Same

I have to say I like MacNolia, as well. Initially, I liked the way that Green's pieces were constructed. I was drawn to the visual candy of dictionary definition layout. Except, after our discussion in class about the two I became more drawn to MacNolia. Jordan had similar candy but the content was less formal. I like that more. Not to mention, it means so much more when you know the concept behind his writing. Brilliant! I think it would be very hard for me to attempt Green's rules about the actual defieniton of the word. I am more about the story and the personal connection. I might try a little of MacNolia for the next assignment.

MacNolia

I loved MacNolia! I like the way it was put together as Hong decided to construct the poem in a very different way. I liked this because it brought a new type of poetry to my eyes, as I have never seen anything like this before. I loved how the poem related back to stories of her life. The way she made the poems be constructed of a theme of words. I think for my next poem i am going to write something sampled on Hong's "MacNolia" poem!
See you and Hong in class on Tuesday!
Have a good weekend!

I Liked MacNolia!!

I have to say that of the readings we had for this week, I definitely liked the poems by A. Van Jordan the best! I thought that the poetry by Cathy Park Hong was interesting, but it didn’t really hold my attention. I thought the Foreword was very interesting and it got me interested in what Hong’s poetry would be about. However, I was a bit disappointed as I read the poems. They were kind of difficult to understand and, like I said, they didn’t really keep my attention.

I liked the poems by Lohren Green a bit more, although again I felt that the Preface was interesting, but the actual poems were a bit disappointing and not quite what I expected. I liked the imagery the author used in the Preface about words. He animates them, makes them into beings that buzz, swarm, and can have a million different meanings and effects. The explanation of what he will do in his poetry is interesting; “Here words are not so much defined as they are depicted in a kind of informed portraiture, a conceptual calligraphy, a combination of lexicography and poetry” (xiv). However, I couldn’t find anything really attractive or intriguing in the poems. There wasn’t really anything to hold onto in the poem, no real way I could find to relate to what the author was sharing.

I really liked MacNolia, which I thought was interesting because it was written in a style very similar to the work by Lohren Green. However, I felt that these poems had more personal information in them, more material to relate to. I really liked the imagery and I loved that each definition included in the short excerpt we read had allusions to love; love between lovers, between language and people, etc. I also liked how the poems depicted a story and they all connected with the life of MacNolia. It was interesting how the author defined words that we use every day (like ‘from’ and ‘to’ and ‘with’) in a way that made them seem so much more than just words. These words had a much deeper significance in connection with the definition provided in the poem, (small anecdotes and beautiful imagery and language), than they would have to anyone reading a traditional dictionary definition (plain, boring, methodical, practical language). Lastly, I really liked the way Green’s poems were written, especially “afterglow” and “Wedding Night.” Reading the excerpt from Green’s work got me quite interested. I think I might look into reading the entire work!

Dada and Oulipo

I realized in class today that I forgot to post something on the blog this week, so sorry for being late everyone. I really liked reading this week's assignments and I thought the Dada and Oulipo discussion was really interesting. Throughout my class I have found my self asking what qualifies some of the poems we read even by famous poets as great poems and I thought it was interesting to hear the explanations provided by Dada and Oulipo for some of these stranger poetic techniques. For instance I have not really been a huge fan of a lot of the modern poems we read, that lack structure, and rhyme, and seem almost so abstract and obscure that I personally feel the beauty of the poetry is almost lost. After our discussion in class about what qualifies as art and how we talked about what makes a sculpture of a urinal worthy of an art museum, I felt like i understood a lot more of the modern movements. I am not sure that I am wholly convinced a urinal should ever be considered as art, but I feel that I have gained some perspective on the intention of the artist. I like the idea of having the process of creating art, become the art, rather than the final product. I really liked the activities we did in class as well. I thought they were really fun and I liked the products that we came up with as a class. Its interesting to me to think of the act of writing the poem as the truly poetic part, rather than the work created. I had never thought of poetry like this before. Well see you in class next week!

-Jenny

Group one whoop whoop!

I just wanted to say that I love our workshop time, and as a few people have already expressed, I wish it were longer. Group one has been the bomb. At first, I was really nervous about work-shopping my poems; I thought, my poems were crappy and I was embarrassed. You guys have really put me at ease and always manage to find something positive to say even in my crappiest poems. And it amazes me how you all can find so much meaning—you guys will point out stuff that I even wasn’t aware of! To find meaning in everything-- you guys will have to teach me that analytical-sleuth trick.

I’ve loved reading all of your poems as well. You guys are awesomely talented. The forms you all experiment with, the different themes--you guys are all amazing writers. I especially love the rhyming poems that some of you have come up with. I’ve never been very successful at rhyming poems, but you guys have inspired me to try my hand at it once again.

So yeah, group one rocks. See you all in class :)

Ps—Craig, at Tuesday’s workshop we all basically agreed that your last poem was especially brilliant. You’re a genius.

Bridget-2/26/09

This week I really enjoyed the Monster activity we did. I have done that with drawing pictures before but never with writing and I thought it was really entertaining. All the talk about different kind of poetry, and sound poetry made me think of this kind of poem that I don't remember whether or not we mentioned it in class...It's something with the word Unlawful and it's where you write out someone's name, like for example, the name Meg. For the first stanza you write something about Meg without using the letter M because that's the first letter in her name, and so on. All those kinds of poems take a lot of skill and time to write and it just impresses me overall whenever I read one.

I read ahead on the assignments for the next few weeks and I noticed they are getting longer. I'm getting nervous but I think work-shopping with the whole class as a whole is going to be helpful in strengthening our poem writing skills. 

Reading Dance Dance Revolution

I found my self very engaged in reading the Dance Dance Revolution reading by Cathy Park Hong. I really was intrigued by the changing from poem to prose and I though that this really moved along the story the the author was telling but kept the overall feel of the work to be poem like. I was very interested in this story and loved the blending of cultures that and languages that are used and thought that this served to enhance the poems and add mystery to the whole story.
In regards to the story being told by the author I would like to know more about what is happening. I assumed that what we were assigned to read for class was only a few selected sections from a larger work but from what I got the story is about a women who is searching for some information on her past and is attempting to do so by meeting with the tour guide who has a revolutionary past. I would very much like to look through this entire work it really sparked my interest.
Also I have been working on the 42 to 84 lines of poetry that are due next week and have been having trouble coming up with ideas. I know that we can use multiple poems to reach the assigned amount of lines but I am not sure if all of the poems we write have to be related to each other. I have really enjoyed the writing assignments for this class and an excited to see what i is like to have a full class workshop.

"Have to fly, have to fight, have to crow, have to save Maggie, have to save Jack, Hook is back"

I do have to agree with Jess, it would be nice if we could get some more time on workshops. I think it would be nice if we had enough time to allow the author of the poem read their poem to the rest of the group. I think really helps us get a feel for how the poem was supposed to be read since that is not always clear sometimes.
I also am huge fan of the little activities we do in class such as the activity of the Vilanelles and the story thing we did on Tuesday. I really think these activities not only work on our creativeness but they also really help me understand and make easier writing some of these poems.
I also found the Oulipo and Dada concept pretty confusing. At least until we did some of the exercises and explained what it actually was a little bit more. I don't know, but this Oulipo thing to me really sounded a little far fetched but I guess a pretty cool way to write something.
I did like that N+7 idea that we read about. It sounds like a really cool way to kind of change the poem around and see what we get. It is sort of like mad libs I think in a way. I also really enjoyed the discussion about what is art. It really got me thinking what art actually is. I would actually have to say that art can be anything. I really feel that it is just the way a person views something or looks at something in a particular way. Art is just someones own personal opinion and what one person considers art will be garbage to another person. So that is kind of how I feel about the what is art topic.

Workshops and Class

Sometimes I wish we got more time in class to workshop each other's works. I feel that when we only have half an hour and we were expecting to get 60 minutes, we tend to feel rushed, and try to get through all four in less time and maybe the poets feel gypped? Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd like to have a relaxed workshop, where we can hear the poet read their work. Who knows? Maybe we could have gotten to the bottom of why Chelsea is such a horn-dog perv. ;) Just kidding, Chels.

Oh well, I digress.

Anyway, like Kevin, I really enjoyed doing the Exquisite Monster: whenever I play that game it always lends itself to great results. I suggest doing it next time you have a good group of people around. You don't have to time it, and I find a more fun version is:
Everyone starts with a piece of paper and they write a common staying, or song lyric, or random sentence on it. Then the next person gets the saying and has to draw a picture of it. Then they fold the paper so you can only see the drawing. Then the next person has to write what they think the drawing is of. Repeat until the person gets their paper back (too many people make this game go one forever).

