Rachel Baack

I have read the following poems included in this collection (listed with ratings):

• “The Church of a Dream”: The speaker paints a picture of a desolate church that has been forgotten by all but one priest who faithfully ministers there. Rating: 4/5
• “Dark Angel”: The speaker speaks to a torturing spirit. He says that the Dark Angel sours everything that is beautiful, but he is determined to defeat this evil spirit. Rating: 4.5/5
• “To Morfydd”: This poem has been called a “disembodied love lyric.” Rating: 2.5/5

I have read the following poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins (listed below with ratings):

• “Carrion Comfort”: The speaker describes his despair and wrestling with God. Rating: 4/5
• “God’s Grandeur”: The speaker lauds the inexhaustible glory with which God has endowed nature, which is not diminished by the actions of people. Rating: 2/5
• “Inversnaid”: The speaker expresses his desire that the wilderness remain present using the example of a river. Rating: 1.5/5
• “I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark”: The speaker laments the metaphorical darkness he finds himself in, a darkness which he believes is barely better than the darkness of hell. Rating: 2.5/5
• “No Worst, There is None”: The speaker expresses the agony of religious despair and the inward torture that humans can experience. Rating: 3/5
• “Pied Beauty”: The speaker praises the ever-beautiful God for the beauty of “dappled,” or spotted/patched things. Rating: 1.5/5
• “Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves”: In this poem, a seer reads some leaves to prophesy about the Apocalypse and the condition of humanity. Rating: 2/5
• “Spring”: The uses the beauty of spring to frame his plea to God to preserve young minds. Rating: 1/5
• “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection”: The speaker says that everything is done away with by nature but takes comfort in the knowledge that humans will live again in the Resurrection of Christ. Rating: 3/5
• “Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord”: The speaker asks God why he allows him to suffer and sinners to thrive, all while affirming that God is just. Rating: 3/5
• “To R. B.”: This is Hopkins’ poem about the poetic process. He explains that poetry begins with a spark of inspiration, is formed in the mind of the poet, and finally comes out in the form of a poem, which may or may not be any good. Rating: 1/5
• “The Windhover”: The speaker realizes the superior vastness of God’s glory in light of his observation of a hawk. Rating: 1/5

Summary: The speaker expresses his longing for a past love and says that he has been faithful to her in his own way, even though he has tried to drown the memory of her.

Summary: In this poem, an old sailor tells the story of how he killed an albatross and then suffered all kinds of bad luck and strange occurrences at sea.

Summary: This poem was the result of a dream that Samuel Taylor Coleridge had. It describes a place called Xanadu, where Kubla Khan lives. It goes on to describe a vision that the speaker had and then Kubla Khan himself.

Summary: This unfinished poem follows a young woman named Christabel. One night, she goes into the woods to pray and meets a woman named Geraldine who claims to have been the victim of a kidnapping. At first, Christabel believes her, but it soon becomes apparent that something is not quite right about Geraldine.

I have read the following poems included in this book (listed with ratings below):

• “The Latest Decalogue”: This poem is Cough’s observation of the perversion of the Ten Commandments that he saw during his time. Rating: 4/5
• “Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth”: Clough wrote this poem after the fighters in the European revolutions of 1848, which he had supported, were defeated. The poem charges its readers not to believe that their cause is lost and offers a hopeful outlook for the future. Rating: 4.5/5
• “Spirit’s Song” (from “Dispychus”): The speaker revels in his wealth and love of its effects. The poem draws attention to the corrupting factor of wealth. Rating: 3/5

I have read two poems included in Through the Looking Glass (listed and rated below):

• “Jabberwocky”: This is a poem from Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking-Glass. It includes a bunch of nonsense words that tell a surprisingly decipherable story. The poem is an interesting tool for revealing the nature of language and grammar. Rating: 4.5/5
• “The White Knight’s Song”: This poem recounts the bizarre interaction of the speaker and an old man. The speaker repeatedly asks the old man how he lives but fails to listen to the odd answer in favor of pondering equally odd thoughts. Rating: 2.5/5

I have read the following poems by Matthew Arnold that can be found in this work (listed alphabetically with ratings):

“The Buried Life”: The speaker talks about the human inability to express the true inner self except in very rare occasions. A profoundly relatable piece of writing. Rating: 5/5

“Dover Beach”: A description of a beachfront that turns into a contemplation of reality, faith, and love. Rating: 2.5/5

“Growing Old”: The speaker offers a picture of what it means to grow old that is both profound and melancholy. Despite my disagreement with the poet about the nature of aging, I enjoy the poem’s depth. Rating: 4.5/5

“The Last Word”: The speaker notes his audience’s exhaustion with their striving but charges them to fight until the end. Rating: 4.5/5

“Memorial Verses”: This poem mourns the loss of William Wordsworth, whom Arnold considers to be “the last poetic voice.” The speaker praises Wordsworth’s ability to make his readers feel. Rating: 4/5

“Palladium”: The speaker considers the protection that the Palladium, a wooden image of Pallas Athena, protects the city of Troy, even if the citizens of the city don’t fully recognize it. Rating: 4.5/10

