"When I first started driving, the advertisements said that most people died in accidents less than 25 miles away from home. Well yeah! Nobody ever drove more than 25 miles away from home!" - my grandfather yesterday
"If there was a kicking contest, I'd win." - Dr. Hipchen
"I just want to record his voice and play it while I sleep." - Kate Gervais
"Elizabeth Bennett has Mr. Darcy's balls." - my sister after reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (The book is referring to his bullets, but my sister took it quite another way!)
"back-to-front Bodyamr" - an article that talked about how celebrities like to wear dresses backwards
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Strategy Essay, Week 14
In the poem "To" by Franz Wright, one finds upon a first reading that the poem appears to be playing by the conventional rules of poetry. For example, the poem is written on a subject that is stereotypical in that it "should have a poem written about it" and uses some intesnsely emotional language throughout. However, because Wright does not identify the person to whom his persona is speaking, we cannot know precisely what kind of relationship is expressed or how the emotionality signifies. Likewise, the turn near the end of the poem to implied violence takes the poem from what could have been a saccharine account of a persona's child to an interesting display of the mixed emotions regarding a parent to his child, comparing the parent to God and the child to his "children."
The poem begins with the line "Before you were born I loved you," signifying that the poem will be very emotional in its execution, and indeed through the language of this particular piece, one may read that the persona is a parent (perhaps a father) writing for his child (who seems to be, though is not necessarily, female). He goes on to write in similar terms, allowing the persona to speak about his feelings regarding his child's first steps, again a very emotional time and one that may be expected in poetry, just as the later lines on the child's teenage years and being a "weedy thing" come in the next stanza.
However, directly after these lines, the turn occurs in which the persona states, "I loved and I was there / while they were raping you / I loved although / like God / that's all that I could do--" and the poem ends. After three stanzas of intensely felt language regarding the childhood of the persona's offspring, we find an immediate and very unexpected turn of events that is difficult to decipher. In fact, though violent, this stanza relates the same type of love as the ones previous in that it recalls the pain (both emotional and physical) that the child has had to go through in his/her life, for which the parent could do nothing but continue to love. Indeed, such sentiment expresses well the mixed power of a parent to both love and protect a child in that this persona realizes that there was only so much he could do to shield his child from the world, leaving him/her to be "raped" while he could only stand there and continue to love.
These methods are very interesting for Wright and are very unusual techniques for a postmodern, contemporary writer. Such language and expressions of love (especially the use of the word "love") for a child from the parent's perspective are expected realms of poetry and generally frowned upon, at least when a poet is starting out. However, because Wright is such a developed poet, he knows how to manipulate the "expected-ness" of the subject and both pander to how a parent would really feel toward a child while simultaneously adding fresh imagery and interesting turns.
The poem begins with the line "Before you were born I loved you," signifying that the poem will be very emotional in its execution, and indeed through the language of this particular piece, one may read that the persona is a parent (perhaps a father) writing for his child (who seems to be, though is not necessarily, female). He goes on to write in similar terms, allowing the persona to speak about his feelings regarding his child's first steps, again a very emotional time and one that may be expected in poetry, just as the later lines on the child's teenage years and being a "weedy thing" come in the next stanza.
However, directly after these lines, the turn occurs in which the persona states, "I loved and I was there / while they were raping you / I loved although / like God / that's all that I could do--" and the poem ends. After three stanzas of intensely felt language regarding the childhood of the persona's offspring, we find an immediate and very unexpected turn of events that is difficult to decipher. In fact, though violent, this stanza relates the same type of love as the ones previous in that it recalls the pain (both emotional and physical) that the child has had to go through in his/her life, for which the parent could do nothing but continue to love. Indeed, such sentiment expresses well the mixed power of a parent to both love and protect a child in that this persona realizes that there was only so much he could do to shield his child from the world, leaving him/her to be "raped" while he could only stand there and continue to love.
These methods are very interesting for Wright and are very unusual techniques for a postmodern, contemporary writer. Such language and expressions of love (especially the use of the word "love") for a child from the parent's perspective are expected realms of poetry and generally frowned upon, at least when a poet is starting out. However, because Wright is such a developed poet, he knows how to manipulate the "expected-ness" of the subject and both pander to how a parent would really feel toward a child while simultaneously adding fresh imagery and interesting turns.
