I thought our last class with the Shakespeare actors was very interesting. At first,a bit tired and unenthusiastic, I was not too excited about the idea of "interacting" with the text. Sometimes Shakespeare can be quite intimidating, but the way that they broke the workshop up was very effective. The discussion of iambic pantameter was especially interesting to me. To be able to have each person actually embody the stressed and unstressed syllables was very helpful to see. Also reciting the stressed and unstressed syllables separately was also interesting. I had never thought to do this, and the meanings and/or ideas that each line produced seemed very intentional of Shakespeare. All the activities we did were fun and engaging and really showed us a lot about the actors lives and how Shakespeare intended his work to be read/acted out. This close connection with the original intentions of Shakespeare was especially interesting to me.
On another note, I also had a lot of fun reading and writing our book reports. I thought this was an interesting assignment. What was most important and effective about this assignment was that we had to choose a work written by the same author (it couldn't be an anthology or a collection of poems). This really made me search for a book that had a theme which interested me. I spent quite a bit of time in the library and bookstore and ended up finding a book which wrote about the simple pleasures of the morning and the beauty of nature before the sun rises. I thought this was a simple theme, but it had some deeper thoughts that intrigued me. I also enjoyed reading some of the reviews that my classmates had written on the blog. I didn't have a chance to read many however, and I thought a fun follow up assignment would be to come to class with a few things to say about your book and/or a favorite poem from it. This would be a fun way to show each other what we learned, as well as inform people on some different books and authors.

A New Conversation

I really enjoyed our last class and discussion about the various artists who use poetry as a way to engage in conversation with writers they never had the chance to meet. I especially enjoyed talking about the poet who used Shakespeare’s sonnets to display hidden messages. The way, for example, that this particular poet chose to use Shakespeare’s words to argue against war struck me as incredibly fascinating. As I mentioned in class, it seemed to me that the author was trying to say that, had Shakespeare been around, he would have agreed with her convictions; that, when looked at closely, his work wholeheartedly supported her arguments. In short, she found a way to engage in dialogue with Shakespeare, to gain his approval without having to be in the same room with him – and how cool is that?

I cannot count the number of times I’ve read a poem by one of my favorite authors and wished that I could have talked with them about issues concerning social justice, equality, and humanity in general. Actually, there have been quite a few times I would have settled for discussing something as trivial as hazelnut flavored coffee with an individual such as Henry David Thoreau or Walt Whitman. Yes, that’s right, it would have been enough just to hear one of the before mentioned individuals share with me the specifics of their own favorite caffeinated beverage. The longing to know these artists a little bit more as people than mere historical figures, to me, has some similarities to the legendary wish of humans to ask God a question, actually expecting a verbal reply. This, I think, is the precise reason people go out of their way to get back staged passes to concerts, go to conferences, and travel long distances for literary readings. What other explanation could there be?

It’s entirely unlikely that one will end up in the same room with her favorite living artist, let alone an artist who’s already long gone, and was in fact writing during a generation far removed from her own. I couldn’t help but feel a little sad while reading Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl and Other Poems.” The author spoke so passionately about the problems facing his generation as well as its attributes that I found myself wanting to know how he would feel about the circumstances encompassing my own generation. I would like nothing better than to be able to ask him this, to be able to prove true my gut feeling that the two of us would have absolutely gotten along. I also can’t help but feel this is typical – at least for poetic dorks like me.

Ginsberg, after all, felt this way about Walt Whitman. His poem, “A Supermarket in California,” includes several references to Whitman, and goes so far as to place him in a contemporary supermarket in California. Also, as I mentioned in my review, Ginsberg adopted Whitman’s tendency to use anaphora in his work. In this way, he found a way to connect with Whitman through writing. Apparently methods like these are common and reap benefits I’ve, up until now, been missing. That being said, I think I’m going to start practicing them ASAP. I think it would be really fun to take words from another poem like we did in class and play around with them to form alternative meanings; maybe I’ll learn something I didn’t know before. If it’s the closes I can get to real conversation with my literary heroes, I’ll definitely take it.

Shakespeare and Book Reviews

I'm really excited for the Shakespeare workshop today. The Shakespeare productions I've seen, whether film or stage, are so completely different than the plays alone- its fascinating the difference that the human element has on poetry, or even the performance element, for that matter. Poems can take on such a different tone and life in performance; I've been absolutely amazed by the transformation at the few poetry slams I've attended. In anticipating today's workshop, I've been looking at my own work in a slightly different light, and considering the work of others in a slightly different light as well. Can the value, impact, and quality of poetry change depending on the media in which it is presented? I feel like it can. Spoken word-art is closely related to poetry, and yet; the lyrics to rap songs often appear to be gibberish (or at least tedious) in print, but can be so intensely moving when performed. One artist that comes to mind (and I would say artist rather than poet...though, again, the two are closely related) is Tupac Shakur. I would NOT want to read his work, but listening to it in performance, whether on a recording or someone reciting it- that is a moving experience. I guess I've just been considering how I want my own work presented...I'm taking the intended medium into account as I write.
I also feel like the book reviews that we just did relate to the subject of medium and presentation. A collection of poems as a book is so different than an assortment of poems that happen to be chronologically organized. In reading the reviews of others and in reading A Boy's Will, I had the chance to admire the amount of thought and precision that the authors put into organizing their poems in a collection, often yielding a new or enhanced meaning. I like how each step is artistic and purposeful.
AH SHAKESPEARE WORKSHOP!! Sweet!!!

Reflecting on our Past Book Assignment

I learned a great deal from our last assignment, which was to read an entire book of poetry by one author. It was the first time I had focused on the work of a specific poet. The book I chose exposed me to a style of writing I was not familiar with. It was similar to a stream-of-consciousness style. This demonstrated to me the freedom an author has when they are writing. I seem to put restrictions on myself when I am writing, which leads to problems. One of these problems is the length of time it takes me to write a poem. I will be writing a poem, and I see that an hour has gone by, and I realize I have only written four lines. This clearly isn't an efficient use of my time. However, after reading so many poems that read like a train of thought, I have discovered my ability to spit out lines more quickly has improved. By just writing what comes to mind first, rather than thinking and analyzing every word I write down, I am able to write longer, more fluent poetry. This has been an effective way to overcome writer's block. I made this discovery in class during one of our exercises where we write a line of poetry, then pass it on to our classmates.

Another exercise in class that has helped with writer's block is taking words from other peoples' poems and making them into your own creation. I find this very fun and effective in writing creative yet interesting poetry. One thing I am not sure about is plagiarism though. How do you know when you cross the line? Do you need to credit the author of the original poem in your new poem? For myself, I have mixed feelings using other poet's work because I don't feel like I am being original. However, I also feel that it is there to learn from and use for inspiration. I think finding a balance in this would be a perfect way to write poetry.

Robert Frost's -A Boy's Will-

One of the things that struck me most about A Boy’s Will is the short comments Frost made about the content and context about each poem in the Contents listing. It shows that he did not simply place the poems in chronological order but specifically organized them in a manner as to communicate a specific progression of his personal thoughts and values. Most of the poems are fairly short, no more than three pages at most, and there is a loose rhyme scheme present throughout, but many have structured and sometimes complex semi-structured schemes. This volume of Frost’s work shows a clear fondness for an “xaxa, xbxb, etc” scheme, as well as five line stanzas organized either “aabba” or “abaab”. There is the occasional sonnet, like “Into My Own” (which is written in heroic couplets), but more often the poems are derivations of forms like odes or ballads, and almost always they are endstopped. Like Wordsworth, Frost employs common and everyday language into his poetry; this technique does not hinder the intricacy or eloquence of the works in any way. Many of the poems are nature-based on the surface, and the theme (if they are narrative) is often conveyed through some sort of journey outdoors. The lyric works have many metaphors to pastoral life and country homes. Frost’s overlying motif (communicated by his comments in the Contents) is that of the personal beliefs and happiness of an individual (an unnamed “he” that refers to Frost himself). Despite an overlying motif, the works have differing plots and individual focuses- it is actually Frost’s own commentary that ties them all together into a coherent philosophy and message.
Some of the poems I was already familiar with, such as “My November Guest”, “A Late Walk”, “Wind and Window Flower”, “Ghost House”, and “The Tuft of Flowers”. However, with many of them I discovered things I had not previously noticed. For example, I realized that “My November Guest” is written in tetrameter.
I am a huge fan of nature-inspired lyric poetry, which is mainly why I chose to read this collection. What I always find striking about Robert Frost is how he intertwines nature with love and sadness, and the dark and solitary tone that permeates his work without sounding bleak or desperate.
One poem that is a new favorite of mine that I had never seen before is “In Neglect”. The five short lines of “abaab” are so concise and vague that I cannot help but be captivated by them. To me, it has a similar effect as the collection as a whole: it is precise enough to capture the interest of a reader, and vague enough for them to necessarily spend time considering and interpreting the work- exactly as any individual examining themselves must consider and interpret their own beliefs and behavior.
One thing I would recommend for young writers to emulate from A Boy’s Will would be to make comments showing the reader their thought process in organizing the works of a publication. Such a method lets readers understand much better whatever the writer is trying to tell them. Also, Frost utilizes to great effect the sensation of tactile interaction with the elements- a sense that many writers neglect in favor of sight and smell.
Overall, I thought this collection was quite impressive for a first publication. Granted, I am biased toward nature poetry, and I prefer semi-structured poems with more regular meter to Frost’s later narrative works which he is mostly famous for: “Out, Out---!” and “The Death of a Hired Man”. I would recommend it to readers who prefer lyrical, song-like poetry; people who prefers narrative poems that border on prosody (such as much of Frost’s later work) might look elsewhere.

