"We need boys, so they can grow up and become shadows."
-Tia Russell 'Uncle Buck'
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Junkyard Quote 4, Week 8
"I started wailing the blues when the doctor whacked my bottom on the day I was born."
-Jet Black, Cowboy Bebop
-Jet Black, Cowboy Bebop
Junkyard Quote 3, Week 8
"The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all."
-The Emperor of China, "Mulan" at the Alliance Theater
-The Emperor of China, "Mulan" at the Alliance Theater
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Strategy Response 1, Week 7
Strategy: Concealed Rhyme and Pacing
Poem: Mechanics of Flight
In the poem ‘Mechanics of Flight,” there are several instances of concealed rhyme presented throughout the piece. These rhymes are distinctive because of Meeks’ utilization of enjambments and long lines. The verses run together so that any instance where there is a comma allows the reader to pause and breathe, like the rest sign on a musical staff. In other words, saying the piece out loud allows the reader to feel the elements of rhythm and rhyme on their tongue that would otherwise go unnoticed if enjambments and the particular line-breaks were absent. These rhythms, in turn, are enhanced by the hidden rhymes that help give the piece an essence of musicality.
For example, the very first account of a period is not seen in the poem until the eighth couplet. In these couplets, words that rhyme are sprinkled throughout the eight stanzas. For example: flight in the first stanza rhymes with light in the second; around in the fourth stanza rhymes with hometown in the same line; return in the fourth stanza somewhat rhymes with a absurd in the fifth; torn in stanza three rhymes with warm in stanza five; the words trees, easy, and read also all rhyme in stanza six. All of these stanzas are broken down into couplets and punctuated by commas. The thought is continuing, and only short breaths should be taken where the commas are as not to interrupt the continuity of the couplets. Also, the speed of the poem shifts from fast, to slow due to the varying line lengths of the poem. Meeks is pracitcally composing the piece as a conductor would an orchestra.
Meeks may restrict herself to using couplets in order to format her poem, but the concealed rhyme schemes allow her an element of freedom which she can use to puppeteer and mold how she wants the reader to say and envision her work. So, there is some semblance of music that can be heard in the midst of the tragedy that was 9/11. The music is just hidden among the imagery, just like how the rhymes are concealed within in the poem and its pacing.
Poem: Mechanics of Flight
In the poem ‘Mechanics of Flight,” there are several instances of concealed rhyme presented throughout the piece. These rhymes are distinctive because of Meeks’ utilization of enjambments and long lines. The verses run together so that any instance where there is a comma allows the reader to pause and breathe, like the rest sign on a musical staff. In other words, saying the piece out loud allows the reader to feel the elements of rhythm and rhyme on their tongue that would otherwise go unnoticed if enjambments and the particular line-breaks were absent. These rhythms, in turn, are enhanced by the hidden rhymes that help give the piece an essence of musicality.
For example, the very first account of a period is not seen in the poem until the eighth couplet. In these couplets, words that rhyme are sprinkled throughout the eight stanzas. For example: flight in the first stanza rhymes with light in the second; around in the fourth stanza rhymes with hometown in the same line; return in the fourth stanza somewhat rhymes with a absurd in the fifth; torn in stanza three rhymes with warm in stanza five; the words trees, easy, and read also all rhyme in stanza six. All of these stanzas are broken down into couplets and punctuated by commas. The thought is continuing, and only short breaths should be taken where the commas are as not to interrupt the continuity of the couplets. Also, the speed of the poem shifts from fast, to slow due to the varying line lengths of the poem. Meeks is pracitcally composing the piece as a conductor would an orchestra.
Meeks may restrict herself to using couplets in order to format her poem, but the concealed rhyme schemes allow her an element of freedom which she can use to puppeteer and mold how she wants the reader to say and envision her work. So, there is some semblance of music that can be heard in the midst of the tragedy that was 9/11. The music is just hidden among the imagery, just like how the rhymes are concealed within in the poem and its pacing.
Improv 2, Week 7
My second improv for this week riffs Sandra Meeks' poem, "Mechanics of Failure"
Jumpers, we called them, as if no nerve, no marrow, still held
to flight, as if falling
wasn't in the blood, and even today the long
habit of light might not
be broken, torn
to gold laces like yellow ribbons
tied around oaks for the hometown hostage who finally
did return, blinkered
by camera flash, on eyear after
the warm June evening I was married, absurd
in formal white, beneath those noosed trees now
too easy to read in curling photographs
as caution, as remember's thread
wearing each swelling trunk to that familiar
arc of pain. Mostly
there is no warning: planes slam
into buildings, or you do your own
crash and burn, lighting life down
to a finger of ash. My ring, removed,
left a groove that took years
to vanish, what seemed scar finally
a fading, the way, after seasons, a grave settles itself
into earth, or a winter day's flock of starlings
does stop pouring east, though all morning
their crepe banner had seemed
horizon itself, the blackened sun still
enough to burn the watcher's eyes
to the gold of its own sightless image, the faith
in vision what blinds. Despite their knowledge
of velocity, despite their ability to calculate
the gravity load of the cell, the fire load
of bone, some held plastic sheets makeshif
parachutes, as they dropped, as if the world
wasn't wind, and fist, and whirling fragments
of paper; as if what we're falling from
isn't grace, isn't what,
a century ago, the newly arrived believed
they could recreate, releasing
one hundred European starlings to populate
this world new and strange
to the Shakespeare they'd read
as home, setting in motion this morning's
rolling eclipse, five million birds in one gathering, one
city of flight; so when from the 100th floor, yes,
they did jump, the question, how much of our weight
can this world bear, had already been asked
as a storm of dark wings, a wake of gray light
streaming behind.
The theme/message of this piece clearly focuses on 9/11. Yet the format is complex through the usage of couplets and enjambments. The couplets restrict the breakage and emphasize particular pauses in the lines, but the enjambments allow the thoughts to run together as a whole. In a sense, this complexity mirrors the panicky chaos that was 9/11. I wanted to capture this by focusing on a different aspect, namely that shift in time that they don't prepare you for as a child.
Childhood's Failing Grade
Lightening bugs, we named them, as if no fire, no flame, eternally branded
to flight, as if flailing
was not in the river, and even on Wednesdays the short
instances of night were probably not
mended, sewed
to blue yarn like neon fabric
emblazoned around bouncy-balls targeting the local bum who
eventually departed, staggering
past engine sparks, four years after
the humid July afternoon I graduated, mental
in noble blue, atop the beheaded blades now
bleeding picture-perfect green in magazines
as subliminal, as sing-song’s rope
bore each prickling string to that unknown
cavern of blood. Usually
water breaks, shattering shards
down pale legs, dousing those blades, or you conduct your own
symphony of breaths, washing life
over the rapids of stone. My diploma, removed,
left a trace that is still
imprinted on my wall, gash
never fading, the way centuries of gravestones
push the dead to live forever, or that fish
caught in 1989 plagues the remembers with
its ruby red lips crying for a
passion only its school can bring, the marble moon
still branding the viewers’ eyes
with faux hope, the unseen vision, the belief
in a tomorrow that paralyzes a child. Regardless of their intellectual
language, incalculable math, insensible society fails to
uplift the permanent student, the brain
echoes cataclysms of avalanches from a decade before
Barney's disillusioned the tax payer dollarw, as if
The world would forever be the jailed playpen
of puzzles, as if what we learned from
was absent, wasn’t real as,
a decade ago, the shifting faces who
would demolish the world with social media,
enslaving Generation X into a conformity
of tweets and i-thinks
I didn’t see this coming
as School House Rock cradled my mind
with the psyche of lolly, naughty figure eights that
would soon be eclipsed by the Armageddoned reality of
2010. When I jumped from my play-pen into
Y2K, I bled onto my predestined Facebook pagea
as did my diploma, my baby, my beliefs
all of me, left behind.
