Nicholas Notes

  Reading Neruda’s poems I vision myself in a dream - hovering above the landscapes that he uses to emphasize the raw and vulnerable parts of his female subjects. Although I never really got a good idea of what was going on - the image and metaphors - stars for eyes, skin moss, or firm milk, hills for thighs - were more than enough to set me into a daydream. In the instance of finding ourselves on an empty pier late at night, with waves crashing and stars twinkling as Neruda uses these landmarks to portray both his loneliness and admiration for the female body - I picture myself drinking this weeks pairing, with an important choice of Empress Gin - the color of the sad, blue-purple of this text’s emotion to combine perfectly with the touch of douglas fir.  … To return to the naturalistic imagery of the poetry - and go beyond what Neruda has already given us - I am interested in the idea that - because each one of us has different associations and emotional attachments to nature - each

Cartucho was a very raw, vulgar, yet equally thought-provoking read. Flipping through each miniature recollection, I kept waiting for context - captivated by each scene in its own way - all the way to finishing the book and realizing that perhaps the context of these short stories was mindfully absent. Of course, leaving out an explanation of where we were at any given moment, what each character was truly fighting for, or where we even ended up - was impactful enough to make readers feel grateful for the completeness of the narrative of their own life - or at least in their other readings. The uncut and strung-together haphazardly series of stories gave me some kind of a manic feeling that everyone in the northern town must have been dealing with throughout the entire period.  Most similar to our previous course reading, this narrative was also given from a childhood perspective. Although, as I’ve discussed with classmates already - a key difference between Campobello and Mama Blanca’

  I’ve enjoyed reading this book much more than anticipated. At first, I was slown down by the wordiness, but after a few pages very much appreciated the many analogies, extensive imagery, and eccentricity of the writing. I love the feeling that the way the memoir writes is as if it will be rewritten for some theatre performance, recounting every bit of anticipation, climax, and resolution of so many otherwise forgettable moments. This amount of “playfulness” included helped me understand why a theme of “voyeurism” was brought up in the preface. Not only did the editor spy on Mama Blanca when they first met, but became the one to expose her “secrets” (as the writing was unintended for us) by publishing the work. Learning this, I did not expect to be entertained by as much storytelling as was included here.  … Although it may be more of a shot in the dark to imagine anything about a mother-daughter relationship than what is read in the book (as it doesn't exist in my close family)

Dear class, Hope everyone is enjoying a sun-shining weekend!  My name is Nicholas, I'm a psychology major in my third year, interested in health research. I've enjoyed the path so far, which also means that I haven't gotten to experience any classes like ours just yet. I've taken a couple writing-based classes, but few that require as much reading as I will challenge myself with this term. I signed up for this class essentially because I heard fantastic reviews about our professor, and that his teaching/course style was very unique & fun - which was a no-brainer after seeing that it would satisfy the lit requirements for my program! Kicking off the first week, I can already see from lecture 1 that the priorities of the classroom are not just to say the right thing, but to think freely and open-mindedly about the content of our literature - which is something I've found more or less rare in my studies so far. So I suppose my expectation for the course is that I a