Carolyn McGrath
Teaching, learning, campaigning; talking, listening, reading, occasionally writing; living in a family, meeting up with friends; listening to music, walking, dancing, arguing - and studying.
Location London
Activity
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Jstor allows you to access many articles free per month
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
I've got thrown off course for the last few days - one of the reasons I don't meet deadlines and stick to the task! I need to practise this ranking skill more as felt anxious about ranking them and making a judgment. Rather than go back to the task, I am going to read a range of comments and advice and try to apply it better next time but don't want to get...
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I think the who-what-where etc question word prompts are really useful to make you think around the topic. I’m a big fan of formulating questions as not only do they automatically get your mind framing answers, they also help you discover your own particular interest in the topic which for me always helps with motivation and also maybe structuring/shaping the...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Push for Privatisation - probably gives a summary of rationale and timeline of WB's approach
Negative impact - outlines failures in relation to MDGs -
Carolyn McGrath replied to Brian Turner
I am a Google fiend and, as part of my homework for Week 2, googled 'scholarly search engines': No.1 was this - 15 Scholarly search engines every student should bookmark
https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-experience/college-life/15-educational-search-engines/
Now I need to find out what it means to 'bookmark'! I am a techno dinosaur but I hope this course... -
Carolyn McGrath replied to Robert Watson
@RobertWatson - Very reassuring to read as I am a layman and use this Google approach all the time but find it is a good route towards becoming more academic and scholarly. The internet is such a boon as I stupidly always felt very self-conscious and on edge sitting in the library 'back in the day' when I was a student. I am far more 'scholarly' now I'm not a...
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The sort of 'academic writing' I have done most recently was contributing to an online scholarly association with literary analysis and commentary. I didn't have to strictly follow academic conventions, but there were certain expectations. I wrote these mini-essays generally by embarking with a 3-4 bullet point summary of my argument and, armed with my...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Thank you very much for week one. Clear and supportive start to the course with some interesting ideas. I have enjoyed reading other people's comments too.
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Another reason for choosing this question that I haven't seen in the comments so far is that the general topic is of broad interest and the specific focus is potentially controversial so everyone is likely to get engaged and be willing to develop a point of view.
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Modern irrigation techniques are more (efficiency-noun) efficient-adjective than traditional ones.
Poor diet can lead to a number of (healthy-adjective) health-noun problems.
After 3 weeks the average (high-adjective) height-noun of the plants increased by 12.6 centimetres.
(Sells-verb with odd pluralisation) Sales-noun of ice-cream usually increase... -
Carolyn McGrath made a comment
It's interesting to note the high number of nouns in the writing - contributes to the formality I think.
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
It has been a long time since I have written for a formal academic audience. That is why I am on the course as I would like to revisit studying in a more structured way and I think having a clearer idea of what the end product might look like should help me in structuring some research ideas I have.
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I've used KWL charts in the past - what do I K- know/what do I W- want to know/what have I L- learnt and the question words your present as a mindmap are a way of forcing yourself to think around the topic to unearth, through forming questions, what you assume you know and what you don't. They then push you forward to what you need to find out to address the...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Who owns water? Who doesn’t? who uses it? For what?
Where is the global south? What countries included? Where World Bank been involved?
What is water privatisation? what is the promotion of it?
When how long has WB been promoting WP in GS?
Why does WB want it? Why not happened?why is is resisted? (who by?)
How is it promoted? How does it affect different... -
Carolyn McGrath replied to Brian Turner
Excellent tip for life! - What am I supposed to be doing?
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Before I look at what others have put ...
1. Is the situation as presented true? is it true for everywhere? is it likely to continue? who says so? any disagreements? my understanding?
2. What problems have been identified/predicted? which are most pressing in short term and longer term? who are they problems for? are there any benefits? differing... -
Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Some people have written some great answers and I'm just going to contribute one point. It's hard to remember sometimes that academic writing is a tool for developing one's own thinking as well as being the vehicle for communicating to others. We have all been judged and, hopefully, awarded on our writing throughout our education and lose sight, maybe, of the...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Brian Turner
@BrianTurner Thank you. The understanding that 'in the academic world knowledge is constructed socially' is really important and I'm glad you drew our attention back to that point. It underpins everything we are trying to achieve in our studies and interactions.
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
When I selected, these were the results:
develop their own ‘voice’ (4%)
use appropriate sources (5%)
adopt a critical viewpoint (7%)
draft, review and edit their work (9%) ---- this is what I voted
write with correct grammar (15%)
analyse ideas clearly and precisely (28%)
express ideas and information clearly (33%)I was surprised the actual process...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
All this makes me wish I’d read more - ah, well, no time like the present!
