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Re: Questions for Helen Frost
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From: Helen Frost <helenfrost_at_comcast.net>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 13:40:53 -0400
Thank you for these thoughtful questions. I'll do my best to answer them! Helen Megan asks:
How much thought went into creating this balance? (between Muriel, as more radical and Emma as more traditional)
Helen replies:
I’ve thought about this for a long time. My mother raised ten children in a happy home and never earned a paycheck for that lifelong work, and as I’ve mentioned, my aunts and other women of that generation cleared a lot of ground for women to progress in many occupations. I tried to portray the close friendship between Emma and Muriel, as a way of bringing balance to what is sometimes seen as a dichotomy, but never really is.
Megan asks:
Another question I have is about the theme of censorship, which I found fascinating. It plays out from the beginning, when Muriel is cautioned about what she should speak and even think at school, and it plays out as well, of course, in the censored correspondence. I suspect this would be a great topic for a paper for an inspired student. Again, in what ways were you thinking about this theme as you developed the story?
Helen replies:
Other authors, help me out here—does anyone think about the theme(s) of your own work? I’m happy to leave that question up to students seeking paper topics.
Still, Megan, you raise an interesting question—let me see if I can approach it from a slightly different angle. Maybe the idea of a “thread” would be more helpful, thinking of the book as a tapestry of people, places and events. Censorship is certainly one aspect of the book that plays out in several different ways, and I think it’s a contemporary question as well. What are we allowed to say, and when, and to whom? Who are we allowed to love? We no longer have a military draft, but I still see a lot of silencing of pacifist voices—any suggestion that there might be a better way of solving conflicts than non-stop war, and that women leaders might be worth listening to on their own terms. The discussions we’ve had here in recent months are related to this too. Whose voices are heard most easily, and which ones take more effort, to speak and to hear?
This is all part of the exploration of intimacy, and how difficult it can be for young people to achieve it. I wonder if this is even more difficult now than it was 100 years ago.
Megan asks:
As I think about this, I see the censored words can be a metaphor (sorry) for how some people think reading poetry is an act of unraveling or uncovering meaning that isn't always clear. As you crafted these particular poems, Helen, were you thinking at all about the way poetry itself is sometimes seen as obscure?*
(*An unfortunate perspective born, I'm convinced, out of too many "What is the poet saying here?" experiences in high schools everywhere. It's not an unfair question, but certainly not the only one to ask of any poem, and certainly not one to lead with or assume there is a single answer for.)
Helen replies:
As Alison also points out, the censored words are a way of depicting the relationship between Muriel and Frank, and allowing Frank to have a voice in the story. The censorship highlights the difficulty of the communication in that tragically thwarted relationship.
But no, I wasn’t being intentionally obscure, and I wish teachers would stop teaching poetry that way. Let me share a wonderful exchange I had with a teacher who was teaching Crossing Stones to her 6th graders.
She and a group of her students approached me and one girl said, “We’re reading Crossing Stones, and we wonder what the bluebirds mean. Are they a symbol of happiness?” I affirmed that the bluebirds are worth paying attention to, and asked what they’d noticed. “Well, like the sky that holds a thousand bluebirds, and then the pillow case at the end.” Instead of saying that the bluebirds are a symbol of happiness (too simple) I told them to look carefully at how the bluebirds relate to Frank, and gave them a couple of things to look for: when does the bluebird appear at the door in relation to when Frank dies; why does Frank’s mother give the pillowcase to Muriel? They, and their teacher, were very excited as they headed back to their classroom to dive a little deeper into the story.
That’s the kind of close reading I like to encourage with poetry—not as an obscure text that you have to decipher, but as a richly textured (hmmm…I wonder if those words are related, “text” and “texture”) and nuanced kind of writing that rewards multiple readings.
This is one reason I put my author’s notes at the end. Readers can breeze through and get the basic story, which is often enough for young readers, but when they get to the end and find that there’s more to discover, those who want to go deeper are invited to do so. That’s something I love about poetry.
