Tyler Comes Out of the Closet; or, On the Virtues of Reading Slow

Yep. You guessed it.

I'm coming out. As a slow reader, that is.

Very slow, in fact. Sometimes painfully slow. And when I say painful, I mean it in a debilitating sense, in that I often dread picking up longer texts or texts that I know will be dense (linguistically or philosophically) because, on one hand, I'm afraid I'll miss some important aspect of the text's character and, in the process, miss out on a potential (textual) friendship.

I'm finally becoming comfortable enough with this readerly nature to admit out loud (as it were) that I'm a slow reader, but it's taken me time to sidle up to the idea, especially because it seems that the circles I run in online and at school and, more generally, as a consumer of American culture, value reading fast, for quantity over quality. I have nothing against speed reading; it has it's own virtues. In fact, I'm quite envious of those who can speed through a bookshelf like they're cruising the autobahn. And sure, my time is at a premium and I have to read some things fast (although my fast is likely someone else's very slow); but I feel most myself, most confident and content, when I can make time to explore the nooks and crannies of a text such that I can really engage it (as best I can) on its own terms; when I can build something of a relationship with it.

This admission comes in the wake of an essay I was reading this morning ("Old School") by William Monroe, professor of English at The University of Houston and once student of Wayne Booth. Exploring how Booth's rhetorical pedagogy sparked a transformation in his life, his scholarship, and his teaching, Monroe shares this moment of "blessing and validation" that came only after he'd struggled for a time to feel at home in Booth's "Interpreting Intellectual Texts" classroom at the University of Chicago. Quoting his 1978 classmate Todd Weir:

Booth brought in a Faulkner passage and asked us to read it carefully and then we would discuss it as usual. We all bowed our heads and read. I quickly scanned the passage and achieved my goal---the first one to look up. Wayne noticed. We waited as heads rose one by one, each studying the group to find his place in the scheme of speed. Finally the slow talking guy from Texas [Monroe] raised his head, dead last. Wayne asked me about the piece and I was off to the races, expounding. . . . When I was done, Wayne asked if anyone, perhaps, had a different understanding of the passage. The Texan raised his hand and Wayne simply said, “Bill.” At that point a bright sun began to shine and like Icarus, flying too high, my reading came plunging down. It was clear that I had missed the point entirely. I mean, I got it just about dead wrong. Then it was Wayne’s turn. The lesson? Good readers are not fast readers. In fact, they are slow, even the slowest. . . .(16; italics mine)

After I read this experience, I felt a rush of blessing and validation flow into my own life. Because, you see, I've struggled, really struggled, with shaping my vocational life to my intellectual nature and desires, including my tendency to read really slow. And while I've got a long way to go before these vestments fit (if they ever will), I read Weir's simple declaration---"Good readers are not fast readers. In fact, they are slow, even the slowest"---and gave myself permission to be a slow reader, to let my mind explore more fully the texts I read. To let it weigh the implications of 'this' against 'that' as I read and to take whatever notes may come, copious or spare. To grapple with the author in my attempt to understand and grasp the full measure of his/her world.

And to chew on the language no matter how long I need to masticate the full bodied flavor of each textual space.

Hokianga: February-March 2000 (Poem)

From Cloudfire and a Bowl of Kauri Leaves. Because I haven't posted a poem in bit. All the same rules apply: feedback, etc.

* * * *

Hokianga: February-March 2000

crimson-honey sky
across the Hokianga*
crimson-honey tide
but no waka to pierce
the bay’s narrow hips

*

crimson-honey sand
across the Hokianga
crimson-honey sky
but only one cumulus
to lick the bay’s narrow tongue

*

crimson-honey night
across the Hokianga
two harvest moons
walk empty shores
lap cups of crimson-honey tea

* * * *

*If you enlarge that map, you'll see Opononi and Omapere near the coastal edge of the harbor. The flat I lived in was---probably still is---somewhere between the two towns.

Almost thou persuadest me; or, Curse you Wayne Booth!

When I was a little kid and my parents decided to spoil us with our choice of candy, I'd hover over the candy section at the grocery store and mull over the options. "Sure Twix are good, but what about that Snickers. You like Snickers. Or, there's the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Or the nut rolls. Or, oooo, the Peanut Butter M&Ms." Etcetera. Etcetera.

Etcetera.

I feel like that kid again right now because I'm so blasted fickle when it comes to my own research, to that darn specialization and even darnder dissertation. One day I'm thinking one thing. The next I'm thinking another. And just when I think I've pinned myself down on some intellectual treat, my mind grabs hold of something else and my appetite leads me to another section of the aisle. (At least at this point, I've settled on an aisle and I'm not running through the store screaming, trying to decide. And yet, I'd hope after eight years of higher education, picking a specialization would be easier. Alas.)