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
I did English as one part of my joint degree 40 years ago and am a teacher of English, but my own education in this was through becoming part of a scholarly online discussion group and pitching in. It forced me to read their criticism critically and hone my own skills. Thoroughly enjoyable and the best intellectual challenge I have ever experienced.
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It’s not, directly - it’s about writing ‘about’ poetry. What you look for or what you see may contribute to what you put in or leave out in your own writing. I think you wrote elsewhere that you think poetically in rhyming couplets; that is what shapes your poetry and your poetic voice. The effects you achieve will depend on how you manipulate those couplets...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
I concur with what is written in this article. I’ve just gone back to read my answer to the first article as I was sure I too had used the word ‘pleasure’ when describing the effect of thinking and writing critically about a poem. That some poets think meta-cognitively about their art provides a fascinating into their own ambitions when writing and helps...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
If I go to the bother of actually writing about my response to a poem, I suppose I have to develop some sort of question I think I have an answer to in order to harness my critical faculties. Questions like ‘How does the poem ....’ or ‘Why does the use of ...’ create a framework for selecting, sequencing and evidencing my ideas. I am trying to develop an...
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I think the clearest indication you have is the poem and you are entitled to interpret it as you find it. We need humility though, I agree, when we analyse our responses as we might not read as well as the poem expects to and our powers to explain may be weak.
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Marla Lewin
It would be interesting to read it if you would be prepared to share.
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I must admit, I do like a dedicated concordance so I can view how one poet has variously or consistently used a word. It takes some of the work out of the search and more rapidly directs your reading. These are tools. It’s what purpose you put them to that adds value or significance. We worship the idea of omniscience, but a lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
During lockdown, a friend sent me Three Chinese Poets, (Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu, 8th century AD Tang dynasty poets) translated by Vikram Seth. In the Introduction, he says many valuable things, but the concluding point is uncompromising in its integrity and aspiration: “The famous translations of Ezra Pound, compounded as they are of ignorance of Chinese...
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Sorry only just seen your post now. Back at work - I’ll comment later @MegL
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All 3 are possible with different texts I suppose. If a writer makes it explicit, we all know the intention for sure; a more subtle approach is picked up only by those with shared knowledge, or a curious mind that seeks out connections; with those perceived/created by the viewer? The connection made may be of interest to others or it may just be a personal...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
I’ve only just realised I did an additional stanza to the standard 5 tercets plus a quatrain. Ah well, needed it to keep all the lines. Forms flex.
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Is discourse a spoken ‘text’, even if it is unrecorded? What if a poem claims to be from an overheard discourse, but no such conversation took place? Is the subject of the poem intertextuality but there is no intertext? I think I tend to think text/context/intertext are all avenues worthy of exploring but that when the text itself shines/is being read, it...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Gina Nicholls
I did say it doesn’t ‘necessarily’ improve understanding or enjoyment, I didn’t say it can’t. Intertextuality (jargon) may actually explain why you enjoy something so much. I don’t know whether you ever watched Pinky and the Brain cartoons? Someone could watch them and enjoy without knowing the intertextual references, but they were a hoot if you did....
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I do agree with you to a point - knowing that a poem I don’t like has an intertextual relationship with a text I do would probably make me dislike it more. However, I’m a bit suspicious of your ‘mere lover of poetry’ (it’s a bit ‘I know nothing about Art, but I know what I like’). I too feel protective about the poem itself and am generally on the side of...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Gina Nicholls
This is what I was thinking about, but as I understand it now, ‘intertextuality’ exists regardless to the poets awareness, or lack. I continue to think though that intertextuality in itself does not a good poem make; nor does it necessarily improve understanding or enjoyment. I’ve said elsewhere that I do like to spend time with one poem before rushing to make...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to graham hayden
Not flowers, but nettles - another GCSE poem:
Nettles by Vernon Scannell
My son aged three fell in the nettle bed.
'Bed' seemed a curious name for those green spears,
That regiment of spite behind the shed:
It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears
The boy came seeking comfort and I saw
White blisters beaded on his tender skin.
We soothed him... -
I think I’ve got this right: allusion is an example of one type of intertextuality.
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/literariness.org/2016/03/22/julia-kristeva-intertextuality/amp/
“The term is used to signify the multiple ways in which any one literary text is made up of other texts, by means of its implicit or explicit allusions, citations, its repetitions and transformations of the formal and substantive features of earner (sic: earlier?)...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41054827?seq=1
This link doesn’t work. -
Although there could be a less than admiring point of view of some aspect of the source.
