Forage for Age(S) Field Notes on the Fiddlehead Fern
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Forage For Age(s) Field Notes on the fiddlehead fern By Debbie Liang April-June 2016 First Impressions April 6th, 2016 9:50pm As my grade nine English teacher once said, everyone judges a book by its cover despite the popular saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. That was exactly what I did today when our class was officially introduced the “Reading HABITAT Writing” assignment. I judged the fiddlehead fern first by its name, then by its appearance. I was always a plant-lover. Therefore, when I picked the fiddlehead fern from the authoritative little box Mr. Guraliuk was holding, I was delighted. Ferns are so graceful-looking (they remind me of ballerinas dancing in the rain) while fiddles look royal and charming. I imagined a typical fern, with rows of long, slender leaves (pigment green) radiating from a slightly twisted stem, sort of like the outline of a fiddle. I did not imagine a plant that looks like a shrivelled up caterpillar, or a dying, poisonous millipede, in harlequin –creepy—green. I also did not imagine that such an alarming-looking plant is served commonly in cuisines; the first images from Google were food images. My body suffered a mini electrocution from the shock; the fiddlehead fern looks bad compared to my overly fantasized version. The uncomfortable feeling quickly passed, however, as I eyed the fiddlehead fern closely. If this plant was a person, what kind of person would it be? Tsundere. The fiddlehead fern is a tsundere. There is no English equivalent for the Japanese word, but a tsundere is a person who is initially cold and steely, but gradually shows more of his/her warmer nature towards a person (usually someone close or the main character of a story). Arabesque Curled up, coy, all the little tentacles, hidden, afraid of the cold air’s bite; a new bundle of feathers not trained by the teachers yet. The sun rains affection day by day while the moon shines lullabies night by night. Other fronds are already entranced by the graceful music of the celestial beings. Once in a while, the breeze comes to tickle the young one’s immature limbs. Slowly, after the earth has turned multiple pirouettes, the rain exercises its loyalty, A masked king with twelve eyes and three hands slips over and asks, “May I have this dance?” The fiddleheads yawn perform a relevé extension curl their arms in second position, and join the dance. Ferns and Thorns April. 9th, 2016 8:38pm Yesterday, our English class researched our species. Both Jessica and I were browsing online, saving some sites to ponder carefully later. We had some interesting conversations yesterday. There is a literary journal called “The Fiddlehead”. I need to do some more research into that, because that appears to be a weird name for a literary journal (I think). Surprisingly, the fiddlehead is used in so, and I mean, so, many dishes! The whole time in English my stomach was growling. Maybe the fiddlehead will steer me in the culture direction first—not a bad start. I had trouble finding sites with information on how fiddleheads are portrayed in literature. Jessica’s hawthorn, conversely, appears in poetry and literature many times! She even found references of hawthorn in “King Lear”. While we were brimming with excitement, yapping about our plants, I noticed the hawthorn poems all talked about “she”. I told her to see if hawthorn had any ties with feminism (which actually gave me a new topic to approach for my own species too). Also, the book Jessica is currently reading is “The Scarlet Letter”, written by Hawthorne. What a wild coincidence. English was full of surprises yesterday. Strangely, people kept telling me how delicious fiddleheads are, but I don’t hear people talking about how delicious broccoli is (the fiddlehead is supposed to taste like broccoli and asparagus). At lunch, I went outside to see if there were any fiddleheads in our school gardens. From my browsing in class, I found that fiddleheads are nothing more than baby ferns. I’ve seen ferns around the school. But…they don’t look like fiddleheads… These are too big to be fiddleheads…I need younger ferns. I remember seeing ferns on certain streets around Gladstone too, so I tried looking for some fiddleheads there, but no luck. Literary Journal April 12th, 2016 7:41 pm The gaps between the times of entries may suggest laziness (on my part) but I have been researching and compiling a visual for the next page. Hopefully, the page will be done soon. Meanwhile, I’m not too sure what to write in this field-notebook/journal. I don’t want to go into too deep of an analysis or start writing poetry until I have the