"Howl and Other Poems" by Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg wrote the first poem in his 1956 publication, Howl and Other Poems in dedication to his lover, Carl Solomon, someone he met while spending time in a mental institution as an alternative to jail time for petty theft. Not only is “Howl” addressed to Solomon, however, but many of the poems in Ginsberg’s book seem to be a testimony of the connection between these two individuals. Part three of “Howl” actually references the author’s lover by name, the first couple lines reading:“Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Rockland/Where you’re madder than I am.”

These words directly evidence the time the two men spent together in the institution, and, although his lover is never again referenced directly in another of the book’s poems, all of Ginsberg’s pieces carry much the same kind of bitter sweet tone as the first. In addition, Ginsberg’s “America” aggressively attacks his country’s indifferent attitude towards the effect war has on individual psyches. For instance, one of the lines in this particular poem reads, “Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb,” and another, “America I still haven’t told you what you did to uncle Max/after he came home from Russia.” Because Solomon is said to have spent time in the military, lines like this certainly suggest another kind of connection between he and Ginsberg. It is precisely because these kinds of correlations found throughout Howl and Other Poems that the project reads like an utterly personal and very atypical lover letter; likewise, those poems incorporated which do not directly mention Solomon read like the secrets Ginsberg must have shared with him at one point or another. It is for this reason that despite the incredible hardship displayed in Ginsberg’s pieces – for example, the poverty and apathy plaguing America’s inner cities-- the author’s book still seems to love.

The entirety of Howl and Other Poems is written in free verse. In addition, Ginsberg’s poems seem to be influenced immensely by the literary tradition of Walt Whitman, and, in particular, his tendency to use the literary technique of anaphora in his works, as well as end-stopping his poem’s sentences. Ginsberg’s honor of Whitman is not by any means left to guesswork; in fact, within “A supermarket in California,” the author directly addresses the poet in the first line, which reads, “What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman.” Just as Whitman is famous for doing in pieces such as “Oh Captain, My Captain,” Ginsberg starts many of his sentences the same way in this particular poem, always beginning with the word “I.” He also employs this method in “Howl,” in which an incredibly amount of the sentences in part one begin with the word “Who.”

Still, the author’s writing is much different than Whitman’s in the sense that he tries to be much less sophisticated with his language, and instead uses a common, and even crude diction, often incorporating graphic words like “balls” and “cock” that carry sexual overtones. The effect this has is an appeal to a kind of crude emotion – an enticement that makes the reader feel the very grime and hardships the author describes so vividly in his work. For the most part, Ginsberg’s sentences are long and contain little punctuation. There are, however, four exceptions in the end of his book, found within: “An Asphodel,” “Song,” “Wild Orphan,” and the last piece, “In the back of the real.” These four poems have shorter lines, less repetition, and much less incorporation of end-stopping. The very last line in the book reads: “This is the flower of the world,” and, along with the shorter sentences and less reassuring poems, leaves me wondering how exactly Ginsberg feels about the world: hopeful, frustrated, disappointed, resigned? What kind of flower, exactly, is the world? All in all, the book left me curious and wishing Ginsberg could answer my question over tea…or maybe on our way out of a North Country supermarket.

Frosty Folklore

In the words of John F. Kennedy, “[Robert Frost] has bequeathed his a nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.” The winner of four Pulitzer prices, Frost was born in San Francisco but migrated to New England later in his adult life. It was in New Hampshire that he first began to notice the beauty of nature, capturing its essence with colloquial poetry for common humanity. As a teacher, Frost accepted professorships at various universities and colleges across the Northeast, namely Middlebury College and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. It was at these fine American institutions that Frost procured his rendition of the deep emotions tied in with the natural rural settings that surrounded his residence.
“I often see flowers…” said Frost, quoted in one of his poems, referring to his uncannied ability to capture what others cannot from Mother Nature, heralded for capturing blossoming beauty with a pen and paper. In his book, You Come Too, Frost gathers a cornucopia of his poetry that transforms simple yeoman speech into gleaming verses from the abstract. The individual poems of the book flow well together, in fact the order in which the poems are read plays a role in this reader’s overall understanding of the book. Two particular poems that work well together side by side are “A Hillside Thaw” and “Good-By and Keep Cold.” Both belonging to my list of Frost favorites, I believe that these poems were paired together because the reader takes away a certain sense of winter darkness in New England from the way that Frost uses especially simple vocabulary.
Frost’s work in You Come Too emphasizes his belief that God exists in Nature, “But something has to be left for god” is the last line of “Good-By and Keep Cold” and I feel that his diction is quite clear in portraying his understanding of that function. This reader comprehends the theme that Frost is attempting to convey in his poetry, that is the existence of beauty in nature as evidence of God’s existence. However, the tone is clearly negative in many of his pieces, there are subliminal intricacies that jump out at the reader when one scrutinizes each stanza from a selected Frost work. Perhaps Frost is angry with God or even debating his very existence when he pessimistically points out his laxidazical attitude towards daily news in his piece “A Patch of Old Snow.” Pointless in reality, snow has nothing to do with his actual emotions, rather it is the melting action of frozen precipetation that caught his panties in a bunch. When he says “the news of a day I’ve forgotten—if I ever read it,” I feel like respectfully slapping his cheeks because his tone impresses me in a way that makes the world seem like an aweful place, even though sometimes I also despise watching the news. However, ss an aspiring American writer, I look up to Frost and have a great deal of respect for his works.

Arreboles

My book is called Arreboles by Boyer Rickel. I had never heard of Rickel but once I picked the book up I was hooked after reading the first two poems. Apparently the word arreboles is a Spanish word for the subtle colors clouds on the horizon take on when it is struck by rays of the setting sun. Listen to the meaning of the title again and close your eyes, because the picture and emotion you get when doing so is very similar to what the reader has the ability of experiencing while reading this book of poems. Rickel breaks his book up into three small sections of poems; however, each poem evokes some type of imagery and emotion. The reader has the unique opportunity to get taken by Rickel to another place, a place where he has lived and experienced and for a brief moment, wants to share with you. Boyer Rickel’s poems do not rhyme, although you will find that accidentally some lines do but it never becomes a pattern. He does not write poems that have a melody or swing to them, yet the reader will find oneself reading with ease. Each poem seems to have a purpose for being written, a little glimpse into someone’s life at that very moment. The poems are written about his Father, Mother, and Brother, along with a neighbor’s house, a friend, a lover, childhood and his backyard. You can tell that each poem has meaning and can be said to be quite personal; this draws the reader in. As you flip through the book one might notice that almost all the way through his book most of the lines in the poems are relatively short and he has normal breaks in poems, with stanzas of three to five lines. However, once you flip to the last short chapter, his style changes. Rickel a couple relatively short poems but breaks them up differently. He uses italics to write some of the poem or breaks them up by inserting an asterisk and then have a space below and starting it would look like, a whole new poem. On top of that, his style for those few poems becomes a little more abstract. One poem in particular catches your eyes because his lines progress almost diagonally down the page. Overall, his poems just flow and there are breaks in the sentences, it seems to add maybe a little tension, but it does not detract or distract from what Rickel continues to say in his poems. As you read, it is as if you are just reading a story, or he is just talking to you; no effort or forcefulness, just thoughts passing by that he mentions out loud; lucky you to hear. The poem ends with a wonderful poem, that truly touches the heart, one quite personal and beautifully written about life and death.

The Poems of Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas’s book The Poems of Dylan Thomas was both a fun and articulate read and I can say truthfully that I deeply enjoyed reading this collection of poems. Within the collection of his poetry Dylan Thomas seems to touch upon multiple traditions ranging from villanelles like Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, prose poetry like In Country Sleep, as well as a large amount of free verse like his There Was A Savior. In terms of the nature of the collection of his poems I would say they are all somewhat closely related, in the fact that the majority of the poems consistently deal with three major motifs. The three major motifs of this book to me clearly were the struggle between life and death, love and despair, and finally faith and search for meaning. Each of these clear motifs in most of his poetry is very eloquently addressed and adds a significant amount of tension to the individual pieces. In addition, I personally felt (and perhaps this is because of their deep subject matter) that the motifs of life, death, love, despair, and faith were all infused in many unique ways, as a result I thought the poems were very surprising and interesting, yet I also felt that they did not seem to follow a particular overarching plot.

