Poet's Corner: Anne Bradstreet

An item from Today in Literature:

"On this day in 1672 Anne Bradstreet, the first published poet of the American colonies, died. Bradstreet enjoyed a relatively privileged life in England, but at the age of eighteen she, her husband, and her parents sailed with John Winthrop for the Puritan settlement at Massachusetts Bay. Her first book of poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was published back in England in 1650 -- by her brother-in-law and apparently without her knowledge, Bradstreet expressing embarrassment that the world should see the 'ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain.' These first poems are sometimes candid and immediate, but more often they are conventional in style and on accepted topics -- her love for husband, children, God, etc. Later poems can show a different attitude, one far from embarrassment:

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue,
Who sayes, my hand a needle better fits,
A Poets Pen, all scorne, I should thus wrong;
For such despighte they cast on female wits:
If what i doe prove well, it wo'nt advance,
They'l say its stolen, or else, it was by chance."

Your Health :: A Fit Mind in a Fit Body

News@Nature.com reports that "Aerobic exercise is the best way to keep your memory healthy."

According to Ian Robertson of the University of Dublin, "Exercise is a sort of wonder drug that makes you more mentally agile." Good nutrition, education, and optimism all help keep your brain young, but aerobic exercise is the most important. It helps your brain sprout new cells, make new connections, and keep the frontal lobes young.

While this news is most important for the over-50 set, the young humanities scholar would do well to establish healthy habits now. So leave your book-strewn garret at least once a day for some brisk exercise. In the long run, your brain will thank you for it.

Free Drop-In Tutoring :: Writing

Northwest College offers its students free, drop-in tutoring in writing. Here's the schedule for Fall 2005:

Jennifer Harrison

• Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays
• 9-11 a.m.
• ORB 108 (Writing Center)
  

Carla Niederhauser

• Tuesdays, Wednesdays, & Thursdays
• 7:30-9:30 p.m.
• Hinckley Library
  

Maxine Morris (beginning 19Sep05)

• Mondays & Tuesdays, 3-5 p.m.
• Wednesdays, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• ORB 108 (Writing Center)

Rosebud Returns

The Rosebud Film Group Opens the 2005-06 Season on September 9 with a showing of Since Otar Left at 7:30 pm in Fagerberg Bldg. #70

Roger Ebert says, "'Since Otar Left" tells a story of conventional melodrama, and makes it extraordinary because of the acting. The characters are so deeply known, so intensely observed, so immediately alive to us, that the story primarily becomes the occasion for us to meet them. Nothing at the plot level engaged me much, not even the ending, which is supposed to be so touching. But I was touched deeply, again and again, simply by watching these people live their lives."



The Rosebud Film Group is an informal organization at Northwest College which welcomes film viewers to attend its frequent Friday night screenings throughout the academic year. There's no club to join or no need to attend regularly--come when a scheduled showing interests you.

Each season's film list includes international films, film classics, documentaries, some new releases, and off-beat experiments. You get the idea: these are not films that are likely to be shown in local theaters. Instead, these are films that appeal to viewers who appreciate the craft of filmmaking and unpredictable stories and characters.

Details about the 2005-2006 Rosebud Film Series are available in two places: on the Northwest College Calendar or by personal e-mail notification. To see the weekly calendar, go to "CALENDAR" on the home page of Northwest College's website at www.northwestcollege.edu. To receive regular e-mail notifications about Rosebud showings, send a message to Richard.Wilson@northwestcollege.edu.

New Edition! Writing in the Academic World

The winners of the 2004-05 academic writing contest have been published in Northwest College's online writing magazine Writing in the Academic World (click on link to view winning essays). nHumanities is happy to say that the students of the Humanities Division are well-represented:

• Adolescent Female Depression, by Carin Sorenson (ENGL 2017)
• Cybersex as "Safe Sex," by Dana Rinne (PSYC 2200)
  
• Incredible Possibilities: Stem Cells and the Future, by Robert Guty (ENGL 1010)
• South African Apartheid, by Kaci Coleman (ENGL 2030)
• Subtle Prejudice, by Brooke Whitaker (ENGL 2030)
• The Importance of FDA Regulation on Herbal Medicine, by Tammy Moore (ENGL 1010)

Writing Tutor

Tutor Available! Starting Wednesday, September 7th, Carla Niederhauser will be the drop-in English tutor available at Hinckley Library, 7:30-9:30 pm, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

(07Sep05) The complete drop-in tutor schedule is now available on a later post.

