Analysis of Humanimal

Johnson 1

Lexie Johnson

Cooper

CRWR 212

April 22, 2014

Humanimal

            Bhanu Kapil's novel, Humanimal, was about two girls who lived in the jungle among wolves. These girls were then captured by Reverend Joseph Singh so that they could live a normal human life. The girls died at young ages. Kapil used wonderful diction to describe the imagery used throughout the poems. She describes how the forest looked and how she felt while in the forest. She paints this nice visual for the reader.

            Kapil traveled to India so that she could make a documentary on this story of Amala and Kamala. She visited the jungle where the girls were. She wanted to recreated this moment and also understand how it must have been for the girls. Her novel is seen from two different perspectives. She gives us a journal feel of what was happening when she was filming and visiting these places and she gives us a stanza from the girls perspectives of what they must have been feeling. Kapil goes through her experience thoroughly and In great detail to express how each moment was there in India.

            Throughout Humanimal, we get this sense of a religious/spiritual experience. Kapil is going through the forest and trying to figure out how life must have been for the girls and she imagines what it was like to be there and actually seeing the wolf girls. While going through this experience, Kapil can actually feel the presence of the girls and visually see what life was like after they were captured. There was a part in the story when Kapil mentioned seeing a picture of God in the dark room. This moment made Kapil feel some type of way and have flashbacks of her own childhood. Doing this documentary seemed like it was a life changing experience for Kapil. This is something she would always be able to remember in her life. I believed this experience to be life changing because in her writing she spoke about how she felt knowing that this girl died a couple of years after they were captured.

            The plot of this story is that the girls died within years of being captured. We expected them to live longer because they were finally back to the natural environment that they were supposed to be in. after reading this book it made me wonder what is normal and why did the girls die. I think because their bodies were immune to living the jungle life. When Kapil wrote about how the girl’s bodies didn't respond well to the food that they were served this was supposedly nutritious for them. This questions what is really nutritious for the human body and it shows that each body is different and requires different types of proteins. It makes me question whether or not humans would be safe to live freely among the animals.  These girls who lived as a part of wolf pack were able to survive till they were merely teenagers. They then get captured and die of diseases.  This made me wonder if human were the ones who created some of these diseases because they became so unattached from nature.

            Reading Humanimal had some of the same themes that was in other stories we read in this class. It made me think about what being away from our natural roots can do to us and that we don’t need all of this artificial stuff to survive. Even though this story was fiction, I think that it portrayed our life must have been for these girls pretty well. The calming tone of this novel made me think that being in the wild wasn't such a bad thing. These girls were living just fine before they were captured. Being captured messed with the flow of their lives and it made me think about how animals feel when we take them out of their natural habitat. HHjdckdl

           

Kapil's Humanimal Analysis

Denise Bateman

Joseph Cooper

CRWR 212 Y

April 21, 2014

 

Analysis of Bhanu Kapil’s Humanimal

 

Kapil’s Humanimal is a work of fiction written to recount the story of two young girls, Kamala and Amala, found living with wolves in India in 1921. The girls were captured by a missionary, Joseph Singh, who brought the girls back to his church ran orphanage and attempted to civilize the wild girls.

Kapil’s piece is written in an unusual style. She alternates the story in numeric and alphabetic sections, the first speaking from the narrator’s voice as she describes the capture and attempt at taming the girls, while the second alphabetic sections are spoken from one of the girls’ perspective on events.

Imagery is abundant in this work. Kapil describes on page sixteen of her work how the limbs of a newborn baby left on a blanket to sun flail upward “four legs in the air like pink, elongated stars”. On page twenty-five, the author describes a scene in the garden where “the sky hung down in violet sections like a torn net”. Kapil uses lots of color in her writing. There are several other examples throughout the book where she infuses vivid color – there are crimson azaleas, a giant pink moon rising over a brown curve of fields, blood red oranges, pink underground tunnels, green air. I thought Kapil’s description of writing while being bounced around in a Jeep was very effective on page 43 where she says “I put my knib on the page and let motion wreck the line. My notes were a page of arrhythmias, a record of travel.”

