Here is my Option D reflection to make up for our missed class earlier this semester. Going with Chalsley’s advice, I decided to read, and then listen to a reading of, Trisha Low’s “Hunting Season” and then compare my varying experiences. I hope what I have to say about my own experience encourages you to examine the text in both, if not at least one, ways.
When reading a poem for the first time, I find my mind primarily attempts to uncover the general narrative of the piece, or if one exists at all. On the second read through it begins searching and listening for literary devices which may shed some light on the significance of the poem and its meaning(s). Finally, if I am still having difficulty grasping these, I will reread the poem aloud and focus on the effects it has on my emotions, on what it makes me feel. This being said, when reading poetry, I am always analyzing and actively attempting to peel back the text’s many layers in search of its great truth. Nothing was different this time around as I read through Trisha Low’s “Hunting Season”. As I read through the text, as always, I found myself participating in a one sided discussion with the poem, and like an unresponsive first date, I was trying to learn what I could about it while ultimately having to rely solely on what I saw before me, thus basing my judgements on that alone.
On the other hand, listening to a reading of Trisha Low’s “Hunting Season”, by the author herself, was a completely unique experience. Rather than finding myself in a one-sided discussion with the poem, now, the poem had an agency and a voice of it own. I truly felt like I was just sitting down with a friend who had a lot on her mind and needed an ear (mine) to hear her out. Low’s reading is full of the “um”s and “uh”s which one can often hear in everyday speech; but it is not something you would traditionally find occurring in poetry that has been extensively worked on and edited. In addition to these are moments when Low is cuts herself mid sentence to begin a new thought, and often times doubles back on that new thought to try and make her way back to her initial train of thought. Those hesitations, tangential ideas, and moments of uncontrolled speech, when our mouth cannot help but continue to speak when we are in the midst of formulating an idea, are typically unique to unrehearsed speech, and so it seemed strange to hear them during what I expected to be a poetry reading. Instead, Low’s reading seems to be exploding out of her brain and mouth faster than she is able to relay her thoughts which results in the piece sometimes coming off as a cacophony of sound. This makes it impossible to try and analyze the poem itself. And yet, even though we are unable to analyze it as the ideas are being so numerously and quickly presented to the listener, the poem actually begins to make slightly more sense than it did by simply reading through it. For example, without Low’s extensive discussion about going to see the band, One Direction, in their three dimensional movie, one would most likely never comprehend what was meant by the line, “You look at the screen because through this 1D3D portal will pass some of the most beautiful horses the world”.
Here is a link to the written version of the poem: http://www.womenandperformance.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1.png
And here is the second link to the video of Low reading the poem in her own way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVScqtph-4w
It is well worth the watch and I highly recommend that everyone give it a chance!
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