e-journal 5/21-5/25

While looking through our book, Retellings, I was trying to find something that "sticks". First off I quickly fanned through the book, stopping to look at the pictures. I was interested to see such a wide variety, and curious to see how each of them pertained to literature.

I knew that our assignment was to look through the entire book, but I also knew that we were supposed to read a few short stories. I got a little caught up in reading those stories, rather than actually looking at each page in the book. The Brothers Grimm stories in this book are different from any fairytale I have ever heard, I was shocked to read parts of them, to say the least. I can see where someone would take one look at this book, know that it is for a literature class, and write it off completely. I think that when reading any piece of literature, it is important to keep and open mind, especially when your grade depends on it. I see such a wide variety of pieces in this book, many of which I plan on reading, and also some that I would rather not.

To be more specific, there was one thing that really stood out to me, and that was the poem that went along with the picture, The Starry Night, I knew that there was a poem that went along with this painting, but I had never read it before.

"That does not keep me from having a terrible need of-shall I say the word-religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars." -Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother.

The town does not exist
except where on black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

-Anne Sexton (1928-1974)

I have always loved this painting! I think that this poem is a good way of putting this painting into words. When I first read this poem I thought it was sad, when she wrote "This is how I want to die." I read that as depressing, but the more I looked into it, the more I realized that it was meant to express what tranquility he was feeling. He was not expressing that he wanted to die, just that he was at such peace with everything, that he would be content in dying. I have always had a hard time translating poetry, but this was something that came pretty easily to me.