Anyway, maybe I'm a huge dork, but exquisite monster (as well as pictionary, charades, and cranium) is one of my friends' and mine staple when we get together for a party at home.

See you on Thursday!

~~Jess Young

"Art" and the Dada Movement

I thought what we went over in class today was very interesting. The whole idea of what is art and what isn't art is always a big argument, one in which I'm not quite sure upon which side I stand at times. I see the idea of the urinal sculpture as "art" to be true, because (to link it to our homework) he was taking something familiar and placing it in an unfamiliar setting. This piece of art causes the viewer to see something in a way they usually don't (such as seeing this urinal as a "mini-waterfall producing machine"), and it promotes the viewer to think - a very key aspect, in my opinion, that practically all art contains. However, the paintings where it looks like someone took three paint cans and threw them at the canvas, well, I'm going to need some convincing to see that as art.
Another thing I found really interesting was related to our readings. The movements, like the Dada movement, created some very cool rules for poets to follow. The "N+7" type of poem was a neat idea, and with dictionaries sometimes containing different words, it makes the poem like a puzzle. However, while the idea behind it is cool, they sure are difficult to read and sometimes not too enjoyable. The "exquisite corpse" game was a fun way to learn about another interesting technique to creating poetry, and as with all the exercises we've been doing in class, there were definitely some unique results.

Book Review-Bridget

Poems For A Son With Wings is a collection of American and English Poetry, by Robert P. Tristram Coffin. It's a rather old book I found while searching through the library. This book is interesting in that the author has found over a hundred poems and put them together in a book and dedicated it to his "winged son." This seems to be an ongoing motif or theme throughout the book. The author is truly sending a message to his son, and it is most evident in the first poem, entitled This Day My Son Puts On His Wings. This poem is clearly written from a father to his son on the day he releases him into the world on his own. To relate this to modern day, I could see a parent reading this poem to their child on the day they go to college or graduate from high school where the age old saying, "spread your WINGS and fly" cliche graduation quote comes from.  This poem obviously presents this message in a classier tone

Wear your wings, young citizen, 

Out of the flat world that has been

Into the new world which is round, 

Which man can travel fast as sound

This father is acknowledging his son as an important member of society now, and of the educated world. He years for his son to be a part of our ever moving forward world.

No peaks, no valleys, no high or low

Your high and young blue eyes shall know.

Open your wings, son, and go fast

Over a brotherly world at last.

This father is proud of his son and truly believes he is ready for life ahead, and that no obstacle can possibly stand in his way of success.  

This book is full of poems that could be written from a parent to their child, with a focus on a father-son relationship.  Not all poems have a joyous tone, some are extremely sad actually. The poems also vary in length of lines, style and tone.  Some are long and sad, short and happy, rarely do they rhyme.  Most have enjambed lines, but the punctuation makes it easy to follow. For example of this on one of the rare rhymed poems (Rest):

The boy went down the meadow towards the evening,

Shadows of haystacks reached across the world,

The night-hawks from the high small clouds of Summer

Fell in a lovely sound of wings and whirled.

I enjoy this poem because the rhymed language as well as how the lines flow from one to the next make it extremely enjoyable to read and makes me imagination run wild with all of the imagery as the story builds! I love how the author rhymes whirled with world because they sound so similar. I wish I could rewrite the whole poem here but that would take too much space...worth the read though.

Although not all of the poems have to do directly with a son growing up, they have something to do with time and change. For example, Brief Flowering has to do with the seasons changing....Here are some lines from each of the four stanzas which represent a season:

Days grow, the frosted silver suns

Sail longer through the sky...

....

Icivles weep along the eaves

And into diamonds flower...

...

Soon groundhogs will be up and see...

...

Such petals the last breath can uproot...

...The duskier flowers of May

The book ends with a poem called, The Lights Go On. This poem is about a long and tiresome journey that has finally come to an end.  It again does not have to do with a father and son directly, but rather about life in general, the journies life brings one on, etc., which is what a father prepares his son for anyway.

William Wordsworth's The Prelude is an incredible philosophical "book" of poetry. It is not that long, concluding within about 200-300 pages. The piece is undoubtedly one of Wordsworth first, and arguably last, heavily developed, descriptive poems. Although that isn't to say that Wordsworth isn't philosophical in all his pieces, The Prelude was in many ways prompted by Wordsworth's friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who felt that Wordsworth's greatest thoughts should be developed into one piece; because it is a (well) prelude, the piece in itself reflects something about Wordsworth's character. In never developing the actual piece itself (considering he stopped after the prelude), he never fufilled Coleridge's desire. This is, biographically, where the two diverged; while Wordsworth enjoyed dabbling in philosophy, Coleridge was practically consumed by it.

Turning to the piece itself, The Prelude is written in blank verse and with very long, continuous stanzas. In writing the piece with such a flexible form, Wordsworth is able to take his reader back through time and back through his life. Starting with his youth, Wordsworth centers upon what does it mean to interact with nature. He reflects upon a particular moment of his youth when iceskating. After spinning and spinning upon the lake, suddenly the world around him blurs. He cannot see, he cannot hear, and the world which so often orientates him falls away. It is at this moment that Wordsworth draws on the importance of both human perception/sensation, and the mind itself. Although two separate powers, each is needed in order to rationalize life.

As the poem progresses, so does Wordsworth's age. Leaving iceskating and frolicking behind, Wordsworth addresses his adolescence and time in the city (at the university). He demonstrates his mind's longing for nature, for order, for escape. However, he also describes his original excitement at arriving at Cambridge and how one's entrance into a new and potentially promising experience has an ability to excite in us ambition and optimism. It is in this section, I believe, that Wordsworth best paints a realistic picture of humanity. He does not approach Cambridge (in his life) as a linear occurrence (as our memories often lead us into doing). Instead, W. is able to remember and integrate all dimensions of his time there. While in some senses it was a limiting experience, in others it was exciting and expansive.

The poem progresses through numerous periods in Wordsworth's life, and the piece is in many senses biographical. It was almost impossible for Coleridge to convince Wordsworth to write it because of how egotistical biographical-writers were perceived to be at the time. This was in no way a literary norm. However, I feel that one can get a lot out of it both in terms of its biographical material and its poetic elements. Wordsworth allows us- nay, draws us into his past and present. Through complicated syntax and vocabulary and an ever-changing form, W. begs his reader to interact and read closely in order to derive anything from The Prelude. It is in no way an easy piece, and I'd venture to argue it's one of the most difficult one could read. Sure, the narrative is comprehensive, however, to extract the psychological, natural philosophy from it is very difficult. The Prelude, is therefore amongst my strongest recommendations.

Book Review on Sylvia Plath

For the Book Review assignment I chose to read "The Colossus and Other Poems" by Sylvia Plath. I don't know much about Sylvia Plath, only that she wrote "The Belljar", killed herself, and wrote one of my favorite poems, "Mad Girls' Love Song". I love this poem with a passion, so I decided to check out a book of hers and look into her other poetry.

"The Colossus and Other Poems" is a mix of different type of poems. Her poetry sometimes rhymes, sometimes doesn't, sometimes has a lot of enjambment, sometimes end-stops, sometimes her poems are short, and sometimes are long, etc… I found her poetry very enjoyable to read, albeit a little disturbing. She often writes of death, but even when that isn’t the main theme of the poem, I’ve noticed there’s always a hint of morbidity, pain, or sadness. All her poems also have a dream-like/surrealistic feel to them. The diction she uses is artful, and she has a lot of great phrase combinations, but at the same time, though the words sound good together, you’re not sure that you quite grip her meaning. The tone of the poem is more understandable, and after reading, you sort of think you know what she was talking about, but you’re not sure how to put it into words. For example, this excerpt is from her poem “Hardcastle Crags”:

Once past
The dream-peopled village, he eyes enter-
tained no dream,
And the sandman’s dust

Lost luster under her footsoles.
The long wind, paring her person down
To a pinch of flame, blew its burdened
whistle
In the whorl of her ear, and like a scooped-out
pumpkin crown
Her head cupped the babel.

Nature is also a theme in almost every single one of the poems in the book. She often has lots of descriptive images of animals, pastures, trees, the sea, etc. These images are sometimes beautiful and sometimes disturbing. All in all, “Colossus” is a short book of poetry that does make for an enjoyable read, but I’d recommend reading it when you’re feeling particularly angst-ridden or sad, only because that state of being might make Plath’s poem a bit more relatable and understandable.