Jumpers, we called them, as if no nerve, no marrow, still held
to flight, as if falling
wasn't in the blood, and even today the long
habit of light might not
be broken, torn
to gold laces like yellow ribbons
tied around oaks for the hometown hostage who finally
did return, blinkered
by camera flash, on eyear after
the warm June evening I was married, absurd
in formal white, beneath those noosed trees now
too easy to read in curling photographs
as caution, as remember's thread
wearing each swelling trunk to that familiar
arc of pain. Mostly
there is no warning: planes slam
into buildings, or you do your own
crash and burn, lighting life down
to a finger of ash. My ring, removed,
left a groove that took years
to vanish, what seemed scar finally
a fading, the way, after seasons, a grave settles itself
into earth, or a winter day's flock of starlings
does stop pouring east, though all morning
their crepe banner had seemed
horizon itself, the blackened sun still
enough to burn the watcher's eyes
to the gold of its own sightless image, the faith
in vision what blinds. Despite their knowledge
of velocity, despite their ability to calculate
the gravity load of the cell, the fire load
of bone, some held plastic sheets makeshif
parachutes, as they dropped, as if the world
wasn't wind, and fist, and whirling fragments
of paper; as if what we're falling from
isn't grace, isn't what,
a century ago, the newly arrived believed
they could recreate, releasing
one hundred European starlings to populate
this world new and strange
to the Shakespeare they'd read
as home, setting in motion this morning's
rolling eclipse, five million birds in one gathering, one
city of flight; so when from the 100th floor, yes,
they did jump, the question, how much of our weight
can this world bear, had already been asked
as a storm of dark wings, a wake of gray light
streaming behind.
The theme/message of this piece clearly focuses on 9/11. Yet the format is complex through the usage of couplets and enjambments. The couplets restrict the breakage and emphasize particular pauses in the lines, but the enjambments allow the thoughts to run together as a whole. In a sense, this complexity mirrors the panicky chaos that was 9/11. I wanted to capture this by focusing on a different aspect, namely that shift in time that they don't prepare you for as a child.
Childhood's Failing Grade
Lightening bugs, we named them, as if no fire, no flame, eternally branded
to flight, as if flailing
was not in the river, and even on Wednesdays the short
instances of night were probably not
mended, sewed
to blue yarn like neon fabric
emblazoned around bouncy-balls targeting the local bum who
eventually departed, staggering
past engine sparks, four years after
the humid July afternoon I graduated, mental
in noble blue, atop the beheaded blades now
bleeding picture-perfect green in magazines
as subliminal, as sing-song’s rope
bore each prickling string to that unknown
cavern of blood. Usually
water breaks, shattering shards
down pale legs, dousing those blades, or you conduct your own
symphony of breaths, washing life
over the rapids of stone. My diploma, removed,
left a trace that is still
imprinted on my wall, gash
never fading, the way centuries of gravestones
push the dead to live forever, or that fish
caught in 1989 plagues the remembers with
its ruby red lips crying for a
passion only its school can bring, the marble moon
still branding the viewers’ eyes
with faux hope, the unseen vision, the belief
in a tomorrow that paralyzes a child. Regardless of their intellectual
language, incalculable math, insensible society fails to
uplift the permanent student, the brain
echoes cataclysms of avalanches from a decade before
Barney's disillusioned the tax payer dollarw, as if
The world would forever be the jailed playpen
of puzzles, as if what we learned from
was absent, wasn’t real as,
a decade ago, the shifting faces who
would demolish the world with social media,
enslaving Generation X into a conformity
of tweets and i-thinks
I didn’t see this coming
as School House Rock cradled my mind
with the psyche of lolly, naughty figure eights that
would soon be eclipsed by the Armageddoned reality of
2010. When I jumped from my play-pen into
Y2K, I bled onto my predestined Facebook pagea
as did my diploma, my baby, my beliefs
all of me, left behind.
Improv 1, Week 7
The first improv for this week riff's Sandra Meek's, "Paralleling the Subject."
Paralleling the Subject
Armed with knowing the petals are inariably odd, I begin
He loves me, days I'm not looking
to reason being alone. Not it won't
stop raining. The dry creek bed out back's become the course
the world is taking, downstream. You, praying
for sun, aren't you the one who taught me
the body's a clay vase thrown
around an absent fist, who transposed
my mother's hymns beneath the staircase of any angelic
human voice? But history's the wilderness
you've wrested free of; the desert's flooded
to a mercury sheet. Winged, might my reflection
hover there among regrets,swords
of white fire,and the one hard
nail of sun,golden period stamped
after every question? As my sister's face shone
in the polished ice just
before she slipped, wrist
crumbling, discovering the body's core
a scaffold of ash, the skate's upturned blade
a silver glint, that little bit of grace
withheld.
This is a very nature-centric piece. It is composed of words dadling with river, planets, the wilderness, the desert, fire, and ice describe the wild/basic nature of the characters and their personalities throughout the piece. I attempted to do the same in my riff by utilizing different elements of nature such as the moon, snow, stalactites, and more.
The Cycle
Adorned with forgetting that the wings are unequivocally bare, I demolish
She worships me, nights I’m searching
for lies of being together. Now it won’t
start snowing. The wet grooved bark above us transmutes the evolution
the sun is bringing, upwind. You, rebuking
the moon, aren’t you the one who disrobed me from
the arm’s brittle puzzle enveloped
around an immutable foot, who demolished
my father’s beard next to the cellar of all beastily
piglet squeals? But tomorrow’s the jungle-vines
you’ve tangled into, the ocean’s evaporated to a
sand-papered lot. Scaled, shall my irises
bury there beneath time, shields
of red water, and the three softened
beds of rings, bronzed colons embedded
before each list? When my son’s nose paled
reflection in the unshaven stalactites just
before he collapsed, ankle
dissipating, unleashing the tonsil’s kidney
a bevy of muscles, the bike’s spinning wheel
a tar-black tire, that little bit of the cycle
ever-turning.
Paralleling the Subject
Armed with knowing the petals are inariably odd, I begin
He loves me, days I'm not looking
to reason being alone. Not it won't
stop raining. The dry creek bed out back's become the course
the world is taking, downstream. You, praying
for sun, aren't you the one who taught me
the body's a clay vase thrown
around an absent fist, who transposed
my mother's hymns beneath the staircase of any angelic
human voice? But history's the wilderness
you've wrested free of; the desert's flooded
to a mercury sheet. Winged, might my reflection
hover there among regrets,swords
of white fire,and the one hard
nail of sun,golden period stamped
after every question? As my sister's face shone
in the polished ice just
before she slipped, wrist
crumbling, discovering the body's core
a scaffold of ash, the skate's upturned blade
a silver glint, that little bit of grace
withheld.