I felt that perhaps part of Kapil’s reasoning for using so many images of vivid color in work was a way to contrast physical beauty with the ugliness of the brutality of what humans can do to each other in the attempt at conformity.  The theme of the piece seems to speak to society’s need to tame that which is wild or different from the norm. The underlying question is whether doing so is right, regardless of good intent. And as a society, do we try to shape each other into what we consider normal because we feel we are doing what is right and of best service to the thing we are trying to change – in Kapil’s book the taming of the wild children – or do we try to change things in our world to what we consider normal because we are so afraid of those things that are different and unfamiliar? And, what is normal? Obviously human children being raised by wolves is not normal, but I feel that Kapil’s retelling of the capture and attempt at civilizing the two girls is symbolic of society’s need to have control and order. Was the breaking of the girls’ limbs to have them reset to grown into proper alignment justified because it would allow them to properly walk upright? Was kicking Amala for howling at a bird flying over while having a group picture taken appropriate? She was simply doing what she was accustomed to doing at the sight of the bird. In what we know today as civilized treatment, we would be outraged at this type of physical force being used on a child. So again, what is normal, and how to we determine this?

Interesting and sad that both of the girls died in the care of their rescuer. Again symbolically, is that the risk we take each time we try to force something to be something it is not? Is it okay to change something so much from its original design that it becomes unrecognizable from its true form? Do we let one thing “die” in attempt to create a better version? Is a risk worth taking? That is what Kapil’s book made me consider.

Analysis of Black Dog Songs

Claire Lenore Smithers

Joseph Cooper

CRWR 212

April 8^th, 2014

Analysis of Black Dog Songs

            Within Lisa Jarnot’s collection of radically free-formed poems, there are several literary devices used to structure the collection and imply allegorical and symbolical meanings. These poems are extremely political and show radical viewpoints by using unusual viewpoints and tactics on heavy subjects. Jarnot uses the power of words and repetition of phrases to underline these political stances.

            An example of Jarnot’s use of free form is exemplified on page 8 with her piece entitled “The History of Western Still Life”. Many of the pieces are varying in form, but this piece is in one stanza with no capitalization, as most of them are, and has no punctuation. This free form is emphasizes the flowing free form of the piece, which helps strengthen the theme of freedom throughout the entire collection.

            Jarnot uses allegory throughout this collection of pieces to describe her political stance of terrorism and her negative opinion of the president of the United States at the time, George W. Bush. The author uses a cave as an allegory, which could be a reference of Allegory of the Cave, which is a theoretical philosophical allegory written by Plato. Jarnot uses the cave as a symbol of innocence in her reference to Adam, most likely from the biblical creation myth in the book of Genesis. This innocent, isolated location from the world is represented as a symbol for how Americans are shielded in a safe darkness, away from the realities of the injustices of this country.

            Another way in which the author creates her satirical political message is by using stream of consciousness. This was a very interesting device used to create an unbroken flowing thread of words to prove a point. This device is used throughout the section called “They”. In this section, “they” refers to the American people. Lisa Jarnot criticizes common American stereotypes by using stream of consciousness. An example of this can be seen in the piece called “They Loved” on page 28.

            Many of Jarnot’s pieces have a cadence quality to them which is mainly due to her careful use of assonance. A quintessential example of the clever assonance is on page 37 in a piece called “Gang Angles”. Even within the title, assonance can be seen, along with words like green/deer, seed/eden, deer/gear, etc. This carefully chosen diction creates a bouncy sort of flow to the piece which connects one image to another, both in sound and meaning.

            The final piece that Jarnot puts in this collection is titled “Black Dog Song”. While this is also another allegory, Jarnot experiments with rhythm by pairing stressed and unstressed syllables in unique patterns to create a song-like rhythm to the piece. This piece surrounds the concept of the familiarity of a dog which is used as a symbol of family.  

Monique Ahmad

Joseph Cooper

Intro. to CRWR

6 April 2014

Analysis Black Dog Songs

Black Dog Songs is a collection of poems that discusses the struggles relating to racial issues in mainly the United States as well as the rest of the world. Lisa Jarnot uses various literary elements to create a diversity in her book. Jarnot splits the book up into four sections to separate poems with differing themes.

When it comes to stanzas, Jarnot has 3 types of poems: one containing stanzas with symmetrical lines, stanzas with an irregular number of lines, and poems with one large stanza. Very few of the poems in Black God Songs have a completely structured form, but some do. We see a use of Tercet, quatrain, and other types of stanzas.  Many poems throughout this book have a few stanzas that have the same number of lines, but the last stanza has either an extra or is missing a line.  In her first and last sections, “My Terrorist Notebook” and “They, Jarnot mainly uses one large stanza to express her entire thought. I believe she does this because she wants this section to be bold to allow the meaning of these poems to be enhanced. These poems try to give a more holistic meaning rather than telling various aspects of a story. Jarnot does well with showing a variety of styles of stanzas in her book.

