On fields

“Field” is a word I put to many uses. It has been my leading poetry tick for several years now–the crutch word I use when I want to represent a sense of existence that is larger and less definite than a narrative. Sometimes I use it literally (as in a few poems about standing alongside fields in Iowa), sometimes I use it in a more general way (in poems where I imagine a kind of actual field of grass or color), and sometimes I use it to turn things that have no rightful sense of field attached to them into fields of some variety (a window, for example). Fields seem much more appealing than stories. They hold an infinite number of potential points. They can be worlds unto themselves.

Fields are also what I’m supposed to be defining for myself this summer in the process of reading for prelims. Mine are, predictably, broad, (Multiethnic US Lit Post-1850 and Life Writing) and my biggest challenge is going to be explaining exactly what their limits (historical, aesthetic, thematic) are and why I think those limits are important.

Any kind of space can become a field–vastness can emerge from attention to small things. Jonathan Edwards puts it beautifully as he describes his experience of reading scripture: “I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders” (from “Personal Narrative”). Time and the world can somehow expand when we force ourselves to inhabit boundaries.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe fields are a bad habit of mine. Or at least, a habit that needs a counter-habit. I’ve started thinking that often when I imagine a field, I imagine myself outside of it. I’m looking at the field. As soon as you step into a field, it changes from a field into a specific cluster of grass making your knees itch and a specific bee you are swatting away from your hair. Your shoes get damp. You’re not in the shade. You kind of want to get out of the field, so you start taking steps and before you know it you’ve created a path through the field. As it turns out, you could not inhabit the entirety of the field, indefinitely. You did have to choose a specific set of steps through it.

The field can become a temptation. Ask Edna Pontellier, as the ocean she walks into at the end of The Awakening becomes the prairie of her childhood: “She did not look back now, but went on and on, thinking of the blue-grass meadow that she had traversed when  little child, believing that it had no beginning and no end.” A seductive, and ultimately (for Edna and perhaps for others) self-destructive form of liberation. There is going to be a beginning and an end, and at some point it might be wise to reckon with that. Otherwise, a field can also become a way not to decide what to focus on and a way to avoid the details which inevitably present themselves upon interaction. There is a time for sentences to become wonders and a time to force oneself to try to put sentences together, one after the other, and try to say something. This is the only way new, wonderful fields can be created. An image, a poem, or a sentence that tried to say everything would ultimately say nothing. First, one has to commit to trying say, see, or be one thing.

On tap

I have been officially finished with all tasks pertaining the second year of doctoral study for over a month now. Which means I’ve started preparing, with a few existential hiccups and hang-ups along the way, for the primary task pertaining to the third year: the preliminary exam, or prelims as we call them.

Prelims in my discipline means a two hour oral examination covering two reading lists that are meant propose two fields of study. I get to pick the fields and make the lists–there’s no required texts, but my committee does have to approve whatever I pick. My fields are: Multiethnic US Literatures Post-1850 and Life Writing. No one has ever accused me of being too focused! The combined total for my two lists is currently running around 240 books (roughly 60% primary and 40% critical) with the goal to chop it to no more than 200 by the end and preferably more like 150. How that is going to happen, I’m not entirely sure, as I am an unrepentant comparatist (comparativist?) and that means having a chunk of foundational knowledge in a lot of different areas. But, the basic roadmap is in front of me.

I’m hoping to blog on a regular basis both about what I’m reading and how I’m fitting it into the jigsawed horizon I call my intellectual framework. And if I’m doing that, I’ll probably also be reflecting on just where all this work I’m doing fits in to the work of being a citizen and human being–another way of saying, fresh off a contract year of union volunteering, I’m feeling like the words “political” and “activism” need to be used to describe ways of being, not side projects that must inevitably detract from my professional work. And while I’m doing that, I’m also hoping to have a summer of consummate Michigander-ness, replete with Oberon, long runs in ungodly humidity, and tornado watches.

Hopefully, I’ll be back quite soon for a report on how all that’s going.