It’s easy. You just mix the grout, cut the tile, and lay it down.”

I said, “Cut the tile? How do you cut the tile?”

She said, “Don’t you have a tile cutter? I thought everyone had one.”

It was at this moment that I began to see just a glimpse of the genius of Ms. Redd, the modesty in which she conducts herself, and the vast many talents which make her a Renaissance woman. She continued to talk about some of the home improvements she has done. In awe, I said, “I want to see your house. Maybe I can come for dinner some time.”

She said, “How about Christmas?”

I hit the jack pot! Christmas at Ms. Redd’s house. It was too good to be true.

I had thought about going home to Michigan over the break, but Christmas in California with the Italians was an option I couldn’t let slip away—I may never have this opportunity again. Ms. Redd had told me stories about her parents who were born and raised in Italy, but until I experienced the Italian Christmas dinner, I didn’t understand the authenticity with which she spoke. Ms. Redd has a garden in her backyard, which she grows her own tomatoes and herbs. We started with anti-pasta—mozzarella, tomato basil, artichokes. Our salad had feta, prosciutto, salami. Then the lasagna and the fresh bread. By this time, I’m pretty full. Shockingly, there still comes flank steak, rosemary potatoes, balsamic green beans, meatballs, pork…Ms. Redd said, “Everyone slows down by this time. We leave the food out and people snack through the night.” There is cannoli, chocolate layered cake, espresso. She even gives me Glad to-go containers and I eat for days!

Ms. Redd and her daughters have decided to make gifts for each other. She brings out this amazing light fixture made of colored plastic cups and Christmas lights, which looks like it should be the center piece at Studio 54. I told her she could be a millionaire marketing her ideas at shops on Abbot Kinney in Venice.

After seeing her bathroom cabinets she painted to match the sink she bought in Mexico, the tile work she laid in her bath tub (along with the plumbing!), the perfect pottery she made the first time at the wheel—I thought, is there nothing this woman can’t do?

The Crucible

Be sure to post your essay for your classmates to read.

Newspaper Article Turned Musical

Feminist Critical Essay

In Rebecca McClanahan’s essay “Bearing Life: Liferower,” she uses extended metaphor and rhythm to illuminate theme. She is comparing her endurance in life to rowing a boat and the constant pacing of a heart beating. In comparison to her own journey, is a computer generated “pacer,” contrasting society’s expectations of women.

“Liferower” has dual meanings. In the opening line, “There I am on the Liferower screen, the computerized woman in the tiny boat, and the little woman rowing below me is my pacer” McClanahan sets up a metacognitive view of how she sees herself while exercising. The symbolism that her exercise is the steady rhythm, “my pacer,” which is the center, or heart beat, of her life. “’Keep up with the pacer,’ blinks the sign on the screen” has dual meaning as to McClanahan keeping up with her exercise routine and a woman keeping up with an industrialized society.

In “with my father in space-time,” McClanahan describes “The first time I felt my heartbeat I was eight years old.” She weaves themes of the heart through her body of work in both literal and figurative ways, “My father’s valve has been replaced with plastic that clicks when he overexerts himself.” Her writing explores the father/ daughter relationship, and in it comes the question, “If I have no one to care for, who will care for me?” With this worry of a woman, comes the statement, “And the hearts of women beat faster and harder, both waking, and sleeping, than the hearts of men.”

As she recalls her younger self, the measurements of her wedding dress, she states, “The marriage lasted three years, three years longer than it should have because I was determined not to fail. My mother was my measure, my pacer, and when my husband began turning from me, I rowed faster and faster toward him. I would work harder, cook more of his favorite foods, steam his khakis with a sharper pleat.” Although McClanahan does not identify herself as a feminist, she cannot help but illuminate in her writing the expectation of a woman’s role, the physical toll to meet it, and society’s backlash once she falls short of it. The next line, “Lean into the stroke. Keep up with the pacer. You are three boats behind” shows her “rowing” what the waters have brought her, and yet behind according to the computer generated pacer.

McClanahan addresses issues of ageism in her essay with “On the rower beside mine, a young woman pumps with long, tanned legs and pulls with lean, muscled arms that she probably believes will never soften.” McClanahan, the older woman, is invisible to the weight instructor of her own age. “He does not see me.” Yet, the younger woman is so belabored in her own movement, she is not enjoying these moments of her youth. “She watches her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror as if her body belongs to someone else. Her forehead is prematurely lined with worry; she is not enjoying this.” Our physical appearance as women is objectified to the point we are out of our own bodies, seeing our reflection in the mirror, disconnected to the experience within our own skin.

“The child I chose against would have been born into the cramped space of my life between marriages.” Here, her use of alliteration, adds a literary lilting quality in contrast to this harsh reality of her life. “I still ask myself how it could have happened. Things happen.” There is the blaming of herself in the choice and yet, at the same moment, the judgment is lifted in how life happens. In the description, “The doctor, who is kind and slightly plump, his forehead lined from having seen too much,” uses the imagery of the forehead again as a symbol of worry. Here, the gender roles overlap, the doctor is concerned for her and tries to offer some words of advice. Unfortunately, his method is not comforting, but rather patriarchal and patronizing as he “holds up a glass bottle filled with something bright and red. ‘This is pregnancy,’ he says, believing it is for your own good. ‘Don’t let this happen again.’” As if there were no repercussions to a woman’s decision.

The metaphor of the liferower and the symbol of the bloody pumping heart continues with, “Five boats ahead of me, the pacer slides over the finish line, leaving red buoys bobbing in her wake.” It is a race between the woman and the computerized pacer. “I place my fingertips on my carotid artery and begin the count that will bring me back to myself.” This is an essay about a woman’s journey to find her own pace while rowing through life. “Easing up on the rope, I pump slower, slower, my boat cruising past the crowd of bystanders waving from the shoreline.” I tell my students the theme is what you take away from a piece of literature—it is your message from the author. As women, we must listen to the own beat of our hearts, even if we cannot keep up with an industrialized society’s expectation of how women should physically labor in order to win the race.