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You made me think of sound symbolism too -
“There is a rich history of research into sound symbolism, starting perhaps with Köhler (1929), who found that participants shared preferences for the naming of novel objects: they reliably matched nonwords such as baluma to rounded shapes, and nonwords such as takete to angular shapes. This finding has been extended... -
Dr Seuss - when I discovered him in the local library at the age of about 12 I was astounded that no one had thought to introduce me to these illustrated rhyming stories before. I loved everything about the first one I read (Green eggs).
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Rotating to landscape sorts it sometimes
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Problem solved: "every text is a product of intertextuality"
Definition from Oxford Languages and Wikipedia suggests that as it exists within every text, it can therefore be intended by the writer OR perceived by a reade: and so, the text remains the thing. That’s alright then! -
Carolyn McGrath made a comment
If I’ve understood correctly, intertextual is not merely an allusion, reference or quote, nor is it the use of a specific form, but it is a sort of combination of the two. Is writing a Shakespearean sonnet today in itself intertextual? It exists within a tradition. Writing a sonnet in response to another sonnet would clearly be, but does it have to refer to...
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I’m pleased to know I’m not alone - I could help because of my own lack of intuition regarding how to escape one screen and move to another. I’m wondering why I have to log on so often - I’m probably doing something wrong. Anyway, you are free! Onward and upward @MaureenFuller
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
This is a rather intimidating noun from an adjective and it makes it sound very social-sciencey. By referencing another text or anything outside the poem space it seems to break down the fourth wall and point to its own artificiality and its existence and place in relation to that wider context in a very direct way. It seems to ask the reader to be more aware...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Enjoyed it all. Liked connecting with people about specific poems and discussing responses and also considering questions raised by the difficulty of trying to get inside a poem. Feel more inclined to get creative in the spirit of play rather than waiting for some mythical muse to descend. I won’t be upgrading though I’d like to do the quiz. I do appreciate...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Loved the input and loved the discussion. So many forms and poems to explore and so little time to do it!
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Meg L
Try reading it out loud monotone - eliminate stress by giving each syllable equality (very not-English) then try normally again and maybe you’ll hear it better. Two syllable words usually have one syllable stressed more. Shade the syllable you think has stress. Do that for the line. Content words usually carry the stress. Meaning can bring a word to...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Hopped around this week rather than systematically following sequence. Felt ok to do that. Read a lot more participants’ comments. Liked playing with cutting room exercise. Printing side of it has interested me on conceptual level up to now but realised an interest in producing something has been lurking under the surface.
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Reading aloud. Tapping fingers to metre while mentally or speaking poem. Both hands bongo drumming style. Tapping feet while speaking - fiddler style - rhythm and melody of the beat and actual stress pattern with variations. Swaying and dancing. Like a physical response. I’ve also sung to my own tunes or borrowed for some poems. I also like to annotate and use...
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Love of life does; imminent loss of a loved one does; love of others makes the loss of your own life undesirable - these fears may not surface with every day but many religions address this fear: those with religious beliefs often comfort themselves with a trust in eternal partnerships and happy reunited families.@DonnaB
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Have you clicked on To Do and then clicked on Week Two? Sorry if of course you have! Hope you can move on
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
As an unperfect actor on the stage,
/.//./././
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
./././././
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
.///././//
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
././././//
———————————————
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
//././././
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
././..\.//
And in mine... -
Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
Stevie Smith, female, British — quirky and dry with a religious outlook (though questioning, I think). I like some and find others bemusing.
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Ha ha! It will remain an ‘image’ - there is absolutely no photographic evidence! @MargaretLawrenson
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I love this one - sorry if the layout gets skewed - I’ll add the link:
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/ted_hughes/poems/13830
How To Paint A Water Lily by Ted Hughes
To Paint a Water Lily
A green level of lily leaves
Roofs the pond's chamber and pavesThe flies' furious arena: study
These, the two minds of this lady.First observe...
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I googled: “Meyer lemons, ... China ... sweet winter citrus is thought to be a cross between a regular lemon and a mandarin orange.”
In the poem it is the regular two fruits, isn’t it? The patio may be too small to separate them wider. Stronger growth or being more fruitful may be a gardener’s thinking but the storyteller uses the words ‘dark malicious’. We... -
Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
@JayneBuchanan absolutely - she leap frogs conventions and finds a unique voice. Do you find similarities in Steve Smith?