Throughout the book Jarnot uses similar patterns in her writing such as repetition of particular words, and alliteration.  In “Silentiarius,” Jarnot uses repetition of the word “lettuce” (5). This is done in most of the book. Jarnot uses repetition to create a connection throughout the poem and the book.  Though we do not see a use of rhyme or a concrete form in her poetry, Jarnot uses similar sounds to create flow throughout the poem . In her poem to Dick Cheney called “Dume Duke Death,” we see a constant use of alliteration. Throughout this entire poem, we see a continuous use of the letter “D.”

Personally I did not enjoy most of the pieces in this book. I found most of them to be difficult to understand. I could see that their was a deeper meaning in all of them, but I was not able to figure out what it exactly was. I did think it was fun to read because of its free form.

Black Dog Songs Analysis by Anna Boyer

Anna Boyer

Cooper

CRWR212

April 8, 2014

Analysis: Lisa Jarnot’s Black Dog Songs

            At first glance, Lisa Jarnot’s pieces in Black Dog Songs read like nonsense, a string of words that have absolutely no relationship to each other or to the meaning of the poem. However, meaning can be found, even though Jarnot makes her readers dig in between the words to find her true intent with the piece. The repetition of sounds gives these pieces a sing-song quality, which can make them difficult to analyze. This is because the mind can get caught up in the rhythm and flow of the words as they form lines and stanzas, nearly pushing aside the desire to find a theme in the midst of Jarnot’s carefully structured patterns that ultimately make a statement. The themes found in this volume range from the personal to the political, but each word is carefully chosen to create a body of work that both injects humor into the mundane nature of everyday life and is deeply critical about the state of Bush-era American politics.

            The first part of the book, titled “Early and Uncollected Poems” and the third part, called “They”, are both written in a very rhythmic style with a touch of whimsy within the abstract imagery. The last poem in the first section is entitled “Dracula” and the last lines perfectly sum up the author’s subtle melancholy: “…and tomorrow I will walk out to the park, to where the heaven where the sun is where it sets.” (Jarnot 12) This particular piece, which is preceded by a quote from actor Bela Lugosi, discusses a familiar feeling of being dead inside and needing to find a connection with another person in order to escape. It is a perfect summary of the section as a whole, tying up the themes of reflections on the self and on the outside world. Essentially, Jarnot’s theme in this section seems to be the heaviness of the physical body on Earth and physical and mental reflections on silence and sound. Other pieces, like “They Loved Paperclips” (Jarnot 27), have humorous, light titles but still discuss the heaviness of the human body and the connections that form with other people through the contrasts of everyday life. These sections, in their simplicity, touch on the contrasts of silence and sound, light and dark and the impact of those opposites on the physical human experience.

            Jarnot’s second section, which she has titled “My Terrorist Notebook”, has an entirely different flavor, and a far less “everyday” one at that. In her opening monologue, Jarnot states how she wants to live in a cave with terrorists and no longer be a nice member of society. The piece “Cave Poem” is a direct jab to people such as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Chaney, particuraly in the lines “…the meaning of the caves gray-deep inside the gray-deeps into sleep the men and women, children too yet only I this cave I knew.” (Jarnot 21) Post-September 11^th America was a fear-filled place, and Jarnot’s aggravation is understandable, especially since it is directed at her own country and its government. The cave is a place of refuge from this widespread fear and the constant presence of images of war in the media and from the stunning ignorance on the part of those that are supposedly in charge of protecting the American people. This section of the book takes several steps away from the personal and goes directly to the political, forcing the reader to look at that period in retrospect and how personal the political rapidly became.

            Jarnot’s final section of this anthology, titled “Black Dog Songs”, follows the patterns of sections one and three, but also includes a biographical piece called “Lisa Jarnot”. Presumably, the poem is addressed to her younger self, as she writes: “When you grow up you’ll be able to write poems and things will be like they are now…” (Jarnot 40) The youthful belief that adulthood is the same as childhood is very present in this piece, as Jarnot describes the feeling of being lost within the same physical world she inhabited as a child. Even within the jumble of whimsy and rhythmic language, Jarnot still manages to communicate the themes of being lost in a familiar world and being a physical and metaphorical reflection of oneself.

