Thursday, 15 November: Poetry reader: Julie Matuszczak

Poem: Enid Dame, “On the Road to Damascus, Maryland,” UA 141

Biographical Information:  Enid Dame was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.  She was a teacher, a poet, and publisher and editor.  She was, along with her poet husband Donald Lev, publisher and editor of Home Planet News, a literary tabloid, for about 25 years.  She was on the faculty of the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, where she served as Associate Director of the Writing Program.  Her most notable published poetry includes today’s reading, On the Road to Damascus, Maryland, 1980, Lillith and Her Demons, 1986, and Anything You Don’t See, 1990.  Her poetry examined themes of Jewish life and history through contemporary women’s lives.  She died from complications from pneumonia on December 25, 2003.  

Damascus refers to both the Biblical story of Saul, the Jew, who was trying to convert Christians until he himself converted to Christianity while on the road to Damascus, Syria, and to Damascus, Maryland where the city is a crossroads that connects many cities and cultures.  These references reinforce the themes of change and new values contained within the poem. 

Objective 2

Stage 4 of immigrant narrative:

Assimilation to dominant American culture and loss of ethnic identity

“At other times,

I’d already been a New York Jew,

A radical teacher,

An Ethical Culturist,

A barefoot breadbaker,

A nice girl,

In knee socks”

second-generation as “divided” between traditional identities of homeland or ethnic group and modern identity of assimilated American; bi-cultural and bi-lingual

“My parents were worried.

Next week I’d be 35

And I still didn’t seem

To know who I was.”

The speaker is on the road to changing herself into something new and exciting, converting herself more into the dominant culture and further away from her ethnic identity. Her values are that of the new world and less like her parents and the old world.

“Once again,

It was happening,

I felt myself turning

Into someone else.

I wasn’t sure who, yet.”

Questions: 

When the speaker lists all her names, from most recent to when she was a child, would you consider this a way of interpreting her personal stages of assimilation?

When reviewing past presentations of this poem, I noticed a lot of discussion of the possibility of the speaker going through an identity crisis.  Would you consider this poem to be about a 35 year old woman who is going through an identity crisis rather than a woman assimilating to the dominant culture?

Instructor's question: What is the significance of "Damascus" in the title? What is the relation between the Jewish Paul's "conversion" and the character's assimilation?