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Dawn,

Your post reminded me of two things.

1) You say: "Regardless of what the words mean, the reader can feel what [Stein] was trying to say." I agree with you here. Once we start to loosen up and appreciate the sensual sounds of the select words as chosen by Stein, we admire the poet's ambigious, unorthodox writing style. What it is an interesting question, though, is whether or not an appreciation would ensue from Stein's sinuous poem if the reader had not known this poem was about lesbian love, if the reader had no idea of the context of the poem. I mean, sure, we can make a list of the ways in which Stein's poem is a sexy conversation, a sexual word play. Had we not been given the underlying context (Stein as a lesbian; "lifting belly" as a lesbian love poem), I do not think the class would be able to appreciate the winding puzzle that is "Lifting Belly". What do you think?

2) I wanted to comment on the idea you brought up about Binh's hesitation to insert a punctuation between "alone" and "afraid." Binh says: But on paper, a period instead of a comma had turned a dangling token of regret into a plainly worded confession (8)." I think this scence depicts a struggle between written and verbal communication. The tension between writing and talking was brought up in one my class last semester. It was discussed that writing, unlike talking, welcomes revision. It is because we cannot revise our conversations, revise our speech, that makes us think more about what we say as opposed to what we write. You can often clarify what you meant when you wrote something, but when you revise yourself in a conversation you are regarded as inarticulate. In my class last semester and still now, I think that writing and speaking are one and the same. I think you can be just as powerful in saying something as you can writing something.

I would be interested to know what you thought about this dynamic between speech and writing/ Binh's hesitation to do what seems better in a written address to his brother. How do you think his words would differ if Binh could converse with his brother in person?