            Within Black Dog Songs, Lisa Jarnot uses several poetic devices to communicate her themes to the reader. In “Dumb Duke Death”, she uses alliteration throughout the whole piece, which gives a staccato rhythm and a sing-song effect. In making “My Terrorist Notebook” the second section of the anthology, a climax is created. The section communicates some very strong emotions on the macro level and that is where the overall emotion of the collection peaks and startles the reader. Diction is absolutely essential to Jarnot’s work, especially in a piece like “Greyhound Ode”, where words and sounds are repeated, tripping the reader’s tongue but ultimately creating a world where people are literal and metaphorical reflections of themselves. Imagery is also key in these works; this can be found in the following line from “Seal Ode”: “…the necklace of a person in a seal skin is forgotten in the person with the strong neck that is shiny like a seal…” (Jarnot 43) Here, Jarnot paints a highly metaphorical picture of the beauty of a seal that glides through water with minimal effort. She also uses personification, particuraly in the following line from “Because Poem”: “Because the root of the tree is the friend of the corn in the field.” (Jarnot 22) This is an abstract example but it does illustrate the intertwined factors of the natural world. “Because” is a perhaps overused excuse for explaining natural phenomena, but Jarnot’s exploration is more complex in looking at how humans interact with nature. Jarnot’s use of syntax is truly unique in that she orders words in a way that makes sentences tumble over each other in order to create a piece that illustrates a snippet of human life.

Works Cited

Jarnot, Lisa. Black Dog Songs. Chicago: Flood Editions, 2003.

Black Dogs Songs Analysis

Crystal Fulp

Cooper

CRWR 212 Y

April 8, 2014

Back Dog Songs Analysis

            Lisa Jarnot’s Black Dog Songs is an interesting read. It’s an interesting read because it made me think about the important things in life to a certain degree. However, I did not enjoy this book. In fact, I didn’t even come close to enjoying it. Yes, the poems were lyrical and pretty, but very few actually meant anything to me. I couldn’t find many (if anything) to relate to. For some reason they just weren’t accessible to me. There is one section that is the exception though. The section entitled “They” did strike a few cords with me, but that is only because it’s the only section that I even come close to understanding or even connecting with.

            Lisa Jarnot is an excellent writer. Her pen (or keyboard) is truly her tool of artistic expression. She uses mechanical devices flawlessly and her sentences are lyrical and rhythmic.  Without really understanding the content, I can see why some people would enjoy her work. As I have previously stated, the section entitled “They” really struck a cord within me. I’m usually not the type of person who is overly emotional or even sentimental, but this section left me feeling warm and fuzzy inside. I usually carry a very jaded view of humanity in general and that section gave me hope that maybe, just maybe I might be wrong and humanity is actually good. “They” is filled with poems about love, relationships, and just enjoying the simple things in life. The characters in her poems don’t hate each other or do terrible things. No, they are people who cherish each other and take joy in simple things. They are the people that I wish I could be and hope to become. Her use of character is what really helped me to connect to her writing in this section. In fact, her poem entitled, “They Loved Paperclips” really resonated with me because the characters didn’t find fault or complain about anything. They just loved the simple beauty in everything and each other. It was a beautiful prose poem.

            Jarnot is also a master of description and imagery. The poem entitled, “Plastic Spider Catcher” also resonated with me. This poem described freedom and summer and how those are staples of one’s childhood. At least, that is what it made me think about. The poem described being outdoors on a warm day and feeling the sun beat down on you while experiencing the peace and beauty that is nature. The tone of the poem is a child-like carefree tone and it’s like I could almost feel carefree as I read it. It brought me back to the point in time where life wasn’t hard, it just was.

            “Hockey Night in Canada” was also an interesting read. I’ve never been much of a sports fan, but I could still relate to this poem. This poem had a very excited tone that made me remember times when I excitedly waited for things to begin. That feeling is only amplified when other people are waiting with you. This poem isn’t really about sports, but instead about loving something, anything so much that you can hardly wait for it to begin.

            As I said, the book was very interesting, but not my cup of tea. However, I must admit that I’m glad I read the book. A few of her poems helped me reconnect with parts of myself that have been absent for some time. Her words evoke very powerful feelings that one can’t escape from, even if they don’t otherwise enjoy her work.