Idea Generation Methods

Writing Idea! All Known Idea Generation Methods lists every brainstorming technique Martin Leith has encountered in the past 15 years. A "co-creation consultant" in the United Kingdom, Leith has consulted books, management journals, websites, academics, consultants and colleagues for these ideas.

Some are tried and true methods you'll recognize from your freshman composition class, but others are totally novel. Bookmark this site, and you never be stuck for ideas again.

Talk Like a Pirate Day :: September 19

Avast! September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, mateys. So polish your brass, haul on your yardarms, and get ready to walk the plank as a pirate would. Arrrrgh!

Talk Like a Pirate Day started obscurely in 1995 due to the inspiration of two guys--John Baur and Mark Summers--but the day went big time when nationally syndicated columnist Dave Barry embraced the annual holiday.

And why does nHumanities advocate talking like pirates? America's illustrators of the golden age (1870-1965) had a brilliant history of illustrating pirate stories and books. (Above right, the cover of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth, 1911; below left, Howard Pyle, The Flying Dutchman, 1902, illustration from "North Folk Legends of the Sea," Harper's Monthly Magazine, January 1902.)

American magazine illustration enjoyed a celebrated period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when beloved illustrators were the stars of their time and households anxiously awaited their next offerings. Some of the names from this period remain familiar: Howard Pyle, Norman Rockwell, Rockwell Kent, Edward Gorey, Maxfield Parrish, N. C. Wyeth, Frederic Remington, John Held, Jr., and more. They worked for magazines such as McClure's, Harper's Monthly, Good Housekeeping, Saturday Evening Post, and Collier's.

What makes illustration different from other art genres? According to the National Museum of American Illustrators, three characteristics distinguish illustration:

1. American Illustration is an art form created to be reproduced, sometimes with accompanying text.
   
2. American Illustration manifests how Americans view themselves; it is both social and cultural history pictured.
3. American Illustration is a visual record which evokes responses from the audience of its day, from the audience of today, and from future audiences; it becomes increasingly valuable as a reservoir of cultural images and a chronicle of change. (The American Imagist Collection)

(07Sep05) Link to Flickr Photoset of all the illustrations from Howard Pyle's 1903 book of pirates.

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Links of Interest:

• National Museum of American Illustrators
• American Illustrators Gallery
• The complete text of Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates: Fiction, Fact & Fancy Concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main (1921), with illustrations
• The Wyeth illustrated Treasure Island online
• Dave Barry's column, "Arrrrr! Talk Like a Pirate--or Prepare to be Boarded" (08Sep02)
• How to Talk Like a Pirate (including risque pickup lines for advanced speakers)
  
• The lyrics of a Pirate Shanty sung to the tune of Month Python's "I'm a Lumberjack" (I'm a pirate! That I be! / I sail me ship upon the sea! . . .)
• The Original Talk Like a Pirate Site

The Worst Jobs in History - Tudor

And you thought your job is bad . . .

In honor of the upcoming Renaissance Fair (Saturday, 27 August 2005, Washington Park), we offer you a glimpse of the worst jobs in Tutor England.

Britain's Channel 4 has a web site that briefly describes the worst jobs in 2,000 years of British history, from Roman/Anglo-Saxon days through Victorian.

For the Tutor era, eight execrable jobs are described, including two that dealt with excretion: the monarch's groom of the stool and gong scourer/farmer.

Poets, go forth and rhyme!

William Topaz McGonagall has the reputation, many would say justly earned, of being the worst poet in the world. Vasudev Murthy, writing in the Deccan Herald of Karnataka, India, provides a nice summary of McGonagall's career. Born in 1825, McGonagall reports that at the age of 57

"I was sitting in my back room in Paton’s Lane, Dundee, lamenting to myself because I couldn’t get to the Highlands on holiday to see the beautiful scenery, when all of a sudden my body got inflamed, and instantly I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears--'Write! Write!' "

Write he did, as well as recite, in spite of the tomatoes and eggs which were frequently flung at him during his readings. McGonagall came to specialize in poetry about disasters such as train wrecks. Here is a sample of his verse in his famous "The Tay Bridge Disaster":

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

For more information on the immortal McGonagall, check out:
Worst Poet in the World, by Vasudev Murthy, Deccan Herald
McGonagall OnLine -- An extensive collection of poetry and prose, as well as links to other sites.