After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

Robert Frost is on the 2015 HSC poetry list.

My eldest stepson is studying 6 of his poems (rather reluctantly) with his class.

The major theme they're exploring is discovery (or self-discovery).

Robert Frost was born 26th March 1874 and died 1963. 

He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times (1924, 1931, 1937 & 1943). 

He was a special guest at JFK's inauguration, where he wrote a poem especially for the occasion.

*************************************************************************************

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep. 

*********************************************************************

More self-discovery from Robert Frost!

Is his ladder the bridge to the heavens? Is he questioning his faith? Spiritual discovery?

Is it about aging & resting? Growing old & weary? 

Autumn to winter - middle age to old age? With a renewal or regrowth on the way?

Does he realise he's aging/dying? Looking back on his life - with regrets? or disappointment?

Apples (biblical) - loss of innocence?

Perhaps he is searching for wisdom - picking the fruit of knowledge? Inner discovery?

Or harvesting - storing away the knowledge he has already accumulated? Pondering the choices of his youth?

What does it mean that he is dreaming or in that dream-like, almost asleep stage? 

Is this his sub-conscious speaking? His natural state?

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Robert Frost is on the 2015 HSC poetry list.
My eldest stepson is studying 6 of his poems (rather reluctantly) with his class.
The major theme they're exploring is discovery or self-discovery.

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

                                                                                       (1923) 

While I love nature poems for their visual simplicity and their links to human nature, I usually prefer metaphysical poets. Therefore Robert Frost is a journey of self-discovery for me as well!

I'm planning to explore the 6 HSC poems over the next few weeks to act as a resource for anyone studying Frost.

I started with this poem because I had heard of this one before.
We are fans of the cult TV series from a decade ago, called Roswell. When one of the main characters dies mysteriously, one of the clues left behind is the last three lines of this poem.

I found a lovely quote by Epictetus about self-discovery & obligation that seems to sum up Frost's intentions with this poem,

Stopping by the Woods is a poem about choices & responsibility. 

The stopping man is faced with the choice of staying quietly in the woods (a romantic, easy, dream-like experience) or moving on (facing up to reality) to his "promises to keep". 

I know this poem is a favourite of many North American bloggers. I thought I would throw this post out there for you to offer up your opinions on this poem. Any thoughts on how it relates to discovery or self-discovery would be greatly appreciated :-)

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Robert Frost is on the 2015 HSC poetry list.

My eldest stepson is studying 6 of his poems (rather reluctantly) with his class.

The major theme they're exploring is discovery (or self-discovery).

On the surface of Fire and Ice (1923) we see man struggling to some to terms with the end of the world.

Fire and ice both have lots of symbolic meanings in our culture.

He offers us a contrast - two options - a contradiction.

The choice is universal and individual.

Both both choices can be experienced (& survived) & both choices can end in destruction.

Is this really a choice? Or is it a sign of how to live with complexity? Duality? The shades of grey?

Should we avoid desire (lust & greed) AND hate (cruelty)?

"From what I have tasted" leads us to view what Frost has discovered about life, love & death.

Is it better to go down in ball of flames, passion, love, desire & heat?

Or is a more calculated, cold hearted, reasoned approach best?

Once again Frost is highlighting man's isolation from his environment and from others.

Is he trying to warn us about our worst traits? The traits that could lead to our downfall? Greed & hatred?

Such big themes for such a small poem!

What did YOU discover as you read through this poem?

The Tufts of Flowers by Robert Frost

Robert Frost is on the 2015 HSC poetry list.
My eldest stepson is studying 6 of his poems (rather reluctantly) with his class.
The major theme they're exploring is discovery or self-discovery.

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been—alone,

“As all must be,” I said within my heart,
“Whether they work together or apart.”

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one though of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

“Men work together,” I told him from the heart,
“Whether they work together or apart.”

 
This is also a poem about self-discovery - the connection between people through time & place, a search for meaning in our modern world through comparison with an older time gone by. We experience solitude & loneliness - eventually working our way to connection & fellowship.

Nature, by its very indifference to human beings, allows us to gain our own knowledge & insight - we work it out by ourselves, as nature won't provide the answers for us.

Frost said that a poem is

“never a put-up job.... It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a loneliness. 

It is never a thought to begin with. 

It is at its best when it is a tantalizing vagueness.”

What do you think?

Home Burial by Robert Frost

He saw her from the bottom of the stairs

Before she saw him. She was starting down,

Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.