Let’s talk about Milton’s Paradise Lost. Of course, it is not so much a book of poetry as it is a number of books of poetry, but I didn’t think I would be begrudged examining one of the sections for this assignment. Obviously, Milton’s tradition is that of Homer and Virgil, the great epic poets. I had read somewhere that what the two classical poets had began, that being the forms associated with the epic poem, Milton perfected. I had read poetry before I read Milton, sure. We had all glanced down the two roads that diverge and so on and so forth. But here we cross into the sublime. What is a more epic setting than the battlegrounds between heaven and hell? Please feel free to struggle at finding an answer. I have time. The poem itself is written in iambic pentameter, that classical form chosen to permeate all the great works that have come before our time. The elegance of his verse is unmatched, at least to this fledgling poet, and the incredible beauty of his language stays with you long after you finish reading. They say Milton cast himself in the Satan’s lot when he wrote the poem, and I must agree. He had to have sold his soul to produce something this good. Unlike in other poems, here we can find a rich narrative that leads you through a story populated with some of the most human characters in all of literature. I think what makes the poem so unique is its ability to take divinity and run it through the mud and still have you captivated the whole time.
Satan’s struggle in the text is decidedly human one. He struggles with his own humanity, his emotions and his weaknesses, as he attempts to throw his rebellion in the face of his creator. Ever the whining teenager, Satan is still shaped by Milton into a charismatic and interesting individual. I think the greatest strength of the work is its ability to turn us, the reader, against our more traditional notions of right and wrong. We do not ally ourselves with God or his son, but rather with the fallen who have given up their place in heaven to find something they could call their own. I know this is lacking in more traditional analysis, but I find myself unable to really dedicate any attention beyond my own personal experience. Milton’s verse is long, breathtakingly beautiful; a true demonstration of the sublime at work in art. There are so few examples left anymore. We cherish the brevity of art because we assume our schedules won’t allow for real appreciation of anything longer. It’s a damn tragedy.

Assignment 4 Book Review

The book that I chose to read is called "How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love."  This book written by Ethelbert Miller explores many of the problems that African Americans face in this world.  He also describes like the title points out, his thoughts about love, and stories, in poem form, about his life.  

Miller does an amazing job of writing about love.  Many of the poems are very similar in the fact that they are short and sweet, but send a powerful message to the reader.  An example of this is an untitled poem that goes as follows.  "I've been

kissing

your eyes 

to long

haven't 

your 

lips 

noticed?

What I love about this technique is that line by line is taking you through his thought process.  He often points out a single part of the woman he loves, if it is her hair, her lips, her eyes etc.  and like above he comes up with a clever way to show his affection to it.  His words are obviously very thought out and romantic.  Another technique he uses to describe some of his powerful relationships are analogies.  One is called "Drummers."  When you first read the title you actually think it will be about a drummer but the words are talking about a drum like it is his heart.  

Miller does not just use these analogies to talk about love.  He writes a poem called "Toothpaste" where he brilliantly compares the position of lying on the couch after dinner to the shape of a toothpaste bottle.  Than he ends the poem by saying " I like to brush, after every meal."  Miller uses these analogies in this playful way but also to point out many issues that are serious to him.  

Miller writes poems that concern the racism that he has suffered as an African American man.  The poems that take on a more serious note seem to be longer.  He tells these poems like stories.  There is a central theme and he ends by writing an analogy that relates back to this theme.  This is exemplified in the middle of his group of poems where he talks about his best friend Omar.  He explains how Omar is a great reader but he tells also how they like to get on eachother's nerves.  He ends this poem by saying how he poked fun at Omar and while runnin away "I turn the corner, as fast as Omar, can turn a page."  

After reading Miller's poems I felt that I got to know him.  While seeing that he had a consistent style of intertwining analogies in his poems the biggest thing that stood out was that he did not hold back.  Miller shares his secrets, life stories, through these poems.  Each poem is obviously well thought up.  Some poems are only three lines but mean so much.  "How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love" is pointing out through the title how we as individuals use this time to ourselves to reflect on our days and lives.  He gives this poem and then gives us his important thoughts through his work.  

I chose to read a book called Three Women Poets, these poems were selected and translated by Frank J. Warnke. the book chose three authors, and Italian poet named Gasapara Stampa, a French poet named Louise Labe, and a Mexican poet named Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. All three authors come from two successful ages in poetry otherwise known as the Renaissance and the Baroque.
Louise's poetry is known to be "strait forward" but the effectiveness of strait forwardness and the direct emotions has made her an accomplished rhetorician and self conscious writer. She is a poetic master of Petrarch, in a conventional sense. Louise's influence is inspirational, subtle and intellectual. Her poems written earlier in the book are very similar to the complex art of Sceve, and the work is "entirely free of Platonism." Even though that some of her poems were similar to poems of sceve, I found there to be many poems similar to other french poets.
The use of art in Gasapara's poetry is one of the common themes in her poems. the turmoil of sexual love in her poetry is brought through the variety and inconsistency. In many of her poems throughout this book Gasapara is able to take great, complex, lyrical poems and modify them in such a way that was expressive of a female situation and sensibility.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was a true Baroque poet who was classified as hyperbole. Her poems involve many qualities such as, philosophical profundity and complexity, psychological astuteness (relations to sexes), and mystery of ornate decoration, paradox and irony, wordplay, conceit, hyperbole, general extravagance of language, dramatic immediacy, and "wit" (playfulness to cosmic perception or resemblances among the apparently dis familiar. In her poems "Este qoe ves, engano colorido" or Rosa divina que en gentil cultura" she was able to use a poetic characterisic otherwise known as range which also contradict and limit the of human knowledge, for example in her poem "acusa la hidropesia de mucha ciencia."
All of the poems in this book I found to be very emotional and have very similar ties between the three authors. Even though Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was from a different era of accomplished poetry I found there to be many similarities between the two renaissance writers, Louise and Gasapara. The themes tensions and motifs of each and every poem written by the writer seemed to be about love, hatred, inequality, betrayal, beauty and life. Sometime while I was reading the translations of their poetry I found my self thinking of the Bluebeard poems in the beginning of the semester which dealt with the issue of betrayal, love, life and death. The three author sprouted in a time of purity, love, and life so I didn't see much betrayal or death. At the end of reading these types of poems I wasn't left with any unanswered questions or conclusions. However, I did find that I was able to relate myself to many of these poems and at times I found that to be very comforting.

The following is a recommendation to you! (Winter With Crows by Peter Blue Cloud)

I sit down. What shall this poem be about? I could write about my interests. Who wants to read a poem about running? How could I create an abstract poem about running that is romantic? I could also write about nature. That’s too cliché. Nature poems intimidate me. I have begun to stray away from nature because of its overuse. I felt that nature was too typical of poetry. I am fearful of my natural themed poems sounding too banal.

After playing inny meenie miny moe, for an hour in the bookstore, in the Brewer Bookstore I decided to purchase Winter With Crows by Peter Blue Cloud over Tess Gallagher’s Portable Kisses. (I am planning on asking for Gallagher’s book all about kisses for my birthday.) Portable Kisses, a book of poems strictly about “the kiss” includes poems with the following titles: Stubborn Kiss, Generic Kiss, Portable Kiss, Anatomy of a Kiss, The Kiss Joins the CIA, The Kiss Eats a Loaf of Bread, and many more. Peter Blue Cloud, sketches one theme, winter, through his collection of poems. I am interested in the way I can use these two authors to help my work as a poet. Gallagher’s poems can teach me how to take a simple idea or object and break it down. I could use a sneaker or running and make complex all that goes into this simple idea. Peter Blue Cloud has helped me to see how nature can be romantic without being cheesy. Winter Sketches, Winter Food, Winter Crows, Winter Snow, Winter Fire, Winter Song, Winter Dancer, and a few more, all by Cloud, are very short poems, which represent different aspects of winter in a very refreshing way. After reading a few of these eight line poems of simplicity one can only breathe it in. I can’t explain how it is to read such a short and meaningful poem. Cloud uses few and simple words to communicate a beautiful picture. I enjoy the shortness of these few in his book. I sometimes struggle with the length of our assignments. I wish to leave subtly without saying much, but meaning more. My words catch up to me and there is not beauty in my rambling words.