Improv/Imitation 2, Week 14
From Franz Wright's "Entry in an Unknown Hand"
"And still nothing happens. I am not arrested."
I crook the package in both arms and slip like
gravel through a brightly lit alleyway, no more
sleeping without the promise of disguise, and no
such thing as perfect change in this world of
kidneys riddled with paper and fax letterheads.
From the Desk of Olivia Orlando, read the note,
incriminating in its accusation of apparent guilt.
While I wrote with otherwise whipping sarcasm
and notes titillatingly tripping off the tongue,
or however it was Hamlet pretended to be a director.
Now there was a man fit for Shakespeare, a prince
hidden beneath a director, hidden beneath an actor,
all the while feigning insanity for the sake of a
lost, never to be recovered, and most beloved mother,
sure of the guilt of a most despised uncle.
I act, too, Hamlet, though not in the same capacity.
I am not insane, nor do I pretend to be; rather, my
heart beats in spite of me, "it's bowl of red blooms
opening and closing out of sheer love of me."
To stop the beating, I pretend, incessantly.
"And still nothing happens. I am not arrested."
I crook the package in both arms and slip like
gravel through a brightly lit alleyway, no more
sleeping without the promise of disguise, and no
such thing as perfect change in this world of
kidneys riddled with paper and fax letterheads.
From the Desk of Olivia Orlando, read the note,
incriminating in its accusation of apparent guilt.
While I wrote with otherwise whipping sarcasm
and notes titillatingly tripping off the tongue,
or however it was Hamlet pretended to be a director.
Now there was a man fit for Shakespeare, a prince
hidden beneath a director, hidden beneath an actor,
all the while feigning insanity for the sake of a
lost, never to be recovered, and most beloved mother,
sure of the guilt of a most despised uncle.
I act, too, Hamlet, though not in the same capacity.
I am not insane, nor do I pretend to be; rather, my
heart beats in spite of me, "it's bowl of red blooms
opening and closing out of sheer love of me."
To stop the beating, I pretend, incessantly.
Improv/Imitation 1, Week 14
From Franz Wright's "Rorschach Test"
"To tell you the truth I'd have thought it had gone out of us long ago,"
so little writing now, when all else has failed; and shouldn't that be
our biggest, last, most powerful resort, that trailing of words together,
pushing phrases between one another as though only we have that power:
to make great syllables and marked changes in language with only pens
and typewriters. No computers--those are drab and impersonal where we
are concerned; we write our letters to one another, lilting our script in
our personal hand, for our personal words, to express personality to a
long-lost friend, so far gone in the world only the changing seasons of
our languages can reach each other. I do not want your words, I have so
many of my own, so few that seem adequate to express what I find needs
your attention in my own life, my own work, my own personality that dries
without your speech. I wonder where Virginia lays on such a topic, how
her characters--Mrs. Dalloway, especially--might see such a futility
as writing letters to a lost friend, never to see one another again.
"To tell you the truth I'd have thought it had gone out of us long ago,"
so little writing now, when all else has failed; and shouldn't that be
our biggest, last, most powerful resort, that trailing of words together,
pushing phrases between one another as though only we have that power:
to make great syllables and marked changes in language with only pens
and typewriters. No computers--those are drab and impersonal where we
are concerned; we write our letters to one another, lilting our script in
our personal hand, for our personal words, to express personality to a
long-lost friend, so far gone in the world only the changing seasons of
our languages can reach each other. I do not want your words, I have so
many of my own, so few that seem adequate to express what I find needs
your attention in my own life, my own work, my own personality that dries
without your speech. I wonder where Virginia lays on such a topic, how
her characters--Mrs. Dalloway, especially--might see such a futility
as writing letters to a lost friend, never to see one another again.
Free Entry 2, Week 14
How do doctors bring someone back from the dead?