This is a very nature-centric piece. It is composed of words dadling with river, planets, the wilderness, the desert, fire, and ice describe the wild/basic nature of the characters and their personalities throughout the piece. I attempted to do the same in my riff by utilizing different elements of nature such as the moon, snow, stalactites, and more.
The Cycle
Adorned with forgetting that the wings are unequivocally bare, I demolish
She worships me, nights I’m searching
for lies of being together. Now it won’t
start snowing. The wet grooved bark above us transmutes the evolution
the sun is bringing, upwind. You, rebuking
the moon, aren’t you the one who disrobed me from
the arm’s brittle puzzle enveloped
around an immutable foot, who demolished
my father’s beard next to the cellar of all beastily
piglet squeals? But tomorrow’s the jungle-vines
you’ve tangled into, the ocean’s evaporated to a
sand-papered lot. Scaled, shall my irises
bury there beneath time, shields
of red water, and the three softened
beds of rings, bronzed colons embedded
before each list? When my son’s nose paled
reflection in the unshaven stalactites just
before he collapsed, ankle
dissipating, unleashing the tonsil’s kidney
a bevy of muscles, the bike’s spinning wheel
a tar-black tire, that little bit of the cycle
ever-turning.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Free Entry 2, Week 7
Blue arms extend pointed nails
in her direction. A menacing purr
emanates from the deep bowels of her breast.
Planetary plates shift silently
under their souls to avoid the trample
of destitution. His hand rakes
down her spine, skeletal bones
shivering in discourse. Her muscles
clench his waist tightly,
rolling in time with her pants of exertion.
You’re touching me. I’m -
not touching you. Their lungs tighten:
free air, swirling mischievously
around them like flamed leaves
drowning on air. His nails drive
into her skin, a jackhammer
demolishing that straw house of ’73.
Swinging with bondage to her gutted teeth,
eyes rutted hollow in the dusk. I’m not
touching you. She thrusts up
against his torso, pinning him a sheep
to the slaughter. Her fingers grip
his bony wrist in a vice
unbreakable.
Bending down, she hisses,
You’re touching me.
in her direction. A menacing purr
emanates from the deep bowels of her breast.
Planetary plates shift silently
under their souls to avoid the trample
of destitution. His hand rakes
down her spine, skeletal bones
shivering in discourse. Her muscles
clench his waist tightly,
rolling in time with her pants of exertion.
You’re touching me. I’m -
not touching you. Their lungs tighten:
free air, swirling mischievously
around them like flamed leaves
drowning on air. His nails drive
into her skin, a jackhammer
demolishing that straw house of ’73.
Swinging with bondage to her gutted teeth,
eyes rutted hollow in the dusk. I’m not
touching you. She thrusts up
against his torso, pinning him a sheep
to the slaughter. Her fingers grip
his bony wrist in a vice
unbreakable.
Bending down, she hisses,
You’re touching me.
Free Entry 1, Week 7
The gray concrete encircles my mind
like a Rottweiler’s chain choking
the life out of an anaconda.
Squeezing that citrusy lemonade
out of skin. It’s been a long time
since I’ve seen my own blood, absent
from the body’s self.
Whimpering virgin fingers tremble
in the wake of Nature’s tragedy. Dusk breathes
Mercury’s star-crusted poison
into the iron-clenched jaws of ignorance,
road-kill on the cement. Earth’s cracked veins
spell the essence of my innocence- CHILD,
chided for her beliefs in a system of non-conformity.
Everyone’s trying to be different: the panic
room of social construct crumbles like Cheetos’
chips at our toes. Ants edge out to digest
our remains, nestled between the edges
of the Atlantic
and the specific.
like a Rottweiler’s chain choking
the life out of an anaconda.
Squeezing that citrusy lemonade
out of skin. It’s been a long time
since I’ve seen my own blood, absent
from the body’s self.
Whimpering virgin fingers tremble
in the wake of Nature’s tragedy. Dusk breathes
Mercury’s star-crusted poison
into the iron-clenched jaws of ignorance,
road-kill on the cement. Earth’s cracked veins
spell the essence of my innocence- CHILD,
chided for her beliefs in a system of non-conformity.
Everyone’s trying to be different: the panic
room of social construct crumbles like Cheetos’
chips at our toes. Ants edge out to digest
our remains, nestled between the edges
of the Atlantic
and the specific.
Junkyard Quote 5, Week 7
"Been a long time since I've seen my own blood."
-Lord Marshal, The Chronicles of Riddick
-Lord Marshal, The Chronicles of Riddick
Junkyard Quote 4, Week 7
"I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won."
-Huey Freeman, The Boondocks
-Huey Freeman, The Boondocks
Junkyard Quote 3, Week 7
"History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war."
-Catch-22
-Catch-22
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Junkyard Quote 2, Week 7
"This isn't a place for people to work, there's not even a door to get in or out."
-Haruha, "Fooly Cooly"
-Haruha, "Fooly Cooly"
Friday, February 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Strategy Response 1, Week 6
Piece: John Poch's, "Icarus, Rejected"
Strategy: Form and Structure
Poch’s piece, “Icarus Rejected,” is serves as a masterpiece of linguistics in terms of shape, rhyme, rhythm, recursivity, repetition, and layers of meaning. It alludes to the strategy discussed in chapter eight of our "Writing Poetry" text: 'Form and Structure.'
The text mentions how poets utilize the musicality of language and take advantage of the visual eye in order to structure and mold their works. This formation includes the way the piece looks on a page; the way it sounds when it is spoken; the way a reader breathes between stanzas and lines; rhyme schemes; and more. Icarus Rejected relates an instance where the legendary tragic figure of Greek mythology experiences an epic fail. This failure alludes not only to the story of Icarus itself, but also his rejection as a poet submitting a manuscript. Ironically, the instances of italics that represent how the lines that hindered Icarus’s poetry serve to enhance Poch’s words. He specifically chooses these lines to complete a juxtaposition of words and phrases, as well as a series of enjambments: “Stay off the drugs. None of your beeswaz. Nope. / and more: A dead baby in a baptism gown” (13-14). Here, line fourteen begins with a lower case “and,” indicating a continuation of the previous line even though it ends with a period. This is one of the enjambments that are deliberately structured to emphasize the pause of breath and breakage within the poem.
When observing the poem, the reader may be drawn in by the reoccurring instances of the sounds “ope,” and “own.” These rhymes help to construct the poems musicality. The rhyme scheme of the poem is Villanelle, which consists of five “ABA” tercets, and one “ABAA” quatrain. It is clear that Poch does not reflect a free-handed poem that does not follow any rules. He is particular with selecting the Rhyme scheme and rhyming sounds that help give his poem a type of musical identification.
