My Blue Hen

 

AN ANANLYSIS OF THE 21ST CENTURY PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

 ENTITLED

 MY BLUE HEN BY: ANN GRAY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE PROJECT OF 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES AND THE WORLD BY:

HERNANDEZ ,ANNE LOURANE S. ,MORALES, RYLON MOOG, JONREI S. SAN JOSE, MARC PAUL

OCTOBER 2020 

 INTRODUCTION

 - The poem shows how even potentially clichéd images (such as the heart as the seat of emotion) can work when supported by more striking imagery. It also shows how parallel construction (sentences having the same, repetitive structure) can work. 

 BACKGROUND AUTHORIAL INFORMATION: 

-Ann Gray  of Lincoln University 

-(Born: 4 May 1946 

-(age 74 years)

 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION 

- Ann’s main research interests are in media and popular culture but she has focused more recently on television studies in particular. Her first book Video Playtime: the gendering of a leisure technology was a study of the uses of the video cassette recorder in the home, relating this to an understanding of media use in everyday life with particular reference to gender. In addition to writing on aspects of gender, feminist cultural studies and audience studies she has also written about the intellectual and institutional politics of research methods most particularly in her book Research Practice for Cultural Studies.

 CAREER 

- Ann has a strong interest in the history of cultural studies, having worked for a number of years at the Department of Cultural Studies in Birmingham. In 1993, with Jim McGuigan, she edited Studying Culture: an introductory reader and in 1996 with Helen Baehr Turning it On : a reader in women and media and was lead editor of the recently published two volume collection of the original CCCS Working Papers in cultural studies. In 2005 Ann, working with her colleague, Dr Jirina Smejkalova secured a British Academy grant for their project ‘Re-thinking Cultural Studies in the New Europe’ (link) which has established a European network of cultural researchers who are bringing different intellectual histories and perspectives to cultural studies.Ann’s main research focus is now on how television represents the past for which she secured a substantial AHRC grant for the four year project ‘Televising History – 1995-2010’.Ann is a founding Editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies and she was a founder member of the International Association of Cultural Studies. She sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of British Film and Television, Memory Studies and, Mediáná Studia, Czech She is a member of the Midlands Television Research Group at the University of Warwick, on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Culture Identity and Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and an Honorary Associate of the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University, Sydney. Ann Gray was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2010. Her most recent collection is At The Gate (2008). Previous collections include The Man I Was Promised (2004). She has been a guest reader on several Arvon courses and a tutor at Ty Newydd. She lives and works in Cornwall.

WORKS:

  POETRY 

- History On Television (2005) Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader (1993) Video Playtime: The Gendering of a Leisure Technology (1992) Research practice for cultural studies (2001) At The Gate (2008) Gronw's Stone: Voices from the Mabinogion (1997) The Man I Was Promised (2004) They Will Soar on Wings Like Eagles (2008) Painting Skin (1995) The Intangibles File: A Gathering of Heirs (2005) Eating Your Cake and Having It (1997).

 LITERARY THEORY AND CULTURAL STUDIES 

Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Books By Raymond Williams. NY: Oxford University Press, 1976. Williams, himself one of the most important figures in Cultural Studies, examines the origins and historical changes in key terms in the vocabulary of culture and society. Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader. Books Edited by Ann Gray and Jim McGuigan. 2nd Edition. London: E. Arnold, 1993. A collection of key texts in Cultural Studies. Includes editorial commentary and suggestions for further reading. A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader. Books Edited by Antony Easthope and Kate McGowan. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992. Another collection of seminal works.

 TEXTUAL INFORMATION 

- Research practice for Cultural Studies (2003) 

 COPY OF THE LITERARY TEXT:

 My Blue Hen By Ann Gray I sing to my blue hen. I fold her wings against my body. The fox has had her lover, stealing through the rough grass, the washed sky. I tell her, I am the blue heron the hyacinth macaw. We have a whispered conversation in French. I tell her the horse, the ox, the lion, are all in the stars at different times in our lives. I tell her there are things even the sea can't do, like come in when it's going out. I tell her my heart is a kayak on wild water, a coffin, and a ship in full sail. I tell her there is no present time, an entire field of dandelions will give her a thousand different answers. I tell her a dog can be a lighthouse, a zebra finch can dream its song, vibrate its throat while sleeping. I tell her how the Mayan midwife sings each child into its own safe song. Tonight, the moon holds back the dark. I snag my hair on the plum trees. I tell her I could've been a tree, if you'd held me here long enough. I stroke her neck. She makes a bubbling sound, her song of eggs and feathers. I tell her you were a high note, a summer lightning storm of a man.

ANALYSIS

LITERARY 

GENRE:

 Fiction

- Ann gray used her imagination to create a poem named the blue hen, it tells that animals haved friendships too liked the blue hen, fox, horse, ox, and the lions. Everyday they are struggling about their life on how they can survive and also ann gray used blue hen to be the most highlight of the story. 

ANALYSIS GUIDE:

 This will be the guide of our analysis 

READERS RESPONSE:

- I read the book of poems from cover to cover as soon as it arrived and began to think about which poem I would choose. It was hard. They were moving, deeply personal poems and I began to realise that no fabric design that I could manage would reflect the depth of meaning needed to do any of these poems justice. I looked for something concrete. There were dogs, guitars, hollyhocks, pines and, one of my best loves, Indian runner ducks. These small things I could reproduce but there was another thing and it got in the way. The poems brought back my own sense of loss, not only of people but of whole other lives. They spoke of songs I had loved, places I had lived, road names, bridges I knew.

POINT OF VIEW 

- The point of this poem is the centre of animals friendship 

CHARACTERS:

  Fox  Horse  Ox  Lion  Dog  Zebra  Hyacinth Macaw  Blue hen 

IMAGES AND SYMBOLS

- A Mother 

STRUCTURE OF THE TEXT

- A structure is anything made up of parts held together. Plants and animals have many structures that help them survive. Some structures are internal, like the lungs, brain, or heart. Other structures are external, like skin, eyes, and claws.

PURPOSE 

- It is believe that midwives receive their calling from god in a series of dreams. 

THEME

 - Love 

CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS

 SUMMARY:

 - According to Ann Gray she explained that in Maya society it is believed that midwives receive their calling from the god in a series of dreams. The midwife is the first to see the infant and before a mother can bond with her baby, the sings that the child bears, and she alone interpret what profession the child is destined for it is about living with dementia that has the same unflinching honesty as the ones about the death of her husband.

REFERENCES :

The poetry Collection I received from Ann “Fox” Anne”s poem on page 27 of “At The Gate” A song of Eggs And Feathers.