She took a doubtful step and then undid it

To raise herself and look again. He spoke

Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see

From up there always—for I want to know.’

She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,

And her face changed from terrified to dull.

He said to gain time: ‘What is it you see,’

Mounting until she cowered under him.

‘I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.’

She, in her place, refused him any help

With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.

She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,

Blind creature; and awhile he didn’t see.

But at last he murmured, ‘Oh,’ and again, ‘Oh.’

‘What is it—what?’ she said.

                                          ‘Just that I see.’

‘You don’t,’ she challenged. ‘Tell me what it is.’

‘The wonder is I didn’t see at once.

I never noticed it from here before.

I must be wonted to it—that’s the reason.

The little graveyard where my people are!

So small the window frames the whole of it.

Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?

There are three stones of slate and one of marble,

Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight

On the sidehill. We haven’t to mind those.

But I understand: it is not the stones,

But the child’s mound—’

                             ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,’ she cried.

She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm

That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;

And turned on him with such a daunting look,

He said twice over before he knew himself:

‘Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?’

‘Not you! Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I don’t need it!

I must get out of here. I must get air.

I don’t know rightly whether any man can.’

‘Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time.

Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.’

He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.

‘There’s something I should like to ask you, dear.’

‘You don’t know how to ask it.’

                                              ‘Help me, then.’

Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.

‘My words are nearly always an offense.

I don’t know how to speak of anything

So as to please you. But I might be taught

I should suppose. I can’t say I see how.

A man must partly give up being a man

With women-folk. We could have some arrangement

By which I’d bind myself to keep hands off

Anything special you’re a-mind to name.

Though I don’t like such things ’twixt those that love.

Two that don’t love can’t live together without them.

But two that do can’t live together with them.’

She moved the latch a little. ‘Don’t—don’t go.

Don’t carry it to someone else this time.

Tell me about it if it’s something human.

Let me into your grief. I’m not so much

Unlike other folks as your standing there

Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.

I do think, though, you overdo it a little.

What was it brought you up to think it the thing

To take your mother-loss of a first child

So inconsolably—in the face of love.

You’d think his memory might be satisfied—’

‘There you go sneering now!’

                                           ‘I’m not, I’m not!

You make me angry. I’ll come down to you.

God, what a woman! And it’s come to this,

A man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead.’

‘You can’t because you don't know how to speak.

If you had any feelings, you that dug

With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave;

I saw you from that very window there,

Making the gravel leap and leap in air,

Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly

And roll back down the mound beside the hole.

I thought, Who is that man? I didn’t know you.

And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs

To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.

Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice

Out in the kitchen, and I don’t know why,

But I went near to see with my own eyes.

You could sit there with the stains on your shoes

Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave

And talk about your everyday concerns.

You had stood the spade up against the wall

Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.’

‘I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.

I’m cursed. God, if I don’t believe I’m cursed.’

‘I can repeat the very words you were saying:

“Three foggy mornings and one rainy day

Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.”

Think of it, talk like that at such a time!

What had how long it takes a birch to rot

To do with what was in the darkened parlor?

You couldn’t care! The nearest friends can go

With anyone to death, comes so far short

They might as well not try to go at all.

No, from the time when one is sick to death,

One is alone, and he dies more alone.

Friends make pretense of following to the grave,

But before one is in it, their minds are turned

And making the best of their way back to life

And living people, and things they understand.

But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so

If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!’

‘There, you have said it all and you feel better.

You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the door.

The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up.

Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!’

‘You—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—

Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you—’

‘If—you—do!’ She was opening the door wider.

‘Where do you mean to go?  First tell me that.

I’ll follow and bring you back by force.  I will!—’

Robert Frost is on the 2015 HSC poetry list.

My eldest stepson is studying 6 of his poems (rather reluctantly) with his class.

The major theme they're exploring is discovery (or self-discovery).

So, what are we disovering in Home Burial (1914)?

We have here two very different ways of grieving and communicating. 

There is a power struggle between the couple as they try to make each other understand how they're feeling. 

The death of their child has revealed things about each other that they are finding hard to reconcile.

Will this also mean the end of their marriage?

Can they find it in themselves to be understanding & accepting?

Gender stereotyping appears in the way that the man and the woman express themselves & talk about grief.

The home is also a source of ambiguity - fear and/or comfort?

Perhaps the home has become the parent's grave since the death of their child?

There is a sense that they are both trapped or enclosed by the home. They are confined within the space as well as by their unspoken feelings.

Frost's usual themes of loneliness & alienation also appear in Home Burial.

