Time Beings

     The paradox of time versus experience. Documented or recorded time is meant to be read and observed as opposed to lived. Studied even, recorded time is a history with its own chronology. There are events which began, occurred, and ended. This is the structure of time we picture: a timeline. A perfectly logical, simple, yet factual tool to order existence. However, this presents a much different reality of time than witnessed in real life. To that end, Date and Time goes to depict time and its passing in a way that more so mirrors, or attempts to, the human experience.        Time’s paradox has to do with experience. As a young man, I am at the beginning of my life, or so one would think. But all I experience right now, is the now, not the beginning – the middle. What I have experienced has already ended, and what is coming, is of course, just beginning or about to happen. This lifelike, experiential transition and relationship with time is ho...

      The poem, On Starting, immediately reminded me of Nao's reference to fish in the Tale for the Time Being. It was interesting to me how Kaye compares fish to ideas, though I understand what he means. I think that as one gets older, the ideas of beliefs and values are something that can change, which can be very confusing. I know for me, trying to wrap my head around what is happening around me can feel like I am trying to hold onto a fish because sometimes I feel as once I become secure in one thought, another comes around and makes that "fish" slip out of my hands again.     It is interesting that Kaye refers to this as a "squirming gift" because though it can be a frustrating process, the ability to question your own beliefs and sometimes accept others is a gift. If we were all stuck in one mindset, there would be a stagnant society and it would be difficult to thrive. Also this means that as the world around us changes, our ideas and beli...

       On page 17 Kaye comments, “A great story has a beginning, middle, & end but not necessarily in that order we are all great stories,” (Kaye 17). Kaye’s structure is unique as it does not take on the typical sequential story order that we are taught about in school. Growing up, it was ingrained in my head that a story must consist of a beginning, middle, and end. More importantly, a story is supposed to have a hero who is called to action, who then crosses a threshold, and finally comes to a solution. Yet, Kaye completely defies this mainstream notion of storytelling.      Kaye challenges classic storytelling workshops by starting with the ‘end’, then the ‘beginning’, and ending with the ‘middle’. Life is complicated and unpredictable– it cannot just be divided up into three neat sections, because it is just not that simple. ‘Ends’ like break-ups, graduations, or deaths can happen at any time during life. ‘Beginnings’ like the birth of a child...

                My mentee/tutee is an African American girl who goes to a primarily white private Catholic school outside of Baltimore City. She is a wonderful student who quite frankly does not need my help to get A’s and B’s in her classes. However, I am very grateful to have met her and to be able to be a part of her life.               At her school, she has had to create her own time and space. From what she has told me, her school is relatively restrictive and conservative. As a young girl, she is taking it upon herself to find spaces where she is valued, and her narrative can be heard. I have seen her doubt her own abilities and not give herself enough credit for the work she has/is doing. I see this as a direct reflection of her feeling unvalued or undervalued. I can tell that she has dealt with living in double time. This has made her feel smaller th...

     A passage that stood out to me in the second half of the book, was the one called “Teeth.” This passage stood out to me because even though it jumps throughout different points in time, there is a lead narrative that weaves and connects all those times together, even though they are from different centuries and vastly different. If anything, this passage can show how trauma is dealt with and passed through generations. Grampy’s family story particularly stood out to me, because Phil starts it in 1906 with Grampy’s father growing up as a Jewish person in Poland during the Nazi period, and the lasting psychological effects it had on him.  If Phil is writing about Grampy’s father’s experience around 100 years later, then that shows the effect of Grampy’s father’s trauma that is passed down through the family.             Then Phil goes back even further in time, tracing Grampy’s lineage all the way back to 17...

