Thursday, January 28, 2010
Junkyard Quote 1, Week 4
"Darn your massive buttocks, being so close to your toes with no break." - said by Trista yesterday before class when talking about the lack of punctuation in our memorization for the week!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Improv/Imitation 2, Week 3
"What have you done, Cornelius?"
I gave you morning melody in the radio
with nothing left but static, dead air.
So far, sleep with open hands begging
for vanilla lotion without sniffling
like I assume man did when he discovered
rocks were for throwing, not eating.
You look at the fire burning down Mattie's
house and wish you had discovered it:
fire, not the burning rubble of a barter.
Your classmates will call you Lou,
just like the neighbors insist to do;
perhaps I should have called you that
instead of Louisianne or Louis.
I gave you morning melody in the radio
with nothing left but static, dead air.
So far, sleep with open hands begging
for vanilla lotion without sniffling
like I assume man did when he discovered
rocks were for throwing, not eating.
You look at the fire burning down Mattie's
house and wish you had discovered it:
fire, not the burning rubble of a barter.
Your classmates will call you Lou,
just like the neighbors insist to do;
perhaps I should have called you that
instead of Louisianne or Louis.
Improv/Imitation 1, Week 3
"When we met, he was old",
a pencil shaving cut across his withered cheek
while the tips of red erasers whistle slowly.
Mitch Albom wrote about a green, scaly monster
in his own closet, but it hides more than he
creaks open the tiny door to look for clothes.
Fingertips and tips of fingernails tap tip-toes
across the flat part of my neck:
the meaning of the word "flatter," I believe.
Or is it "falter?"
I open my palm; there should be a fan between
my fingers so that mice would sing and knit
a dress while I whistle and bay at the sun.
He finds a book instead, littered with words
and marked for execution with a purple E on its chest,
the author's name scratched out with a green pen
and crushed beneath a new label:
HE WAS OLD.
a pencil shaving cut across his withered cheek
while the tips of red erasers whistle slowly.
Mitch Albom wrote about a green, scaly monster
in his own closet, but it hides more than he
creaks open the tiny door to look for clothes.
Fingertips and tips of fingernails tap tip-toes
across the flat part of my neck:
the meaning of the word "flatter," I believe.
Or is it "falter?"
I open my palm; there should be a fan between
my fingers so that mice would sing and knit
a dress while I whistle and bay at the sun.
He finds a book instead, littered with words
and marked for execution with a purple E on its chest,
the author's name scratched out with a green pen
and crushed beneath a new label:
HE WAS OLD.
Strategy Response 1, Week 3
Adrian Matejka's poem "Do the Right Thing" presents its reader with a seemingly-easy juxtaposition of poetics and pop culture, a very difficult task in post-modern poetry, as pop culture generally finds itself in opposition to poetics rather than in dialogue, as this poem presents. Matejka inserts references to Spike Lee as well as the famous director's films, particularly Do the Right Thing and suggests the hesitation with which Lee granted an autograph. In tandem with references to recent films and contemporary directors, Matejka adds slang speech that might not otherwise be considered poetic. For instance, in the sixth stanza, he writes Lee saying, "Why you care? You / ain't even black." To which an audience member replies, "Damn, Spike. That ain't / right." These simple dialects of English, considered far outside the standard, add a particular feel to the poem, giving it "edge," if you will, and allowing the reader to perceive Lee's anger, the audience's insistence, and the speaker's humiliation.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Free Entry 2, Week 3
I walk the wisteria brick of Pennhurst School
and smell the smoky air for the pink dentist chair
where inmate-students lost their meat-crunchings.
Smog only resides in the cracks of bartered bricks
between the walls of painted faces and blinking
lights, where filmy spider skins dangle finally.
"No such thing as growth," they said, while bumps
and creaks calligraph red streaks against their irises
whose final muddy knoll marks millions of spiny,
smoky stackhouses in the otherwise dark hallway.
I find the spindle where my mother rang her wool
like a pianist might twinge a dusty corner harp;
no blood from a dainty finger against the tip
and no fingerprints in the fourteen layers of dust:
skin flakes and mold against settled, dry air
in the quiet room with the upturned leather desks.
and smell the smoky air for the pink dentist chair
where inmate-students lost their meat-crunchings.
Smog only resides in the cracks of bartered bricks
between the walls of painted faces and blinking
lights, where filmy spider skins dangle finally.
"No such thing as growth," they said, while bumps
and creaks calligraph red streaks against their irises
whose final muddy knoll marks millions of spiny,
smoky stackhouses in the otherwise dark hallway.
I find the spindle where my mother rang her wool
like a pianist might twinge a dusty corner harp;
no blood from a dainty finger against the tip
and no fingerprints in the fourteen layers of dust:
skin flakes and mold against settled, dry air
in the quiet room with the upturned leather desks.