Robert Frost knew all too well what it felt like to lose a child. 

His first born son, Elliott, died age 8 of cholera. His daughter, Elinor also died just 3 days after birth in 1907.

This poem was obviously a way for him to work through his own grief.

Home Burial is an incredibly sad poem.

The tragedy that is the death of a child is compounded in this case by poor communication & a lack of empathy.

We can see the grief and sorrow oozing from both parents, but sadly, they cannot see it in each other.

We discover in Home Burial how important open communication, listening and accepting difference is in maintaining healthy relationships. 

What else did you discover?

It's Monday!

Last week ended up being a good reading & blogging week.

I completed two fiction books & began my Robert Frost discovery tour (see reviews below).

I updated my much neglected Goodreads page.
I found the #bookadayuk challenge on twitter.
I finished my Christmas shopping.
And we caught up on our backlog of Walking Dead episodes (is no-one safe?!)

I have also spent every evening storm watching from our upstairs verandah!

Sydney has been enjoying (?) a run of dramatic, spectacular summer storms complete with lightning, thunder, wild wind, lashing rain and occasionally hail.

This week's reading list still contains Adam Spencer's Big Book of Numbers (I'm now up to the number 36). And I plan to look at two more Robert Frost poems.

I've also joined in Ali's Willa Cather Reading Week - read Ali's start up post here.

I will be reading Cather's 1918 novel My Ántonia.
My edition is one of the lovely 2012 Drop Cap hardbacks with cover designs by Jessica Hische.

I started it last night with much anticipation. I suspect I will be searching out her other books asap!

The story of Ántonia Shimerda is told by one of her friends from childhood, Jim Burden, an orphaned boy from Virginia. Though he leaves the prairie, Jim never forgets the Bohemian girl who so profoundly influenced his life. 

An immigrant child of immigrant parents, Ántonia's girlhood is spent working to help her parents wrest a living from the untamed land. 

Though in later years she suffers betrayal and desertion, through all the hardships of her life she preserves a valor of spirit that no hardship can daunt or break. 

When Jim Burden sees her again after many years, he finds her "a rich mine of life", a figure who has turned adversity into a particular kind of triumph in the true spirit of the pioneer.
 

I've also started Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things.

I finished last week in need of some 'balm'. So far it's a fairly gut-wrenching, emotional experience -  a book to be read slowly, piece by piece, with time to absorb the emotional impact of each story.

Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills—and it can be great: you’ve had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the courage to write your novel. Sugar—the once-anonymous online columnist at The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild—is the person thousands turn to for advice.
Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond.  Rich with humor, insight, compassion—and absolute honesty—this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.

I would also love to reread A Christmas Carol before Christmas and was wondering if anyone out there in blog-land would like to join in a readalong with me....or point me in the direction of someone hosting such a readalong?

Later: My low-key, no fuss readalong post is here.

I often find it too surreal to read traditional white Christmas style books during our hot, sultry, summery Christmases. But with all the dramatic, weird storms this past week, I've felt a little closer to a white Christmas (hail is white, right?!) than usual.

Living with two teen boys who bah-humbug* around the house, Scrooge has naturally been on my mind!
* Translator's notes - 'bah humbug' is a Victorian phrase of indifference. Now replaced by 'meh'!

To find out what other bloggers have been up to with their reading week, check out It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

What will you be reading this week?

Poetry Month Celebration

I've just spotted this wonderful month long poetry appreciation group over at The Edge of the Precipice with Hamlette.

My relationship status with poetry is complicated but hopeful. It is also a very neglected relationship.

This seems like the perfect chance to do something about that!

Hamlette has provided some questions to get us thinking about our relationship with poetry. So let's see what issues come to the surface.

What are some poems you like? 

Straight away I'm a little stumped.

I like bits of poems. 

You know, those random snatches of poetry made famous in a movie or a book.

Like Auden's Funeral Blues in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Or The Highway Man by Alfred Noyes thanks to Anne Shirley's exciting recitation in the 1985 movie.
A Robert Frost poem was used to help solve a murder in the cult TV series Roswell - the words /And miles to go before I sleep/ will stay with forever.
And I will always love Shakespeare's, Sigh No More, Ladies, Sigh No More because of the Branagh/Thompson version of Much Ado About Nothing.

I love the first line of Keats' Ode to Autumn, which I've been thinking about today thanks to our weekend drive through the Blue Mountains

/Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness/

As a true-blue Aussie I will always love sections of Banjo Patterson's The Man from Snowy River, the final stanza of Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor and Dorothea Mackellar's My Country

(the above links will take you to my previous reviews of these poems.)