The following is a recommendation to you! (Winter With Crows by Peter Blue Cloud)

His words are simple and delicate yet portray meaning that leaves the reader just about breathless by its beauty. Don’t be shied away from this romantic sounding book. Not being a fan of overly romantic poems, Cloud captured my attention and held it throughout this representation of nature. His words create a relationship between the author and the reader without any previous association. If you are unfamiliar with Northern winters, Peter Blue Cloud will fill you in. If you lack the awareness of nature, in general, Peter Blue Cloud will help open you up to mother earth in Winter With Crows.
Commencing from Peter Blue Clouds Mohawk background, he takes this symbolic animal, the crow, and tells a story of its importance. The crow is considered a “trickster” of the Nations. The bird of humor assists in narrating the Nations traditions of society. This is seen most clearly in the third and final section of Winter With Clouds. “White Corn Sister” is a play of voices which speaker one and two, the medicine man, the hunter, the woman and the clan mother all share a separate perspective and piece in the poem.
Cloud presents his poems with an equal division between verse and prose. The enjambment, short lines, many commas, little periods, and no apparent rhyme scheme creates an initial hesitation. Yet only after a few lines, the reading of Cloud’s pieces is like marching to a drum. He uses more of the Mohawk tradition, drumming, as a way to progress his poems forward. Although, Cloud has a tradition of his own, the poems, and his own background, I would compare his work to E.E. Cummings, specifically, “Next to of course god America i.” Specifically in this poem of Cummings’, he like Cloud uses enjambment and also a choppy structured. Although it may take some getting used to, this tradition has a purpose behind. The two men are portraying personal issues that are relative in their form. A reader will pick up on the popular lines from Cummings as the choppy wording in some of Cloud’s work resembles the language of his background. His purpose is to give the reader a taste of his history and differences in language.
The ending of this book contains the longest poem of many voices unique to the Mohawk community. This closes the book very well, by continuing the theme yet also including all of the concerns. The medicine man and the hunter like all the members have different perspectives in the village. The clan mother helps to resolve these concerns and portrays the importance of Mohawk heritage, “that a Nation lives.” I cannot find any issues that I would advise being left out or altered. The topic is very narrow which may be repellent to some, but the history is important to Cloud. I believe his representation in such a romantic way is entertaining, informing and enjoyable for those who can relate directly, yet also to those who are first to be informed.

Assignment 4: Book Review

For assignment number four I chose the book Strangers by David Ferry. I found this book to be a very interesting book of poems. The poems in this book are very intriguing, and the majority of the writings in this book are poems that deal with feelings of intimacy and familiarity. What makes this a very interesting book to read besides the fact he is telling a story along the way is that in his poems when he talks about these familiar things (usually daily activities) and spins them into a sort of unfamiliar world. I feel that in this unfamiliar world he has created in these poems, he is relating back to his own life and his experiences in the world. He starts off the book, at what I presume to be his Father's tomb. Then as he goes on, he writes the next few poems about what he does after he visited the tomb. The next few poems then go on to describe these activities he did after he visited his Father. What is interesting is that in these poems from his daily activities, is that he relates these activities to things that we can never predict or know. Such as he is at the bus stop and sees this old lady on the bus and asks himself if death can take him. Ferry then goes on and ends this poem by saying the bus went away it took the old lady away. I feel that this shows he is really trying to say throughout this book is that death comes sudden and we cannot predict when we are going to die. After he describes his events after the tomb visit he then almost switches to what is seems like a time before his Father died. Here is where he describes simple daily activities of others, and himself. This is where I feel he is describing things in life that make him happy and these are some of the events that lead up to his Father's eventual death by cancer just before the end of the book. Then, Ferry, begins to gear his poems in the next section towards memories of his Father and Great Grand Father. Which in turn eventually lead up to where he arrives at the graveyard of his Father's tomb. He then ends his last poem with the stanza
What is going to be in this place?
A person entering a room?
Saying something? A Signaling?
Writing a formula on the blackboard
Something not to be understood
I feel that this last stanza really grasps the theme Ferry was reaching for in this book. I think that is we never know what is going to happen in the future, death is uncertain, and we have no way of knowing what comes after death. It is just something that is not understood nor will it ever probably be understood. These poems in this book I feel help us confront the unknowns of our familiar everyday life.
In this book David Ferry has a very interesting style of writing. The majority of poems are very similar to that of free verse and haiku. This also means that his style of writing consists of short (some incomplete) sentences and short poems. What I found particularly intriguing about David Ferry's poems is that they all are very unpredictable from poem to poem and this I realized really helped me keep reading through this book to find out exactly what message and story he is trying to tell in this book.

Assignment 4: Book Review

The book I chose for this assignment was The Breaking of the Day, by Robert Davidson. Before reading this book, I had never read or heard of Davidson, and actually I only happened to find his book on the shelf by chance. Although I was unfamiliar with him as a poet, I did enjoy reading his work and would thoroughly recommend it to others. The title of his book was taken from the Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel "and Jacob was left alone: and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day." The poems included within this book, especially the final seven concluding poems in the last section, address the idea of wrestling with concepts within your self. The majority of the poems have as their theme the idea of self introspection and the inner struggle towards identity and self recognition. However, all of the poems contain a moment of encounter, and then opposition a greater struggle with the self, love, emotion, ambition, or even race. These unresolved struggles, and battles with the self leave the reader with many unresolved questions and ambiguous answers. 

Formally, the structures of the poems overall seem to differ slightly from poem to poem. Many are in unrhymed free verse, although some do have simple rhyme schemes. Overall the poems are consistently short, they generally last for no longer than 30 lines with no poems shorter than 10 lines. There is however, a variety of the length and structure of the lines with the piece from poem to poem. Within each poem they remain consistent, but from one poem to the next they can vary from mid-sentence enjambment to completely end-stopped lines. Several of the poems have lengthy and wordy lines, while more commonly others use multiple lines to convey phrases and ideas. The Breaking of the Day was Davidson's first published collection of poems and it received the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. The variety of techniques used by Davidson very well could have been a result of  him playing with technique and structure early in his career, before settling into his own typical style of writing. 

Many of the poems within this book are very deep and introspective. They are complex and the ideas behind them are vague and difficult to wholly grasp. Other poems are descriptions and images of nature and emotions and feel very applicable and relatable to any audience. My favorite poem from the collection is Late Summer Love Song, a simple poem describing the feel of summer love. I think its description and tone is very effective at portraying the lightness and freedom of both love and summer. 

Late Summer Love Song 

The evening's first cricket

Shrank from your passage

As your feet whispered

Past where he pastured.

Now the sun steals

A last look through the orchard

Where you lie low, 

Fragrant in meadow.

 

Hear my blood welcome you,

Giddy with gratitude

For what shall pass

In the intricate grass. 

Late Summer Love Song, was very different from the typical struggles portrayed in this collection. In particular the last 7  poems of the book show the conflicted struggle of self that is intended to mirror Jacob's struggles as he wrestles with the angel. The last poems in the collection seem to resolve the book as a whole, and tie the hole collection together. In particular I like that the last line's the audience reads from the whole book, sum up it's greater theme. "I shall never know myself/Enough to know what things I half believe/And, half believing, only half deny." I loved the last lines, and found them to be very impressive and in a sense, they almost tempted me to read the collection all over again just to see what I may have missed. 

I think there are many things a young writer could choose to emulate from Davidson's work. This is his first publication and earliest work and it's nice as a young writer to see his direction and ability to let himself flow freely between structures and subjects for his works. His success at experimentation shows that it isn't truly necessary to pigeon-hole yourself into a genre and style of poetry early in your career to be successful, but rather by moving freely and creatively you can produce better work. So many poets seem to have a brand and style that is particularly and uniquely "theirs" and it seems encouraging to a young writer who is still experimenting and learning that even successful poets continue to change and develop their style and work and they weren't just born with their particular technique just up their sleeve. 

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Davidson's work and I would definitely read other poems by him. I think Breaking of the Day is  a collection of poems many people would like and enjoy. It contains such a variety of depth and intensity within its subjects that I think there is something that every audience could truly relate to, including everything from the abstract and introspective to the more tangible beauty of nature. 