Do the television shows lie, and does it not happen
as often as they imply? Imagine that there are spirits,
too many to count, waiting around hospitals, for
someone--anyone--to die so that a free spirit can steal
the empty body before the real spirit has a chance
to recover from the shock of dying for the first time.
A little girl died the other day, twenty spirits
hovered around her, waiting for the golden opportunity
to inhabit such a young body, to live a life all over
again, nearly from the beginning. When her soul
dissipated from her little frame, an old man jumped
into her place before any of the others could.
When the little girl's body opened its eyes once again,
he said "Mama" to the woman standing above him,
pretending that his soul was that of the girl she lost.
Do the television shows lie, and does it not happen
as often as they imply? Imagine that there are spirits,
too many to count, waiting around hospitals, for
someone--anyone--to die so that a free spirit can steal
the empty body before the real spirit has a chance
to recover from the shock of dying for the first time.
A little girl died the other day, twenty spirits
hovered around her, waiting for the golden opportunity
to inhabit such a young body, to live a life all over
again, nearly from the beginning. When her soul
dissipated from her little frame, an old man jumped
into her place before any of the others could.
When the little girl's body opened its eyes once again,
he said "Mama" to the woman standing above him,
pretending that his soul was that of the girl she lost.
Free Entry 1, Week 14
When I was little, I thought orchestra directors
were rude: they stood with their backs to the crowd,
waving their arms like a patient without his Demerol
and throwing sticks at musicians who are just doing
their jobs, fingering their keys, twinging strings,
while beaters pounded and cymbals boomed.
When I was in middle school, I thought band directors
were self-righteous, teaching us the right way to play
without embarrassing him at the next concert, our tiny
fingers barely big enough to reach from key to key
but now we were the menal patients, nonetheless,
stumbling over our notes to make him happy.
When I was in high school, I thought marching directors
yelled a lot, but only to make us play our very best
on the field: they screamed from megaphones for months
while we paraded on a faux football field in preparation
for the first big competition--even football games played
as practices for us, little drummer children.
When I was in college, and no longer played in a band,
I remembered how our director would scream, sometimes
throw his baton until we got him a Nerf gun to shoot instead.
I was struck by the lack of companionship without those
directors I thought so rude, self-righteous, mean, and thought
of the fact that there is no better feeling than watching
the crowd give a standing ovation at the end of a great performance.
were rude: they stood with their backs to the crowd,
waving their arms like a patient without his Demerol
and throwing sticks at musicians who are just doing
their jobs, fingering their keys, twinging strings,
while beaters pounded and cymbals boomed.
When I was in middle school, I thought band directors
were self-righteous, teaching us the right way to play
without embarrassing him at the next concert, our tiny
fingers barely big enough to reach from key to key
but now we were the menal patients, nonetheless,
stumbling over our notes to make him happy.
When I was in high school, I thought marching directors
yelled a lot, but only to make us play our very best
on the field: they screamed from megaphones for months
while we paraded on a faux football field in preparation
for the first big competition--even football games played
as practices for us, little drummer children.
When I was in college, and no longer played in a band,
I remembered how our director would scream, sometimes
throw his baton until we got him a Nerf gun to shoot instead.
I was struck by the lack of companionship without those
directors I thought so rude, self-righteous, mean, and thought
of the fact that there is no better feeling than watching
the crowd give a standing ovation at the end of a great performance.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Junkyard Quotes 1-5, Week 14
"Is pandemonia the plural of pandemonium?"
"Apparently there was a volcano." - a man in our hotel in Montana
"It says 'Montana Bar and Grill Casino' with 'Historic' stitched on the sign as an afterthought."
"I wish I could cry like a baby. The cathartic release." - on the plane to Montana
"The mischievous children locked the eccentric governess in the closet." - a sentence exercise in my Studies in Grammar workbook.
"Apparently there was a volcano." - a man in our hotel in Montana
"It says 'Montana Bar and Grill Casino' with 'Historic' stitched on the sign as an afterthought."
"I wish I could cry like a baby. The cathartic release." - on the plane to Montana
"The mischievous children locked the eccentric governess in the closet." - a sentence exercise in my Studies in Grammar workbook.
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