Finally, in reference to the layer of meaning behind the poem, Poch places strong significance on the line “All feathers and down, R.I.P., you dope.” This verse appears in the first, third, fifth and sixth stanzas. One could relate this to the meaning of “down feathers,” which are layer of fine feathers just under the tougher exterior of feathers. Very young birds are covered only in down feathers, and the Icarus serves as the figure of a very young boy. Also, down feathers are good in items such as beddings, pillows, and sleeping bags. Poch references “pillows” in stanzas one and five, which allude to the connection that down feathers have with pillows. Finally, there is the fact that the story of Icarus reflects how the wax between his feathers melted when he was too close to the sun, and how he fell to his death to “R.I.P.” The death of this myth correlates to the death of his manuscript in this Poch’s piece because Icarus is writing juvenile lines of poetry in his work. The italics show that Icarus appears to rely on tired tropes, or repetitive phrases heard over and over again to construct his pieces…there is no originality to his work: “Stay off the drugs. None of your beeswax. A dead baby in a baptism gown” (10-11). These lines really do not push for the manipulated language or contrasting imagery that makes advanced poetry so unique. Because of this, Icarus is rejected both in his poetry and in his myth.
The layers of meaning, the recursivity, the sound, pauses, rhyme schemes, and overall structure of this poem increases the complexity of the work as a whole. In breaking it down to the various essential elements, one can see how tedious Poch was in portraying the theme of ‘Icarus, Rejected’ through a carefully structured and detailed format of the work as a whole. This has to be my favorite piece so far this semester, and I believe it serves as a just representation of the form and structure strategy discussed in our text.
Strategy: Form and Structure
Poch’s piece, “Icarus Rejected,” is serves as a masterpiece of linguistics in terms of shape, rhyme, rhythm, recursivity, repetition, and layers of meaning. It alludes to the strategy discussed in chapter eight of our "Writing Poetry" text: 'Form and Structure.'
The text mentions how poets utilize the musicality of language and take advantage of the visual eye in order to structure and mold their works. This formation includes the way the piece looks on a page; the way it sounds when it is spoken; the way a reader breathes between stanzas and lines; rhyme schemes; and more. Icarus Rejected relates an instance where the legendary tragic figure of Greek mythology experiences an epic fail. This failure alludes not only to the story of Icarus itself, but also his rejection as a poet submitting a manuscript. Ironically, the instances of italics that represent how the lines that hindered Icarus’s poetry serve to enhance Poch’s words. He specifically chooses these lines to complete a juxtaposition of words and phrases, as well as a series of enjambments: “Stay off the drugs. None of your beeswaz. Nope. / and more: A dead baby in a baptism gown” (13-14). Here, line fourteen begins with a lower case “and,” indicating a continuation of the previous line even though it ends with a period. This is one of the enjambments that are deliberately structured to emphasize the pause of breath and breakage within the poem.
When observing the poem, the reader may be drawn in by the reoccurring instances of the sounds “ope,” and “own.” These rhymes help to construct the poems musicality. The rhyme scheme of the poem is Villanelle, which consists of five “ABA” tercets, and one “ABAA” quatrain. It is clear that Poch does not reflect a free-handed poem that does not follow any rules. He is particular with selecting the Rhyme scheme and rhyming sounds that help give his poem a type of musical identification.
Finally, in reference to the layer of meaning behind the poem, Poch places strong significance on the line “All feathers and down, R.I.P., you dope.” This verse appears in the first, third, fifth and sixth stanzas. One could relate this to the meaning of “down feathers,” which are layer of fine feathers just under the tougher exterior of feathers. Very young birds are covered only in down feathers, and the Icarus serves as the figure of a very young boy. Also, down feathers are good in items such as beddings, pillows, and sleeping bags. Poch references “pillows” in stanzas one and five, which allude to the connection that down feathers have with pillows. Finally, there is the fact that the story of Icarus reflects how the wax between his feathers melted when he was too close to the sun, and how he fell to his death to “R.I.P.” The death of this myth correlates to the death of his manuscript in this Poch’s piece because Icarus is writing juvenile lines of poetry in his work. The italics show that Icarus appears to rely on tired tropes, or repetitive phrases heard over and over again to construct his pieces…there is no originality to his work: “Stay off the drugs. None of your beeswax. A dead baby in a baptism gown” (10-11). These lines really do not push for the manipulated language or contrasting imagery that makes advanced poetry so unique. Because of this, Icarus is rejected both in his poetry and in his myth.
The layers of meaning, the recursivity, the sound, pauses, rhyme schemes, and overall structure of this poem increases the complexity of the work as a whole. In breaking it down to the various essential elements, one can see how tedious Poch was in portraying the theme of ‘Icarus, Rejected’ through a carefully structured and detailed format of the work as a whole. This has to be my favorite piece so far this semester, and I believe it serves as a just representation of the form and structure strategy discussed in our text.
Free Entry 2, Week 6
Her protector is lost
to the dusk of her birth.
Padded feet whisper daintily
across the spiked edges
of the moors. Misted heavily
over green matter of light,
she sees his enraged shadow searching
for yesterday's traffic studded highways.
Air-winded blends of
lemon, cherry, and grape scrape
across his eyes, dreary with tears.
She cries out to receive his echo
of silence, jettisoned from the icy,
isolatedsky scrappers of New York.
Ashessprinkle gracefully around her
fragility, bathing her in snowy
flurries of dust-flakes.
Their nostrils powder-caked
with the sweet scent
of lonely pine.
She calls out again,
he does not answer.
to the dusk of her birth.
Padded feet whisper daintily
across the spiked edges
of the moors. Misted heavily
over green matter of light,
she sees his enraged shadow searching
for yesterday's traffic studded highways.
Air-winded blends of
lemon, cherry, and grape scrape
across his eyes, dreary with tears.
She cries out to receive his echo
of silence, jettisoned from the icy,
isolatedsky scrappers of New York.
Ashessprinkle gracefully around her
fragility, bathing her in snowy
flurries of dust-flakes.
Their nostrils powder-caked
with the sweet scent
of lonely pine.
She calls out again,
he does not answer.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Free Entry 1, Week 6
His shard defiled
by the nakedness of his innocence.
Braces weep at the acid bulging
through the exhaust-fumed
strawberry on his tongue.
Brittle bones breathe in purple miasma
on a freezing summer’s day, inducing salty
secretions that numb the sun’s hypothermia.
Ears singe with the sirens’ fucked up screech,
blazing resonantly throughout his scalp's
follicles. He is drowned,
pulled relentlessly until his
lungs sink, shoulder blades bleed,
muscles crack in protest. His lust for purity.
His gluttony for fasting. His greed for world peace.
His strengths melt him into a puddle of indifference,
once stepped in then iced over
to the living undead. And Madea taps
her watch, for she has places to be.
Time is not on her side, but on his.
Once his being is done baking, she moves on to the next.
by the nakedness of his innocence.
Braces weep at the acid bulging
through the exhaust-fumed
strawberry on his tongue.
Brittle bones breathe in purple miasma
on a freezing summer’s day, inducing salty
secretions that numb the sun’s hypothermia.
Ears singe with the sirens’ fucked up screech,
blazing resonantly throughout his scalp's
follicles. He is drowned,
pulled relentlessly until his
lungs sink, shoulder blades bleed,
muscles crack in protest. His lust for purity.
His gluttony for fasting. His greed for world peace.
His strengths melt him into a puddle of indifference,
once stepped in then iced over
to the living undead. And Madea taps
her watch, for she has places to be.
Time is not on her side, but on his.
Once his being is done baking, she moves on to the next.
Improv 2, Week 6
The second improv for this week is a riff of John Poch's 'The Cross.'
You can make one with your fingers,
your hands, your howle body.