Due to the deep subject matter of the collection of poems, I thought that the whole book followed a very serious tone, in which Dylan Thomas identified through is motifs and themes the hard human questions we are all struggling to answer for ourselves. Often throughout the poems of his collection, Dylan Thomas’s speakers don’t necessarily provide answers to these questions; instead they highlight the struggle of human existence to understand the significance of love, life, and faith. However, on occasion his speakers do provide answers or at the very least opinions on the subjects of life, death, love, and despair such as his poem Death Shall Have No Dominion which just as the title suggests is a comment on how death cannot compare to strength of life or the impact of one’s life. Ultimately the speakers of his poems within this book all seem to carry an air and tone of not just seriousness, but wisdom and deep contemplation as well as the occasional sense of deep passion for what they are saying.

Overall, the technical structure of Thomas’s poems varies greatly with this book. As stated before Dylan Thomas throughout the book shows mastery of many different types of formats, including prose, villanelles, free verse, rhyming, no rhyming, meter and no meter. Similar to the overall format of his poems the use of enjambment, line structure and shape (most clearly demonstrated in his poem Vision and Prayer I) also greatly vary in the collection and can even seem sporadic at times. In the end, I would implore any poet or writer reading this collection to emulate Dylan Thomas’s creativity in his use of different styles and formats as well as addressing the serious emotions and problems we as human beings face through his poetry. The only aspect of this collection I would advise not to emulate would be the ending. While I did enjoy the individuality and surprising nature of Thomas’s poems within the book, the sense of no clear connection or arch between the poems extended to the feeling that the whole book ended abruptly and didn’t really cap or tie together the emotional issues addressed with the final poems of book. However, given the fact that the motifs and themes within the book are those that all humans have struggled to answer, perhaps the abrupt ending is fitting. In conclusion, I would recommend this collection to any writer interested in Dylan Thomas or great poetry in general.

Mary Oliver's "Why I Wake Early"

For those of you who look forward to the morning dew, the quiet awakening of the earth, and those few hours before the rest of the lazy human race groans out of bed, than Mary Oliver’s Why I Wake Early is for you. Oliver explores the extraordinary beauty of the everyday natural world around us and shows us poem after poem why she wakes early to watch the world unfold before her eyes.
Newly published in 2004, Oliver opens us to her own vision of the nature around her. One who seems to appreciate nature, as much as Henry D. Thoreau perhaps, she explores its unacknowledged beauty through simple, passionate unrhymed free verse. She explores with both shorter and longer poems as well as the shape it takes on the page to create a diverse collection. The collection, which includes forty-seven new poems, all relate to nature in some way. Whether it is in the simple description of a beetle or toad, or in the deeper question of how nature came to be. This overarching theme is effective and present in each poem, but not overpowering or redundant in any way. In this sense, the book is not predictable in its content individually, though the overall theme may be unsurprising.
Oliver brings us on her morning walks where she finds treasures like an abandoned arrowhead or perfect fall goldenrod and she describes it in a way that is unique and vivid. Her descriptions and thoughts are refreshing and surprising, one leading to the next. She on one hand shares with us a deep desire to understand and connect with the animals she meets in the morning. In “This Morning I Watched a Deer” she wishes she could whisper a poem to the silent deer who nibbles berries from a tree nearby. In “The Best I Could Do”, she expresses the connection she has as her eyes lock with an owl for only a few minutes. And she details the every limb of the toad in “Look Again” as she watches the little amphibian jumps beside her on a path. In all of these beautiful little descriptions, Oliver shows us her deep appreciation for the natural world and her deepest desire to be at one with it.
In another light, Oliver also takes the role of being somewhat unable to comprehend or express natures’ intricacy. In both “Just a minute…said a voice” and “Lingering in Happiness” she touches this complex relationship between the minute human and the vastness of nature. By giving nature this mysterious voice and character, Oliver dives into a whole other level of her collection. She leaves the book open ended and suggestive for us to make our own conclusions of nature.
In the end whether we are morning people or not, Oliver invites us to appreciate the everyday beauty in the nature around us. Who knows, perhaps those of us who prefer to sleep through the magic of the morning will be intrigued after reading Oliver’s collection and think twice next time we hit that snooze button.

A Boy's Will by Robert Frost

A Boy's Will perfectly exemplifies the best aspects of Robert Frost's writing. Just as Frost's poems contain layers of meaning, so does this work as a whole. Each poem can be read and interpreted independently of the other poems in his work without the loss of any themes or ideas. But when read together, the poems describe the life of a young man growing into adulthood. In this collection of poems can be seen three distinct themes, almost like three distinct phases of the boy's life. Throughout the first poems in the book, there is a continuing idea of turmoil and questioning. The opening poem describes a type of renunciation in an effort to find oneself. The common desire for individuality and self-understanding that almost universally defines adolescence can also be said to define the first poems collectively. The poems in the book then progress to a period of revelation, begining with the not-so-subtly named poem "Revelation". Here, the boy begins to find himself and reassess his ideas on things such as love, death, and friendship. A Boy's Will then takes on the form of one who is in the autumn of life looking back on his past. All the ideas of regret, nostalgia and trepidation then culminate in the final poem of frost's collection: "Reluctance".
One of the most interesting things that can be seen in this publication is the developement of the narrator as he progresses through life. Each poem can be seen as a single idea of the narrator, and these ideas change as the narrator grows from youth into adulthood. Another key feature of this work is that not only do the ideas change as the narrator developes, but because these ideas are represented as originating from an inquizitive narrator rather than some omniscient source, they become open to interpretation giving the reader the oportunity to assess the validity of the boys thoughts for himself, making the themes both more pertinent and more meaningful.
As with most of Frost's works, A Boy's Will is riddled with beautiful images of nature and seasonal change. And while this book can be said to exemplify the best of Frost, it can also be said that it does not contain any deviation from his usual style of writing. Robert Frost's poetry tends to be uniform in its use of rhyme scheme, technique, and imagery, and A Boy's Will is no exception. However, those same techniques employed by Frost in his other works are highlighted here by the interconnectedness of the individual poems in the book.
For anyone who is familliar with and enjoys the work of Robert Frost, this book is a must read. And for anyone who is unfamilliar with his work or would like to see his writing at its best, A Boy's Will should be on the top of the list of the reading list. However, if you are looking for some innovative deviation from Frost's other works, then this is probably not the book for you.

"The King's Question" by Brian Culhane

The King’s Question by Brian Culhane is a compilation of poems creating a brief, yet complex commentary on “how the ancient world impinges on the modern.” The poems reflect on historical monuments which have shaped the modern world and play with the notion of answering why. However, this answer can never truly be found due to lost knowledge of the answers or uncertainties implanted in society by the gods.
It should be noted, however, that each poem retains its own personality and hidden message. I say hidden message because Culhane’s poems represent the lives of people who are seeking to find truths that are shrouded in doubts, and at times even proven to be deleted from history. In this way, it is the readers’ job to induce these truths from the poems. The order of the poems itself is a journey of understanding. The poems start off almost foggy, and to a green reader like myself, difficult to derive meaning from. However, as one progresses through the book of poems, they become easier to understand as their rhetoric begins to spell out the inevitable connection of the past and the present.
Culhane’s poems, though alike in content, cover a variety of different forms, mainly unrhymed free verse. They not only vary in length, sentence structure and ending techniques, but also in aesthetics. His poems range from two lined stanzas with sentences consisting of complete thoughts, to five lined stanzas that are severely enjambed. Having said this, each poem, regardless of how it appears on the page, or where its sentences are broken, can be read as a cohesive story. That is, Culhane is flirting with the idea that no form is form. It does not matter how his poems are written, they are still going to tell the same stories in a smart and witty way.
Every poem in The King’s Question is told through the eyes of a single narrator. I assumed it was the same narrator in each poem, but others could read them as several firsthand accounts. I believed the narrator to be the same because the tone in every poem proved to be very similar. Within the poems there are few other people mentioned. Sometimes there is a single person whom the narrator interacts with or is noting, but there are rarely more than five people mentioned within a poem. All of these intimate firsthand accounts give the poems credibility and allow the reader to develop a deeper relationship with the poems and their content.
Overall, Culhane has created a beautiful and challenging set of poems alluding to the connections of past times to our present lives. Through the journey that is The King’s Question, the reader discovers how even history that has been lost to the touch and sight still affects our lives today.