What are some poems you dislike?

I'm not so fond of the epic poems.

Are there any poets whose work you especially enjoy?  If so, who are they? 

Thanks to studying their works for school, I have learnt to love Andrew Marvell, John Donne and Judith Wright. Dorothy Porter, Robert Frost and T. S. Eliot I discovered on my own!

Do you write poetry? 

In my younger days, yes, yes, yes.

It was angst-filled, heart-breaking and rather pathetic.

But it made me feel better at the time and now provides me with a curious record of my break-up history!

Have you ever memorized a poem? 

My Pop was famous in our family for his ability to recite the poems he learnt at school up until the day he died. In his honour I have tried to remember and recite some of my favourites over the years.
When I was a child, I learnt The House That Jack Built off by heart (my Pop could recite the harder version - The Domiciliary Edifice Erected by John.)

I used to be able to quote Sigh No More, Ladies, Sigh No More, but only the hey nonny nonny's have stuck with me.

For fun, and to prompt my memory, here's the whole of it...

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.

    Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea, and one on shore,

    To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

    And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

    Into hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more

    Of dumps so dull and heavy.

The fraud of men was ever so

    Since summer first was leafy.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

    And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

    Into hey, nonny, nonny.

Do you prefer poetry that rhymes and had a strict meter, or free verse?  Or do you like both? 

I'm open and eclectic.
My main criteria for liking poetry is that it moves me somehow.
It could be because of the association.
It might be thanks to my mood or the power of a good teacher.
I also love poems for their beauty and for their ability to be "elegant distillers of language" (I heard that phrase in a conference years and years ago, but failed to write down who said it).

I'm also a fan of the verse novel.

Do you have any particular poetry movements you're fond of?  (Beat poets, Romanticism, Fireside poets, etc?)

I do have a thing for the metaphysical poets and I love the simple beauty of haiku.

It's not too late to join in Poetry Month and share the love. 

HSC English requirements 2015 - 2020 NSW

For the past 6 years, the NSW HSC theme has been 'belonging'. 

Bookshops and libraries around the state have become conversant with books and texts that can be related back to this theme. 

Authors and publishers, also aware of this theme, have written & premoted many, many stories that fit within this theme.

But as of Term 4 2014, when the new Yr 12 classes begin, the theme will change to discovery.

This is of particular relevance in our family right now, as my eldest stepson is one of those new Yr 12 students about to embark on his own year of discovery. (Sympathetic comments welcome here!)

With thanks to the STC for this archived photo.

Books on his list of discovery include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon and The Life  and Crimes of Harry Lavender by Marele Day.  

The Collected Poems of Robert Frost (‘The Tuft of Flowers’, ‘Mending Wall’, ‘Home Burial’, ‘After Apple-Picking’, ‘Fire and Ice’, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’) & The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (play by Ray Lawler) round out the genres. 

The discovery film of choice for his school this year is Billy Elliot (2000).

Both Mr Books & I studied the Lawler play for our HSC's and we both remember it fondly. 
I also recall a day trip my English class had to Sydney to see the play. A quick google check reveals why it was so memorable - the cast in 1985 included Steve Bisley & Ruth Cracknell! 

My main concern about this play is it's setting - 1950's rural Australia is not a time period likely to engage my stepson!

I loved The Curious Incident and Billy Elliot & I feel that my stepson could also enjoy them if he lets himself (although he is more of an action, dystopian, fantasy sort of reader. This year's stories are more suited to the sensibilities of my youngest stepson who likes real life stuff). 

I know next to nothing about Harry Lavender or Robert Frost. It will therefore be a year of new discoveries for all of us! 

Alongside the 'Prescribed Texts' (that each school selects), the students are expected to have at least two related texts of their own choosing.

I've included the Board of Studies notes below for clarification.

AREA OF STUDY: Discovery 

DESCRIPTION 
This Area of Study requires students to explore the ways in which the concept of discovery is represented in and through texts.

Discovery can encompass the experience of discovering something for the first time or rediscovering something that has been lost, forgotten or concealed. Discoveries can be sudden and unexpected, or they can emerge from a process of deliberate and careful planning evoked by curiosity, necessity or wonder. Discoveries can be fresh and intensely meaningful in ways that may be emotional, creative, intellectual, physical and spiritual. 

They can also be confronting and provocative. They can lead us to new worlds and values, stimulate new ideas, and enable us to speculate about future possibilities.  