Lately my appetite has been piqued by the seductions of rhetorical studies, by the prospects of a vocation (and a life with which I want to do the greatest good I can in the world, to be a good influence on those around me) centered on this from Wayne Booth, whose work I've become enamored of in the past year or so: says he in The Rhetoric of RHETORIC: The Quest for Effective Communication,

[T]he quality of our lives, especially the ethical and communal quality, depends to an astonishing degree on the quality of our rhetoric. And since the pursuit of genuine rhetorical quality is still sadly neglected except by us professional rhetoricians, it is time for a reinforcement of the flowering of rhetorical studies that has occurred in the last six or eight decades, not just in the United States but in many European countries. Unless we pay more attention to improving our communication at all levels of life, unless we study more carefully the rhetorical strategies we all depend on, consciously, unconsciously, or subconsciously, we will continue to succumb to unnecessary violence, to loss of potential friends, and to the decay of community. (xii)

And while I know I can devote myself to the personal quest for effective communication without necessarily devoting myself to the field of rhetorical studies, Booth's suggestion appeals to me on a number of levels, one of which is in my gut, which tingles whenever I think about the study of how language (or any other sign system used to communicate, including visual rhetorics such as web design, art, film, etc.) works as a transaction between bodies, even when those bodies are separated by a great distance (as you and I) and when I consider the breadth of rhetoric's reach---about how it (among other things, as the study and pursuit of effective communication) extends over all the things I've got at least some interest in: the body, narrative, poetry, critical theory, cultural/literary criticism, academic discourse, Mormon culture (arts and letters), religion, the family, teaching, online communication.

Yesterday on Twitter I wondered "How to fit a growing interest in rhetorical studies into an existing interest in lit theory and criticism," to which I got some helpful feedback from both William (on Twitter) and from Elise (on Facebook). But maybe my answer (as Gibbs from NCIS---one of our favorite shows---might suggest) is in my gut. Darlene's post reminded me the other day that, when it comes down to it, I need to be happy/pleased with what work I choose to do, with the vocational course I pursue.

And at this point, I'm almost persuaded by Booth to become a professional rhetorician.

At least that's how I'm leaning today. We'll see what tomorrow brings, huh?

So what'ya think?

About the new paint job, that is (not about Kanye West)?

I've Gone and Kinged Myself

So every now and then I hop over to Twitter to see what some of my friends are tweeting. I considered joining the zeitgeist a while ago, but didn't think it would be beneficial unless I'd also gone mobile, something I remedied last weekend when my bride broke down and told me I could upgrade to an iPhone. Now I'm stuck to my touch screen (much to my wife's chagrin) and looking for ways to optimize my productivity on the projects that mean most to me. And jumping into Twitter is one way I hope to do that---by connecting myself to networks that can further plug me into the knowledge I'm looking for and that can help me grow vocationally as poet, teacher, and scholar. That and I'm intrigued by the rhetorical function of Twitter and being part of it, I think, is one way of understanding that function.

So here I am. Follow me. Mention me. Direct message me. And above all, please, oh please, optimize me.

I'm afraid I've been thinking (again)

A dangerous pastime, I know. (After last time, I figured I should put in the right reference this go around---just for you, Laura and Th.)

I've been mulling dissertation directions for months now, trying to settle my mind on something broad enough that it will maintain my interest through the research and writing process, yet narrow enough that it won't take years to write. After exploring more deeply the options I posted in June and after pondering the premise behind Richard Bushman's new Mormon Review venture (namely that there's a uniquely Mormon way of reading the world/literature/culture and that the variety of Mormon readers should seek to hash out and apply various manifestations of said theory/ies [as it were] to the "best books"---those beyond the specific purview of "written by or about Mormons"), I've started asking myself some questions about what it might mean to read as a Mormon (these have come through a variety of avenues, from pondering Mormon Review's editorial mission to reading an essay on Christian hospitality):

Are there uniquely Mormon ways of reading? If so, what are they? What defines them? What critical theories do they incorporate, (re)define, play with/off of to add value to any given cultural artifact in the eyes and the lives of readers? What moral/ethical vision do these readings strive to produce/realize in the world? What varieties of religous/ethnic/moral/personal experience do/can they entail?

Concept of hospitality; is there a critical theory of hospitality: how might this fit into the notion of reading as a Mormon? Consider Bruce Jorgensen's "Let the Stranger Say"; also the doctrine of inclusion and Christian hospitality.

Is listening only to the voices of your own religion really, to some, an acceptable way of looking at the world? What does Mormonism, as a theology, really encourage? What might this entail in terms of a Mormon literary theory?

These are just my initial questions, those I expect to prompt a vocational focus on developing/articulating a Mormon critical/literary theory that attempts to draw together critical theories in general and, more specifically, the work of Mormon literary critics (as these, for starters). And that, I think, highlights what may be my broad focus: critical theory, especially where it intersects with ethics and religion. But that's a huge, deeply philosophical playing field and I've been wondering how to focus it for a dissertation, especially when I think of how a theory of literature should arise out of an engagement with the literature itself, not simply out of the philosophical discussion of abstract concepts.