Mountain Interval by Robert Frost

Mountain Interval is the third volume of poems published by Robert Frost. While I am admittedly not previously very familiar with Frost’s poetry (excluding some two or three poems that are actually within this volume) and thus do not have much else to compare these poems to, I am inclined to say that these poems in particular focus much on life, choices and consequences and serve together as a means of reflection and in many cases means of advice in the constant quest of life. Right off the bat this theme is established with the first, and perhaps Frost’s most famous poem, The Road Not Taken. Within this poem, many of the messages that are further touched on in the volume are touched on and highlighted. This poem draws attention to the natural human responses to challenges and the means by which we make the decisions that we do and more specifically focuses on there being a “right” or “better” choice.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Through this passage it is evident the sort of tone that the rest of the poem carries and furthermore that the rest of the collection carries about challenges in life, the choices that we make and of course then the implications that we face because of those challenges. The Home Stretch, the fifth poem in the series, the poem focuses on what has become of their (the husband and wife) lives and what the future will hold. The poem has a tone similar to a geometric compass in the way that it depicts the past as a fixed center of which the future is dictated to revolve around. In other words the position or choices of the past limit and arrange the future. The piece has somewhat of a gloomy tone focusing on some of the bleak realities of life and its senselessness. This poem is the second longest of the poems in the volume (just behind Snow, the second to last poem) and is also probably the closest to free verse out of all of the poems.
The majority of the poems are much shorter in length and very clearly well structured and with a clear and set form. Putting in the Seed, Range Finding, Meeting and Passing, and The Oven Bird, are even in the form of sonnets.
The final poem in the volume and my personal favorite, The Sound of the Trees, is quite similar to the tone and message of the first poem The Road Not Taken. While the volume in this sense does seem to come full circle it does not come to a clear conclusion or resolution to this issue of making choices and in fact, in comparison to The Road Not Taken, The Sound of the Trees is actually less clear about the choices that should be made and much more vague about the clash of what should be done and what is then actually done in reality.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
The author is comparing people and their decisions and indecisions to those of trees and in this poem essentially does not come to a conclusion. While in The Road Not Taken, the speaker eventually makes a clear and confident choice, this poem is more centered on the inner conflict itself rather than any sort of implied solution that the speaker makes independent of the tree metaphor.
Overall I definitely enjoyed reading this book and the poems within it and would certainly recommend it to anyone. Some of the poems were uninteresting and I especially did not enjoy the lengthy ones, Snow and The Home Stretch. They were overall too wordy and I had to read it several times just to stay focused on what was even going on. The first and last poems were wonderful and the kind of stuff you would find framed and want to put up in your kitchen or living room but a lot of the stuff in the middle could have been done without. Historically I’ve been a fan of true romantic poetry and while some of Frost’s poems certainly fit into this category I did appreciate many of the ones that did not as well. The sonnets in particular were extremely enjoyable to read especially after our activity in class as I now have a much greater appreciation for form poetry. I personally think that Robert Frost should stick to what he’s good at, i.e. short and succinct poetry and give up on the lengthy crap that is just boring and wordy. I am definitely glad to have read this though. A great reading experience and I would recommend it to all.

'Red Suitcase' by Naomi Shihab Nye

I chose to write a review on Naomi Shihab Nye’s book of poems entitled ‘Red Suitcase’. It is a collection of poems that have several similarities with one another, but are not all related by one specific theme, style, or idea. The poet shows her strength as a writer in her tendency to choose to write of ordinary, everyday situations and people, but then elaborate on them in an interesting way. She gives the reader many opportunities to view the world in a new light. Her humble tone invites the reader to listen carefully to what is being said, and discover how many people can relate to her topics.

One reappearing theme throughout the book is memories. Many of the poems have a reminiscent feel and language, whether it is remembering a childhood moment, or remembering this morning’s breakfast. A reoccurring object in the book, also related to memories, are letters. There are poems where letters are received and cherished, and then in contrast, poems where they are destroyed and forgotten. Certain speakers and characters reappear, as well. For example, several of the poems are from a child’s perspective, or speak of family relationships and ties, like that with one’s grandmother. Another consistency throughout the book is the specificity of location. One can tell that the poet has travelled or researched many countries as she speaks of such diverse places as the U.S.A., Palestine, Mexico, and Jerusalem. She gives an honest, truthful account of the world’s different cultures and traditions.

As a whole, the poems do not have a consistent length or formal setup. They mostly consist of unrhymed free verse, however. The poems seem to increase in length in the second half of the book. The lengths of the lines are not particularly long, but they aren’t short and clipped either. There is not a lot of enjambment. Almost always, the poet makes each line flow with a coherent thought. The language is simple with easily understood words, but yet has the ability to convey powerful messages.

From the beginning to the end, each poem is surprising, warm, and fresh. There is a flow to the order of the poems. For example, the very first poem talks about being prepared and ready for what will come next. Then, it is split into three sections, but each relate to one another. The end of the book touches on more serious topics like poverty and war. The overall tone of the book has compassion for life’s sorrows and worldly issues. It opens one’s eyes to the little joys of everyday life, as well as the bigger problems the world is faced with.

I believe the best part of this book, which a young poet can learn from, is how powerful poems can be without the use of lengthy words, metaphors, similes, and exquisite language. To speak from one’s heart and one’s eyes can make for very good poetry.

Love Poems by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda’s style has structure but does not have a traditional style of writing. His writing of the time seems to bring new fresh ideas to the table relating love to the earth and our surroundings. The book Love Poems seems to be comprised together, not as separate poems. It would be adequate to read the poems separately but in this book, they all compliment each other in style and in meaning. Each poem uses the body as a figure in nature or compares love to nature through descriptive words or meanings. In the first section of the book it seems as if Neruda is focusing on more the body of the woman then throughout the book the nature and the women become more complex together. His main subjects are always a woman, specifically a women that he in deeply in love with. His love for nature, and for his woman combines into a mesh of deep meanings and deep inner feelings. The poems are predictable only in the way that they are all about love. In no way does Neruda have a dull moment in any of his poems or from one poem to the next. He captivates the reader though titles and through the use of the Spanish on the left page and the English on the right. The tension between languages is great, and makes the poems seem even more romantic and full of love. The structure of his poems are slightly like free verse except they have a lot of structure and he is very strategic with end stops and stanzas. Many of his poems are short, such as less than a page, but only a very few are longer. Also his poems are consistently short lined, despite the few that have longer more free versed lines. The lines are simple with mostly short sentences, and it is clear that he is enjambing the lines on purpose, even though they are not harshly enjambed. The vocabulary is one of the most important aspects of his love poems because they are the descriptive words that complete his poems and allow the reader to relate and understand them. Neruda uses some of the same words throughout the poems such as island, nature, blood, love, roots, and flowers. By using the same words in different poems allows the reader to make connections throughout the book. The books overall tone is melancholy and reflective which makes the read easy and enjoyable for many different types of readers. At the end of the book, there is no real conclusion, except that he uses the word root, which allows the reader to feel grounded and complete at the end of all the poems. Many writers should not try and emulate his specific style only for one reason and it is because it is in Spanish. Unless you are fluent in another language it is very appropriate and interesting, but it is a difficult task to achieve. I find myself wanting to know more about his love, not just her physical appearance and how he interacts with her and how he feels, I want to know more about her and her feelings towards him.

Book Review: Aleister Crowley's "The Book of Lies"

The Book of Lies represents a step out of the zeitgeist of poet Aleister Crowley’s times and an attempt towards transcendental illumination of those who read the book. The book is composed of 93 chapters, although some of the poems are composed of single words or single punctuations. The book itself is very idiosyncratic and its name is very true to its purpose. In fact, the publishing information at the beginning of the book is in fact a lie in and of itself. The actual publishing date of the book is off by five years and the publishing house does not and has not existed. The poems themselves, in the majority, are allegorical pieces about certain philosophical issues or sexual items. The poem entitled 69 is based on the expected subject matter; however it is done so in an artful and much concealed matter. Honestly, trying to establish the subject matter in most of the poems is very difficult due to the ambiguity created by Crowley’s purposeful use of words that have double meanings, or actively contradicting himself in order to “lie” to the reader. The poetic form is very consistent; it is constructed in free verse with an almost narrative feel. There is very little rhyming within the poem, however there is a great deal of rhythm in the syllabic aspect of the poems. The lines are very short, containing only a few words per line, but because of the density of the topics discussed within the poems, these short lines serve to break up the intellectual density of the poem. The poetry itself certainly does not fall into specific categories or traditions and in fact has very little resemblance to anything in poetic traditions in general. It seems that the book is very true to its purpose because it attempts to change the mind of the reader via its outlandish and downright absurdist overtones. The poems work very well in and of themselves, but I would be reluctant to suggest that any poetry following in this tradition would be very successful at all. This book is essentially based around its novelty. Constant surprises are a norm within the work, however any imitation could not have the same effect if one had read prior Crowley’s work. In essence, The Book of Lies is an outlier in the poetic tradition and represents a novelty act which pieces together Crowley’s philosophies and sexual liberties in a tome of free thought... but of course, I could just be lying.