Free Entry 1, Week 3
What does it mean to "un"? She un-does a button, but he's un-friendly. "Un" once was but is no longer; so is un-writing the same as erasing? Little girls un-friend one another like oysters' harvesting seasons, a click of the virtual button un-doing hundreds of hours of un-manning their current crushes and un-learning last year's geometry lesson. But to what un-remarkable brick wall does that click lead? Spectators find themselves un-interested.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Junkyard Quotes 1-5, Week 3
Burp out an email. - Mike discussing an automated email
The road has carpet. - a friend mentioning rugs thrown on the road
Anthology of Bread - the title of an album from the '70s
I pretended to be a person. - an actor discussing his process
Between the firehouse and the towers was the whole world. - a documentary filmed on 9/11
The road has carpet. - a friend mentioning rugs thrown on the road
Anthology of Bread - the title of an album from the '70s
I pretended to be a person. - an actor discussing his process
Between the firehouse and the towers was the whole world. - a documentary filmed on 9/11
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Free Entry 3, Week 2
This poem actually came from our class exercise on writing as an observer on a train. I wanted to type up and work with some of the language from that exercise!
The leathery woman's baggy jade baubles
swing violently with every braking shove,
knowing they went out of style sixty years ago.
A man, his skin too taut over his jagged face,
stares at his own eyes, not noticing the chain gang
of gothic heroes and mad men thumping
restlessly through the gray grass fields
overgrown with browning dandelions.
The overseer never moves his dark sunglasses
but to give his speckled mutt water
from the tin cantina.
The little boy across the aisle teases
his too-light eyes through his still-lighter
eyelashes to look at the prisoners
between pages in his Mickey Mouse coloring book.
He scribbles curls outside the lines,
giving Mickey a purple afro.
The leathery woman's baggy jade baubles
swing violently with every braking shove,
knowing they went out of style sixty years ago.
A man, his skin too taut over his jagged face,
stares at his own eyes, not noticing the chain gang
of gothic heroes and mad men thumping
restlessly through the gray grass fields
overgrown with browning dandelions.
The overseer never moves his dark sunglasses
but to give his speckled mutt water
from the tin cantina.
The little boy across the aisle teases
his too-light eyes through his still-lighter
eyelashes to look at the prisoners
between pages in his Mickey Mouse coloring book.
He scribbles curls outside the lines,
giving Mickey a purple afro.
Strategy Response 1, Week 2
Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" exemplifies our reading this week in terms of power struggle within poetry. This poem presents a literal power struggle between the speaker and his most recent wife, who he describes as "too soon made glad, / Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er / She looked on, and her looks went everywhere." He goes on to explain that she was too kind to other men, not giving him the respect and admiration that he deserved as her husband. As the reader goes through the poem, however, he/she notices the interesting double-talk of the Duke that causes doubt in his rationale. For example, he says, "Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, / Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without / Much the same smile?" By his own proclamation, she did give him smiles and adoration, but he perceived the same attitude toward all other people, suggesting to him that she offers the same amount of love for her husband that she does to any other single person. The reader finds it obvious again that he ranks himself above all others as he astonishedly remarks that "She thanked men - good! but thanked / Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked / My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody's gift." Indeed, he considers simply his marrying her the greatest gift she could possibly receive and thinks all others much less, though she gave them equal thanks.
Despite his reasoning, however, the reader considers the internal suggestions of her being kind and loving toward all not as impudence or ungratefulness for the Duke but rather a natural kindess, and for that kindness the Duke disposed of her in an undisclosed (but certainly not humane) way and quickly moves on to another, more suitable bride. Therefore, the audience witnesses the power struggle between the Duke and his Duchess even just in the words of one, as he mentions his difficulty in reigning her into serving him only. Interesting that Browning is able to represent such a distinct power play in giving even only one side of the story!
Despite his reasoning, however, the reader considers the internal suggestions of her being kind and loving toward all not as impudence or ungratefulness for the Duke but rather a natural kindess, and for that kindness the Duke disposed of her in an undisclosed (but certainly not humane) way and quickly moves on to another, more suitable bride. Therefore, the audience witnesses the power struggle between the Duke and his Duchess even just in the words of one, as he mentions his difficulty in reigning her into serving him only. Interesting that Browning is able to represent such a distinct power play in giving even only one side of the story!
Free Entry 2, Week 2
"What do you wish?" centers a diagram
on the newly-repainted cracked stones.
A speckeld glass silken veneer covers
the open-fisted wheezing facade,
while the blackened spittle clings, cleanly bordering
its rite without the janitor
and his bubbly beer bucket.
"I wish they'd stop painting over our wishes,"
hunches in its curvature, fetal against its mother.
No texture, stony words.
on the newly-repainted cracked stones.
A speckeld glass silken veneer covers
the open-fisted wheezing facade,
while the blackened spittle clings, cleanly bordering
its rite without the janitor
and his bubbly beer bucket.
"I wish they'd stop painting over our wishes,"
hunches in its curvature, fetal against its mother.
No texture, stony words.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Improv/Imitation 2, Week 2
"If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him."
I don't bother to tell him about the rolling bull
that would otherwise run him over on that hill
around which he sleeps at noontime.
That hill sparks a China doll, flaming upon
the hearth of sunken treasure: no one writes
down what it means to them when they hear
that song, no one reads the words of others
written on papier mache musical boxes
with dancing ballerinas skipping and breaking
their fragile ankles upon the moors of Hip-Hop.
They forget on purpopse and pretend to fall
just to please their whipping bull.
I don't bother to tell him about the rolling bull
that would otherwise run him over on that hill
around which he sleeps at noontime.
That hill sparks a China doll, flaming upon
the hearth of sunken treasure: no one writes
down what it means to them when they hear
that song, no one reads the words of others
written on papier mache musical boxes
with dancing ballerinas skipping and breaking
their fragile ankles upon the moors of Hip-Hop.
