named abstractions

Ah, poetry. You devil-stealer of my soul. Since enrolling in Dr. T's class this summer (which, look for a post the next few days including my class's most quotable moments. I daresay some of the things that fall out of Dr. T's mouth rival that of my dear high school choir teacher, Mr. S), words and things just aren't the same. Granted, I think my view on EVERYTHING changed in England (okay, that probably is an exaggeration. Still, I'm barely beginning to realize just how different I now am), especially with the essay writing and thinking I did there. And yet poetry is causing me to take essay thinking to a new level. Rather than simply making the complex connections between thoughts and ideas, poetry takes those complexities and then adds the challenge of finding the words that fit those ideas perfectly. While essays explain what you should feel and how you should feel it, poetry gives you both the raw emotion and the opportunity to explore and discover for yourself why you are feeling what you are feeling. I suppose you could say that essays are the explication of poems: because poems are so tightly constructed, what you can say in a fourteen line sonnet takes fourteen pages of essay writing to truly explore.

But enough about that. My recent fascination with poetry now has to do not with sounds, but with names. Have you ever thought about your name? For example, why does the word "Jessica" represent me? Obviously my parents chose that name for me, but the connection between the letters and sounds of "Jessica" is arbitrary. I could be a Rachel or an Angela or a Jane or a Rose just as easily. Granted, it would be hard for me to change my name - most people know me as Jessica and would have a difficult time calling me Bernice (or Beulah. Wouldn't it be great if I went by Beulah?).

But that's beside the point. The reason I'm wondering about all of this arbitrariness with names is because of a poem written by one of my classmates. Rather than describing people with their names, she uses what they wear or how they smile to represent their characters. Not only that, she omits all pronouns from her poem. There aren't any he's or she's or I's or we's. Instead, there's a red ball cap and an awkward grin, with dark cotton holding the wood and iron. It's a compelling poem, not just because of its elegiac nature, but because it gives the reader something tangible to hold onto. I wouldn't know anything about Sam, the title character of the poem, if she had just given me the name, "Sam." But with his smile and the words he says, I feel as if I know him and would recognize him if I saw him.

Wouldn't it be great if we described people by what was most memorable about them? Granted, it would be a difficult task. How do you sum up an entire person in just a matter of words without using their name? I can hardly come up with a few words that describe me, but maybe that's because I know myself too well. I'm sure garden gnomes would find their way into the equation. Maybe even a phrase or two describing my untamable curls tied back with a white ribbon. Whatever the case, I'm pretty sure any description given for my own character would say more than the name, "Jessica."

What's in a name? An abstraction. There's nothing concrete about it. Descriptions give not only faces to names, but character to them as well.

Note: I originally uploaded this picture because I figured it was one of those things that probably represented my character (i.e. gnome, curly hair, ribbon, Tevas). BUT I feel like it is also appropriate because it commemorates the ending of a childhood saga. Huzzah for Harry Potter!