Marissa Byzak Reader Response Analysis of "For Desire"
In my reader response analysis of Kim Addonzio's "For Desire" I find the poems paradox to be very evident and quite familiar. In the first eleven lines the speaker introduces us to their "diaspora" by outlining their sinful desires and inviting us into the "dim hallways" of their mind. However in line twelve the paradox becomes very clear when the speaker introduces their religious affiliation that appears to be restraining then from indulging themselves on the rebellious activities hinted in the first eleven lines; including gluttony, drunkenness, and lust. The speaker exclaims "to hell with the saints" which is a clear illusion to Catholicism and goes on to reference John Chapter 15 which talks about the difficult call of followers of Christianity to be "in the world but not of the world." The speaker uses wise diction in their play on words choosing contradicting phrases like "surrendering" and then "resist" that help support the poems tension. Later in the poem the biblical references continue when the speaker proclaims their desire to be among "the weedy lots of abandoned sunflowers" which could be taken as a biblical reference to Jesus's famous parable of the weeds found in Matthew chapter 13. The speaker leaves the poem open ended which invites the reader to form their own conclusion to whether they actually give into the stated desires or not.
Marisa,
ReplyDeleteI like that you’re incorporating a paradox into a reader response analysis. However, you don’t state it, instead moving on to individual lines. If this were the paper, you’d definitely want to name the paradox before beginning to break it down.
You write, “In the first eleven lines the speaker introduces us to their "diaspora" by outlining their sinful desires and inviting us into the "dim hallways" of their mind.” Who’s the “their” here? Introduce speaker and/or character(s) beforehand; this implies the speaker is talking about multiple people – “their” indicating a specific group. I don’t think this is the case (and even if it were, you ‘d still want to familiarize your readers first).
“However in line twelve the paradox becomes very clear when the speaker introduces their religious affiliation that appears to be restraining then from indulging themselves on the rebellious activities hinted in the first eleven lines” at this point; I’m thinking that perhaps the “their” is meant to refer to the speaker. This pronoun, especially when oft repeated, is awkward and at times unclear. Most of the time, you don’t even need the pronouns (i.e. , “ the speaker clarifies religious affiliation . . . ). Given the confessional and personal nature of the subject matter, the poet’s reputation for confessional poetry and her choice of first person, I think you can probably safely assume the poet =speaker. You’d need to state so in your intro, though, so it makes sense when you use “Addonizio” instead of “the speaker”.
“clear illusion” = “allusion” (two very different definitions)
“reference John Chapter 15” – very interesting idea here, but she doesn’t reference it (not explicitly). As such, you’d need to explain how/why you arrived at this conclusion.
“The speaker uses wise diction in their play on words choosing contradicting phrases like "surrendering" and then "resist" that help support the poems tension.”
Not sure “wise” works in this context. Good observation re: contradicting phrases, and they do help support the tension . . . you’d need to state that , though – good place to link assertion to the paradox (assuming you had already named/described the paradox).
“Later in the poem the biblical references continue when the speaker proclaims their desire to be among "the weedy lots of abandoned sunflowers" which could be taken as a biblical reference to Jesus's famous parable of the weeds found in Matthew chapter 13. Very possible. As such, it would be an “allusion”, and you’d want to point this out.
“Open-ended conclusion” means the paradox is left unsolved? Up to this point, the analysis is all New Critical in nature, but this point suggests Reader Response (i.e., reader is expected to fill in the “gap”, deciding whether the speaker ultimately gives in or successfully restrains herself). The focus on paradox and allusion suggests N.C. Not that you can’t deal with these elements in a Reader Response analysis – you can – but nothing else here is R.R. oriented excepting the implication about the gap at the end. You don’t actively deal with horizons of expectations, textual clues or signals, or gaps, so this doesn’t skew RR until the last sentence or so. Since most of the analysis would fit a N.C. analysis, you’ll want to actively use the concepts and language of RR throughout.
Hope this helps you continue formulating your ideas – some good ones here!
A