science page done because I might keep referencing one way or another to some science of ferns later in the journal. Researching about fiddleheads is actually quite hard because the species is not specific enough. I will have to find generalized information about ferns (which is harder than finding, let’s say, information on the ostrich fern). What I can do right now is learn more about the Canadian literary journal “The Fiddlehead”. I searched the website, but I couldn’t find anything that specifically talks about the species or how the literary journal was crowned such an eccentric name. As Canada’s oldest continual literary journal, there’s bound to be a great loot of works—potentially helpful to this project. I sent them an email. I hope they respond. Oh my goodness, the University of New Brunswick is in charge of this…I am very nervous. What did I just do…? Exclamation Marks!!!!!!!! April 13th, 2016 8:35 pm The class was sent on this quest with very vague instructions (how typically Guraliuk). The only specific request from Mr. Guraliuk was for the end project to be ‘highly professional’. How professional is ‘highly’, because I think I am about to make a very unprofessional response right now due to an overdose of excitement. My emotions are cranked high right now…because “The Fiddlehead” actually replied to my email. Oh. My. God! (The only reason I have refrained from using an excess of exclamation marks is so I don’t sound like a five year-old jumping up and down—I might annoy some people). RE: WHY THE FIDDLEHEAD? From: The Fiddlehead & SCL ([email protected]) Sent: Apri-13-16 11:33:52 AM To: Debbie Liang ([email protected]) Hi Debbie, The Fiddlehead was founded in 1945 by a group of UNB students and faculty, who were interested in poetry. They formed a poetry group that they named the Bliss Carman Society after the famous 19th century Canadian poet who had been from Fredericton. Each person in the Bliss Carman Society would bring the poems that they had written to the group. They would all read each other’s poem and discuss what they like about the poems and how to improve them. They would also read poetry books and do writing exercises that would help them become better poets. When they first established The Fiddlehead, they just published their own poetry in it. In the 19th century several famous Canadian poets had come from New Brunswick (Bliss Carman, Charles G. D. Roberts, and Francis Joseph Sherman) and the members of the Bliss Carman society say themselves as renewing that poetic tradition. Alfred Bailey, who was a UNB history professor and a member of the Bliss Carman society gave The Fiddlehead its name and wrote in the first issue that the magazine took its name from the fiddlehead fern: a “small plant that grows in the Saint John river valley in the spring, and which is said to be symbolic of the sun”. so the fiddlehead plant was seen as a sign of spring – a time of renewal when plants become green again – and the poets in the Bliss Carman society thought of themselves as people who were renewing a poetic tradition in New Brunswick that had first started with those famous 19th century poets. Several members of the Bliss Carman society did become well-known Canadian poets. In the 1950s, The Fiddlehead gradually became transformed – the magazine’s editors started welcoming contributions from anyone who had an interest in poetry. So people no longer had to be a member of the Bliss Carman society to be published in The Fiddlehead. In 1955 the editor wrote that : “Poets from all parts of the English-speaking world are welcomed to The Fiddlehead.” The editor also decided to sell subscriptions to The Fiddlehead, and sell it in bookstores. In 1959 The Fiddlehead bega to accept short stories as well as poetry. The Fiddlehead has now been in existence for 71 years and people from all over the world submit to it in hopes of being published in its pages and people from all over the world read The Fiddlehead. If you are interested in learning more about the history of The Fiddlehead, you should look at its page on the New Brunswick Literary History website: http//w3.stu.ca/ca/sites/nble/f/fiddleahead.html I hope that this is helpful and best of luck on your project. Yours truly, Kathryn Kathryn Taglia, Mg. Ed. The Fiddlehead and Studies in Canadian Literature / Études on littérature canadienne Campus House, 11 Garland Court PO Box 4400, Universoty of New Brunswick Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3 Canada phone: 506 453-3501 fax: 506 453-5069 email: [email protected] or [email protected] This is so exciting! I didn’t imagine them actually responding, and definitely not responding this fast! In fact, I had a dream yesterday about them not responding.