They forget on purpopse and pretend to fall
just to please their whipping bull.
Free Entry 1, Week 2
In my town, everyone uses the same dominatrix.
She has no leather anymore, having shredded it all
for the last customer, whose fetish means knives
with their blades of grass cutting into her tender feet.
I passed by her yesterday and saw only the old woman
sitting on the porch with her rocker bent sideways
and her eyes staring at the moulding, considering,
perhaps, the necessity of maintaining a home for a woman
of little repute. Mary has no imitation of fallen sin,
suggesting that God marked her face like Cain, the first
murderer just as she represents the first shade under
the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: Eve tempts
Adam, but he does not resist. Who, then, takes the blame?
Everyone uses the same dominatrix in my town;
but no one speaks the shotgun phrase of freakish pleasure,
only glancing from time to time to the front porch
of a lonely old woman with no more leather
and pointing with a finger that will later
be in her mouth.
She has no leather anymore, having shredded it all
for the last customer, whose fetish means knives
with their blades of grass cutting into her tender feet.
I passed by her yesterday and saw only the old woman
sitting on the porch with her rocker bent sideways
and her eyes staring at the moulding, considering,
perhaps, the necessity of maintaining a home for a woman
of little repute. Mary has no imitation of fallen sin,
suggesting that God marked her face like Cain, the first
murderer just as she represents the first shade under
the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: Eve tempts
Adam, but he does not resist. Who, then, takes the blame?
Everyone uses the same dominatrix in my town;
but no one speaks the shotgun phrase of freakish pleasure,
only glancing from time to time to the front porch
of a lonely old woman with no more leather
and pointing with a finger that will later
be in her mouth.
Improv/Imitation 1, Week 2
"That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive."
Her hair should be gold,
but sitting in a chair upon the window
of an intently towering wall
she falls into disrepair.
Wisteria climb up the path to where
a shack rests, dilapidated and dull.
Whose mark upon that wall can the duchess
speak like glass and painted crystal;
a voice no more like a water wheel
but rather a spark of grinding glass.
Once more I put the groiund glass in
his saline and put my hands together
in a mock representation of the God
he doesn't believe in.
My only stuffed animal rests on the edge
of my once silk bed, an unfortunate
side effect of the medication.
I see nothing there; a black dot
where I knew that my face should have sat.
But only that blackened princess gathers
her flowers and pretends to jive
in a kingdom that doesn't really exist.
Looking as if she were alive."
Her hair should be gold,
but sitting in a chair upon the window
of an intently towering wall
she falls into disrepair.
Wisteria climb up the path to where
a shack rests, dilapidated and dull.
Whose mark upon that wall can the duchess
speak like glass and painted crystal;
a voice no more like a water wheel
but rather a spark of grinding glass.
Once more I put the groiund glass in
his saline and put my hands together
in a mock representation of the God
he doesn't believe in.
My only stuffed animal rests on the edge
of my once silk bed, an unfortunate
side effect of the medication.
I see nothing there; a black dot
where I knew that my face should have sat.
But only that blackened princess gathers
her flowers and pretends to jive
in a kingdom that doesn't really exist.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Junkyard Quotes 5-10, Week 2
I had the wonderful opportunity today to spend a few hours this morning with several members of the Creative Writing Guild. Thanks mostly to Kimberly Smith, I was granted a lot of fantastic junkyard quotes throughout our adventures in the MLK Day Parade!
"We got a lot of band-age." - Dr. Hipchen in reference to the four high school bands marching today.
"Wolfie is like that one Kennedy they never told anyboyd about." - Kimberly when Wolfie appeared.
"One dried up sperm found one wrinkled egg, and that's how I got here." - Kimberly
"I wish I had a donkey. I would kiss it." - Kimberly
The final quote from Kimberly will be written phonetically, as I believe that carries importance: "Ah support eatin' 'n' readin'."
My last junkyard quote for the day actually came from an Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction class I took last semester. Two of the students in the class realized that the knew the same woman who works as a dominatrix. Upon that realization, Dr. Umminger said, "In my town, everybody uses the same dominatrix."
"We got a lot of band-age." - Dr. Hipchen in reference to the four high school bands marching today.
"Wolfie is like that one Kennedy they never told anyboyd about." - Kimberly when Wolfie appeared.
"One dried up sperm found one wrinkled egg, and that's how I got here." - Kimberly
"I wish I had a donkey. I would kiss it." - Kimberly
The final quote from Kimberly will be written phonetically, as I believe that carries importance: "Ah support eatin' 'n' readin'."
My last junkyard quote for the day actually came from an Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction class I took last semester. Two of the students in the class realized that the knew the same woman who works as a dominatrix. Upon that realization, Dr. Umminger said, "In my town, everybody uses the same dominatrix."
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Junkyard Quote 4, Week 2
Almost as soon as I clicked the "Publish" button on my last post, I discovered a new junkyard quote that I wanted to use! Naturally, I have lost the love I used to have for "American Idol." Therefore, I only watch the auditions of every season, since they are, after all, the best part! Tonight they just so happened to be in Atlanta, and the last man to audition was a 62-year-old veteran who sang a rap he made up that basically went, "Pants on da ground! You look like a fool wit yo' pants on da ground!" And, though I must admit my part in laughing at his attempt to woo the judges, his performance almost immediately made me think of Philip Levine's poem "They Feed They Lion." Maybe there's potential in this man's unique language!