Book Review of Matthea Harvey's "Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form"

In her book of poetry Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form, Matthea Harvey works with lyric poems that utilize great imagery, creative descriptions, and explores captivating themes, such as confinement, freedom, and their respective interplay in human interactions. This book is a single project, aimed at exploring freedom and confinement in human relations and interactions. In the poems “Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form,” “Ornamental,” “A Need for Consistency,” and “Frederick Courteney Selous’s Letters to His Love” to name a few, explore the theme of confinement. In these pieces, Matthea Harvey explores how we are confined within ourselves, our surroundings, and our relationships. Although we seem to yearn for freedom and release we ultimately seem to need confinement. While desiring freedom people also attempt to contain it. The freedom that attracts us is liberating yet scary and dangerous. Love seems to be the ultimate trap, a trap that while pains us is also something that we yearn for with our utmost desires. Matthea Harvey however, paints no clear picture or definitive ruling on the place of our desire for freedom and confinement. In some poems, such as “A Need for Consistency” confinement is paralleled to repetition and consistency, both sought for to gain a sense of safety. This need for safety ultimately brings about more chaos, as one of the character’s relationship falls apart due to the desire for confinement. In the poem “Frederick Courteney Selous’s Letters to His Love,” confinement is at first depicted as something stifling, restrictive, and monotonous, whereas freedom in wilds of nature is liberating and sheer joy. However, near the end of the poem, the speaker admits that although he used enjoy the thrill of the chase he now knows that he really wants the relationship with his lover, to be confined. The contradictions in each poem some how make sense however. It can be read that people need, love, yearn for, fear, and hate both confinements and freedom. The characters distant for the most part, the speaker being an observer, with some exceptions being in the case of the speaker in “Frederick Courteney Selous’s Letters to His Love,” who is a character in the poem. Many of the characters are cold and distant in one way, but then close and familiar in another. This is most likely due the fact that such characters do things that alienate the reader (such as killing rare animals in Africa (“Frederick Courteney Selous’s Letters to His Love”), forcing plants to bear a certain shape (“Ornamental”), and losing loved ones through rigidness (“A Need for Consistency”)), but experience fears and desires that are familiar to us. Almost every poem has consistently high tension, due to a heavy use of enjambment. Lines are broken in such a way so that sentences blend together making it difficult to tell when one line ends and the other begins. These qualities do not allow the reader to rest, and therefore, significantly raises tension. In some poems the first letters of the first word in each line is capitalized. This helps with the double meanings of lines that combine together. Some poems do not have any periods at all and no capitalization, greatly increasing tension. Many poems start out very abstract but over the course of the poem the reader is able to discern the author’s arguments and theme based on recurring imagery and less abstract and more analytical descriptions. Especially in the poem “Nude on a Horse Hair Sofa by the Sea,” there is an intermingling of very abstract and imagery based descriptions with that of more literal descriptions. The abstract parts raise tension and impart vividness imagery while the more literal parts help to contextualize the abstract, making it that much more vivid while also decreasing tension and giving the reader some reprieve. The book Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form has complex themes and ideas that are both enticing and intimidating, while also incorporating a variety of different situations that put new twists and perspectives on the author’s themes.

Synergy

I think one of the coolest things about being a writer, and being in writing classes is the idea of workshopping. I know I’ve talked before about how much I’ve enjoyed workshopping and for what reasons, but this time around, something unique is happening. It’s my first time doing workshop on a college campus, and this is the first time I’ve noticed that I am actually starting to be influenced by the writing techniques of others. Likewise, I’m noticing that others are starting to be influenced by my own literary idiosyncrasies.

I’ve mentioned in class that rhyming poetry has never been my favorite, as I often find the way form poetry can limit one’s intended meaning simply because a certain word must match another to be unfortunate. Many individuals in my workshop group, however, are fond of rhyming, and each class they bring in a poem with rhymes that really make me stop and think -- that convey both meaning and add a nice literary technique. To put it simply, I’ve become phenomenally intrigued. This is one of the main reasons that I chose to write a villanelle for my last poetry assignment – and trust me, I learned a lot from the experiment!

Upon trying to craft, “Chelsea’s Poem,” I discovered personally just how difficult it is to convey both rhyme and meaning at the same time. I found myself struggling to find the right denotative and connotative meanings words, and to, at the same time, make sure that they complimented each other. This time, however, I felt differently about the struggle. Instead of condemning form poetry, I have begun to appreciate just how amazing it is when a writer actually manages to craft a rhyming poem such as a villanelle well. And, for the first time, I’m entertaining the thought that perhaps it’s better to learn the “rules” before starting to break them. We’ll see, I suppose! Regardless, though, I’m excited to start playing around with rhyming more in my poetry, and to try out a lot of different formats for expressing my creativity.

Eunoia and Oulipo

I find the readings for today fascinating. Though they go against my personal Romantic notion of poetry as an organic process, they are incontestably works of great effort and skill, and I am very glad to be exposed to them. When I started reading the definitions and history of Oulipo, I wasn't sure if it was just some satire about poetry, some elaborate joke, or if I was actually learning about a form. I was even a little suprised to discover that I was, in fact, reading about a legitimate form. I see the value and whimsical creativity to the N + 7 form, although it did leave me wondering: does one write their own creative work and then replace the nouns, or do they steal a previous writer's work and replace the nouns? Or both? I feel like that form requires the use of a very small dictionary, because otherwise the danger of losing coherency is simply too great.
Eunoia is quite impressive. I had heard of such things before (the long, long novel that never once contains the vowel "e"- I forget the title), but hadn't given it enough thought to realize the lengths to which people might extend the constraints. It is (in the most literal and basic sense of the word) awesome that Christian Bok managed to write decent length chapters eliminating all vowels but one. I was stunned when I read about all the additional constraints he assigned himself in creating Eunoia. That said, so many words with only one vowel becomes a bit tedious to read after a while- and the vocabulary is so high that it took a lot of concentration and careful reading to understand the flow of topics.
Probably my favorite pieces for today were Jen Bervin's altered versions of the Shakespeare sonnets. The concise statements that she drew from each sonnet were extremely poignant, and by juxtaposing those statements with the original piece, she caught my interest further. I would probably be most interested in that technique, or maybe N + 7 with an extremely small dictionary. These Contemporary and Modern forms are definitely fascinating.

As many have been posting previously, I too have been finding the new writing styles we are reading and discussing in class to be very interesting. Last Thursdays class was very interesting for me in particular, learning about Villanelles. I really enjoy writing on my own, whether it be little quotes, poem, or lyrics. Lots of times I find myself trying to write lyrics and sometimes I think they come out okay. However, I guess I never really dissected lyrics when I listened to them because last weeks class really opened up my eyes to how songs are really written. I found it really cool that just by having a certain rhythm and sticking to it with the type of words you use, you can fill in different lines. That exercise as really made me aware of the writing style of lyrics and has made it fun for me to look some up this past weekend and try to fit in my own words and lyrics. I am really excited for class and to keep learning different styles.

Learning and Reading

I agree with many people about the new types of poetry that we have been learning and reading more about. I find it interesting, like Kathleen, that the more I read and learn about a type of poetry the more interesting it becomes. I also liked learning how to emphasize a word, or something you would like to be known. I think it is not only important to learn how to use the technique but also it is important how you use your words and make them your own. I appreciate when people make an effort, not necessarly the best poem in the world, but to put them selves out there, and practice a technique is more rewarding then making a perfect poem. On that note, I dont know if there is such thing as a perfect poem. There are forms and ways to make your poem structured with tone and meter and line breaks, but that is all great only when the writer really believes in his work. Throwing out random techniques or trying something new can be very rewarding for the reader and for the writer as well. I enjoy reading poems that are not traditional, that break away from the norm. I think it shows me that poetry is really an art, and that you can paint outside the lines once and a while.

I, like many others, really enjoyed learning about the Villanelles and Sonnets. I particularly liked the assignments that we had for Thursday in addition to the reading in “Rhymes Reason” about these two types of poetry I really thoroughly enjoyed the poems that we read. I know we didn’t really get to go over all of them or at least in great detail but I definitely enjoyed having the chance to read them all at least on my own. It is so interesting to me that just within one form of poetry there can be so much variation. The different forms can also be affectively used in order to highlight different points, which is also interesting to me. The fact that one technique can be used as a tool to emphasize contrasting elements just depending on HOW you use it is so cool. I’m really hoping to utilize what we’ve learned about these structures in future poems that I personally write and have already seen some great examples of these by my peers. As someone before me mentioned, I think later learning the intricacies and histories of these forms made it even more interesting. It’s pretty cool that the more you learn about something the better that it gets. It kind of makes reading poetry less like eating vegetables and more like eating dessert.