Assignment #4 Book Review

For my book review I choose a book of poems by Stanley Moss titled "Skull of Adam." The book includes 42 poems by Moss divided up into four different chapters. Through reading the poems in this collection it is clear that Moss does have a specific style and that many of the poems are very similar to one another. For instance Moss writes almost entirely in free verse. The line lengths in his poems vary widely and I could find very few lines where a rhythm could be detected. Most of the poems in this book are very similar in length to one another however lines and groups of lines are divided using many different methods. Some of the poems have no division while others are divided by divided into segments broken up by Roman Numerals.
The majority of these poems are written in the first person and all give the feeling that the author is the narrator and these poems are his personal thoughts on life. Two of the poems included in this book, one called "On Seeing an X-Ray of my head" and "Vomit" are very clearly reflections of incidents in the authors life and how these times made him think and feel. In a way because of this these poems become predictable because they are all stories and thoughts from this mans life and they all are about whatever the title states. Poems such as "Janes Grandmother", "The Frog", or "The Dog" are examples of this all including scenes featuring the person or animal referred to in their title.
The diction of the poems in this book are often formal however this is not always the case and the vocabulary is well in the range of the average reader. These poems are enjoyable to read and in many cases include vivid imagery however they can be very depressing and often include descriptions and metaphors of death. This feeling of death and loss pervades this book and there are also frequent religious references and poems centered upon God and others which speak of other religious figures such as Buddha. Even the books title "Skull of Adam" seems to refer to both death as well as religion. To add to the somber mood of these poems in several of these poems the author appears to be looking back on his childhood and times of adolescence and in these poems there is an especially bittersweet feeling also creating a feeling of loss. Aside from the format of these poems growing predictable and the some what depressing I did enjoy many of these poems and would recommend them to anyone who has an interest in reading poetry. If I were to speak with this author I would like to ask him about his poem "Poem Before Marriage". This poem really struck me and features many metaphors such as a seagull and a turtle and I would really like to know the authors reason for titling this piece "Poem Before Marriage". Unlike all of the other poems in this book where the titles are evident in the poem this one is a mystery and was my favorite poem in this book.

Review of “You Come Too” by Robert Frost

I do not consider any one poet my favorite, but I have to say that Robert Frost is definitely one of my favorites. I have read many of his poems (a few specific ones multiple times) and I really enjoy them. Reading “You Come Too” was a fun experience for me; it put some of my favorite Frost poems in context, combining some of Frost’s best known poems with poems of his that I had never read. The common themes, patterns and poetic style within much of Frost’s poetry became very evident, allowing me to become more familiar with Frost’s style and to better understand some of his unique techniques as a poet. “You Come Too” is a very accessible and easy to read collection of poems. Anyone who appreciates poetry will enjoy this collection, in my opinion.

Frost himself chose the poems for this book, selecting poems that lend themselves to being read aloud. Though he struggled as a young author, facing rejection from publishers and magazines throughout his life, he finally found success. He chose the poems to include in this volume later in his life, when he had achieved some fame and success in the world of poetry. “You Come Too” is a collection of quite a variety of Frost’s poetry, from his well known poems like “The Road Not Taken” to lesser known poems like “The Birthplace” and “A Passing Glimpse.” It includes fun and lighthearted poetry, as well as deeper, serious and powerful poetry—a little something for everyone.

As for the style of poetry found within “You Come Too,” the majority of the poems within Frost’s collection have a clear rhyme scheme and meter—none are written in blank verse. There is no harsh enjambment or prose poetry included in this volume, as these are not typical characteristics of Frost’s poetry. The poems are all very structured. Reading this volume would likely be quite helpful for anyone who is trying to grasp the concepts of meter and rhyme scheme. Frost provides many clear examples of these important technical poetic concepts and consistently uses both in his poetry; many examples of iambic pentameter and iambic tetrameter can be found, as well as rhyme schemes such as abba, cddc…, aabbccdd…, abcb, defe…, all of which are repeatedly used by Frost). Many of his poems are concise and include much nature imagery (both notable characteristic of Frost’s poetry), while others are longer narrative style poems, relating short stories (such as in “Death of a Hired Man,” for example). “You Come Too” offers a great variety of poems that is enjoyable to read, but also effective in demonstrating important poetic techniques and styles that students may be struggling to grasp.

There were various things about this collection of poems that I really liked: Firstly, the book was broken up into sections containing about 5-10 poems in each section. Each section was titled with a verse from one of the poems within that section. For instance, the first section was entitled “I’m going out…” (part of one line from the poem “The Pasture”), and the last section was entitled “I took the one less traveled by…” (a line from “The Road Not Taken”). However, these titles also had significance in that they alluded to the common theme uniting the poems within that section. The section called “The woods are lovely, dark and deep…” contained poems associated with the woods, including “Birches” (one of my favorite Frost poems) and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Another section, called “Men work together…” includes poems like “Mending Wall” (another of my favorite Frost poems) and “The Tuft of Flowers,” both of which provide commentary on the relationships and interactions between people. This way of dividing the book made a lot of sense and grouped the poems together by common theme.

Secondly, I love the fact that many of the poems within this collection have an apparent meaning, but have a figurative meaning hiding behind it. Noel Perrin, the author of the foreword of this edition of “You Come Too,” comments that many of Frost’s poems “work on two levels at once. They are therefore especially good for reading aloud to children, because there’s a level each for parent and for child.” The fact that there is both a literal and figurative level to the majority of Frost’s poems is one aspect of his writing style that makes his poetry so appealing. In my opinion, Frost’s nature imagery evokes much more than simply visions of elaborate landscapes and natural beauty. Some of the insight he offers within his poetry is applicable in many ways to our everyday lives. His poem “A Passing Glimpse” is a great example of this:

I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren’t:
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt-

Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth-
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

The last line of this poem is so powerful and relevant to life, not simply nature. There is certainly a larger metaphor at work here! (Check out “Mending Wall,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Birches” or “Hyla Brook” to for more examples of this aspect of Frost’s poetry.)

Thirdly, I like Frost’s use of language. He uses simple diction, simple rhyme and simple meter, yet creates incredibly elaborate and impressive poetry. After reading this volume of his work, it is hard not to appreciate this aspect of his poetry. He is an outstanding author and has an amazing way of describing things in a way that is understandable and can be appreciated by the reader.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading “You Come Too” and I feel I gained a better understanding and appreciation for Frost’s poetry through reading this collection. Although at times the nature theme addressed repeatedly by Frost got a bit redundant, the collection as a whole offered a great variety of poems and kept me reading. It is a pretty easy read with some familiar poems and some refreshing glimpses of less familiar material. The overall tone of the collection is very relaxing and calm; it was almost soothing to read “You Come Too.” This collection could be used effectively both as a teaching/learning tool, a model for one’s own poetic aspirations, a literary work to share with children, or a volume of poems to simply read and enjoy alone. I highly recommend this collection of Frost’s poetry!

Assignment 4 - Book Review

Review of Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong
I chose to read Hong’s book of poetry because we will hear her read when she comes for the Writer’s Series in March. I figured that it would be nice to read something she’s written ahead of time. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
The plot of Dance Dance Revolution is the story of The Guide (who is bald due to an unknown illness). The Guide was born in South Korea and helped lead the 1980 Kwangju rebellion against Chun Du-Hwan’s military rule. After spending time in a penal colony, she moved to “The Desert,” which is made up of theme hotels modeled on other cities (think Vegas). After working as a housekeeper, she eventually becomes a tourist guide, at which point the Historian comes to interview her. Early on we learn that the Historian’s father was The Guide’s lover before he met the Historian’s mother. The poems mostly consist of literal translations of what The Guide has told to the Historian (the Historian has also added footnotes to help inform the reader of their surroundings). Interspersed throughout her conversations, however, are parts of the Historian’s memoir, which helps us understand a little bit more about who the Historian is. The Historian attended various boarding schools, witnessed civil war in Sierra Leone, and has a difficult relationship with his father (as does the Guide with hers).
The most challenging part of reading this book of is getting through the language that The Guide (and other residents of The Desert) speaks. The language is an “amalgam of some three hundred languages and dialects…a rapidly evolving lingua franca. The language, while borrowing the inner structures of English grammar, also borrows from existing and extinct English dialects” (18). Here are some translations given to us by the Historian:
1. Dimfo me am in.
Let me tell you about him.
2. Burblim frum’ im
He said
3. Wit blodhued mout,
with his read mouth (or bloody mouth)
4. G’won now, shi’bal bato
Leave, you homosexual son of a baboon.
5. So din he lip dim clout.
So then he punched him in the mouth
6. Bar goons hoistim off. Exeunt.
Security escorted him out of the bar. (18-19).
This entire book of poetry was written like this, except for when we get interjected work from the Historian. Critics have acclaimed this book as “a wholly original meditation on the evolution of the English language, on what shared experience means in a globalized world, and on the nature of revolution” (front jacket cover). However, I had a hard time following just the plot while having to “translate” what The Guide was saying. What should have taken me less than two hours to read took me two days, and I often found myself reading out loud to myself as I tried to figure out what The Guide was supposed to sound like. Some words are easy to figure out, but I feel that overall, the important message Hong is trying to convey gets lost. I’ve heard that people who enjoyed Dante’s Inferno will find Revolution this akin in structure and dram

I think hearing Hong come to speak, and hearing her read the words of The Guide could be helpful in helping me look at the poems in a new light. I don’t have a problem reading a poem in a different language. “Words in my Mother Tongue” was difficult to read, but the poet gave us a “key” to work with. Hong really gives us nothing.