Discoveries and discovering can offer new understandings and renewed perceptions of ourselves and others. 

An individual’s discoveries and their process of discovering can vary according to personal, cultural, historical and social contexts and values. The impact of these discoveries can be far-reaching and transformative for the individual and for broader society. 

Discoveries may be questioned or challenged when viewed from different perspectives and their worth may be reassessed over time. The ramifications of particular discoveries may differ for individuals and their worlds. 

By exploring the concept of discovery, students can understand how texts have the potential to affirm or challenge individuals’ or more widely-held assumptions and beliefs about aspects 
of human experience and the world. 

Through composing and responding to a wide range of texts, students may make discoveries about people, relationships, societies, places and events and generate new ideas. By synthesising perspectives, students may deepen their understanding of the concept of discovery. 

So discovery can be NEW & FRESH or a REDISCOVERY.
The discovery be INTERNAL or EXTERNAL.
Discovery can be represented in many different ways - OVER TIME and within different PERSPECTIVES & CONTEXTS.
They can be QUESTIONED and CHALLENGED and REASSESSED.
A judgement or analysis can be made about the discovery citing EFFECTS, IMPACTS, ASSUMPTIONS, BELIEFS & RAMIFICATIONS.

The web abounds (already) with flow charts & visual discovery prompts like the one below.

Other discovery texts on the BoS list include:

Wrack by James Bradley

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara

Small Island by Andrea Levy

Vertigo by Amanda Lowry
Feed by M T Anderson
The Story of Tom Brennan by J C Burke
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Hours by Stephen Daldry
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Dubliners by James Joyce
1984 by George Orwell
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Sixty Lights by Gail Jones
In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
Cloudstreet by Time Winton
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Clay by Melissa Harrison
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
The Tree of Man by Patrick White
The China Coin by Allan Baillie
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
Fly Away Peter by David Malouf
Romulus My Father by Raimond Gaita
The Hare With the Amber Eye by Edmund de Waal
The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula le Guin
An Artist of the Floating World by Ishiguro Kazuo
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I have created a 'discovery' label for my posts and I will be on the look out for related texts to add to the list. From previous experience, many students look for picture books to boost their related texts quota. 
Shaun Tan was a popular choice for the 'belonging' theme & I suspect will get a good look in for 'discovery' too!
If anything else pops into your mind, please feel free to leave your ideas below. 

Pinterest has dedicated 'HSC discovery' boards & there are many 'HSC experts' online offering all kinds of advice.
Some of the info out there contradicts & conflicts - so if in doubt, ask YOUR teacher & keep on asking.

But for now - good luck & may all your discoveries be fortuitous.
And happy reading!

Books I Read in High School

JoAnn @Lakeside Musing has recently been revisiting her high school texts.
It got me thinking...and discussing with the family about the highlights of our school reading lives.
The tragedy was gradually revealed, though, as B21 and B18 shared not only their lack of inspiring, interesting school texts, but the utter dearth of said texts in the first place.

Mr Books and I, over 30 years after the event, could recall every single book, play and poet that we read for our HSC years, and with a little more effort we could also recall most of the books read throughout years 7 - 10 as well.

Whereas both boys only remembered their meagre list of texts thanks to our prompts.

It seems like the teaching of English no longer stresses, you know, actual reading!
The books selected, according to the boys, were ones that could be read aloud in class, as no-one was expected to actually, you know, read the books by themselves at home.

They also don't remember discussing the books except in terms of purpose and narrative style.
They memorised certain critical phrases and ideas that they then regurgitated in exams, with no idea what any of it meant.
They didn't even have to read the books in question as none of the exam questions or class discussions were actually about, you know, the story.
The book was selected purely as an example of a text type and that's all that mattered for the rest of the course.
The joy of reading and language was completely absent.
Author intent and individual reader experiences were irrelevant.

Neither boy now reads.

Which breaks my heart.

B21 used to be an avid reader, but a combination of getting his first smart phone in the middle of his high school years & the current mode of teaching English stopped all that dead.

B18 always struggled to get into reading.
He just didn't see the point of it.
After constant trying, we finally found that he enjoyed stories like Wonder by R. J. Palacio, but as many of you probably already know, books like Wonder are not very common in the junior fiction market.
Since his high school years, anything to do with reading or books has been anathema for him.
Any need or desire he may have had for stories, magic or imagination he found in movies and getting lost in another's world now happens via games like Fortnight.