I, like many others, really enjoyed learning about the Villanelles and Sonnets. I particularly liked the assignments that we had for Thursday in addition to the reading in “Rhymes Reason” about these two types of poetry I really thoroughly enjoyed the poems that we read. I know we didn’t really get to go over all of them or at least in great detail but I definitely enjoyed having the chance to read them all at least on my own. It is so interesting to me that just within one form of poetry there can be so much variation. The different forms can also be affectively used in order to highlight different points, which is also interesting to me. The fact that one technique can be used as a tool to emphasize contrasting elements just depending on HOW you use it is so cool. I’m really hoping to utilize what we’ve learned about these structures in future poems that I personally write and have already seen some great examples of these by my peers. As someone before me mentioned, I think later learning the intricacies and histories of these forms made it even more interesting. It’s pretty cool that the more you learn about something the better that it gets. It kind of makes reading poetry less like eating vegetables and more like eating dessert.

Villanelle

Learning about the different commonly used poetic devices is one of my main reasons for taking this course. I am often ambivalent to such constructs. On the one hand, they are commonplace because they are effective means of portraying ideas. On the other hand, however, using a format for poetry does constrict one's writing style. I don't think this actually affects the amount of creativity involved because I think that finding a way to work within the confines of a format is just as creatively demanding as developing your own format. Anyway, I digress. In short, I share my fellow classmates' interest and excitement in working with the villanelle and it is likely that at least one of my next workshop poems will follow that formula. I also look forward to seeing what other members of my group can do should they decide to experiment with this format as well. On a side note, I would like to get some of my previous work returned so that I might be able to rework some of it, particularly the energy and tension poem, for further workshopping in class. I tried something a little different than what I usually do, and I would like to see what I can make out of it.

Villanelles, Repetition, and Rhyming

I have to agree with both Alex and Joe on their comments on the poetic format of a villanelle in that it is a very complex and yet beautiful form of poetry that can demonstrate true mastery of verse and rhyming. After learning more about them last class I must admit my respect for those who can write them as well as my own desire to take a crack at one as drastically increased. Without a doubt one of my all time favorite poems is Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, and I have always been in awe in how well it uses repetition and rhyme to convey its strong message. Like Alex, I found the fact that villanelles need to focus on serious topics understandable, since the constant repetition in the poem would easily cause anything that is seemly unimportant to sound very child like. No, I must admit when we began to go more in dept on villanelles in class I always pictured them telling stories about something serious and worth obsessing over such as Dylan Thomas’s father’s “easy” death. Personally, I have to end my blog post by commenting on rhyming and saying that I agree with Joe that there is growing perception that rhyming poetry is an old and dying art. But in reality it doesn’t, rhyme is a great technique in poetry, one I am extremely fond of. That’s not to say I believe not rhyming is bad, but the truth is I feel sometimes that people view rhyming as childish, when with a little effort and work rhyming can give a poem a sense of strong focus, rhythm, and personal expression.

A Little on Poetic Forms

I found the discussion on the villanelles to be especially interesting. I have a hard time using rhyme scheme anyway, not only keeping track of words to reuse in different stanzas. If one can do a villanelle, then one must really have a good grasp on writing. I also found it very interesting that a villanelle should be used to discuss a subject that is very important to the author, something worth practical obsession, because that’s the effect of the villanelle. Knowing the form of poetry techniques, such as sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, and others is only as useful as knowing what they are traditionally used for and what effect they give off. Sonnets, with their regimented line count, rhyme scheme, and syllable count, give off a more secure feel and are usually about love. By knowing this, one can either go forward with the sonnet in its original purpose, or do the opposite for the sake of contrast. However, I’m sure one could do the same thing with a villanelle because something of no significance to the author, or to anyone else including the reader, will find the villanelle simply repetitive. Yet again, its essential to know not only the rules of poetic form, but also the purposes of those forms.

Villainous Villanelle's Vividness

After reflecting upon Tuesday’s class I had interesting thoughts about the Villanelle style of poetry which we explored so thoroughly. Before class I was privy to such knowledge; never had I written one. I have a lot of respect for those who can accomplish the feat. What captivated me most was the complexity of the rhyme schemes. There are so many variations of the rhyme, and the Villanelle has the potential to capture varying usages of couplet verse. One could say that the possibilities are made from equal parts of both infinity and fascination.

I am a big fan of rhyming and an even larger advocate for its usage in poetry. Although I have heard many people deem it as silly speech, rhyming is still a lost art, as archaic as Fresh Prince and Adidas sneakers; certainly worthy of a comeback. Oblique pairs are probably the most exciting genre of lyricism, such as when one rhymes “green” with “fiend.” It was once said that the holders of this technique grasp the world of poetry in their hands.

Perhaps further reflection will reveal similar success.

workshop and assignment 5

Once again I thought everyone did an excellent job on the workshop poems. Each time I am amazed at the talent we have in our class. I love how honest people are but also the compassion they bring forth with their constructive criticism. I think everyone has been trying new styles of writing and getting different ideas from each other. These workshops have been very helpful and inspiring for my own poetry and have made me more excited about writing.
In regards to assignment 5 for this week, I thought it was an interesting assignment. It was tough for me to try and come up with something to write and especially to make one poem at least 28 lines. I find that I am much more of a short poem writer and therefore find these longer assignments harder to write. However, I came up with an idea that I hope is a good one and successful. Overall, I think it got me to think outside of my box, which is always a good thing for me.
I hope everyone has a great Mid-semester break!!!

Hail Assignment 5!!!

Going into this assignment, I was honestly pretty concerned. First of all, I'd been suffering writer's block and was having a hard time coming up with things that I really wanted to write about. Second, I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan in the world of concrete poetry and word art. I've always felt like its kind of kitschy and cute- more like someone trying to make a clever joke than a serious or joyous statement.
I didn't really think about the assignment too much, and amazingly, wrote one of the first poems in a while outside of class. It was just something really short and random, but it got my creativity working again. I read it a few times, rewrote parts of it, translated it to English (because go figure, the inspiration was to write it in French...I'll be damned if I know how that happened)...and then suddenly I had an idea of what to write about for Assignment 5!! On an different subject than the previous poem, too! I tried to convey the movement of a leaf falling from a tree and drifting down to the ground on a breeze- hopefully that translates okay. I'm really excited, mainly because I feel like poetry tends to turn out better when it is spontaneous. Mine certainly is, because when I sit around and think up something to write about, it always comes across as EXTREMELY contrived and clunky (in my opinion).
The point is: much to my suprise, I really really like Assignment 5 and wish that we were workshopping these poems together. Anybody going to Poetry for Peace this afternoon?

I too, found Assignment Five difficult but very rewarding.  I actually am a big fan of enjambment and unorthodox line breaks.  I think the rhythm and feel of the poem is the most interesting part. What I found to be most helpful while working on this exercise was reading my poem out loud.  I actually do this all the time for any of my writing, but I used it even more so with this poem.  Having to focus on the significance of your line breaks is much more difficult that simply using them as a metronome.  A lot of times, I find myself hitting the return button simply because I like the way it looks or it is the right amount of syllables.  Both of these reasons are legitimate and I don't think should be disregarded.  However, what was interesting about this assignment is that you really had to find a reason or deeper meaning behind the line breaks which deepened your poem some how.  

I was actually inspired by my own inability to choose a topic for this poem this week and wrote my poem on this dissatisfaction with my words and thoughts.  This is always the hardest part for me, coming up with a topic, but once you pick one you get flowing I find.  In this poem, I wrote about this frustration as I sat at my desk freaking out about what to write.  I tried to portray this stream of consciousness in my line breaks but also bring it together with a hidden meaning.  I also tried to have the tension rise and fall, and used the line breaks to help me with this several times.   

   

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" is one of my all-time favorite poems. I am really glad someone else in class appreciates it as much as I do. Actually, I'm sure plenty of people in class are famioliar with that poem and love it, but I'm glad Dylan brought it up. I would love to have a class discussion on that poem if possible. Also, I like Samantha's brainstorming method. It is almost midnight, so I have five hours to start and finish the poem for tomorrow and I fully intend to keep my itunes active while I write. Mainly to keep me awake, but also because I definitely agree that there is a connection between poetry and music and I I often find inspiration for my writing while listening to my favorite songs (although I am more of a classic rock fan than a rap fanatic). Anyway, I will see everyone in class tomorrow, can't wait for our next workshop.

Getting into the Groove

First off, it seems that my posts do not seem to be posting, so I hope this works!

Second. I did not know what I was going to write about for assignment 5, and while reading the assignment, I felt the same frustrations as everyone else, or so it seemed. Something you should know about me is that one of my secret dreams is to be a DJ, just because I am a dancer, make the mixes for the dance team here at school and am in love with music. I know there is a fine line between music and poetry but I have recently found that they blend together so well. I downloaded a bunch of very random music this weekend and decided to listen to some stuff while brainstorming. I found that the way some artists sing their songs goes along with our assignment this week. They sometimes, especially rap, have random line breaks, so in fact, listening to music really helped me find inspiration. I didn't write about a song, I wrote about something in my life, but while jammin' to the music (o yes, alone in my room...it happens) I felt in the groove also with writing poetry. It seemed to come very easily, and very natural.

