Prompt #1: A lot of Hugo's stories that he told in his book were rather influential on me, but there was one that stuck out the most. This story comes from chapter 8. It's about when Hugo and his wife return to Italy with only enough money to last them a year and then they would be broke and jobless. Hugo wrote about his worries because he had never not had a permanent plan. In this case they were just winging it after there year of money was gone. One of my favorite lines from the passage was when he wrote, "I seemed to use poems to create some adequate self. A sissy in life, I would be tough in the poem" (Hugo, 79). It just shows how you can be whoever you want in poetry even if you're in a horrible in your life. He used an example of his poem "Index" and stated that when he went back and looked at it he didn't understand it anymore. I think that's okay. It's what he felt at that moment when he wrote it and even though he didn't understand it later on it was his way of release. I believe Hugo uses personal stories in a book about craft and poetry writing because it's a way for him to not only connect with his readers, but because from his personal stories branched works of poetry/writings that involve the craft.
Prompt #2: I loved when Hugo suggested to use towns for a triggering subject. Use a town where you've never been before. It has no emotional connection to you so therefore you have a clean slate. The town can trigger something inside of you that you didn't even know was there. This is amazing to me. In Chapter 3 Hugo uses the whole chapter to describe various elements that the towns could withhold. Such as "I have lived there all my life and should have left long ago but couldn't" (Hugo, 19). Compared to the other example he used, "People who hated it and left long ago are wealthy and living in south america", (Hugo, 24). This just shows that anything could branch out from the poems. Someone that is stuck and can't leave compared to someone who hated it and couldn't get out of there fast enough ended up being successful. These example taught me that you could honestly write whatever you feel and from that the rest will create itself as you go.
I totally think the same way about why and how he uses his personal stories in this book. It makes it more real, more personal and it shows what kind of person he is throughout the book. That story about them going to Italy was one of my favorites to because Italy is a place of love and good things but Hugo and his wife only had enough to last a year so it was the total opposite and you can see that Hugo went through a lot in life in his book.
ReplyDeleteI used the same poem for your prompt number 1. I can definitely see the way that his war experience had on him at the time and this definitely connects us to him more because it really shows him as a poet and a person instead of as a mentor or teacher.
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