Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Three Beautiful Things 02/08/10: Reading John's Obituary, Winco Bagel, Wilfred Owen

1. Obituaries mean a lot to Mom, so I called her with Cousin John's obituary opened up on my computer and read it to her. It wasn't maudlin or anything like that. She just wanted to know what had been written and we both agreed that it was a really good tribute to his life.

2. It's not my favorite in the whole world, but I like the Winco bagels. I got home from work and made a salami, sharp cheddar cheese, and French's mustard sandwich on a plain Winco bagel. It hit the spot. (Where'd I buy that salami? It's peppery, just the way I like it...I really don't know..)

3. I think my students really felt and understood the deep disillusionment of Wilfred Owen's poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est". I didn't tell them, because it seems like I want to say this about almost every poem we study, but when I was first reading poetry, this poem opened up avenues in poetry I didn't know were possible: not only the disillusionment, but the diction, sound, images, of this poem, all within a rhyme scheme. It really opened up for me the possibility that rhyming poetry could hit the reader really hard and work in the midst of soldiers being gassed and killed in the trenches of World War I.

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