 Johnson 1

Lexie Johnson                                                                                                     

Cooper

CRWR 212

8 April 2014

Analysis of "Black Dog Songs"

            Lisa Jarnot’s, Black Dog Songs, was filled with rhythmic and lyrical poems. I liked her section called “They”. I thought it was the best section in the book because it spoke volumes to me. I liked how she used repetition throughout this section to put an emphasis on the things that she wanted us to remember. This section made me think about younger couples who are new to being in a relationship with each other and new to love. This section made me think about people who just loved the simple things about each other. It brought me back to a time when people were not that materialistic. This section has more of a simplistic tone to it. These sections also made me think about the term “they”. Was it talking about the narrator or was she referring to other people who she encountered in her life?  The poem I like most in this section was “They Loved Paperclips”. I liked this poem the most because it made me think of happy people who are cherishing their relationships in life. They loved every aspect of life. The characters in the poem seem as if they are not taking anything for granted. Everything they are enjoying is more of a natural thing like nature. This adds to the simplistic tone of this novel. This section talks about people loving things that most people take for granted like the birds, sky, food etc. This poem was written in prose form which gave it sort of a story feeling to it. I like this section the most because it was something that I could relate to more than I could relate to the other sections of this novel.  I’m not a big fan of this novel and some of the poem sort of made me mad because of all the tongue twisting words. I like poems that have more clarity and this was not it.

            The beginning of the novel starts off with poems that have some sort of form to it. We have more poems with stanzas in the beginning of the novel. The first section of this novel made me think it was talking about her family. The first poem talks about this silence and absence in this household and a dwelling. The first section makes me think that the narrator is looking for order in their life and looking back on her family roots. She used a triolet form to her poem title “Triolet” which I thought was really interesting. It makes me wonder why she decided to title her poem that. I think that her titles are really important in trying to understand what the poems mean.

            The section, My Terrorist Notebook, was interesting because it made me wonder why she dedicated some of her poems to politicians. The rhyme scheme that she had in her poems made it flow more. She also used a lot of alliteration in this section of the book. The section, Black Dog Songs, seemed like it was about her adult life and growing up and chasing her dreams. This section seemed like it was about the narrator reaching goals in her life or what her life is about now. This whole novel seemed as if was about someone going through different phases in life. I wondered why she didn’t use any punctuation in most of her poems. When these are read out loud it sounds as if someone is preaching because there are not many poems with pauses. I did not really like this novel as a while but it does have its share of poems that are really unique.   

           

Kaitlin Dixon; Analyzing Story

Kaitlin Dixon

Prof. Cooper

CRWR 212

4/8/2014

My View on ‘Story’

My analysis of Lisa Jarnot’s piece ‘Story’ is that she was symbolizing the importance of the small things in life. In this piece, she speaks simply of the things in the world and linked them all together. She uses the third person point-of-view to tell her story, which to me reflected on the biblical story of Noah and the Arc. Jarnot speaks of how ‘they’ liked and loved the birds, sheep and the ship that rocked. To me that made me think of the Arc, which after 40 days of rain held all the animals until the water subsided and it managed to land. I liked her use of diction in the area that she used the repeating phrases of “They loved” and “They liked”, which emphasized what her subject was. I feel that Jarnot was keying on the things in life and how beautiful they can be if one lets themselves open up to it. Her imagery is simple yet beautiful, utilizing the shadows of the sun as key points of emphasis. She uses the sun as an important symbol in this piece, especially with its repetitive use. I feel that she uses the sun to symbolize the positive times in life, and uses the rain storms to symbolize hardships and struggle.

I feel that this piece symbolizes in many ways the path of life. From the lines “They told the stories of birds they knew” (p 32), I reflected on how everyone talks about other people. I connected this to the common saying ‘Oh, a little birdie told me’. I felt that Jarnot was spinning off a common phrase in order to pull out a real meaning. She wanted to key in on how we all talk about others, telling stories true or not for entertainment and bonding with others. She uses common themes that are universally known to connect her work with daily life. She also connects birds to human life by using them as ‘stars of films’, which would represent celebrities in our society. I feel that she is connecting, contrasting, and paralleling nature to humanity in certain ways. Her connection of all elements really became noticeable in the fifth and sixth stanzas when she stated what every part was doing, and what it had done. She really gave me a feeling of recognition of a powerful connection in the lines “before the birds arrived as birds, graceful, tired, burn down the burning little trees” (p 32).

I found her use of alliteration in the last line with “ships with sheep in shadows of the sun” to be interesting, as it also made me think back to the biblical story of Noah (p 33). I don’t know if this was intentional in her piece, or coincidental but I found the parallels between the works to be awarding to my analysis because it touched on my spirituality and history of my beliefs. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this because it made me think about life and how everything is so connected. It was really interesting how Jarnot connected her thoughts in such a simple way, but made the impact so real. That is one of many reasons I enjoyed her work. The pieces in The Black Dog Songs were all well thought out yet very simple and energetic at times. They caught my attention, especially with the wording used and how simplistic her style and diction was in many cases.