Maybe finally I am catching on to this poetry thing!

Readings

I would like to share some thoughts on the readings this week as I feel we read so many poems and only get a small chance to discuss them in class. I was deeply affected by the poem by Dylan Thomas 'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night'. He wrote it about his father when he was passing away. His father had gone blind, and Dylan Thomas was caught by surprise as his father had been such a strong, powerful man and figure in his life. I was affected by the context of the poem because I too dealt with a death of a family member who has had such a big impact on my life. It was my grandmother, who in my mind, was one of the hardest working, most inspiring, strongest women I have ever met. It was very difficult and almost shocking to see her so frail and weak before she passed away. Thomas shares this surprise in the poem, as well as a bit of denial that his father would die. He urges his father to fight death, like he has probably fought every other battle he had in life. However, death will come to everyone at one point, so telling one to fight it is not realistic. This poem is ironic because it is written in the French form of a villanelle, which is meant to be light and simple. However, Thomas uses this form and pairs it with the serious topic of death. The repetition at the end of each stanza gives even more significance and importance to what is being said. Although the language is simply put, this poem has a lot of significance, especially for people who have lost someone significant.

Some comments on assignment five

I found assignment 5 to be a bit difficult, but also very rewarding. I used line breaks to give double meanings to lines and sentences. It was hard to write in a way that made sense, but also included certain ideas, themes, objects, and even wording that I wanted to add. I used to see line breaks as just something that happened in poetry, but I’ve learned in this class that line breaks can create rhythm, emphasis, and tension. But now, through this assignment, I’ve learned that line breaks can have a huge impact on the tone and even the meaning of a poem. By using line breaks a way similar to that of Matthea Harvey in her poem “Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form” I was able to create two lenses in which one would view the poem. The first would be the literal dialogue of the first speaker, but the second would be communicated by the use of line breaks that helped create a new interpretation of what the speaker was saying. This created a covert “reality” in which only the reader and the character at the end would understand. This was an interesting assignment and I plan to use this technique in the future.

My Feelings on Line Play

I must admit working on Assignment #5, I have been thinking a lot about the use of lines in poems, and what my own personal preference is in their purpose in my poetry. Traditionally, I never really thought much about line breaks or line structure. To me line breaks had always been used to simply separate complete thoughts, sentences, or stanzas for one another. But now looking more closely at the uses of enjambment plays with line structure, and the overall shapes of pieces I find myself more and more interested in this aspect of a poem. Playing around with my poem for assignment #5, I have come to see firsthand that breaking lines in mid thought or sentence can be really effective in creating a surge of tension, quickening the pace of one’s poem, or just placing emphasis on certain words or speech. As surprising as it was for me to find out, I thought that it was very cool how isolating a word or phrase can drastically changes its meaning, or even make you question it. While, I still believe I need a lot more practice in utilizing this form of poetry, this assignment was very refreshing to me and once again seemed to remind me that poetry can truly take all forms and sizes.

Checklist Opinion and The Way We Express Ourselves

Like a lot of you guys, I too am frustrated with the workshop checklist. It tends to be a bit constraining and limits my feedback to an extent, and some of the questions ask things that the writer already knows about his or her poem. However, it is certainly a very helpful guide that can aid us in analyzing the poem and I do think it is a catalyst for creating critiques on one another’s work. For me, the best way to workshop someone’s poem is to read his or her poem in its entirety, and then work through each stanza. I usually identify images or lines that I enjoy or find particularly powerful/effective, and then I look for parts that could potentially be improved or revised. I like to write all my comments on the same page as the poem because it’s probably easier for the writer to read it over and find the exact spot in the poem where I am commenting on.

In my Early British Literature class, we started reading lyric poetry (beginning with Sir Thomas Wyatt and ending with John Donne). Something I find particularly interesting is the metamorphosis of the way people portray their feelings in poetry throughout history. In these Renaissance works, poets are much more composed with their thoughts and their poetry’s structure and language is very proper. This is because 16th century English society was very prim and it was considered noble to ponder your feelings for a sufficient amount of time before adequately expressing them. Today, if writers (or anyone for that matter) were to express themselves in a way that is formal, their emotions may seem not genuine and planned out. Although these works have a profound influence in English literature, I feel myself more able to relate to more contemporary poems of today—poems that do not hold back on emotion and feeling. I am not saying Thomas Wyatt, Shakespeare, or any of the Renaissance poets did not express genuine feelings, but their ways for expressing emotion are much different than my own. I find my best work comes after I just “write my heart out” (not to sound cliché or anything)—meaning, I just pour out whatever words I believe capture my state of being or feelings in that particular moment. It will certainly be interesting to see what will be considered "acceptable" in terms of portraying emotion in poetry in future years.

The Checklist and Poetry Forms

I agree about the workshopping checklist. It seems to me that it doesn't give enough attention to convention like the level of seriousness or playfulness in each poem. I feel like Dylan's list of possible questions are very appropriate for evaluation...they should be more open-ended, so that they fit each poem, instead of forcing us to categorize the poems, which might not fit the current questions as well. Even a simple question like:
"What really confuses me in this poem?" gets straight to what aspects the writer can improve on, instead of re-establishing things that are already clear. That said, I understand the intention of list. Maybe we should all collaborate on one that we feel better addresses any general poem.
I've mentioned this previously, but I am very interested in learning the specific structures of forms like sonnets, etc. I don't trust to teach myself those forms, because even knowing the definition and conventions of a form won't necessarily allow me to do it well. I feel like maybe some in-class drills would be really helpful in that regard; we could learn methods for creating the skeleton of poems, and not just methods for creating interesting content. Rhyme's Reason is definitely useful and interesting, but I would be more comfortable if we had some in-class practice of the different styles we've read in Rhyme's Reason.

The Checklist

I, like so many of us, have found myself extremely frustrated with the workshop checklist. I find that there is so much I would like to be able to say to everyone about their poems, but find myself unable to do so because I am so rigidly confined by specific guidelines. Firstly, not all the checklist questions apply to every poem we read. I remember specifically trying to go through the checklist for a five line poem during the last workshopping assignment. Although I definitely think that a poem has a lot you can delve into regardless of its length, it was hard for me to answer questions like what the “governing metaphor” or “argument” of the piece was. The poem was obviously meant to highlight a very specific moment, intense even in its simplicity – and, yes, maybe that concept in itself a governing idea, but still, it strikes me as self-explanatory. In short, there were other things I could have been spending my time writing about to provide the poem’s author with feedback. I could have discussed how the poem might be expanded, or about how I felt regarding specific word choice. I know that the workshop also gives me chances to elaborate on these points, but even so, I find myself too often not having the time to say as much as I would like.

As Kathleen mentioned in her post, I think the checklist is definitely a good starting point if someone has no idea how to begin providing feedback; still, I believe other viable options for providing constructive critique would be a worthwhile discussion to have during class.

Workshop Checklist Thoughts and My Own Sort of Writers Block...

I definitely hear where everyone is coming from with the workshop checklist frustrations. I know it can definitely seem counter productive in some ways as we take part in the actual workshop but I don’t think the intentions of the workshop checklist are actually for us to actually use it quite as literally as it says. I think that it is definitely a helpful starting point… especially when reading a poem that you kind of don’t really know what to make of initially. The workshop checklist is kind of there to point us in the right direction of what to look for. It obviously isn’t tailored to each individual piece of work or assignment that we have but it is sort of nice to have these sorts of questions in mind as you’re reading through someone else’s poem and is certainly helpful to keep in mind as I’m writing my own poems especially when I kind of feel like I’m lost as to what I’m trying to do. I think that overall the most important part of the workshop is to give helpful and constructive feedback and if sometimes the questions don’t apply to a certain piece or in some cases they will have repetitive answers then whatever. There is always the end for adding in feedback that you think would be helpful that wasn’t otherwise addressed.

Another blog issue I wanted to discuss that was that I really wish I were more inclined to take risks in my poetry. I mean I’m honestly trying hard to go out of my own comfort zone and write about things that I wouldn’t normally consider writing about and in different ways that I wouldn’t have really previously considered but I really wish I were daring enough to try to challenge myself in what I was doing more than I am. For example I really want to write a response poem to one of the poems we’ve read in class, kind of like the poem that we read in the 21st century book that was similar to the Shakespeare Sonnet. I tried for hours to even just find one that I felt inclined to respond to but nothing really stood out to me. I know I’m probably just being picky/not open minded enough but I honestly really struggled through this. Ugh. I find myself WANTING to something to write about so this isn’t like a normal case of writers block but I just can’t do it when it comes down to it. I know it sounds silly and I should just listen to NIKE’s advice and just do it and then kind of take it from there but for some reason I just can’t. Ugh. I’m trying to push through it but hopefully it will work out for the next assignment.

