Cane; poems and prose notes

Note: I saw two different versions of the book in class today, so I hope my page numbers are consistent with yours.

Observations (for most of the poems, and some of the text; in order of appearance):

Reapers (p. 3)
- Begins with "black" and ends with "shade"
- Seems to suggest summer (mower, weeds), while reapers are associated with death or winter
- Undertones of industry: alliteration of "s" runs from first line into the second, some sort of hissing -- steam/factories?

November Cotton Flower (p. 4)
- Boll-weevil = beetle, specifically a type that infested US cotton growing areas in the 1920s, devastated the South's crops
- 5th line, mention of "autumn rake"... winter to autumn? then later, "season when the flower bloomed"... spring?
- Dead birds, I tend to think of birds as a symbol of freedom, flying = freedom. Dead birds make the poem feel heavy, trapped, grounded.
- Whose brown eyes do you think he's talking about?

Face (p. 8)
- Poem feels delicate
- Face of the land, the image of a natural dusk landscape
- Why are brows "recurved"... why not just curved? any significance?
- Moves from delicate to powerful - last four lines: the immense power of the land, "channeled," "cluster," "sun," "ripe": words that contain some sense of power

Cotton Song (p.9)
- I don't have much to say about this... But a recap of what we mentioned in class: men sang while working in the fields; they timed their actions to the movement of their work
- Oh, I noticed some Southern vernacular
- Third stanza: "fleecy"... sheep?

Song of the Son (p. 12)
- Son sounds like sun, "though the sun is setting... it has not set yet" (3rd stanza)
- 4th stanza, last line, "for me" ...who is me?
- ... in general, who are the pronouns referring to?

Georgia Dusk (p. 13)
- Noticed the rhyme scheme first: first and last line of each stanza, and 2nd and 3rd lines rhyme
- domicile = home, why not just say home?
- "juju-man" a mysterious or powerful sort of man?
- resinous - pertaining to resin/sap
- How does this poem relate to "Song of the Son"?

Nullo (p. 18)
- Nullo is apparently "in certain card games, a bid to take no tricks."
- Help. How does the title connect to the poem?


Other observations, concerning prose:

Karintha (p. 1-2)
- Ends mysteriously: "Karintha... [Poem]... Goes down..."
- Shift from past tense to present tense
- Foreshadow of birth/death

Becky (p. 5-7)
- The pines "whisper" ... then they "shout" - significance?
- Bible: they've turned the pages (and made lots of noise doing it) but have they learned anything? The pines whisper - tattle-tale like on the congregation
- Becky, a supernatural force on people?

Carma (p. 10-11)
- One line stuck out to me: "A black boy... you are the most sleepiest man I ever seed": struck me as particularly internalized somehow... internal dialogue?
- Also, "from far away a sad strong song" and "she does not sing; her body is a song": reminds me of Whitman, silence can as well be a song, and send an equally powerful message
- "The search began" (11). Search for...?

Fern (p. 14-17)
- Significance of Fern's eyes?
- On page 15, eyes jumped out at me (not literally obviously): "... her eyes... they gazed...they followed...they'd settle...they'd wait...they looked... Like her face, the whole countryside seemed to flow into her eyes."
- "Her eyes, unusually weird and open, held me. Held God." Where is God right now? Fern = God? touched by God?
- And again with the theme of song: "Dusk hid her; I could hear only her song"

Esther (p. 20-25)
- Broken into parts by age; I think the numbers = her age
- How her story was broken up reminded me of a song by Five for Fighting, 100 Years
- Twenty-two (last line): "Her face pales until it is the color of the gray dusk that dances with dead cotton leaves..." sounds like premature death. But ferns remind me of spring... aw no, conflict again!
- "Emptiness is a thing that grows by being moved."
- Absolute last line: "There is no air, no street, and the town has completely disappeared." Before this "somnambulist" is worth mentioning; makes me believe that this was all a dream.

And what is that lone arc about? (p.37)
This was a really long post. Why am I even up at 3.