A common tattoo.
A corkscrew gone through itself,
away from the wine and into the hand.
The simplest arm of a broken snowflake.
Pure outdoor torture furniture.
A Roman invention, but more important-a human invention.
Sexy on a rock star's throat.
Does it make you mad? angry? cross?
Don't cross me.
Don't cross your eye. They'll stay that way.
Cross yourself. Stay that way.
Cross your heart? Hope to die?
A rose staked up, throns and blooming all over. All over.
A wet but drying double-crested cormorant hangs across the air.
Mortal support.
The new mtah.
For instance, time's crossroads times zero equals infinity.
A plus.
Death's Leer jet, seen from belos.
A God's-eye view of a rush-hour inetersection, crawling.
An old phone pole, calling.
Two high beams comng at you, blinding you.
The X of a kiss, turned a little tighter.
The X of murder turned a little tighter.
The X of buried treasure, found, turned a little tighter.
A lower case t, sans serif, sans seraphim.
The word torture has two t's.
This poem has exactly one hundred t's, all crossed.
Do you wish to cross-examine?
To a tee? To a tree?
Excruciatingly double crossed.
A million potential splinters.
The scarecrow that works forever.
Someone waits on a hill in silhouette.
The unique construct of this poem comes by taking an image seen in every day society and actually pointing out the instances in which that image has some element of face value, or is at least deemed as signficiant. In life things are passed over easily, so the 'one-hundred crossed t's' in this thirty-six line poem shows exactly how often the image of the cross can pass by us without us subconsciously noticing (whether it's physically or just in language and ideals). I wanted to portray this same meaning with a different symbol, so my second improv poem for this week reflects ths shape of a square.
The Square
It is birthed from two mirroring L’s
folded together upward,
forming a block of silk.
You can make one with your hands.
It outlines the Windows of our present
virtual reality, mocking the original
screen-saver. Its televized frame
seals our mind–impenetrable
like the aphrodisiac box inflamed
by the mimes warping our vision
into a cotton-candy-swirled mass.
It is the center of New-York- Times
the four timed name of a child’s
favorite game. Flatten the simplest
3-D shape upon on a 2-D landscape.
Second grade’s legendary trick:
An artist's true secret revealed.
Enemies square off against each other.
Four corners piercing in a synchronized turn:
Four lines, four sides, four angles of chance
for Contestants to beat the sphinx
with the right celebs.
Checker and Chess pieces walk its path to victory:
It is the strongest building block upon
which we learn our ABC's and 123's and
spelling with the keys’ board
where we digitize-US.
Squandered off of ‘squire,’
just one letter shy of transmogrification.
Dentist tiles always counted and forgotten
while reminding us to call that hairdresser
for Saturday’s dreaded engagement.
It is what makes the rubiks cube
so frustratingly retro. And you must glance
just there
to preserve a moment everlasting.
The populars deem it as nerdy.
Yet, it has its own hit song:
It’s hip to be
L-7
Square your hips when you dance.
You can make one with your fingers,
your hands, your howle body.
A common tattoo.
A corkscrew gone through itself,
away from the wine and into the hand.
The simplest arm of a broken snowflake.
Pure outdoor torture furniture.
A Roman invention, but more important-a human invention.
Sexy on a rock star's throat.
Does it make you mad? angry? cross?
Don't cross me.
Don't cross your eye. They'll stay that way.
Cross yourself. Stay that way.
Cross your heart? Hope to die?
A rose staked up, throns and blooming all over. All over.
A wet but drying double-crested cormorant hangs across the air.
Mortal support.
The new mtah.
For instance, time's crossroads times zero equals infinity.
A plus.
Death's Leer jet, seen from belos.
A God's-eye view of a rush-hour inetersection, crawling.
An old phone pole, calling.
Two high beams comng at you, blinding you.
The X of a kiss, turned a little tighter.
The X of murder turned a little tighter.
The X of buried treasure, found, turned a little tighter.
A lower case t, sans serif, sans seraphim.
The word torture has two t's.
This poem has exactly one hundred t's, all crossed.
Do you wish to cross-examine?
To a tee? To a tree?
Excruciatingly double crossed.
A million potential splinters.
The scarecrow that works forever.
Someone waits on a hill in silhouette.
The unique construct of this poem comes by taking an image seen in every day society and actually pointing out the instances in which that image has some element of face value, or is at least deemed as signficiant. In life things are passed over easily, so the 'one-hundred crossed t's' in this thirty-six line poem shows exactly how often the image of the cross can pass by us without us subconsciously noticing (whether it's physically or just in language and ideals). I wanted to portray this same meaning with a different symbol, so my second improv poem for this week reflects ths shape of a square.
The Square
It is birthed from two mirroring L’s
folded together upward,
forming a block of silk.
You can make one with your hands.
It outlines the Windows of our present
virtual reality, mocking the original
screen-saver. Its televized frame
seals our mind–impenetrable
like the aphrodisiac box inflamed
by the mimes warping our vision
into a cotton-candy-swirled mass.
It is the center of New-York- Times
the four timed name of a child’s
favorite game. Flatten the simplest
3-D shape upon on a 2-D landscape.
Second grade’s legendary trick:
An artist's true secret revealed.
Enemies square off against each other.
Four corners piercing in a synchronized turn:
Four lines, four sides, four angles of chance
for Contestants to beat the sphinx
with the right celebs.
Checker and Chess pieces walk its path to victory:
It is the strongest building block upon
which we learn our ABC's and 123's and
spelling with the keys’ board
where we digitize-US.
Squandered off of ‘squire,’
just one letter shy of transmogrification.
Dentist tiles always counted and forgotten
while reminding us to call that hairdresser
for Saturday’s dreaded engagement.
It is what makes the rubiks cube
so frustratingly retro. And you must glance
just there
to preserve a moment everlasting.
The populars deem it as nerdy.
Yet, it has its own hit song:
It’s hip to be
L-7
Square your hips when you dance.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Improv 1, Week 6
This is a riff of John Poch's poem, "Superman"
In our real-life adaptation of the movie,
the heroine who needs a helping hand,
my distraught daughter, lifts him, broken, to me.
What role do I play on this tage? The man
behind the curtian, best boy, grip, or gaffer?
Who's saving whom from what? What's Kryptonite?
The weight of sin in an action figure laugher?
What can I do for you, a type of the Christ,
for a heart surprisingly like ours: fun,
lonely, tempted by power and flattery,
susceptible to fate, love, and done.
Game over.
I replace your battery.
Doll, who am I above your resurrection:
a bird, plane, your image. The Great Affection?
In this piece, Poch uses a Superman action figure to symbolize the relationship between God and man through the setting of a stage. In my piece, I also attempt to draw a connection between the 'otherworld' and 'earth,' but throuth the setting of a book instead of a movie.
Pipeline
In our weak happily-ever-after of real life,
the uknown are static,
my crackhead son lies festering, paralyzed, red-iced eyes boaring me.
What is expected? Shame?
Sympathy? The nurse-mom of the year?
Am I the helper or the helpless?
What is my Zoloft?
The taste of sterilize gloves drown my skin.
Another murdered plot bunny for Grey's Anatomy.
After school specials and help lines:
Medicine for dummies. We are all
maniacs of hell looking for our harps.