I do not recommend this book unless you are looking for a book of poems that will take you hours to comprehend (and maybe at the end, you still won’t totally understand what just happened).
Jess Young

Assignment #4: Poetry Book Review

For this assignment, I decided to read Stephen Crane’s “The Black Riders.” Stephen Crane is my favorite poet, and this book does a great job of showing how unique his style of poetry is.

Being a self-proclaimed author of “lines,” not poems, his works are written entirely in free verse and rarely have a specific meter. However, there are often a lot of vivid images and metaphors in his work that push it beyond being a couple of normal sentences. His style usually consists of short, enjambed lines that are set up like narratives. From some of his poems, I almost get the feeling that they’re old fairy tales or fables.

What I enjoy the most about his poetry is that his poems often require the reader to really think about what he is saying with his use of metaphor. As critic Ruth Miller once put it, Crane writes “poetry that stimulates the mind rather than arouses the heart.” Often the poem’s metaphor will reveal Crane’s (rather bleak) look on life and an interesting perspective on a common topic. He often writes about war, religion, and the nature of man, and is not afraid to poke fun at the hypocrisy and outrageousness of them.

In “The Black Riders,” Crane’s poems are not listed by titles; they are instead listed by roman numerals from I (one) to LXVIII (sixty-eight). The book opens in a grand way with the first poem describing the “Black Riders” rushing towards battle, and the book’s first poem ends on the line “Thus the ride of sin,” which does a fantastic job of setting the tone for the rest of the book. Not only is the topic of war introduced, but also the idea of religion and war being sinful.

One of my favorite poems from the book is “III.” At first I did not understand it, but after pondering it for some time, I came to the realization that Crane was pointing out how humans often do things quite harmful to themselves, and that even though they are aware of it, they foolishly continue their habit.

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, beastial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter – bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”

However, I have seen multiple different ideas as to what the poem is about, which I think is an awesome feature about his writing; multiple people can interrupt it in so many different ways. Some say that this poem is above love, how you can love someone so much that it hurts, like you’ve exposed your hear to them, but since loving someone and exposing your heart to them leaves you open to extreme hurt, it is bitter at the same time. Another could say that if you have a good heart, you are loved are surrounded by those you love, but this creature is an outcast, hence why his heart tastes bitter, because there is no one to share love with out in the desert.

For anyone looking for thought provoking, short and concise poetry in a narrative-style, I highly suggest Stephen Crane’s “The Black Riders.” His poems offer a unique, eye opening view on some of the most common things in life.

Assignment 4: Group Poems!

All in favor of doing group poems?
I really enjoyed the writing assignment we did in class today. We are all so creative, individually and collaboratively. Entertaining results.
I'd like to admit that I had no idea how to write in iambic pantameter before. The acticity really helped. Sometimes you have those class exercises that are completely worthless. You know? Where you ask yourself, why did we just do that. This was not the case. When we were finished, I thought to myself, "hmmm...How productive!" Now when I write in such a formal way, I can say, "hmmm...I am educated, this is right, real and you should obey me." (I don't think iambic pantameter is my first choice, but just in case I do!) If some of you are still struggling, just clap it out!

I really enjoyed the whole idea of workshop groups. Today, I was able to receive really good criticism about my poem. I have gotten very used to classmates reading my work even though I still get nervous. I wrote Assignment #2 on a very person topic which also made the poem hard to share. Once I read it aloud and received comments about the assignment I realized that overall people enjoyed it.
With the reactions I received I know what to tweak and add to my poem. I found it ironic how my workshop group mentioned that I should add the struggles about weight lose. I was expecting that reaction because the struggling part about my weight lose battle was nonexistent throughout that journey in my life. Even though the struggle is nonexistent, I know that losing weight was hard at times. So, as I figure out what the struggles are, I plan to incorporate those ideas into my poem. Hopefully when I add the emotional facts to my poem, I will be able to bring in the idea of "voice of thought," otherwise known as medicine.
If anyone else reads my poem and has anything they would like to add, let me know. I can handle constructive criticism.

Thanks for the input guys,
See everyone on Thursday!

The other day's workshop

Well as we can all see, being the great student I am I have forgotten to post a blog entry before class! It's amazing how easy it is to forget things which should be routine by now. Anyhow, I would just like to agree with some previous posts regarding the productive nature of Tuesday's class. Considering it was so time consuming to go through and analyze seven poems in our workshop checklist style, it was such a relief to actually discuss our observations! From my perspective, in reading some of these poems I almost felt intrusive; that is to say, they were so diverse, personal, and heartfelt that I felt as though in simply reading and deconstructing the pieces that I was in someway invasive. However, being able to look at the author while discussing their work really helped to break that boundary and made me feel less of a perverse analyzer. In all, it was a constructive ice-breaker, to use a cliché term.

Have a great (and safe) weekend!

I found today's class very interesting. I have always been very curious about the idea of being politically correct or politically incorrect. When the class discussion went along with Alice Fulton's reading I created many connections to many unanswered questions in my head. Pg. 280 in Fulton's essay is where my questions, about being politically correct/incorrect, came to mind. She says, "Formalist poems must be a vehicle for reactionary values. As I see it, nothing prevents poets from using received forms to express radical points of views. Structure allows poets to imply content without restoring the words." What Fulton means is she wants there to be "cultural incorrectness and willingness to upset the status quo and face the uncomfortable realities." Alice Fulton then fights against the safe poetry when she begins to discuss cultural correctness and how many poets don't escape the fact. The poets that Fulton points out are not being politically incorrect and do not affirm the status quo. What Alice wants hear and read are actual culture issues.
After this discussion in class and reading "A poetry of Inconvenient knowledge" I would have to say I agree with her to a certain extent. Many poems do raise political issues but not to the caliber of becoming an issue when writing them. I truly believe if the poet or writer is raising a political issue why not raise an issue or discussion that is worth arguing with every bit of power and srtenth. However, this is just an opinion.

Have a good week end everyone!

Blog Feb 12

I also agree about last class! I was surprised that basically everyone showed up (no offense, but a lot of times I've been in this situation people take it as a time to skip class). Not only did we show up but we actually talked about every poem in our group according to the workshop list. I was a little worried about sharing my poetry because I am a little self conscious about it. I never have really written poetry before, so it's a little nerve racking having your poems critiqued in front of you, but it went a lot better than I thought it would!

As for today's readings...There were a lot, but rather than breaking down one of our assignments I'll just stick to the short one, "The Taxi." I've read this poem somewhere before, and I forgot how much I liked it! There is such cool imagery, and just imagining this actually happening is mind blowing...not being able to control something like that from happening, and once it happens, taking it back just to make it happen again. Very cool. See you all in class!

Bridget

I agree with everyone about last class. I thought it ran efficiently and I enjoyed hearing exactly what everyone's poem was about. Also, thank you for the comments about my poem.
For assignment 3 I really enjoyed the idea. I liked how we already had a basis for this assignment from last class when we played the guessing game with everyone's poem. I tried to write about the feeling of winning this time. Specifically just the image I have of winning when I used to play competitive sports. I think I described it pretty well however it might be to obvious. I also decided to end the poem by saying what it was. The effect I wanted to gain from this was starting off with a more broad description of winning and moving towards the specifics.

Post 4

I really enjoyed doing the assignment for this week. I thought it was a really interesting prompt and made it easy to get the ideas flowing. I liked that there were more specific guidelines and that the subject was narrowed some for us. For some reason these guidelines made me feel more directed and therefore confident making it easier for me to be more creative.  I did have a little trouble not drifting back to the traditional cliche view of my object, which was a window, but overall I really enjoyed doing it. I think it will be interesting to see how the rest of the class interpreted this assignment, especially if anyone chose the second option which seemed too daunting for me to even know how to begin. I am finding that as the class goes on I am becoming more comfortable with writing and I am not wasting so much time stressing over a subject, its easier and I find that it creates a better product if I just go with my first instinctive idea. I also enjoyed the workshop, although beforehand I was very nervous to share my poems out loud. I thought the feedback overall was very positive and constructive, and I actually ended up feeling more confident with my poems than I had before Tuesday's class so thanks for the help guys! See you all in class!