Junkyard Quotes 2 & 3, Week 2
The first of my junkyard quotes for this post came from my first class of the day: Studies in Grammar. Though it is a phrase I've heard many times (and often considering my major), I never really thought about just how interesting it sounds until today when Dr. Newton said "word order." He said it so quickly that I had to replay in my head what he'd said and finally discovered the phrase. Because he said it so quickly, I heard not what the words meant but how they sounded together, and I really loved it!
The second quote for today I actually found written on the women's bathroom wall on the first floor of Pafford. In one stall, a girl wrote, "What do you wish?" There were several answers written around this question, some faded from where the maintenance employees had painted over the writing. But above all of this writing, someone had posted in black magic marker, "I wish they'd stop painting over our wishes." I would love to use this idea in a poem, though I would have to change some of the abstractions and perhaps the wording of the sentence, so it made me consider writing a poem of bathroom graffiti.
The second quote for today I actually found written on the women's bathroom wall on the first floor of Pafford. In one stall, a girl wrote, "What do you wish?" There were several answers written around this question, some faded from where the maintenance employees had painted over the writing. But above all of this writing, someone had posted in black magic marker, "I wish they'd stop painting over our wishes." I would love to use this idea in a poem, though I would have to change some of the abstractions and perhaps the wording of the sentence, so it made me consider writing a poem of bathroom graffiti.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Junkyard Quote 1, Week 2
My first junkyard quote of the week came to me thanks to Dr. Emily Hipchen. We were having our first Creative Writing Guild meeting of the Spring Semester when Larriesha got up. As she slid along the whiteboard, the markers made a sound that seemed like she sneezed. Dr. Hipchen said "Bless you." Larriesha then corrected her saying it was just her sliding across the board. "Oh," Dr. Hipchen said. "Well then, bless your butt."
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Free Entry 3, Week 1
Action
He sat behind the camera,
to its side, whispering
intently to its operator
and pressing against his steady hands.
"Action," he shouts, galvanizing
the limp puppets in front of him
to act out their scene.
As they bend--45 degrees,
not 90 as Roberto Benigni suggested--
he turns to me and whispers again,
"I always wanted to say that."
Did you? I wonder without speaking,
watching as he jumps
like a child anticipating candy.
Up and down, side to side,
quickly and without a breath.
So often has he told me
that he always wanted to say that.
So why not simply say it?
Why not say the phrase
that everyone always wants to say?
What does everyone always want to say?
Is it "Action"?
So say "Action"
or even "action."
What he really means
is that he always wanted to say
that and have it mean something;
say it as an order and have it obeyed.
Is that what everyone wants
when they always want to say "Action"?
He sat behind the camera,
to its side, whispering
intently to its operator
and pressing against his steady hands.
"Action," he shouts, galvanizing
the limp puppets in front of him
to act out their scene.
As they bend--45 degrees,
not 90 as Roberto Benigni suggested--
he turns to me and whispers again,
"I always wanted to say that."
Did you? I wonder without speaking,
watching as he jumps
like a child anticipating candy.
Up and down, side to side,
quickly and without a breath.
So often has he told me
that he always wanted to say that.
So why not simply say it?
Why not say the phrase
that everyone always wants to say?
What does everyone always want to say?
Is it "Action"?
So say "Action"
or even "action."
What he really means
is that he always wanted to say
that and have it mean something;
say it as an order and have it obeyed.
Is that what everyone wants
when they always want to say "Action"?
Improv/Imitation 2, Week 1
Stanza 1 of I am Still Thinking about this Crow by Ahmad Shamlu
I am still thinking
about this crow
that with its pair of black scissors -
by two brist swishing sounds -
cut an aslant arc
on the matte paper of the sky
over the toasted wheat farms
of the Yush valley;
I am still thinking
about this crow
that facing the nearby mountains
said something -
with its lung's dry cawing -
that the mountains echoed it, baffled,
for such a long time
in their rocky heads.
Throat Contractions
This word hooks onto my throat,
stinging and picking no matter how I swallow -
lluh, I lisp with a trained tongue -
while my companion stares into the distance.
This word that so scratches
at the inside of my neck demands
to be set free, to climb out from my esophagus
to my lips, where it finally can be uttered.
It arises more and more quickly now, faster
like a contraction -
though what results from this pressure
is not a child, but a harpie -
a can of worms, as some might say.
More and more often I attempt
to say this word, and yet the clock
ticks "no, no, no."
I am still thinking
about this crow
that with its pair of black scissors -
by two brist swishing sounds -
cut an aslant arc
on the matte paper of the sky
over the toasted wheat farms
of the Yush valley;
I am still thinking
about this crow
that facing the nearby mountains
said something -
with its lung's dry cawing -
that the mountains echoed it, baffled,
for such a long time
in their rocky heads.
Throat Contractions
This word hooks onto my throat,
stinging and picking no matter how I swallow -
lluh, I lisp with a trained tongue -
while my companion stares into the distance.
This word that so scratches
at the inside of my neck demands
to be set free, to climb out from my esophagus
to my lips, where it finally can be uttered.
