On to seconds

The first day was no let down.

Rd 1: This House Believes the US should make all aid to Israel conditional upon freezing settlements. We were closing gov. Took first. I think I got to use an interesting idea of “Imaginability” in this round. The settlements prove a unique problem not only physically but symbolically because peace talks are so impeeded. Harder to imagine a successful peace talk with such blatant negligence on Israel’s side. other args popped in… like this isn’t a chess game. Lives are at stake.

Rd 2: THW create seperate divisions for the openly gay in the US military. We were opening op. We took first. I adored this motion. Korey and I were able to argue a ton! Great matter grab. Korey rocked it in delivery – he shhhed the PM when he spoke out of turn. THAT was awesome! We counter propped (sort of…. perhaps it can be called a hypothesis test) full integration. “Seperation without Stigmatization” and gov couldn’t give us that. But that was my favorite line. I think we  just did really well building solid bricks to make a good wall. I shed a tear when a female from gov worded one of her arguments as anti suffrogettes might have. So… I enjoyed advocating for the Opposition side. OH! Closing op made the best reference to Audre Lorde EVER!

Rd 3: THW ban the US federal government from deficit spending. We were opening gov. We took fourth. I PMed. It is a really tough one for gov but nothing that closing gov said I didn’t already know so I know the next time around I could really make a much better case. I enjoyed this round so much. Partly because it was some old friends from Vermont and Cornell who are phenomenal speakers and, I think, good for debate (the goal is not, fyi, to beat people up and these guys know that). We needed more analysis on China and probably Greece. In the end, Korey and I gave a good go at an econ motion – our weakest link. I learned. 🙂

Now for another day. We are at 6 pts. It’s a safe bet that 12 is needed to break but maybe some 11’s will get in too. Not sure yet. I am so excited!

PS Denver is pretty.

Adrienne, Audre & Alice

A Statement for Voices Unheard: A Challenge to the National Book Awards

Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker

At the National Book Award ceremony, Adrienne Rich read the following statement, prepared by herself, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker-all of whom had been nominated for the poetry award. They agreed that whoever was chosen to receive the award, if any, from among the three, would read the statement.

We, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker, together accept this award in the name of all the women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world, and in the name of those who, like us, have been tolerated as token women in the culture, often at great cost and in great pain. We believe that we can enrich ourselves more in supporting and giving to each other than by competing against each other; and that poetry-if it is poetry-exists in a realm beyond ranking and comparison. We symbolically join together here in refusing the terms of patriarchal competition and declaring that we will share this prize among us, to be used as best we can for women.

We appreciate the good faith of the judges for this award, but none of us could accept this money for herself, nor could she let go unquestioned the terms on which poets are given or denied honor and livelihood in this world, especially when they are women. We dedicate this occasion to the struggle for self-determination of all women, of every color, identification, or derived class: the poet, the housewife, the lesbian, the mathematician, the mother, the dishwasher, the pregnant teenager, the teacher, the grandmother, the prostitute, the philosopher, the waitress, the women who will understand what we are doing here and those who will not understand yet, the silent women whose voices have been denied to us, the articulate women who have given us strength to do out work.

Taken from Inviting Transformation, Sonja Foss and Karen Foss, Second Edition. This speech was presented in 1974 for the Poetry Award

Gloria, Oh Gloria!

Having a terrible emotional war with myself. It’s stupid and selfish. BUT according to Gloria Anzaldua, writing is the most freeing, empowering activity that I can do. In writing I am supposed to be able to reveal to myself aspects of me that I never knew. She writes:

“Why am I so compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. … To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy… To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit.”

This passage is great! …and problematic for me too. She isn’t talking to me. This excerpt is from her Letter to the Third World Women Writers. Pretty much not me. So I don’t know where my spirit of revolt is coming from. She also discusses the need to write because others are erasing her. My suffering can’t be compared to the erasure felt by a Chicana lesbian (shame on me for even thinking about comparing our experiences but honestly, how else do you try and connect with a piece?) Also, while I believe I try to write to put order in the world, I often wish to write about things that are academic but not too personal. I’ve no intention of making a diary entry right now about my personal problems… just a little discussion about Anzaldua and rhetorical criticism. I just need order right now.