Villains often prevail,
I tongue-kiss cover to cover.
Curtained pages, I am your reader:
But are you my savior or my Cerberus?
In our real-life adaptation of the movie,
the heroine who needs a helping hand,
my distraught daughter, lifts him, broken, to me.
What role do I play on this tage? The man
behind the curtian, best boy, grip, or gaffer?
Who's saving whom from what? What's Kryptonite?
The weight of sin in an action figure laugher?
What can I do for you, a type of the Christ,
for a heart surprisingly like ours: fun,
lonely, tempted by power and flattery,
susceptible to fate, love, and done.
Game over.
I replace your battery.
Doll, who am I above your resurrection:
a bird, plane, your image. The Great Affection?
In this piece, Poch uses a Superman action figure to symbolize the relationship between God and man through the setting of a stage. In my piece, I also attempt to draw a connection between the 'otherworld' and 'earth,' but throuth the setting of a book instead of a movie.
Pipeline
In our weak happily-ever-after of real life,
the uknown are static,
my crackhead son lies festering, paralyzed, red-iced eyes boaring me.
What is expected? Shame?
Sympathy? The nurse-mom of the year?
Am I the helper or the helpless?
What is my Zoloft?
The taste of sterilize gloves drown my skin.
Another murdered plot bunny for Grey's Anatomy.
After school specials and help lines:
Medicine for dummies. We are all
maniacs of hell looking for our harps.
Villains often prevail,
I tongue-kiss cover to cover.
Curtained pages, I am your reader:
But are you my savior or my Cerberus?
Friday, February 12, 2010
Junkyard Quote 5, Week 6
"And after the storm passed- it seemed endless- there, we saw the girl! And she cried out a sharp, piercing cry, like a bird come back to an empty nest, peering into its bed, and all the babies gone... Just so, when she sees the corpse bare she bursts into a long, shattering wail and calls down withering curses on te heads of all who did the work. An she scoops up dry dust, handfuls, quickly, and lifting a find bronze urn, lifting it high and pouring, she crowns the dead with three full libations. Soon as we saw we rushed her, closed on the kill like hunters, and she, she didn't flinch."
-The Sentry, "Antigone"
-The Sentry, "Antigone"
Junkyard Quote 4, Week 6
"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore,trust the physician and drink is remedy in silence and tranquility."
-Kahlil Gibran
-Kahlil Gibran
Junkyard Quote 3, Week 6
"You need to grab a hold of that line between speed and chaos, and you need to wrestle it to the ground like a demon cobra! And then, when the fear rises up in your belly, you use it. And you ride it; you ride it like a skeleton horse through the gates of hell, and then you win."
-Susan, "Talladega Nights"
-Susan, "Talladega Nights"
Junkyard Quote 1, Week 6
"Vision? What do you know about my vision? My vision would turn your world upside down, tear asunder your illusions, and send the sanctuary of your own ignorance crashing down around you. Now ask yourself, Are you ready to see that vision?"
-Huey Freeman, "The Boondocks"
-Huey Freeman, "The Boondocks"
Monday, February 8, 2010
Strategy Response 1, Week 5
Strategy: Making the Sensational Mundane
Poem: Emily Dickinson's poem number 712
This week’s strategy involved “Making the sensational mundane.” This is a technique in poetry that involves the use of several other poetic tools: detachment, research, and semiotic analysis. When working to write a poem about something sensational in a mundane light, one my first detach themselves from the common, stereotypical of the topic (or everything that they “get with the topic for free”) One way to do this is to write down ideas associated with the topic, and then completely turn them over on their opposites sides. This way, the poet has a nice list with which to juxtapose the main idea. They can then find was to associate those sides with the commonality of everyday life by connecting them to things that normal people do all the time. Next, poets should conduct thorough research on the topic in order to broaden their material for their piece.
Research can involve looking for anything not normally thought of when the main idea comes to mind. Notions that are overlooked or how the topic is portrayed in other cultures are excellent areas in which to conduct one’s research. The researcher should look for a sense of commonality (or frequently occurring idea) in their data through which they could thread several signs about the topic. The book mentions how the poem, “Bigfoot stole my Wife,” presents a topic that can be looked at in ecological, religious, and multicultural scenarios: Big Foot (177-185). It then proceeds to give examples of semiotic analyses concerning Big Foot in these areas. The analyses are also complete with vividly rich language that could be recycled in poetry.
The poem that I analyzed in reference to using all of these tools to ‘make the sensational mundane’ was Emily Dickenson’s, poem number 712. In this poem, Dickinson paints death as a kind gentleman who is rather composed and takes her on a carriage ride throughout the city. Notably, the ideas of him using a scythe and appearing as a wispy dark shadow or a gravely horrendous skeleton are absent from the piece. Instead, Dickinson states, “Because I could not stop for Death - / He kindly stopped for me - / The Carriage held but just Ourselves - / And Immortality. / We slowly drove – He knew no haste / And I had put away / My labor and my leisure too, / For His Civility” (1-8). Words used to describe Death’s countenance here include: “kindly,” “he knew no haste,” and “civility.” Death is a rather composed and respectable gentleman who treats the speaker with kindness as they travel through the town. Still, Dickinson had to know what stereotyped aspects of Death she wished to avoid. In order to successfully portray Death in this light, she had to draw on her research and knowledge, and then detach herself from the common symbolism of Death so she could portray him as a polite and respectable caller in her work.
I believe this piece serves as an excellent example of a common and successful tool in poetry: flipping a topic around completely to explore its unusual side. To look at the sun in a dark light, or to look at the ocean through the perspective of the sky, or to even see a happy birthday as the time of one’s death, these are things that go unnoticed by the average person. Stereotypes in society set the boundaries that many people tend to work in, but to push outside of the box and turn the reality upside down, to tear apart foundation their vision: that is the dangerous beauty of poetry. Making the sensational mundane is a strategy that I love and one that I am trying to utilize frequently as I work to produce my poems for this semester. Dickinson’s work will serve as the lighthouse that will continue to guide me as I work more to successfully execute this strategy during the course of this class.
Poem: Emily Dickinson's poem number 712
This week’s strategy involved “Making the sensational mundane.” This is a technique in poetry that involves the use of several other poetic tools: detachment, research, and semiotic analysis. When working to write a poem about something sensational in a mundane light, one my first detach themselves from the common, stereotypical of the topic (or everything that they “get with the topic for free”) One way to do this is to write down ideas associated with the topic, and then completely turn them over on their opposites sides. This way, the poet has a nice list with which to juxtapose the main idea. They can then find was to associate those sides with the commonality of everyday life by connecting them to things that normal people do all the time. Next, poets should conduct thorough research on the topic in order to broaden their material for their piece.
Research can involve looking for anything not normally thought of when the main idea comes to mind. Notions that are overlooked or how the topic is portrayed in other cultures are excellent areas in which to conduct one’s research. The researcher should look for a sense of commonality (or frequently occurring idea) in their data through which they could thread several signs about the topic. The book mentions how the poem, “Bigfoot stole my Wife,” presents a topic that can be looked at in ecological, religious, and multicultural scenarios: Big Foot (177-185). It then proceeds to give examples of semiotic analyses concerning Big Foot in these areas. The analyses are also complete with vividly rich language that could be recycled in poetry.