It arises more and more quickly now, faster
like a contraction -
though what results from this pressure
is not a child, but a harpie -
a can of worms, as some might say.
More and more often I attempt
to say this word, and yet the clock
ticks "no, no, no."
Junkyard Quotes 4 & 5, Week 1
I've recently become enthralled in the show "Lockup" on MSNBC. On the most recent episode that I watched, there were two phrases I wanted to remember: one for its rhyme and humor, and the other for its irony.
The first phrase refers to a program within the prison that they were examining in which the prisoners basically go through rehab. The ones who are addicted to drugs and decide that they would like to better themselves go into a prison-sponsored program to get rid of their addiction. The officers who ran the program called it Hug-A-Thug.
The second phrase interested me because of the way it was written. At San Quentin Penitentiary, the television show briefly examined death row. At this particular institution, the officers referred to death row as "Condemned Row," and while that may not be necessarily unusual in terms of language, it was written in a font identical to typical gang tattoos, the curved, almost calligraphic letters and all capitalized. Therefore, its irony interested me more than necessarily its innovation.
The first phrase refers to a program within the prison that they were examining in which the prisoners basically go through rehab. The ones who are addicted to drugs and decide that they would like to better themselves go into a prison-sponsored program to get rid of their addiction. The officers who ran the program called it Hug-A-Thug.
The second phrase interested me because of the way it was written. At San Quentin Penitentiary, the television show briefly examined death row. At this particular institution, the officers referred to death row as "Condemned Row," and while that may not be necessarily unusual in terms of language, it was written in a font identical to typical gang tattoos, the curved, almost calligraphic letters and all capitalized. Therefore, its irony interested me more than necessarily its innovation.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Improv/Imitation 1, Week 1
Paramour by Angie Estes
An adverb by way of
love, what's par for
l'amour is par
for the course. Say
you're out for dinner one evening
with Yves, and you think of
the phrase evening
of life. Who doesn't want
to be called something
other than the name
we're given: the cow we call
boeuf or beef when eaten, the house
when it's lived in,
home, and then one we
go home withj, love.
Lysippus, the Greek
sculptor, used to say
that his predecessors made men
as they really were, but he made them as
they appeared to be, just as Picasso
replied to those who claimed Stein
did not look like the portrait
he made: she will. What makes
the wine the wine, is it the grape
or the terroir, terror or
terrain? You think Burgundy
evening, assigned
age of light, first
sign of winter, art of
decay: assignage, the art of curing
cheese, fromage, what the French call
feet of the angels.
Semantics
No one gives the Spanish credit
for lisping their words like children:
cero, thero, cielo, thielo.
Imagine a dinner with Antonio Banderas,
speaking in his native language from
Andaluthia, Ethpana, a sound like a flute.
He flutters his 'r's, his 'l's, and bids
you to do the same; your voice sounds harsh,
unforgiving and brazen in its stinging 's's.
No one gives the Spanish credit
for speaking more clearly than the Mexicans,
only the Spanish themselves, beating
grammar books over the slang-speaking Southerners.
But perhaps that difference gives neither the edge,
as it were, but rather gives them a common
marker to talk about.
I don't want to speak to you, you slasher
of what was once a language of tingling tongues.
Well, I would rather not hear your lisp,
your arrogant usage of vocabulary.
I would much rather listen to the singing
of Colombian Juanes than mark your high-nosed
palabras. Palabrath.
An adverb by way of
love, what's par for
l'amour is par
for the course. Say
you're out for dinner one evening
with Yves, and you think of
the phrase evening
of life. Who doesn't want
to be called something
other than the name
we're given: the cow we call
boeuf or beef when eaten, the house
when it's lived in,
home, and then one we
go home withj, love.
Lysippus, the Greek
sculptor, used to say
that his predecessors made men
as they really were, but he made them as
they appeared to be, just as Picasso
replied to those who claimed Stein
did not look like the portrait
he made: she will. What makes
the wine the wine, is it the grape
or the terroir, terror or
terrain? You think Burgundy
evening, assigned
age of light, first
sign of winter, art of
decay: assignage, the art of curing
cheese, fromage, what the French call
feet of the angels.
Semantics
No one gives the Spanish credit
for lisping their words like children:
cero, thero, cielo, thielo.
Imagine a dinner with Antonio Banderas,
speaking in his native language from
Andaluthia, Ethpana, a sound like a flute.
He flutters his 'r's, his 'l's, and bids
you to do the same; your voice sounds harsh,
unforgiving and brazen in its stinging 's's.
No one gives the Spanish credit
for speaking more clearly than the Mexicans,
only the Spanish themselves, beating
grammar books over the slang-speaking Southerners.
But perhaps that difference gives neither the edge,
as it were, but rather gives them a common
marker to talk about.
I don't want to speak to you, you slasher
of what was once a language of tingling tongues.
Well, I would rather not hear your lisp,
your arrogant usage of vocabulary.
I would much rather listen to the singing
of Colombian Juanes than mark your high-nosed
palabras. Palabrath.