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
‘Betrayed world’ - wonderful - here’s an intertextual thought (!) TH tends to use the words ‘world’ and ‘Earth’ to mean different things in different poems. Do you know to what CM tends to refer when using the word ‘world’ - human society, existing world order, natural world, the planet or a combination of these? I think poetry has the capacity to heal and so...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
It’s as subtle as a brick in this example, isn’t it! The lack of grammatical flow makes it stick out. Necessity is the mother of invention - which is why these fixed forms generate creativity, I suppose.
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Inherit and dreams. The speaker/storyteller of the poem favours one gardener over the other, ‘Don Miguel’, and is privy to that character’s ‘dream’. The second gardener is denied a name and a purpose and so the act of separation is seen as senseless. The ‘magic tree’, famed in the village, is more memorable to the reader than the two trees either before or...
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@MargaretLawrenson This is a powerful argument for a multimodal exploration and response to important ideas and themes and for collaboration in communicating those ideas and emotions. I was expressing a purely personal response to viewing adult work. Your example is captivating and also you experienced the whole process. I suppose I shouldn’t compartmentalise...
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Two very good points. I think I may be strongly verbal rather than visual. I do dance to some poems, which is something I have only confessed to a few so my secret is out of the bag. I think I respond deeply to sound and rhythm and the visual image doesn’t tap into that at all and it was that I was trying to convey when I said it doesn’t add or reinforce...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
I agree wholeheartedly. Own experience and belief systems. I think ED’s has a religious conclusion which doesn’t chime with me. I think the image of sweeping up broken love is moving, although it is the physical connection that has been broken by death. Reciprocity. For me, the promise of a return to that after death rings false as I don’t feel or believe...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
Interesting. I found ED’s poem more distanced from her grief - something she had experienced and could make a generalised comment on, focusing on those early days. It offers comfort. The TH poem is more ‘dramatic’ as the persona both experiences the grief and has the capacity to see himself grieving. It evokes pity and compassion which are healing for the soul...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
Thank you - Emily Dickinson is someone whose work I’ve not explored but bump into now and then. I am curious to read more. @JanB
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“ The number of numbers between two numbers is infinite, and so is the meaning that can be within the limiting fourteen lines of a sonnet” - liked that and the time/love link.
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Tavis Reddick
Good example. Wilfred Owen was the biggest pull for me and a work colleague who went on a cycling holiday of war graves in France took a photo of his grave for me which I now use as a bookmark in his collected works. Does that constitute Cult of Personality behaviour? ;-)
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
Very kind of you! An example of structure giving the illusion of some sort of sense?@EsmenioGalera
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
You are very welcome. If you haven’t read much of Hardy’s poetry before and liked that, he wrote others after the death of his first wife - poems of 1913. He is a favourite of mine. @CynthiaFord
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Tavis Reddick
It doesn’t make the poem any better or worse. However, we are curious about the lives of people who produce something out of the ordinary. I’m not curious equally about all, but the art that moves me makes me want to seek out more of it and so a name is helpful for that. There are only a few whose lives I’ve delved into in any depth, but biography shouldn’t...
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
She is away
The sun bursts hazel on my shoulders.
She is the accident that happens.
She is the point of any sky.She is the accident that happens.
And why I asked
The sun bursts hazel on my shoulders.And why I asked
because her hooded world’s my hand -
She is the point of any sky.because her hooded world’s my hand -
fjord blue, holm... -
Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
I thought I’d posted it - didn’t it materialise?@MegL
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Tavis Reddick
Which do you get the most out of? I’m enjoying others contributions to exercises and poetic responses and recommendations more than I thought I would. Haven’t had time to read as widely as I’d like.
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Carolyn McGrath replied to tim e
Curious and paid close attention, but I find it hard to want to ‘read’ it again - it’s totally visual and has no sound impact for me - am I missing something you get from it? The novelty wears off for me quickly. Is this a ‘found poem’?@JanetP
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Used them all and positioned in unrhymed villanelle type structure. The title is the shortest line. choice of Line 1 and line 3 are the repeated lines normally so chose L1 as being a line that has energy in it - hoped ‘burst’ would reenergise poem as we go along and might have multiple emotional interpretations for people. Used the ‘she’ idea at start to...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
I hope my comments don’t spoil your experience of it. I should issue a spoiler alert and post on a second page @JayneBuchanan
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At least they are more honest than poems that are prose chopped up to look like a poem - I’m thinking of writing that in my view is a bad poem trying to conceal the fact that it is also bad prose. I’m sure others can think of examples. I had to teach one for GCSE and I could find nothing good to say about it. Awkward as pupils are supposed to write responses...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Meg L
To say a poem is written in iambic pentameter is a general description of an overall pattern and does not mean there is a slavish adherence to that metre throughout. It’s a mistake to alter the way you read to fit this metre; scansion is to be used to identify if and where/when the poem diverges from the overall pattern. Meaning can be enhanced by these...