The poem that I analyzed in reference to using all of these tools to ‘make the sensational mundane’ was Emily Dickenson’s, poem number 712. In this poem, Dickinson paints death as a kind gentleman who is rather composed and takes her on a carriage ride throughout the city. Notably, the ideas of him using a scythe and appearing as a wispy dark shadow or a gravely horrendous skeleton are absent from the piece. Instead, Dickinson states, “Because I could not stop for Death - / He kindly stopped for me - / The Carriage held but just Ourselves - / And Immortality. / We slowly drove – He knew no haste / And I had put away / My labor and my leisure too, / For His Civility” (1-8). Words used to describe Death’s countenance here include: “kindly,” “he knew no haste,” and “civility.” Death is a rather composed and respectable gentleman who treats the speaker with kindness as they travel through the town. Still, Dickinson had to know what stereotyped aspects of Death she wished to avoid. In order to successfully portray Death in this light, she had to draw on her research and knowledge, and then detach herself from the common symbolism of Death so she could portray him as a polite and respectable caller in her work.
I believe this piece serves as an excellent example of a common and successful tool in poetry: flipping a topic around completely to explore its unusual side. To look at the sun in a dark light, or to look at the ocean through the perspective of the sky, or to even see a happy birthday as the time of one’s death, these are things that go unnoticed by the average person. Stereotypes in society set the boundaries that many people tend to work in, but to push outside of the box and turn the reality upside down, to tear apart foundation their vision: that is the dangerous beauty of poetry. Making the sensational mundane is a strategy that I love and one that I am trying to utilize frequently as I work to produce my poems for this semester. Dickinson’s work will serve as the lighthouse that will continue to guide me as I work more to successfully execute this strategy during the course of this class.
Improv 2, Week 5
The second improv for this week is a riff of John Jenkinson's piece, "Why Orville and Wilbur Built an Airplane"
Life, as we suspected, is a bicycle
lacking a kickstand: pedal
along for a while,
then lay it down. Some
of us glide serenely down
a long, easy hill on three-
poud Italian racers, scarcely
using any of their twenty-two
well-lubricated gears. Others
must dismount to walk
these leaden Western Flyers up
that hot, steep slope, mugged
by heavy corduroys under a midsummer
sun, light from the heavy chrome
fenders kissing our eyes closed,
the bright air that clogs our passage
thickening with effort - the shaky
wire baskets filling with rocks.
Our text speaks of how poets can offer readers logical conclusions to help them draw connections within a poem without using premise indicators like the words "because," "since," "given that," etc. Instead of supplying the reader with the reason, they are given the opportunity to come up with the reasoning themselves, with the help of just a little logic in the piece. In Jenkinson's poem, the work provides a reason for the Wilbur's construction of the airplane that would otherwise go unheeded or unrealized. Who would have thought that they built a plane because going through life on/as a 'bicycle' was rather tedious? I wanted to achieve the same effect in my improv for this week: supplying logic of a [possibly unthought of] "why" to a curious notion or question.
Why Kill the Journalist?
News, doesn't travel fast enough-
the tourtise's brother
wanes against the Earth.
Flaring once before
retiring for the evening,
fading into a peaceful night-
mare of tides rivaling only Lucifer,
but no one can sooth
and temper it. They have better
places to be. The known
unknowns exercise their witty
tongues, but not their sanity.
Memories clumsily drawn on
the back of milk cartons,
frozen over with tired
flakes of empty irises.
Telephone poles timber
into the moss covered
ground. Static-shocked,
reception terminated.
Children coninue hooping
down the street.
Life is deafened to continue.
Life, as we suspected, is a bicycle
lacking a kickstand: pedal
along for a while,
then lay it down. Some
of us glide serenely down
a long, easy hill on three-
poud Italian racers, scarcely
using any of their twenty-two
well-lubricated gears. Others
must dismount to walk
these leaden Western Flyers up
that hot, steep slope, mugged
by heavy corduroys under a midsummer
sun, light from the heavy chrome
fenders kissing our eyes closed,
the bright air that clogs our passage
thickening with effort - the shaky
wire baskets filling with rocks.
Our text speaks of how poets can offer readers logical conclusions to help them draw connections within a poem without using premise indicators like the words "because," "since," "given that," etc. Instead of supplying the reader with the reason, they are given the opportunity to come up with the reasoning themselves, with the help of just a little logic in the piece. In Jenkinson's poem, the work provides a reason for the Wilbur's construction of the airplane that would otherwise go unheeded or unrealized. Who would have thought that they built a plane because going through life on/as a 'bicycle' was rather tedious? I wanted to achieve the same effect in my improv for this week: supplying logic of a [possibly unthought of] "why" to a curious notion or question.
Why Kill the Journalist?
News, doesn't travel fast enough-
the tourtise's brother
wanes against the Earth.
Flaring once before
retiring for the evening,
fading into a peaceful night-
mare of tides rivaling only Lucifer,
but no one can sooth
and temper it. They have better
places to be. The known
unknowns exercise their witty
tongues, but not their sanity.
Memories clumsily drawn on
the back of milk cartons,
frozen over with tired
flakes of empty irises.
Telephone poles timber
into the moss covered
ground. Static-shocked,
reception terminated.
Children coninue hooping
down the street.
Life is deafened to continue.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Improv 1, Week 5
This week's improv is a riff of John Poch's poem, "Death"
When I was born, everybody died.
I never make my bed, and someone's always
coming behind me, picking up.
I'm a leader.
I lost my keys to a tomb at noon.
My footpring is a single black feather
or a petal fallen from anything (pick a color).
A lover of formality, I'm black and white.
Black tie, barefoot and sloopy.
When I'm on fire, I'm cold.
The borken-leged Lipizzaner in a ditch complains my name.
I'm as slow as a spent bullet.
I fear the mirror only.
Bright tattoos of unremarkable people decorate my calves,
and I strut down the beach like a famous wrestler
who has practiced and practed falling.
Photography is my bad.
I like hiding under the black cloth
while everyone waits for an explosion.
Prayer to my sinews is my idea of fun.
I lie down as much as possible
in a nest of bones till I feel guilty enough
to get up and write an epitaph.
I rhyme with breath.
Everything my father did was joke.
My mother is a flute, a fluke.
I have wanted to marry Love for so long.
She won't have me.
When I die, everyone will live forever.
In this piece, Poch personifies death as an average every day person, but he utilizes a different perspective of death in order to do so. He avoides using the streotypics images of darkness, shadows, graves, spirits, bones, skulls, and scythes. Instead, he opts for images of formality, photography (as a hobby of death), strutting down the beach like a wrestler, and much more. This piece inspired me to try to capture death in another light: that of a small child. I began thinking of how certain aspects of death would be voiced by a child between the ages of 5-7. In doing so, may of the stereotyped images of death became light-hearted and almost playful. The final result is below:
Death Unravelled
Whenever I visit, it is so fun!
Everyone always comes and plays with me.
We play Ice Rangers—pale skinned and cold-lipped
guardians of the Earth who haunt others
for their protection. We’re cooler
than those ranger-power-guys.
Black is my favorite color. Playing Indian
Chief, black sap stains my face
every night. I am no-years-old
with over a million birthdays a year.
At my parties, there are black
balloons that flare out real fancy,
and people dress in licorice costumes!