Workshop

Like many of those who have already written I too would like to say that I enjoyed the workshop process on Tuesday. It was a new experience to have multiple individuals critique something that I had written. I was just as interested in hearing the more negative feedback and questions as I was the positive ones. I am excited to workshop everyones second poem and to receive feedback on my second poem. I believe that hearing other peoples interpretations of my poem really helped me to think like the reader and when I read over drafts of future poems I will try to look at them this way and think about what the reader will take away from the poem and not just about what sounds good to me or what is meaningful to me, although these will remain important.
I would also like to mention the prose poem that we were to read for tomorrow which was titles "The Taxi". I found this poem to be so imaginative and instead of really thinking about what deeper meaning there could be I just read the poem over just because I enjoyed the sound of it and the imagery that it produced. The image of the car in reverse and the wall rebuilding and then breaking again was so vivid. I am looking forward to hearing more about this poem.

Tuesday's Workshop

I absolutely agree with everyone else that the workshop is a very productive tool. I personally found it very interesting in reading other classmates poems and seeing what techniques they had to offer. I also thought it was very cool to see what other people thought about every ones' poems. For me, I felt that this workshop made things much clearer in terms of making sense and finding the actual meaning of the poems, especially since you can talk to the author at hand and discuss why they did things in a certain way. This activity I also felt was extremely helpful to me as poet because it allows me to see how people are interpreting what I am saying. This is important because I found that sometimes that I am not always communicating what I want to say to the reader through the poem. Another idea that I liked in the workshop was having everyone read their poem, it really just help present the tone and pace that the author meant the poem to be in. Looking at some of the other blogs I noticed that many people feel that there really cannot be a bad poem. I have to agree with this because no matter what the author is always going to like the poem. So I figure if at least 1 person likes it then most likely others will like it as well. So I agree with everyone else in saying that there cannot be a bad poem.

Tuesday was AWSOME!

Yesterday’s class was awesome! So productive! The workshops are very helpful and I have found that it has truly helped me with my poetry. Especially being able to hear everyone else’s poem and see how they interpreted the assignment. The way that everyone interpreted the ‘candy and medicine’ assignment was very different however I believe that all of the poems came out very nicely.
As insecure as I am about people reading my poetry, I liked how everybody really helped me and made me feel more confident about my poetry! So thanks guys! Now that we have written three poems, I have learned how to ‘punch-it-out’ a lot easier and become more creative with the poetry.
See you all in class!

First Workshop

I definitely have to agree, the first workshop went very well. It was nice to finally hear from the poets what their thought process was behind their poem, as well as hear some nice feedback about my own poem. One thing that struck me as interesting was that there doesn't seem to be such a thing as "bad poetry." As Chelsea touched upon, it seemed like very few people were confident in their poems (including myself), but they all turned out great!
One thing I did not like about the workshop, however, was the typed up notes on everyone's poems. I understand that it's a nice way to give the writer feedback that they can remember, but I felt like our best discussions just came from simply throwing around ideas and thoughts we had on the poem. Not to mention the poet is capable of writing down little notes in the margin as we go. It was a lot more relaxed and things seemed to flow better when it was just discussion and not simply reading from a sheet.
Now that we all have seen how these workshops work, it should be exciting to see how number two goes and if we improve on the areas discussed.

Today's Workshop

I agree with Chelsea, I did think that it was really nice to hear everyone read their poem. Sometimes it is hard to imagine what the poet was thinking when they wrote it, and even something as simple as hearing it read once by them allows for more clarity.

I think everyone in my group is really talented. Everyone has different styles of writing, but everyone seemed to enjoy everyone else's poems. It was nice getting feed back from everyone; maybe I was the only one but I was nervous about hearing what people thought.

Also, I think it's safe to say that there are no bad poems. While some people might not like all types of poems or poets, I think that someone somewhere will like any poem. So, yes, Chels, everyone can write poetry.

I'm really looking forward to work-shopping assignment 2, although it's hard to believe we have to have assignment 3 ready for class on Thursday.

See you all then, and have a good Wednesday!
~~Jess Youngt

First Workshop

That went well.
I already said, how impressed I was with everyone's first poems. We workshoped all of assigment 1 and were able to fully understand everyone's individual pieces with help from their explanations. Overall, we mostly understood the candy and medicine our peers were trying to portray. The feedback was helpful. I was thinking, can any be a poet? We all think that we are not very good, but clearly I have heard from other's that we think everyone did a great job. We are pretty creative.

I started my assignment 2. How many poems will we have to write? This is getting harder each time. I am not sure why. I like to have a little structure, but these rules that our poems should follow are not easy. I have answered my question above. Not everyone can be effective poets. I can write a poem. It might not be published in a book and it may not have any form, (that I know of).

post 3

I wasn't here last week, so this post is a little late but it is in response to last weeks assignment/readings. I also had a lot of difficulty writing the assignment with tension/propulsion. I decided to use the lyrical option instead of the narrative because i initially attempted the narrative and not only was lost for ideas but also really struggled with how to successfully work backwards. Initially as I started working backwards it made sense, but then i found I became stuck where I was and the poem wasn't moving at all. I was repeating the same ideas that I had opened the poem with and so moved on to the lyric option, which proved to be a little easier. I was really impressed reading the poems posted for workshop and how successful everyone else was with the narrative choice. I wasn't really satisfied with the end result of my poem for assignment two. I tried to use varied rhymes, enjambment and other techniques to propel the poem forward, but I never really felt I achieved the tension and propulsion that we had been reading and talking about during class. However, it was my best attempt, and definitely more successful than my narrative attempt.

Blog Blog (Get it, like “Blah Blah”)

I know I just posted that extra blog entry.... but here I am again, posting my blog for this week.

I agree! Group 2 rocks! I really enjoyed reading all of your poems and preparing to workshop them. It was fun to finally get to see what kinds of poem people in our own class write. I especially enjoyed seeing how differently everyone interpreted the same assignment. Each poem was totally different! I love that! We have some really great poets in our class! It was fun to workshop poems that we are going to get to actually discuss with the author… I think it will be a great experience to receive feedback on my poetry from people in the class.

I know we are discussing Assignment 1 this week, but I also want to comment a little bit on Assignment 2. I guess I am not the only one that had a hard time with that assignment (although it felt like I was the only one struggling with it while I was trying to come up with a good poem idea). I had a hard time trying to portray a narrative backwards. I kept getting confused. I also wasn’t really sure if I captured the heart of the assignment in my poem. However, I did enjoy writing a poem that was pretty light-hearted and fun for assignment 2. I also tried using some rhyme, which was a fun technique as well. It was definitely a challenge to write this poem and I think it will be really helpful to workshop them next week in class. It’s nice to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling a bit uneasy about my poem. Maybe Assignment 3 will come a bit easier… I guess we’ll see.

That’s all for now… see you tomorrow everyone!

Extra Blog

I missed class on Thursday, so I thought I would do a little extra blogging now so you all could know some of the ideas and thoughts I would have contributed if I had been there for your discussion on Thursday.

First off, I really liked “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home.” I liked how the author treated things that seem so familiar to us humans as completely foreign objects, describing them in ways that made me look at things a bit differently. I also thought it was fun to try and figure out what objects and activities the author was describing in the poem… It was kind of like a puzzle and it made it fun to read. This reading reminded me of a reading I did for anthropology last semester; it was called “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” The whole piece was about looking at our culture and our everyday activities from an outsider’s perspective. I read the whole piece and thought about what a weird culture I had just read about… then in our class discussion, found out that the author had written it about American culture (Nacirema is American spelled backwards). The things described in the piece were things we do every day, like brushing our teeth or going to the bathroom. It was really cool, and I feel like Raine’s piece had a similar effect.

As for “The Fish,” I thought it was a fun poem to read. I noticed once I got to the end of the poem that what had kept me reading was the question of what happens to the fish—does the fisherman keep him or throw him back? This question is answered in the final line of the poem, which leaves the reader satisfied and content at the conclusion. I thought this was a good effect and a good technique to use within the poem. It was a good example of the tension and propulsion concept that we had to work on for the last assignment… a good technique to use to keep the reader’s attention through a long poem. I also really liked the vivid description used within the poem to describe the fish throughout the narrative. I especially liked the lines “While his gills were breathing in/the terrible oxygen.” It made me pause briefly while reading because we usually don’t think of oxygen as a bad thing… it is the key to human life. This connected the poem a bit to the theme of the familiar and unfamiliar for me. The poet is able to see things from the fish’s perspective, and therefore allows us as readers to see things from an unfamiliar perspective.