Workshop 2

I personally found this workshop to be easier to write for than the last one. I think this was because not only did I have feedback from Professor Hummer as to what she might be looking for from our poetry writing, but I also found it helpful to have my peer's poetry as inspiration. I tried to branch out a bit and take suggestions and inspiration from my peers and work it all into my new workshop poems. I found myself much more open to different topics and styles and actually excited about trying new avenues of writing; and am therefore intrigued to see what people this week have to say about my poems and to see what other have written.
I also want to agree with people posting before me, that the workshop questions seem to be very direct. I too am finding it sometimes difficult to answer all the questions or put certain aspects of the poem into one of the categories or questions. I have found it much more helpful to rather take the questions as guidelines in the back of my head, and to focus more on what strikes me first about the poem(s). I try to remember to take the poem into pieces but I also think it is important to not forget to analyze the poem as a whole.

Workshop...

I have to agree that the current checklist seems to be somewhat detrimental to the workshopping process. I feel that, by asking questions which try to encompass all facets of poetry, the result is to take attention away from the poem being workshopped. Instead of thinking about the effectiveness of the author's techniques and possible areas of improvement, we are forced to try to squeeze the poem into a category where it does not necessarily belong in order to respond to the questions. I like Dylan's question suggestions, but I think they should respond to the more technical aspects of the poem as well. But rather than try to identify plot and speaker when there often is none, I would suggest a question along the lines of: "How do the line breaks, rhyme scheme, meter, etc. or lack thereof contribute to the author's message?" I think that this would adequately adress the technical aspects of the poem without micromanaging the workshopping process. Additionally, there I one question I have about the checklist. I am unclear as to whether the purpose of it is to have a concrete critique of the author's work so that one's feedback is written down for them, or if the purpose is to act as a reminder to the workshopper of what his thoughts were while reading the poems. I think that the answer to this question determines the way in which these checklists are written and how effective they are.

Suggestions

I completely agree with what has been said about the workshop checklist. I do see the usefulness in asking questions about a piece of writing, especially when it isn't yours. I also like how we get together and discuss our observations as a group, as this act of sharing ideas often sparks new ideas by students. However, some of the questions we are asked to answer in the checklist are not of much use to the author. I think that if the questions acted more as a guide, or a starting point, they may be more effective. From there, students could pick and choose which questions would be suitable, to the specific poem and poet, to be answered. A longer list of questions would be more interesting too. Some suggestions for questions that I have thought of include:

1. How emotionally attached to this poem are you? Does there need to be a deeper connection with the reader, or is it effective how it is?

2. How can the poet capture the reader's interest and attention more?

3. What kind of audience is the poem written for right now, and could the poet benefit from reworking the piece with other audiences in mind?

4. What specific techniques could be incorporated to enhance the poem?

5. Is the title appropriate? Does it give too much away? Or is it too vague?

These questions have come up in my mind as I was reading other classmate's poems. Does anyone else have any other suggestions for questions while workshopping??

Workshopping

From the whispers and murmurs I hear from the underground, the general consensus is that our workshop checklist is undoubtedly an entangling hassle. I have to agree with Gary when he says, “it seems (at least to me) that the workshop checklists are too geared for discussing every aching detail of a poem no matter how long it is, or if it is one of many.” Details can get lost and ultimately, a large majority of the workshop checklist is ignored or left disregarded during the workshop time.

However, I feel that the workshop checklist is a great starting point for developing thoughtful and provoking guidance for an aspiring poet. Indeed not every question on the checklist may be appropriate or of a good use for a certain poem, but often times one or two questions may be particularly useful for helping the author with valuable, constructive and in-depth criticism and/or worthwhile feedback. To the questions that I find most applicable, often times I find myself writing their answers directly on the poetry itself or in the margin.

A writing style is always unique—obtuse would be the word I would use to describe someone who does not support that claim—accordingly, the questions that stand out the most are unique to that author or poem. Nonetheless, the workshop checklist remains an active part of the poetry process and must be respected for the insights that it gives us. Perhaps what one student finds to be of use is not held in similar esteem by another, and vice versa.

Thoughts on Upcoming Workshop

As Tuesday rolls closer I have been thinking more about this upcoming workshop session, I must admit I have been thinking harder about the entire workshoping process as well. While, personally I love the idea of the class splitting up into small groups to discuss and review each other’s poetry and the techniques we used. However, I still feel that some aspects of the workshop could be more efficient, namely the workshop checklists. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not attacking the checklists because they are forms of homework, or even because they take time. The real reason I point them out is because of their efficiency and usefulness when compared to the time that goes into them.

Ultimately, I think the workshop checklists are great in theory, I think it’s crucial to read each other’s poems with a keen eye, open mind, and ready pen. But still it seems (at least to me) that the workshop checklists are too geared for discussing every aching detail of a poem no matter how long it is, or if it is one of many. While the numerous questions on the details of a poem maybe just too important to cut down on, the truth is almost everyone in the class prefers reaching a 42 line poem requirement with multiple poems. And when your spending over an hour an half doing one person’s checklist because they have several good poems, (knowing in the end that only a tenth of that time will be discussing the important aspects of what you wrote) it can seem a little frustrating.

To recap, I think workshops are an awesome tool for improving our poetry, and I full heartedly agree that the checklists are important aids in helping them run smoothly, I just believe there should be a more effective way of completing them for author who has multiple poems.

Striving to improve

In relation to what Tory said about expanding ones writing style, I definitely feel in a way that I too do very similar things in most of my poetry. I have a perception in my head that better poetry is all about showing more than one is telling. If there is a concept that I want to get across, whether it’s a feeling or something grander, I’ll try and see how I can do it visually. However, since being in this class I’ve learned that there really is no acute definition to “good” or “better” poetry in a general sense, except in terms of what one likes. It seems to be in some cases just personal choice. However, the fact that we are being graded on our poetry seems, in one sense, to contradict that. I feel that one can grade poetry, just as one can evaluate good art from bad art. One can make such distinctions not necessarily by a formula of color, amount of feeling induced, or topic, but can distinguish between high and low quality art based on how well one was able to transmit the desired goal/effect. Someone with no prior experience to painting or writing can make art and poetry, but as it would make sense they would have frustration over not being able to fully express their feelings. Therefore, one can, in sense, grade poetry and art, and therefore strive to make it better. However, it still all depends on the context of what one is striving to improve, whether it be imagery, rhyme scheme, comprehensive structure, or a feeling.

Sister Corita!

I thoroughly enjoyed Tuesday’s class at the Brush Art Gallery to analyze Sister Corita’s pop art. I found her work incredibly inspiring because it combines the elements of poetry and visual art, and it transforms the work into something very profound. After carefully looking at each of the works, I felt connected to Corita and her message of peace. I love how she incorporates both worldly subjects and the teachings of her faith into her work. She softly manipulates fundamental Christian beliefs in her art so that they can be relatable to a secular audience. Her art has the ability to connect to a wide-variety of people, which is a goal that every artist and writer possesses.

One particular work of hers that I loved was the print with Thoreau’s face on a stamp, and quotations from his works Civil Disobedience and Walden. Corita shows her appreciation for nature and Thoreau’s own example of embracing the nature in his life. During his time, Thoreau was a source of light in the flourishing era of industrialization in the mid-1800s. He represented freedom and independence—he was free from the burdens of technology, and he did not conform to the standards of American modernity. Since Thoreau was a revolutionary for his time, I found it very appropriate that Corita used his face and words in her piece. She wants to portray how essential its is for every individual to exhibit his or her liberties, especially during periods of time that are undergoing change. Both Thoreau and Corita are advocates of simplicity and hope for community, and through their art, they are able to make an important connection with every reader and viewer.

I enjoyed so much the class we spent in the art gallery on Tuesday.  I thought looking at the kind of art/poetry that Sister Corita created was beautiful.  I felt somewhat similar to Gary when I first came into class having read the packet for that day, and I wasn't sure how I felt about some of the pieces that we had read/looked at.  There seems to be a fine line between some of these "poems" and it seems difficult to distinguish between poetry and art.  

I have been thinking about this difference a lot, wondering how I could specifically define or differentiate the two.  I think poetry for the most part plays with words and their meaning collectively, whereas art like Sister Corita and others plays with letters, expressions and visual representations more.  Poetry is dominated by words whereas, this art is a collection/collage of all of the above.

On the other hand however, there is still a part of me that believes that art is always spread across a spectrum, and there are always different variations and techniques.  So to say that what Sister Corita does is not poetry does not sit well with me either.

Whatever it is however, I loved it.  I liked not being able to know exactly what she was trying to say at first glance, but piecing together all the different pictures, words, colors, and styles you could draw your own conclusion.  She had strong opinions, but did not push them on us.  She questioned us rather, pushed us to think which I thought was very impressive.

I also loved the activity, picking out words and phrases, images and colors of our own, but we didn't have enough time! I wish we could have had this as an assignment, or one of our poems because I thought it was a great variation on the usual technique we are used to.