“Philomela”: Arnold draws on the myth of Philomela, who was raped by her sister’s husband and subsequently had her tongue cut out. She was able to communicate what had happened to her sister by weaving a tapestry, and her sister, Procne, killed and fed her own son to her husband. Before the husband could kill both women, all three people were turned into birds. In Arnold’s poem, the speaker sees one of the birds (whose identity is ambiguous; it could be Philomela or Procne) and reflects on its eternal sorrow. Rating: 2/5

“The Scholar-Gipsy”: This poem tells the story of a young man who left Oxford because he couldn’t afford it, joined a band of gypsies, and said that, once he had gained a full understanding of the “secret of their art,” he would share it with others. For many years, people report sighting the elusive young man. Rating: 4/5

“Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse”: The speaker visits a Catholic monastery and speaks about his loss of faith, the uselessness of the loud mourning of the poets before him, the quiet melancholy of his own age, and the glimmer of hope for the future. Rating: 4.5/5

“To Margarite—Continued”: The speaker notes the separation and aloneness that people feel, as well as the longing to end that separation. Rating: 4/5

I read one of the essays in this book ("Roots of Honor"). In this essay, John Ruskin calls into question the theory of political economy, which asserts that people should get as much out of their workers for as little pay and energy as possible. Instead, Ruskin suggests (with respect to the manufacturing field) that masters treat their workers with kindness, that wages and employment be constant, and that “merchants” take part in their business selflessly.

I read a single chapter of this book ("Of Individuality") in an anthology. The chapter argues in favor of personal liberty and freedom to express one’s individuality. Mill gives several reasons that freedom and individuality should be allowed to flourish.

I Have a Dream: In his most iconic speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inspires his audience to continue to fight for racial equality and to hope for a better future.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail: ”: In this open letter, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. responds to a public statement made by several religious leaders expressing the sentiment that Dr. King’s efforts to advance civil rights in Birmingham are “unwise and untimely.” With exceeding rhetorical skill, Dr. King argues in defense of the kind of public nonviolent resistance characterized his activism.

Summary: In his most iconic speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inspires his audience to continue to fight for racial equality and to hope for a better future.

Summary: This non-fiction essay by Henry David Thoreau outlines the author’s argument in favor of disobedience to immoral laws. It was written during the time of the Mexican-American War.

Summary: John Lewis tells the story of his experience working in the civil rights movement to bring about racial equality in the U.S.

This is a truly captivating read that really brings history alive.

Summary: Michelle McNamara lays out the facts surrounding the crimes of and investigation into the Golden State Killer (a name the author herself gave the criminal who had been known as both the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker before DNA evidence revealed that these were, in fact, the same person).

Summary: This nonfiction work explores the personality discovery tool known as the Enneagram. It looks at 9 different personality types, explores the strengths, weaknesses, and “deadly sin” of each, and offers the reader help in living more successfully within his or her personality type within a Christian framework.

This book is a great tool to help you become a better friend, family member, and member of the community at large.

Summary: Linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen explains what “foul language” and our use of it can uniquely reveal about the brain, language, and social science.

Summary: Psychologist Richard Beck explores and explains the complicated and fascinating workings of the feeling of disgust and how that feeling can be inappropriately applied in ways that are damaging within the life of the Christian Church.

This is a religiously based work directed toward readers who identify as Christians, but the psychology of disgust can be, I think, interesting to any audience.

Summary: This book explains how the U.S. education system regularly and uniquely marginalizes Black girls in ways that are demonstrably harmful to their education and lives. The book offers some alternatives school discipline, dress codes, and classroom interactions that will help facilitate educational experiences that help Black girls to thrive in their education and their lives outside of school. These alternatives are rooted in demonstrating understanding and respect for Black girls both as a group that faces unique challenges in the U.S. education system and broader culture and as individuals.

Summary: In this book, Deluca presents scientific evidence showing how women are not the irrational, emotional, hormone-controlled creatures that society paints them to be. The book highlights studies that show that the hormones related to women’s menstrual cycles, pregnancies, and experiences with menopause do not cause them to become any less emotionally or mentally competent (except in rare cases which warrant medical attention).

This novel is a breath of fresh air for every woman who has been dismissed because of her so called “over-emotional, hormone-controlled nature.”

Summary: Amanda Montell explores what it is that makes cults so fascinating and, to some, influential, and she argues that language is one of the best indicators and most effective tools of cults and “cultish” groups.

Summary: Brainstorm explains the essence of adolescence in a way that allows both teens and adults to engage with their own brains and development as well as the minds of others. A few important takeaways for me were the idea of taking time-in to feel one’s sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts; the importance of being a secure, dependable attachment figure rather than an absent or unpredictable one; and the necessity of simply being present—being there for others without judgement, and really experiencing their feelings and listening to what they have to say.

Summary: In each chapter of this book, Amanda Montell addresses a different logical fallacy to which those of us living in the twenty-first century frequently fall victim. She explains the evolutionary advantage that she and other experts believe each fallacy gave our ancestors, and she goes on to explain why these fallacies no longer serve us and how we can avoid falling prey to them.

Some of Montell’s claims might be difficult for readers who are religious to fully agree with, but I think that all readers can benefit from understanding the ways in which we can fool ourselves.

Summary: In this book, Stanley Fish instructs readers in the craft of sentence-making. It uses examples of great sentences to guide readers in their own writing.