Finally, I didn’t really like “A Few Words in the Mother Tongue.” I thought it was kind of creative and that trying to connect the ideas after reading the poem was intriguing. But I did not like the form of the poem and I felt that the words in another language kind of made me lose interest while I was reading. I couldn’t really figure out what the intended message of the poem was. Sorry if I am being insensitive or if I really missed something… I just didn’t really get it.

See you Tuesday!

p.s. Chelsea—I love the poem about germs! Very nice.

Group 2 Rocks!

I am just throwing this out there, group 2 rocks!

I've workshoped the poems and you guys are really good! Very creative ideas from everyone. I was impressed and embarassed. I feel like a child writing the first word that comes into my mouth on the paper. I can just bable but I dont think I have the technique. I think about line breaks where they will look cool, but not where they count to this many beats, and that meter. Yike! Should I be thinking about these things? I mean, yes if I am doing a sonnet. Do you all think about the / and u, that we had some examples of, while writing your poems? I fell bad when someone has to workshop my poem and find it's form, because clearly I didn't think about any form when I was writing it.

Third blog: Bridget

I have found that when I read the title of a poem, I spend too much energy on trying to figure out how that title fits them poem. For the poem A Martian Sends a Postcard Home, I read the poem taking that title literally and trying to find a story about a martian and a postcard. However, I realized I was kidding myself and when I read it without thinking of the title, I read things a little differently...

the first three stanzas were a continuation of one another, but the fourth began on something new...as did the sixth and the seventh. It was cool seeing which couplets were relating to which, such as couplets starting with line 13-16 about a Model T and how it relates to travel. Starting at line 19 I thought it had to do with a child sleeping, though I am not sure why they used the word ghost as a substitute. As I read starting on line 25, I began to think about martians...I thought maybe that this poem, especially these lines had to do with how the human race would look like to an outsider. The last two couplets was a really cool way to describe dreaming, to someone/thing that has never experienced it before...like a martian, for example. At night, when all the colours die, they hide in pairs and read about themselves-- in colour, with their eyelids shut. I really loved those lines.

That was my favorite poem for today, but I also enjoyed A few words in the mother tongue. The poem can trip you up if you dwell too much on the words in a different language, but the words that are in English are quite simple, and the message is a reality. I found myself laughing and agreeing with the poet's way of describing characteristics of a woman and her life.

I don't think you guys will be seduced by my assignment 2, sorry :/

I also had a hard time writing poem number two. Originally, I wanted to do the first option (was anyone brave enough to take a stab at it?) because I thought it sounded really cool. I ended up mixing up the whole point of the poem and writing it straightforward, and then I tried to copy and paste my sentences so that the last was the first and so on, but it was a lost cause. Kudos to anyone who managed to do the narrative option. So after my disaster of a poem I resigned myself to option number two. I tried in vain to write puns, but that wasn’t happening either. Just as I was starting to lose hope of ever completing this assignment, I again took a look at Blah-Blah. I tried my hand at writing something similar, except I didn’t really move on from the letter A. So as it turns out, my poem is entirely comprised of words starting with the letter A (I absolutely couldn’t think of a title, so I lamely borrowed Dr. Seuss on this one: Big A Little A, What Begins with A?). I think it fits with the idea of tension and propulsion. Even though it makes no sense, I tried to make the poem sound like a story and not like a bunch of random words thrown together, and I think the alliteration definitely moves it along, so we’ll see… I hope you guys won’t get a headache reading it!

If I ever saw option one at a party...

I had the hardest time writing poem #2. Can we talk about that? First of all, I was completely fearful of the first option, so I ran away from it. Head my head under a rock, something like that. If I were to see that option across the room from me at some party I would turn away and drink myself into a waking stupor. The second option, however, interested me in that I like poems with interesting lyrical qualities. I decided that, instead of focusing on the rhyme of it, or the beats, I wanted to weave in three words from the title throughout the whole poem. The desired effect should, hopefully, not annoy the crap out of you, but what can you do? I am new at this and do not profess myself to be anything more then a complete amateur. For me, using the same words over and over again made the poem seem circular, like it was always throwing back to the beginning, always seeming to taunt me with new revelations of things hidden within the next few lines. I don’t know. I liked the style, maybe not my poem, but I definitely enjoyed writing something down.

Ya Bod!

I just spent a good amount of time writing assignment number two. Unlike Tad (my lad), I decided to go with the second technique, which was to keep the reader moving along by sound. I actually tried to go with the first technique but it was extremely difficult for me to try to come up with a story and tell it backwards. Anyways I personally had a lot of fun doing the second technique. This was because I just used short little lines that rhymed line after line to make it sound quick and easy. What was interesting was that I ran into the same thing that happened to Tad, and that was that once I got going on my poem and working on it the meaning sort of changed. Finally by the end I was not exactly sure where I ended up but it felt to me like I just ended in the right spot, where I wanted to be. I chose this style of poem because I like the way these types of poems sounds. This goes against what seems to be the majority of the class but I actually liked Blah Blah. I don’t exactly know why other than the fact it just has a bunch of cool sound you can make with your mouth.

Dear EEschw07,

I just looked to our class blog for a little advice and I found your post. I am struggling with poem #2. Thanks for the inspiration. I am attempting that same style. The first poem was easy. I didn't want to give it away before you read my poem (the first 1), if we are still doing that crtitique thing? But I am going to tell you. It is actually really weird because I wrote my first poem backward. I am not sure why. It's called gninnuR. I started at the bottom of the page and moved my cursor above that written line, every time. I am not attempting that way for this second one, but maybe you could try it. I am creating this backward story in narrative, paragraph form, is that called prose? I am a little new to this poetry thing. I always written goofy poems to my friends. For example, I wrote a poem tonight to my team about washing their hands. It's called Flu, Flu, woopty-do! :
The bug is out,
it's on the run.
Have you heard?
Its not very fun.
Vommit in your mouth, *** in your pants,
A large headache, and maybe even cramps!
Temperatures could skyrocket,
so pop, lock and drop it!
Fear not for this little insect,
Learn the proper ways to disenfect.
Wash your hands to reject...
all those gross bacteria
Have no fearia
Drop it girls, drop it,
we've done our duty in the fall
tell that bug to take a crawl!!!!
Sanitize, disinfect, go team go....we THE best!!!!!!

I have a feeling this could be embarassing in the morning. For the sake of our blogging and this class community, we are all friends here. Don't judge.

"The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop

After reading "The Fish" alongside the rest of Thursday's readings, I found myself a bit amazed at how well Elizabeth Bishop captures the essence of human ingorance and learning. While at first she is simply fishing for the hell of it, the narrator adopts a completely different attitude after observing the fish she just caught. She is awestruck and sometimes horrified by the amazing physical faculties of the fish, and gains something that appears much in line with respect for the animal. Furthermore, it is almost heart-touching how the old fish already has five lines in its jaw and the narrator views these as both a sort of trophy for the fish (a bit of anthropomorphisation) as well as a symbol of the long, tedious life its lived. Quite honestly, I never gave as much attention to an animal's detail until reading this poem.

It appears as though Bishop, too, is indicating that we as humans often overlook the details of the environment/world around us. We are too self-absorbed in our own activities, such as fishing, to think about the environment which makes it possible. I'm not much of an environmentalist, but I do think that this poem can transport a willing reader to a sort of environmental mindset.

See you all tomorrow!

Robert Hartshorn

I just spent a good amount of time writing assignment number two.  I decided to use the first technique of starting with an idea and working towards what happened by giving another clue as the poem moves towards the end.  I really enjoyed doing this because I came up with a good topic and made up a different part of the story from stanza to stanza.  One of the problems I came across was trying to place each stanza I wrote in the best place for it in the poem.  I found that as I moved along through the poem that the first lines I wrote I had an original meaning for but it changed as I wrote the poem.  Also, I enjoyed reading my poem after it was completed from the end to the beginning.  I suggest everyone who uses the same technique I did for assignment two, to try this.  I found that my poem still made sense and I almost changed it to that form because it sounded good that way as well.  

I would also like to say how the poems from last class did help me in writing this.  I found that I felt more comfortable writing a line that sounded good even if it didn't make complete sense.