So this passage serves two purposes. First, it justifies to myself my desire to write while also getting started on the topics I want to write about.

Today I spent some time studying Anzaldua’s Letter and two questions popped into my head. The first question is one of content. I am not sure how to understand her when she asks women to write. The second is one of method as I study her. I feel uncomfortable fashioning a rhetorical criticism on a creative work like this letter.

First Issue: She wants women to write but write what?!  Peppered throughout the letter are the poems of Cherrie Moraga. Really very beautiful words! They seem to function as examples of other third world women writers writing about their experiences without the distance of academic language and form. They are creativity. They also illustrate whichever point Anzaldua (I’m gonna call her Gloria now) is making. For example, she discusses the limitations that “we” feel and transitions into Cherrie’s poem about writing in poverty. So I can gather that when Gloria says “we” should write she is encouraging creative writing.

Here’s my issue with that: I don’t write poetry. Nothing in me says “let’s write a poem.” Instead my brain says “you really should ‘cuz it’s supposed to be what cultured and intellectual people do.” Even though Gloria discusses how hard it is to make yourself write, I think that creative writing is my weakest, weakest, very not strong point. It is a painful and uncreative process for me. So what am I to do? (assuming she thinks that white first world women can also benefit from writing.)

There are other excerpts to look at in this letter and I think that these can save me.

-She quotes Kathy Kendall who talks about what she thinks Audre Lorde wants women to do. “Audre said we need to speak up. Speak loud, speak unsettling things and be dangerous and just fuck, hell, let it out and let everybody hear whether they want to or not.” (pretty cool)

-Gloria also quotes Naomi Littlebear, “Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage.” (a proverb, no?)

-Then there is Luisah Teish’s words to white feminists uttered in hopes of explaining that third world women writers face very different barriers… like starvation.

I would not call these examples of creative prose. They seem to be on the other side of the spectrum. These ladies are revealing the reality of their lives. They are discussing how to take up arms so that against a sea of troubles (roaring) they will not be ended (silenced).

Gloria uses poetry, proverbs, and naked narrative to fashion a super creative letter (I’ll explain why this is a thorn in my side next). She encourages creativity but wants raw experience put inside of it. I am not gonna score high on creativity (Cherrie’s poems… amazing) and I am not sure what my unextreme experiences can offer in narrative or proverb. These seem like big giant statements stemming from big giant oppressed experiences. I just don’t know if what I put together about debate, rhetoric or whatever would be of much worth to her.

Second Issue: For one of my final papers, I want to do a rhetorical criticism on this Letter. But I am so lost! One of my professors has this cool technique that I thought I would try and in using it I discovered how nonlinear her letter seems… especially at the end. The technique is really super simple. Just order the piece in the margins. So next to the first paragraph I wrote “creation of audience.” And in a few other places I partitioned paragraphs off and titled them “characterizes ‘we’” and “problem.” However, by the last page I couldn’t do it anymore.

I can’t explain why this point is follow by that point or why she calls the body a distraction to writing (“the body distracts”) in one place but then valorizes the body in the next paragraph (“listen to the words chanting in your body”). The last bit is like a collection of proverbs with only a general theme. They aren’t too well ordered but they seemed really important to her so she smashed them in all at the end. Getting inside of an author’s head is pretty damn hard but we can try to understand their logical progression. In this letter, I feel like I have to be clairvoyant to write about the progression. I wish she was clearer, concise and traditional.

Don’t worry. I get why she’s illustrating something that the establishment might get a little upset about. The disorder might make you think more. And if she felt like this point should follow that point then what better reason does she need? It just makes it hard to dissect the piece so that I know what’s going on… so that I can critique it! Rhetorical criticisms on creative works are just hard.

At the end of the day, I am going to talk about her construction of the audience. More to come on that later.