Stragey Response 1, Week 1
Though I've read through the entire book Writing Poetry before, I read it this time through the lens of a more practiced writer rather than a student just beginning to write in a class setting. I paid special attention this time to the section on "Juggling," a skill I never learned to master and yet always wanted to learn to do. It always seemed to me that Juggling as successfully as Adam Zagajewski was something only seasoned poets could do, and so I would probably do well to stay away from its intricacies. Even though I'm sure it's probably true that a more practiced poet can perform the act of Juggling within his or her poetry with more precision than I could, that is one thing that I would love to perfect this semester. I would love to learn how to write a poem that discusses two or three or even four different things at once, that (at first) seem unrelated and then suddenly merge into one another in a way that makes me step back from the work and say, "Wow! I didn't mean to say that! How interesting!" Juggling is one specific tactic that I very sincerely plan to work on throughout the semester!
Free Entry 2, Week 1
When criminals move, what are their criteria?
Does crime matter to people who themselves execute
modes of murderous, rebellious, unnatural law?
The typical person wouldn't relocate willingly
to a place like Detroit, or Los Angeles, or Chicago
would they? Or would they?
What if I were a criminal, say, a bank robber?
Say I have committed unspeakable crimes against tellers,
ATMs, the people who so innocently wanted to deposit a check.
Would it matter to me, then, if I were to use that stolen
money to move someplace grander, the level of crime?
I suppose it would.
I would want quiet suburbia, all the more unsuspecting
for me to continue my life of crime in an otherwise calm setting.
Does crime matter to people who themselves execute
modes of murderous, rebellious, unnatural law?
The typical person wouldn't relocate willingly
to a place like Detroit, or Los Angeles, or Chicago
would they? Or would they?
What if I were a criminal, say, a bank robber?
Say I have committed unspeakable crimes against tellers,
ATMs, the people who so innocently wanted to deposit a check.
Would it matter to me, then, if I were to use that stolen
money to move someplace grander, the level of crime?
I suppose it would.
I would want quiet suburbia, all the more unsuspecting
for me to continue my life of crime in an otherwise calm setting.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Free Entry 1, Week 1
Reflections on Crimson
Crimson slips like molasses in my throat;
I close my eyes and breathe the word, see it float
just above my head.
Sweet like chocolate but the stick of molten tar,
I must click my tongue to say, "Crimson."
Who was it that said "Cellar Door" is the most lovely?
Well, I first heard it from Drew Barrymore,
and though the word does melt off of the tongue
I sound "Crimson" as my "barbaric yawp,"
brushing its meaning out of my eyes and cupping my ears to the sound.
Crimson slips like molasses in my throat;
I close my eyes and breathe the word, see it float
just above my head.
Sweet like chocolate but the stick of molten tar,
I must click my tongue to say, "Crimson."
Who was it that said "Cellar Door" is the most lovely?
Well, I first heard it from Drew Barrymore,
and though the word does melt off of the tongue
I sound "Crimson" as my "barbaric yawp,"
brushing its meaning out of my eyes and cupping my ears to the sound.
Junkyard Quote 3, Week 1
The other day I went to the movie theatre where I used to work. It was one of my last days of Winter Break, so I wanted to go see something fun and say goodbye to everyone who I wouldn't see for another few months. Arriving a half hour early for Up in the Air, I stayed around the box office, talking to some of the managers and employees. Before the movies started, a group of four teenagers walked in, one of whom was wearing a T-shirt and shorts in the freezing weather. "Do you think she's retarded?" one of the managers asked, staring as she held her arms around her in the chill. "I think these people probably picked her up and said 'Hey, you don't look that homeless,'" the teenager at the box office replied. Perhaps a bit insensitive, but a funny and interesting quote, nonetheless!
Introductory Poems 1-8, Week 1
My Russian History
You crouch, Ana, impenetrable as the photo in Grandma’s trunk,
a tattered, gray cave rock opposite the jewels in your corset.
You Romanov with your blue-blood grin in black and white,
I slash flesh like a jewel too; a Medusa smiling my stony snakes.
Look at me, Nicholas; look at me, Tsarina—
I porter and break before the burning palace.
I taste the soldiers near me: Red saccharine like Eden-fruit
but White as airy as unbuttered bread.
The rubies of my eyes roll back, let me groan
in my sapphires—like Alexei’s eyes laze turquoise—
Lazy turquoise.
Daughters, I share only these brazen stones: Olga and Maria.
The guards carry themselves and their French right into the twentieth century
with too much of that Je ne sais quoi and chests like young girls.
Ars Poetica
A sandstorm shoves the Chinese temple,
lifting the worshippers from the clipped stones
and reuniting them with the ancestors
to whom they bow their smaller heads.
A falling star paints blue streaks upon canvas
that the wind and earth crashed to create,
dashing between columns and teasing the sand
that howls and knocks to erase his work.
The star glides among the mossy stones
and lets his tail splatter a path behind him.
“What shall I make of this?” he asks the incense
that sifts through his icy legs.
Only the purple fumes know what sacrifice
the silenced but still-stony elders demand.
Party Crashers
Snow lurches in front of the windshield,
huffing and groaning to attract the car’s snoozing inhabitants:
A man and a woman, fingers laced over the black leather gear shift
sleep against the blue sanguine splatters on the windows.
He had to have his black leather interior, the bare trees
imagine the woman say as a slow grin touches her cheek.
It was a couple hundred extra, but you only live once, right?
The trees cross their limbs at these leaf-fallen people:
two phones ringing out of earshot,
resting so soundly where even the birds left months ago.