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Received on Fri 18 Apr 2014 12:41:20 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 13:40:53 -0400
Thank you for these thoughtful questions. I'll do my best to answer them! Helen Megan asks:
How much thought went into creating this balance? (between Muriel, as more radical and Emma as more traditional)
Helen replies:
I’ve thought about this for a long time. My mother raised ten children in a happy home and never earned a paycheck for that lifelong work, and as I’ve mentioned, my aunts and other women of that generation cleared a lot of ground for women to progress in many occupations. I tried to portray the close friendship between Emma and Muriel, as a way of bringing balance to what is sometimes seen as a dichotomy, but never really is.
Megan asks:
Another question I have is about the theme of censorship, which I found fascinating. It plays out from the beginning, when Muriel is cautioned about what she should speak and even think at school, and it plays out as well, of course, in the censored correspondence. I suspect this would be a great topic for a paper for an inspired student. Again, in what ways were you thinking about this theme as you developed the story?
Helen replies:
Other authors, help me out here—does anyone think about the theme(s) of your own work? I’m happy to leave that question up to students seeking paper topics.
Still, Megan, you raise an interesting question—let me see if I can approach it from a slightly different angle. Maybe the idea of a “thread” would be more helpful, thinking of the book as a tapestry of people, places and events. Censorship is certainly one aspect of the book that plays out in several different ways, and I think it’s a contemporary question as well. What are we allowed to say, and when, and to whom? Who are we allowed to love? We no longer have a military draft, but I still see a lot of silencing of pacifist voices—any suggestion that there might be a better way of solving conflicts than non-stop war, and that women leaders might be worth listening to on their own terms. The discussions we’ve had here in recent months are related to this too. Whose voices are heard most easily, and which ones take more effort, to speak and to hear?
This is all part of the exploration of intimacy, and how difficult it can be for young people to achieve it. I wonder if this is even more difficult now than it was 100 years ago.
Megan asks:
As I think about this, I see the censored words can be a metaphor (sorry) for how some people think reading poetry is an act of unraveling or uncovering meaning that isn't always clear. As you crafted these particular poems, Helen, were you thinking at all about the way poetry itself is sometimes seen as obscure?*
(*An unfortunate perspective born, I'm convinced, out of too many "What is the poet saying here?" experiences in high schools everywhere. It's not an unfair question, but certainly not the only one to ask of any poem, and certainly not one to lead with or assume there is a single answer for.)
Helen replies:
As Alison also points out, the censored words are a way of depicting the relationship between Muriel and Frank, and allowing Frank to have a voice in the story. The censorship highlights the difficulty of the communication in that tragically thwarted relationship.
But no, I wasn’t being intentionally obscure, and I wish teachers would stop teaching poetry that way. Let me share a wonderful exchange I had with a teacher who was teaching Crossing Stones to her 6th graders.
She and a group of her students approached me and one girl said, “We’re reading Crossing Stones, and we wonder what the bluebirds mean. Are they a symbol of happiness?” I affirmed that the bluebirds are worth paying attention to, and asked what they’d noticed. “Well, like the sky that holds a thousand bluebirds, and then the pillow case at the end.” Instead of saying that the bluebirds are a symbol of happiness (too simple) I told them to look carefully at how the bluebirds relate to Frank, and gave them a couple of things to look for: when does the bluebird appear at the door in relation to when Frank dies; why does Frank’s mother give the pillowcase to Muriel? They, and their teacher, were very excited as they headed back to their classroom to dive a little deeper into the story.
That’s the kind of close reading I like to encourage with poetry—not as an obscure text that you have to decipher, but as a richly textured (hmmm…I wonder if those words are related, “text” and “texture”) and nuanced kind of writing that rewards multiple readings.
This is one reason I put my author’s notes at the end. Readers can breeze through and get the basic story, which is often enough for young readers, but when they get to the end and find that there’s more to discover, those who want to go deeper are invited to do so. That’s something I love about poetry.
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Received on Fri 18 Apr 2014 12:41:20 PM CDT