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Having seen more of your posts, I think you should stay to week 4 and share some of your responses, regardless to whether you wish to comment on form in the way suggested this week. There’s always the need for heart and intuitive understanding or no meaningful sense can be made of form.
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I agree - it’s a banal gimmick which has a superficial charm. Noticed easily, enjoyed once, (‘childish’?) it can’t really be experienced afresh again and add depth to the experience - it puts an artificial restriction which doesn’t add meaning to the interplay of words and form like I get from say, metre or rhyme. @AitchHeaton
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I hope you read Thomas Hardy - I’m quoting from memory now, but he says that the poet is there to reveal his heart. He also says no passport is required to enjoy his poetry. He is a seeker of truth. He is also technically very interesting. He loves traditional forms but I think uses them in a modern way.
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I don’t think there’s pressure to conform - as someone else has said, all roads lead to Rome. I personally enjoy stepping back from a poem and considering why it has had a particular effect on me and have discovered more by doing so. Not every poem interests me enough to make that effort. @SeánWard
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Carolyn McGrath replied to tim e
Indentation can be used to indicate the rhyme scheme or maybe alternative metre - tetrameter/trimester. I can usually decide why in a particular fixed form poem. In free verse, it feels more to do with relationship of ideas and language to me. The use of capitals in initial word of a line seems to be an optional convention once poetry hit the C20th. @time
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Carolyn McGrath replied to John Tracey
Your mentioning Primary School made The Listeners pop into my head and also There was a Jolly Hunter - mystery and mockery - loved them both @JohnTracey
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Cummings uses form quite conventionally as regards metre and rhyme, don’t you think? His originality is in using punctuation and language idiosyncratically: no white space between words and phrases, the use of brackets, a sort of abstraction and playfulness with words. For all that, he does write traditional sonnets.@EsmenioGalera
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That’s a shame. I’ve enjoyed your comments too. Hope all is well.
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Not sure what you are thanking me for - for following you? Hope you enjoy my comments too.
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Carolyn McGrath
I agree - it brings you up short and it is pitiful to feel the contrast between his mental state and how he is perceived from the outside@JaneRedshaw
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Thank you for this. Is the conventional form different in French sonnets to English? iambic hexameter? and the rhyme scheme here is abba abba caa cac? Is Baudelaire breaking conventions or fulfilling them in this poem?
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Alison Thomas
U.K. GCSE English curriculum? That was my first encounter with Khalvati and her Ghazal. A fun one to teach to teenagers.
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Robert Brunskill
And people have swiftly parodied them - I love the government covid slogan generator (tap twice for a new version) https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.indy100.com/article/coronavirus-uk-government-boris-johnson-stay-alert-slogan-memes-jokes-9507506%3famp
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
The two stanzas are regular in length (9 lines) and also in line length with alternating tetrameters and trimeters (4.3.4.3.3.3.3.3.4) but the rhythms are as ‘Jumpy as a Mexican bean’. 15/19 lines open with a beat, but the foot could be trochaic (/x), dactylic (/xx) or a spondee (//). 17 or 18/19 lines finish with a beat, but again this could be an iamb (x/),...
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Carolyn McGrath replied to Dennis G
Hindsight’s to be kept in check on this occasion, I think - it’s too sad to put this joy into a wider context.
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Thank you - very informative - your explanation is perfectly clear and the link was enjoyable. I liked finding out that ‘lines’ and ‘loins’ were pronounced the same, significant knowledge for Romeo and Juliet. So many puns being missed!
In response to the poem though, it is nevertheless true that, in addition to the unfamiliar (to my ears) rhyme, I also find... -
Putting kids up chimneys is one thing, but skinning them? I love a good book, but, really, that price is too high! @InekeFioole
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Carolyn McGrath made a comment
Thomas Hardy - ‘The Voice’ - a superb example of an excellent poem made great. The first three stanzas, in dactylic tetrameter - /xx/xx/xx/xx - create a musical reverie slightly at odds with the sadness of the topic: it evokes a complex loss: ‘When you had changed from the one who was all to me’. The last of these three stanzas questions the reality of the...
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I take it back - I’ve read it again - she’s speaking for herself and asks for comparison. Yes, she’s loved up!