Nests without nesters, hollows without knots,
but two saggy-eyed humans nap, satisfying
the Lennie Smallian white compact Honda Civic.
Sirens
“Love” scrapes metallic oxygen down
my parched throat, dry as sweat on the sea;
phrases like “I feel x” and “tell me y”
tingle like the swollen after-sting of a bee
on the hands I raise to the mountains.
My concrete shoes ground me like my parents
that time I said “damn” in my neo-teenager tongue,
but Echo calls to the Narcissus in my mirror, singing
“All God needs is gravity to hold me down.”
God-send, I should have been a Greek artist
with admission to the elusive yellow muses,
gospel singers to the little “g” gods.
My own voice lures the artist to his death
upon the rocks, in a sea of torrential words.
Specificity
Remember the last week of December,
the last days of fall semester screaming ahead
of us as we prayed for the release of our senior-itis,
we stretched a path back from Christmas-nodding
without sitting for the amniotic flood of a new year?
The world spun without us, leaving responsibility
in its wake that flailed like squid tentacles.
We traced the North Georgia State fair with our toes
and pressed a hard mark to the ground in each space
behind us, wishing only to be as flies to any surface.
Our barely post-pubescent roommates, eyes bloodshot
by the beer we gave them too knowingly,
lilted around the stranger fluorescents like sheet music
to an angry director, thrashing his arms for emphasis.
They grabbed the rifles as trees to their tire swings
and shot at the plastic ducks, quacking innocently.
In Pictures
Silver paper planes float overhead,
whose holding cells break and fire
like lightning from the iron rod.
Why does the falling star gravitate
toward the choral pocket?
The poly-cotton sings about catching
every beam of light it attempts
and offers up its pretty without effort;
while children bid come the rosy rings
without knowing what that means.
Black come back; black lacks
light when white only strikes
the singers who try in vain to touch.
White lights on the washed walls
of our folly-filled classroom.
Could a cowboy really rope the moon,
why not a cowgirl with her braids
flying like doves in the lack of light:
black to white, she rides with the moon
and stars in her saddlebags?
Working at the Carmike Cinemas
I’ve been here many times before,
But I forgot the punch-line just like I always do.
Kids run through the archway
While the box-office homeless man
Performs a tracheotomy on himself.
A dog dances as the zoo sings around him;
That isn’t the film I came to see.
In the glass tree-house beside me,
Demons play with fire and poke inflammatory pistons
At Aeneas and Sybil.
Give me the Trinity of corn with
Snake saliva dripping marigold
And pebbles of melted snow,
But not in my voice.
To Robert Frost
An island anchors, flanked by two cities: a refuge but not exactly an oasis.
Where palm trees should stand protectively over a pearlescent pond
Instead flowers loiter amongst filthy lawn furniture and a ramshackle lean-to.
That shack looms magnificent and rustic over holiday-specific decorations,
Cozied and cozened behind a thin chorus-line of trees like a prisoner behind bars:
Visible in patches, simultaneously shiver- and smile-inducing.
Janus tends to this plot of land, this doorway, this gateway:
One face stares at Canton while the other dreams of the fictional town of White.
“Where do you live?” the Eastern face poses to the other, seeing only her road.
The Western face sighs. “The town between Nowhere and Nothing,” he says.
“What do you see?” East wants to know everything about West,
But West sees Nothing, understands Nothing. He wants only to know about East.
A single house sits on the road between Canton and White,
Holding its stance like a fortress protecting the liminal aura of the place.
The old and the new, ancient and modern knot together at this one spot
Where not even gods can decode the hieroglyphs of past and future.
West is the Ghost of Wisdom Past; East is the Spirit of Future Urbanity,
And the future of the driver depends on the direction he travels.
You crouch, Ana, impenetrable as the photo in Grandma’s trunk,
a tattered, gray cave rock opposite the jewels in your corset.
You Romanov with your blue-blood grin in black and white,
I slash flesh like a jewel too; a Medusa smiling my stony snakes.
Look at me, Nicholas; look at me, Tsarina—
I porter and break before the burning palace.
I taste the soldiers near me: Red saccharine like Eden-fruit
but White as airy as unbuttered bread.
The rubies of my eyes roll back, let me groan
in my sapphires—like Alexei’s eyes laze turquoise—
Lazy turquoise.
Daughters, I share only these brazen stones: Olga and Maria.
The guards carry themselves and their French right into the twentieth century
with too much of that Je ne sais quoi and chests like young girls.
Ars Poetica
A sandstorm shoves the Chinese temple,
lifting the worshippers from the clipped stones
and reuniting them with the ancestors
to whom they bow their smaller heads.
A falling star paints blue streaks upon canvas
that the wind and earth crashed to create,
dashing between columns and teasing the sand
that howls and knocks to erase his work.
The star glides among the mossy stones
and lets his tail splatter a path behind him.
“What shall I make of this?” he asks the incense
that sifts through his icy legs.
Only the purple fumes know what sacrifice
the silenced but still-stony elders demand.
Party Crashers
Snow lurches in front of the windshield,
huffing and groaning to attract the car’s snoozing inhabitants:
A man and a woman, fingers laced over the black leather gear shift
sleep against the blue sanguine splatters on the windows.
He had to have his black leather interior, the bare trees
imagine the woman say as a slow grin touches her cheek.