Given the amount of joy, comfort and companionship that books and plays and theatre have given both Mr Books and I over the years, we wonder what the boys will turn to during their own future times of need.

Perhaps, we're being old fashioned fuddy-duddy's.
Maybe the wonderful world of new technology, AI and AR will provide our Gen Zedder's with their own kind of joy, comfort and companionship?

I'm also forgetting, that during my school years, our parents were worried about the effects of television on our minds and lives.
Schools had stopped teaching grammar and our parents generation was horrified.
What were we doing to our kids and what did it mean for the future?

Maybe, I am now simply on the other side of the generational divide.
Oh the irony!

I just hope that I live long enough to enjoy watching our Zedder's angst over the educational standards inflicted on their oh so modern kids.

My School Texts

Poets

Andrew Marvell

John Donne

Judith Wright

Novels

Pride and Prejudice

Emma

The Great Gatsby

To Kill A Mockingbird

Lord of the Flies

And Then There Were None

Plays

Major Barbara

Saint Joan

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

King Lear

Merchant of Venice

Romeo and Juliet

Macbeth

Mr Books

Poets

(A) Judith Wright

John Donne

Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Coleridge

Novels

1984

Grapes of Wrath

Pride and Prejudice

Brave New World 

Swallows and Amazons

To Kill A Mockingbird

Plays

King Lear

Merchant of Venice

Macbeth

Under Milkwood

Streetcar Named Desire

The Importance of Being Ernest

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

B21

Poets

Robert Frost

(A) Peter Skrzynecki

Novels

Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time
Catcher in the Rye

Holes

Plays

(A) Gary's House

Merchant of Venice

Midsummer Night's Dream

(A) Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

B18

Poets

Robert Frost

Novels

Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time
(A) Sabriel
(A) The Rabbits by John Marsden & Shaun Tan

Plays

(A) Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

He also recalls that early in Yr 7 or 8 he may have watched a TV version of a Shakespeare play.
It may have had fairies in it, but he can't really remember.
And he doesn't care.

#justsaying

My Ántonia by Willa Cather

I read My Ántonia as part of Heavenali's Willa Cather Reading week.
It was my first Cather - the first of many, I now realise!

Reading My Ántonia was like falling into a lovely warm, cosy doona. It was comforting, it was some how familar, like a dear, old friend & it was generous, big-hearted & welcoming....just like Ántonia herself.

As Jim Burden remembers his childhood and his friendship with the slightly older 'Tony', Nebraska, farm life and that particular time in American history become infused with the sweet glow of nostalgia. Cather captures the rhythms & pace of small time life perfectly - it's comforts and its ennuis.

As many of you will know, I have also been reading 6 poems by Robert Frost in honour of my stepson's HSC course.

Images of apple picking, harvesting, be-dewed fields & woods filled with snow have been haunting my dreams. Cather's depictions of Nebraskan prairie life merged with these fleeting images to create a mood of deep belonging & knowing.

Like Frost, Cather's characters are shaped by their environments. The wide, open, lonely prairies, prone to extremes of weather, test not only character but become apart of the romantic, hard-working world-view that both Ántonia and Jim develop. Ántonia is also heavily influenced by her memories of her youth in Bohemia when her father was happy.

Ántonia believes the best of people, takes pride in her background & embraces change and catastrophe with a  sense of stoicism & adventureness. 

Ántonia's story is told entirely from Jim's point of view, so there are some sections that fail to satisfy. Even as we enjoy seeing Jim come of age, we soon realise that we do so at the risk of losing sight of Ántonia. There are whole slabs of her life we can only see through Jim's sentimental eyes.

I'm an historical fiction fanatic...and when it is written as beautifully and evocatively as this is, then I will rave 'til the cows come home!

As a sidenote, I found the descriptions of the (native) red grass plains beautiful - in the summer reflecting & waving the sunset or in the winter bowed down by snow. As time passed and more land was ploughed under for farming, one could foresee the doomed practices that helped to create the dust bowl disaster of the 1930's (unknown to Cather at the time, as she published this in 1918).

"As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of day....The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire but was not consumed."

"Big white flakes were whirling over everything and disappearing in the red grass."

"The old pasture land was now being broken up into wheatfields and cornfields, the red grass was disappearing, and the whole face of the country was changing."

"I took a long walk north of the town, out into the pastures where the land was so rough that it had never been ploughed up, and the long red grass of early times still grew shaggy over the draws and hillocks. Out there I felt at home again."

 

My Drop Caps edition of My Ántonia was illustrated with lovely line drawings by W. T. Benda