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!