It was a couple hundred extra, but you only live once, right?
The trees cross their limbs at these leaf-fallen people:
two phones ringing out of earshot,
resting so soundly where even the birds left months ago.
Nests without nesters, hollows without knots,
but two saggy-eyed humans nap, satisfying
the Lennie Smallian white compact Honda Civic.
Sirens
“Love” scrapes metallic oxygen down
my parched throat, dry as sweat on the sea;
phrases like “I feel x” and “tell me y”
tingle like the swollen after-sting of a bee
on the hands I raise to the mountains.
My concrete shoes ground me like my parents
that time I said “damn” in my neo-teenager tongue,
but Echo calls to the Narcissus in my mirror, singing
“All God needs is gravity to hold me down.”
God-send, I should have been a Greek artist
with admission to the elusive yellow muses,
gospel singers to the little “g” gods.
My own voice lures the artist to his death
upon the rocks, in a sea of torrential words.
Specificity
Remember the last week of December,
the last days of fall semester screaming ahead
of us as we prayed for the release of our senior-itis,
we stretched a path back from Christmas-nodding
without sitting for the amniotic flood of a new year?
The world spun without us, leaving responsibility
in its wake that flailed like squid tentacles.
We traced the North Georgia State fair with our toes
and pressed a hard mark to the ground in each space
behind us, wishing only to be as flies to any surface.
Our barely post-pubescent roommates, eyes bloodshot
by the beer we gave them too knowingly,
lilted around the stranger fluorescents like sheet music
to an angry director, thrashing his arms for emphasis.
They grabbed the rifles as trees to their tire swings
and shot at the plastic ducks, quacking innocently.
In Pictures
Silver paper planes float overhead,
whose holding cells break and fire
like lightning from the iron rod.
Why does the falling star gravitate
toward the choral pocket?
The poly-cotton sings about catching
every beam of light it attempts
and offers up its pretty without effort;
while children bid come the rosy rings
without knowing what that means.
Black come back; black lacks
light when white only strikes
the singers who try in vain to touch.
White lights on the washed walls
of our folly-filled classroom.
Could a cowboy really rope the moon,
why not a cowgirl with her braids
flying like doves in the lack of light:
black to white, she rides with the moon
and stars in her saddlebags?
Working at the Carmike Cinemas
I’ve been here many times before,
But I forgot the punch-line just like I always do.
Kids run through the archway
While the box-office homeless man
Performs a tracheotomy on himself.
A dog dances as the zoo sings around him;
That isn’t the film I came to see.
In the glass tree-house beside me,
Demons play with fire and poke inflammatory pistons
At Aeneas and Sybil.
Give me the Trinity of corn with
Snake saliva dripping marigold
And pebbles of melted snow,
But not in my voice.
To Robert Frost
An island anchors, flanked by two cities: a refuge but not exactly an oasis.
Where palm trees should stand protectively over a pearlescent pond
Instead flowers loiter amongst filthy lawn furniture and a ramshackle lean-to.
That shack looms magnificent and rustic over holiday-specific decorations,
Cozied and cozened behind a thin chorus-line of trees like a prisoner behind bars:
Visible in patches, simultaneously shiver- and smile-inducing.
Janus tends to this plot of land, this doorway, this gateway:
One face stares at Canton while the other dreams of the fictional town of White.
“Where do you live?” the Eastern face poses to the other, seeing only her road.
The Western face sighs. “The town between Nowhere and Nothing,” he says.
“What do you see?” East wants to know everything about West,
But West sees Nothing, understands Nothing. He wants only to know about East.
A single house sits on the road between Canton and White,
Holding its stance like a fortress protecting the liminal aura of the place.
The old and the new, ancient and modern knot together at this one spot
Where not even gods can decode the hieroglyphs of past and future.
West is the Ghost of Wisdom Past; East is the Spirit of Future Urbanity,
And the future of the driver depends on the direction he travels.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Junkyard Quotes 1 & 2, Week 1
A few days ago I had dinner with my boyfriend and his family at their home. In the tradition the five of us had formed over the months of meals, we went to the living room afterward for a movie. First, though, Mike's father wanted to watch a little news. There I encountered my first junkyard quote! The news headline read: "Standard Bar Fight".
We, of course, started debating the characteristics of a standard and non-standard bar fight, before discovering there had been a fight at a bar called Standard. How disappointing! And yet no less interesting for a junkyard quote!
Another interesting phrase that I will add to this first post of junkyard quotes comes once again from my ever-insightful and always unintentionally locquacious boyfriend. Upon seeing a tattooed skeleton on "Ripley's Believe It or Not," he questioned, "Can you tattoo a corpse?" Despite the two tattoos I proudly own, that is one question I do not know the answer to and that will make for some interesting additions to poetry later!
We, of course, started debating the characteristics of a standard and non-standard bar fight, before discovering there had been a fight at a bar called Standard. How disappointing! And yet no less interesting for a junkyard quote!
Another interesting phrase that I will add to this first post of junkyard quotes comes once again from my ever-insightful and always unintentionally locquacious boyfriend. Upon seeing a tattooed skeleton on "Ripley's Believe It or Not," he questioned, "Can you tattoo a corpse?" Despite the two tattoos I proudly own, that is one question I do not know the answer to and that will make for some interesting additions to poetry later!
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