     By living through this historic, unprecedented time, people around the world may be depending on stress management and coping mechanisms to strengthen their wellbeing.  With this comes the importance of mindfulness, which is the act of appreciating the very moment in which one is living, and appreciating one's groundedness in this moment, as well.  Kaye touches on the idea of mindfulness occasionally throughout the second half of Date & Time , which serves to address that time doesn't need to be expressed and perceived linearly.     Mindfulness is often practiced through meditation, and the poem "The Appreciation Meditation" suggests the skill of mindfulness by expressing gratitude for the minute, momentary details of one's life.  For instance, Kaye admires a mosquito; although typically, people dread mosquitos for the discomfort of itchiness they cause, he calls this mosquito a "lover / leaving her kiss on my body for days to come" (68)....

  In  Date & Time , Phil Kaye med it ates on the topic of the internet.  There are four poems that specifically address this topic and  naturally  Kaye also plays with the element of time within these works.    “ The Internet Speaks Back to the Author, 2018 ”  and  “T he Internet Speaks Back to the Author, 1998 ”  blatantly echo  each other ,   with the latter appearing toward the end of the collection.  The contrast of these two poems emphasizes the power and influence of the internet as well as  the power and influence of  social media . The 2018  poem  reveals  the precise nature  in which social media targets our interests, desires, and emotions. Kaye writes using personal language such as “you like it better that way” and “ you’re safe here/with me” as if a computer program understands the speaker’s psyche more than the speaker himself. We can understand this poem full circle when we ...

 Phil Kaye's Date & Time presents the audience with a myriad of different important themes - one of which being the power words hold. With this being said, while I believe this aforementioned theme was greatly exemplified throughout the text, I found it to be extremely relevant in the Ted Talk that was presented during yesterday's class. In saying this, throughout the Ted Talk, Kaye explained that as a word is repeated a multitude of times, it may be understood as that which may have lost its effects over another. While this theme is rather influential in the text, I found it to be a lesson that could be best applied to everyday life, especially in regard to what has been occurring over the past few months.  In furthering this aforementioned argument, in Kaye's poem entitled "Repetition" he states, "Homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework see, nothing our existence, she said, is the same way" (Kaye). I...

       Phil Kaye’s Date & Time is a compilation of tales and experiences that have shaped Phil’s life and his relation to the time he has lived and is currently living.  In the last third of the work, he talks about “the middle,” his now.  These seem to be tales and experiences that either take place in the present moment or have begun and not realized an end yet.  His poem “Unalienable” (Kaye 93) discussed the idea of present-day social issues that have been created and continue their presence in society with no defining end.  The poem discusses the time of the 2016 election and connects to the emotion felt by a massive amount of the American public while touching on his childhood and the influential memories that connect with understanding and experiencing America.  There are timely injustices in the U.S. that can only see an end through decisive change, but this can only come after recognizing that there is a change that needs to occur...

  Phil Kaye’s poem   Unalienable , in his book   Date and Time,  sheds light on some of the very real issues plaguing the American people. His use of time is interesting here and provides startling imagery that makes readers aware of the serious lack of change that has taken place within the American way of thinking over the years.   Kaye, throughout this poem, jumps back and forth between his 5 th grade reenactment of the American revolution and the 2016 election. Though the two seem completely unrelated, the connections he draws shed light on the reality that not much has changed in the years that Kaye grew up. Kaye writes, “it is November 2016 / the morning after/ the election in  America … the teacher tells us  not to say anything / political /  looks at me as if to say /  you and I will get out of this just fine / California boy, white enough /  he does not look at Franny” (93-94). Phil and his friend Franny are to perform at a...

     When selecting a text to lead a discussion on,   Date & Time   was my first choice, as I was previously familiar with Phil Kaye and some of his work.  It was also particularly interesting for me to research the “history” component of the presentation, and explore the ways in which spoken-word poetry calls people to express themselves, as it reminded me of my own first encounters with spoken-word, when I attended open-mic nights at the Juniper Institute for Young Writers.  I resonate with so much of what Phil Kaye describes as the compelling immediacy that accompanies performed poetry, although it is an experience that I struggle to put into words.  As I read the first half of Kaye’s   Date & Time , I considered the ways in which his storytelling, although rooted in beginnings, middles, and ends - speaks with a resolute immediacy that is rooted in the present moment.      In his poem “Repetition”, Kaye reflects on p...

