I think it may be those prepositional phrases that contribute to the tone
you hear, something in the rhythm of them--and the details in the
prepositional phrases.
Edith Wollin
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul E. Doniger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2001 5:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Grammar and Snyder's Hay for the Horses
Brock,
Do you think it's possible that the man is happy (I might even suggest
'blissful') at the end of the poem. The actor in me can't help but hear the
words, "That's just what I've gone and done" as a pleasantly ironic comment
on how happy he is that he did what he never expected to do with his life.
Hasn't anyone ever said 'dammit' with a smile? We used to refer to this sort
of thing as "playing against the text" when I was an actor. Actually, I
think it's very much with the text. There seems to be a pleasant tone to the
whole experience (the joy of hard work?).
Does grammar have any role in the investigation of such an idea as this (I
know word choice does)? I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Maybe something
to do with all those participles? There's an air of joyful activity to them.
Paul E. Doniger
----- Original Message -----
From: Haussamen, Brock <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 11:17 PM
Subject: Grammar and Snyder's Hay for the Horses
> Nancy's powerpoint included Gary Snyder's poem "Hay for the Horses"
as
> an illustration of prepositional phrases and their descriptive power. The
> poem certainly is a stunning example of that. I also found myself
thinking,
> though, about whether and how grammar (knowing the basic sentence
> constituents) could contribute to a classroom discussion of the poem. My
> American Lit. students in a web course read it and like it, but I haven't
> taught it in detail.
>
> He had driven half the night
> >From far down San Joaquin
> Through Mariposa, up the
> Dangerous mountain roads,
> And pulled in at eight a.m.
> With his big truckload of hay behind the barn.
> With winch and ropes and hooks
> We stacked the bales up clean
> To splintery redwood rafters
> High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
> Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
> Itch of haydust in the sweaty shirt and shoes.
> At lunchtime under Black oak
> Out in the hot corral,
> --The old mare nosing lunchpails,
> Grasshopper crackling in the weeds--
> "I'm sixty-eight" he said,
> "I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
> I thought, that day I started,
> I sure would hate to do this all my life.
> And dammit, that's just what
> I've gone and done."
>
> Students often see the man's words at the end as quite bitter and
> regretful ones. I encourage them to imagine the tone and mood of those
> words as clearly as they can, considering the rest of the poem. What is
the
> man's day like? What is the work like? What impressions do we get of the
> life?
> If I were conducting a leisurely class discussion, I might ask
> students to look at the sentences that make up the poem. Ideally,
students
> might point out that the first two, long, descriptive ones are mostly
> prepositional phrases, and that the last ones stated by the man have no
> prepositional phrases but are full of clauses. I would hope a student
would
> notice the pronouns starting the sentence groups: He, We, and I, and the
> subjects of two verbals, the old mare and grasshoppers. I might ask a
> question such as How do people (or living beings) fit into their
environment
> and their work here? Are we mostly aware of the individual, or the
setting
> of the individual? I would encourage them to notice that in the opening
> sentences the people (man and narrator), anonymous in the pronouns, are
> embedded in the environment and the working just goes by, in the locations
> of the prepositions, without comment or reflection. At the end, the man's
> consciousness becomes vocal; he remembers, reflects, reacts, without
> prepositions but with verbs.
> I think that maybe, after this kind of look, students might sense
> that althought the man may indeed have regrets, his words also express the
> awareness that (to put it colloquially) life happens, that it is what we
do
> and it has a momentum of its own and that that's neither a good nor a bad
> thing.
> I don't want to overstate the role of basic grammar knowledge for
> getting into a poem such as this, but I think the ability to look at the
> sentences in a poem, name the basic kinds of parts, see patterns and the
> contrasts, and connect the structures with the moods in a general way, is
> helpful. It seems to me it doesn't take a specialized or detailed
knowledge
> of grammar for this to happen, but it does take a confidence in and
comfort
> level with the basics.
>
> Brock
>
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