Responding to Waldrop - Chelsea

Final drafts are overrated; or perhaps, our definition of what classifies a final draft is simply misconstrued. The way I see it, a final draft needs to say exactly what it means to say, in whichever way possible. A final draft is not necessarily an MLA format 2,000 word essay with headers, page numbers, and in text citations. In her work “Alarms and Excursions,” Rosmarie Waldrop gives us a prime example of a very different and, to most people, unusual “final draft.”

Besides being the name of Waldrop’s work, “alarms and excursions” is an “Elizabethan stage term for offstage noise and commotion which interrupts the main action” (Waldrop 214). Waldrop uses this technique to present specific ideas, somewhat like a deconstructed essay. For some, the format may be difficult to follow in that it lacks the flow of a conventional essay, while for others, like myself, the broken down passages are focused pieces of evidence strung together by the theses, which are distinguished from their supportive paragraphs.

Not only does the form of the writing attempt to make clear each claim that Waldrop comes to, it also mirrors an aspect of the content of the paper, which is poetry. The unusual structure of the paper functions as a representation of poetry, and how it deviates from the sentence and paragraph structure of prose. In writing “Alarms and Excursions,” Waldrop demands her audience think in a different way than they might expect to think upon hearing or reading a paper on literature.

In a class discussion, the idea that Waldrop’s paper resembles the scientific method was mentioned, because it seems to simply state the facts in black and white. There are no poetic embellishments or flourishes of writing style distinguish the paper; instead, the unique structure of the writing distinguished Waldrop’s paper.

Upon first reading the paper, Waldrop’s audience may not detect any artistic styling in her writing, though the paper is far from a dry, informational article. Waldrop includes a wide variety of ideas which provide interest and dynamism to her main focus of poetry and its role in society. Waldrop’s theses explore ideas such as the social relevance and function of poetry, what poetry is and is not, who interacts with poetry and how the relationship between people and poetry affects the world in which we live. Waldrop includes sources such as Jabes, Valery, Marx, and Engels, quoting poems, literature critiquing poetry, economic and scientific ideas that comment on poetry. The ideas she introduces are dynamic and thought provoking, which adds a deeper layer of interest enveloped by the method with which she delivers each idea.

Waldrop states in her tenth thesis, “The poem will not work through its content... but through its form” (219). I think perhaps she is most successful in emphasizing this claim, not only in the information she shares to support, challenge, and overall define this point, but by the fact that she is proving the point with the structure of her paper (even more so than the content). All in all, I think that Waldrop is efficient and productive in accomplishing her goal of presenting ideas in an interesting way that will make an impact. She also illustrates a completely different perspective on what a final draft is; she has paragraphs broken down and labeled and theses distinguished throughout the paper. Though the entire essay (if it can be called an essay) seems to illuminate the background, “offstage” information, as we read, we realized that this indeed is perhaps the most important information that Waldrop could share. However, even without typical flow and transitions, Waldrop’s article “Alarms and Excursions” says what it means to say and accomplishes her goal of exploring the characteristics of poetry.