      Woodson’s own concept of home, I feel, evolves throughout the story’s progression. In the beginning, she is very focused on places and the feelings they provoke. Her geographical position greatly impacts her and the other characters’ mood, feelings of belonging and coincidentally, their comfort levels, which, in turn, all impact behavior. It is true that Jackie and her family must behave differently depending on their location. For example, take their obvious demeanor and mannerism change as the children make those journeys from North to South.       However, I would submit that Jackie’s concept of home takes on a less tangible form later in the story. While she does notice the comforting, home-like vibrations radiated from her various family members, the two remained coincidental until the climax of the book, aligning with Jackie’s increased self-awareness. She finds feelings of “home” and belonging while thinking of people, while reading, ...

I noticed very clear similarities between Jacqueline Woodson’s experience with the Civil Rights Movement and the historical time we are living in currently in regards to the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Trump administration, and the Coronavirus pandemic. There was a specific part that I read that resonated a lot with me which was when Hope was picked apart as suspicious and therefore intensely inspected by the police as the family was trying to visit their uncle in jail. Woodson writes an interesting quote here, “He is Hope Austin Woodson the Second, part of a long line of Woodsons-- doctors and lawyers and teachers-- but as quickly as THAT! He can become a number.” (Woodson 271). This is a common theme that I feel like I have heard a lot recently in the fight against police brutality towards black americans. After the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and so many more, I remember instagram being flooded with information on them as people. We ...

       Throughout the book Jacqueline considers many different places to be her home. She calls these places home, however, not because of the places themselves, but because of the people that live there which she considers to be her family. In other words, for Jacqueline, family is home. In the beginning, Jacqueline is born in Ohio, and that is her first home with her family and her father. However, Ohio is not home for Jacqueline’s mother, and she then takes her children to move back to the South where she was raised. Woodson calls this chapter “home,” as she describes her grandparent's house and her grandparents welcoming her. Because her grandparents and cousins are in Greenville, this becomes home for her. Once Jacqueline and her mother leave their father behind in Ohio, and as they lose contact with him, Ohio stops becoming a home for Jacqueline. Once Woodson’s family returns to the South, the South stops feeling like home because now a lot of Jacqueline’s ...

    As I read the second half of Jacqueline Woodson’s “brown girl dreaming”, I was particularly mindful of the ways in which the concept of setting and place contributed to play such a large role in her writing.  Just as in the first half of the novel, it seems as though the place that the narrator lives, and the place that she considers home are often two different things.  Additionally, setting and physical place play a significant role in revealing Jackie as an individual and character.  The ways in which she understands concepts of place and home are also, in a very beautiful and poignant way, the ways in which she comes to understand herself.   The “halfway home #2” poem provides context to Jackie’s feeling of displacement, and inability to comprehend what it means to be truly home.  Woodson writes, “And though it still feels strange to be so far away from soft dirt beneath bare feet, the ground is firm here.”  This s...

  One poem that struck me in Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir entitled Brown Girl Dreaming is “the woodsons of ohio.” While reading the entirety of Woodson’s memoir, I was continually intrigued and perplexed at the author’s ability to articulate meaning in her poetry on two separate planes. In “the woodsons of ohio,” Woodson confronts her family’s history and possible relation to Thomas Jefferson. While reading, I could not help but think of the greater African American story and its lack of written history as a result of slavery and oppression. Woodson writes “the Woodsons of Ohio know / what the Woodsons coming before them / left behind, in Bibles, in stories, / in history coming down through time” (Woodson). While reading this particular stanza of the poem, a phrase that was told to me off-handedly in my high-school APUSH class appeared in my mind; “History is written by the victors.” Another way to interpret this adage is “History is written by the oppressors.” This chilling quotat...