As I've waded through how to translate that thought into action, I keep turning to Reading Until Dawn and my present engagement with Twilight. And as I was running this morning, I had the crazy thought that I could dissertate on Stephenie Meyer (Twilight + The Host) and start developing/adding to said theoretical standpoint from there. Some may not view the phenomenon as worthy of critical consideration, but lately I've had an outpouring of ideas, of ways to turn a critical lens on Meyer's novels, their literary relations, and the zeitgeist they've been fueling for the past few years.

For some reason, this thought has me intellectually giddy. I'm even thinking it might be---dare I say it?---fun.

Please tell me I'm not just going insane. And feel free to discuss, add to, strike down, rehash, etc., any of my questions. I'm trying my ideas here in an attempt to define and refine them and to develop more questions to pursue.

So engage me, if you will.

Emily Stanfill: "Then I Became Eve"

"I have no Adam to innocent me, / only consolation cannolis and a damned / garden of green" (lines 1-3). So begins Emily Stanfill's short poem, "Then I Became Eve" (published in the Winter 2006 issue of BYU's literary journal Inscape, where, by the way, I've found some very good poems---the archives from Winter 2006 to Winter 2008 are available here). What strikes me most about the poem, first, is the way the poet "verbs" the adjective innocent, using it not to describe her Eve---as in, "I am/was innocent/an innocent person"---but as a means of modifying her, as in, "He made me innocent." This out-of-the-ordinary usage highlights, for me, the possibility of Adam as type for Christ, a man who descended from his lofty station to join his beloved in a quest for something more, for a relationship that could extend them beyond their weaknesses and failures (though Christ, obviously, has neither of these) into the interconnective realities of godhood.

But here, the poet, for whatever reason, has "no Adam," no transcendent other to join her, to cover her failings, to "innocent" her. All she has, or thinks she has, because later she suggests otherwise, are cultural comfort foods---the "cannolis" that imply some connection with a tradition beyond and greater than her self, a connective "consolation" she's swallowed up in even as she swallows it in her moment of loneliness; and a "damned" paradise, a green garden that's both superlatively extraordinary and condemned---fallen out of use. And because fallen, like the poet, imperfect.

That the poet is aware of this "lack" (12) is apparent, not only in the fact that she makes this the poem's last word (leaving us with a mouth expunged of air as, aloud, we pronounce the closing /k/ and sensually experience something of this vacuum she describes), but also in the way she "press[es her] limbs to the earth" "while God is napping" and "beg[s] the dust to fill her vacancies" (4-6). There's a latent sexuality in this image of God sleeping and a woman seeking to have her "vacancies," her empty spaces, filled by "dust" and "stone" (the essential elements of God's universe), a latency representative, I think, of the potential, total connection available between male and female, human and Divine. But it's something we can only fulfill, the poet suggests, when we realize we are "no Eden," that we're fallen, that death and emptiness are inherent elements of mortality, and that true, eternal connections (as suggested by her closing petition, which emphasizes the presence and reality of "God" [11] in her own rhetorical presence and reality---see, she does have an "Adam"-figure) can only come as we continually "fall from this lack" (12), humbling ourselves as we descend through mortality's solitudes, join the dust of the earth, and learn to see, perhaps, both the complete humanity and the eternal potential of our forebears (as Adam and Eve).

Such, I think, is the ultimate effort of mortality (and, to a degree, poetry): to realize our aloneness and the potentials of human connection and to turn to God, the Transcendent Other, the only one who can really "innocent" us and draw us back into the complete, satiating connections and fulfillments to be realized in His expansive presence.

For Rick: On that Sunday afternoon (Poem)

Another from Browns and Rusts. Again: feedback encouraged (any place it's difficult to read, needs clarification, etc.).

* * * *

For Rick: On that Sunday afternoon,
(On Revelation)

we’d dropped in on your first year divorced,
slendered into your secondhand couch like
three secondhand gods come to spare you
the gnawing of solitude. As you slid

a kitchen chair across berber the color
of prayer, sat alone in the bosom of the room,
soul mantled in memories stained amber with
oil, sweat, tears, we asked how you’d been.

Eyes deep as rosary beads blackened with use,
you looked up, told of rib ripped from flesh, of
a twenty-years spouse spliced into the side
of your one-time friend, of four kids become

weekending guests to your solitude, light stitches
God purled in your hope to keep the seams tight.
Fingers telling this knotted thread up your side
like Jacob climbing to God, angels testing

each tier in Christ’s flesh like you’d roused
the crepuscular rays of your wounds
prayer by sweltering prayer, you sidled up to
apocalypse, unraveled the hem of God’s flame.

Before we left, you asked if we could pray, said
you’d speak as you softened your posture
instinctively pressed to the wound, then knelt,
gathered breath, blew open the curtains on God,

and, sifting his mystery, slid the sun from its arc,
quenched the bead in your brimful basin of soul,
and, balm aboil, clarified the room to a white stone
seared smooth in the smoldering palm of your words.