Last year Beatrice Arthur, Steve McNair,
And Farrah Fawcett, all came.
I was on the news for weeks.
Though I wonder why people keep bringing
flowers instead of cake and candy.
My favorite game is hide-and-seek.
No one ever sees me coming: stealthy
and slick like the white plagued
raccoon—the best kind of spy.
I am left-handed. I have this super
blazing midnight cape that makes me
all mysterious. Batman would be so jealous!
Daddy says the cape is special
and will protect me forever.
Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll let you touch it,
then you can live forever too.
I’m the best friend you’ll ever have,
and we’ll be together
for eternity.
When I was born, everybody died.
I never make my bed, and someone's always
coming behind me, picking up.
I'm a leader.
I lost my keys to a tomb at noon.
My footpring is a single black feather
or a petal fallen from anything (pick a color).
A lover of formality, I'm black and white.
Black tie, barefoot and sloopy.
When I'm on fire, I'm cold.
The borken-leged Lipizzaner in a ditch complains my name.
I'm as slow as a spent bullet.
I fear the mirror only.
Bright tattoos of unremarkable people decorate my calves,
and I strut down the beach like a famous wrestler
who has practiced and practed falling.
Photography is my bad.
I like hiding under the black cloth
while everyone waits for an explosion.
Prayer to my sinews is my idea of fun.
I lie down as much as possible
in a nest of bones till I feel guilty enough
to get up and write an epitaph.
I rhyme with breath.
Everything my father did was joke.
My mother is a flute, a fluke.
I have wanted to marry Love for so long.
She won't have me.
When I die, everyone will live forever.
In this piece, Poch personifies death as an average every day person, but he utilizes a different perspective of death in order to do so. He avoides using the streotypics images of darkness, shadows, graves, spirits, bones, skulls, and scythes. Instead, he opts for images of formality, photography (as a hobby of death), strutting down the beach like a wrestler, and much more. This piece inspired me to try to capture death in another light: that of a small child. I began thinking of how certain aspects of death would be voiced by a child between the ages of 5-7. In doing so, may of the stereotyped images of death became light-hearted and almost playful. The final result is below:
Death Unravelled
Whenever I visit, it is so fun!
Everyone always comes and plays with me.
We play Ice Rangers—pale skinned and cold-lipped
guardians of the Earth who haunt others
for their protection. We’re cooler
than those ranger-power-guys.
Black is my favorite color. Playing Indian
Chief, black sap stains my face
every night. I am no-years-old
with over a million birthdays a year.
At my parties, there are black
balloons that flare out real fancy,
and people dress in licorice costumes!
Last year Beatrice Arthur, Steve McNair,
And Farrah Fawcett, all came.
I was on the news for weeks.
Though I wonder why people keep bringing
flowers instead of cake and candy.
My favorite game is hide-and-seek.
No one ever sees me coming: stealthy
and slick like the white plagued
raccoon—the best kind of spy.
I am left-handed. I have this super
blazing midnight cape that makes me
all mysterious. Batman would be so jealous!
Daddy says the cape is special
and will protect me forever.
Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll let you touch it,
then you can live forever too.
I’m the best friend you’ll ever have,
and we’ll be together
for eternity.
Free Entry 2, Week 5
Redemption, they name is scar,
the forbidden cross of transmutation.
Breaking down to reconstruct,
building to decapitate legs
and limbs, scattered like pins
across a linoleum floor. Lemon- scented
sterilization, the sour aroma layers
the absence of evidence.
Mutilated branches secrete blood
that quinches thirst-ridden bush rats—
starving from the lack of food and cracked
from dehydration. They drive their snouts
into soil, seeking solace in plague-infested
quicksand that drown the seedlings of restoration.
Leaves sprout, yearning for a life saver,
“Feed Me Seymour!” But he
does not hear their cries,
and they see less…feel less…inhaling
oxygen, exhaling carbon.
The path has twisted down into the sky,
reversing the flow, reviving screeching
banshees with skins of wrinkled leather.
Old is young, pure is im-
pure, to die is to live,
and have-nots, have
become the epitome
of an equivalent exchange
that is not so equivalent.
That, is alchemy.
the forbidden cross of transmutation.
Breaking down to reconstruct,
building to decapitate legs
and limbs, scattered like pins
across a linoleum floor. Lemon- scented
sterilization, the sour aroma layers
the absence of evidence.
Mutilated branches secrete blood
that quinches thirst-ridden bush rats—
starving from the lack of food and cracked
from dehydration. They drive their snouts
into soil, seeking solace in plague-infested
quicksand that drown the seedlings of restoration.
Leaves sprout, yearning for a life saver,
“Feed Me Seymour!” But he
does not hear their cries,
and they see less…feel less…inhaling
oxygen, exhaling carbon.
The path has twisted down into the sky,
reversing the flow, reviving screeching
banshees with skins of wrinkled leather.
Old is young, pure is im-
pure, to die is to live,
and have-nots, have
become the epitome
of an equivalent exchange
that is not so equivalent.
That, is alchemy.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Free Entry 1, Week 5
Sane-ness is knowing insanity
unless one is unaware
of the bowling marbles clacking
against the grainy brick stoop
of 1984. Tweetering echoes
through the punctured drummed skin
covering the Windows screen.
Avatars swim mindlessly
through the sky-way,
collissions imminent; the death toll rises:
100,000 chirps per minute- make the nails
on a chalkboard sob in agony.
Oh, Big Brother knows what he's
doing. Double-tweets and triple-speaks
thread warp-ed-ly through our minds
until the connection is severed levitation.
Eyes melt into the screen, contracting viruses
that make us blind. Blinded scent. Blinded
sound. Blinded taste. Deafened sight.
Defeated Being. Defense-less,
Vulnerable-puppeteered by the Brother Judas
we knew of, but never knew. For
Sane-ness is knowing insanity
unless one is unaware...
unless one is unaware
of the bowling marbles clacking
against the grainy brick stoop
of 1984. Tweetering echoes
through the punctured drummed skin
covering the Windows screen.
Avatars swim mindlessly
through the sky-way,
collissions imminent; the death toll rises:
100,000 chirps per minute- make the nails
on a chalkboard sob in agony.
Oh, Big Brother knows what he's
doing. Double-tweets and triple-speaks
thread warp-ed-ly through our minds
until the connection is severed levitation.
Eyes melt into the screen, contracting viruses
that make us blind. Blinded scent. Blinded
sound. Blinded taste. Deafened sight.
Defeated Being. Defense-less,
Vulnerable-puppeteered by the Brother Judas
we knew of, but never knew. For
Sane-ness is knowing insanity
unless one is unaware...
Junkyard Quote 5, Week 5
"This absence of evidence, is not the evidence of absence. What I'm saying, is that there are known-knowns, and there are known-unknowns, but there are also unknown-unknowns: things we don't know that we don't know."
-Gin Rummy, "The Boondocks"
-Gin Rummy, "The Boondocks"
Junkyard Quote 4, Week 5
"Nothing but a breath-a comma-separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on stage with exclamation points. It's a comma, a pause. Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma."
Professor E.M. Ashford, "Wit"
Professor E.M. Ashford, "Wit"
Junkyard Quote 3, Week 5
"I am the stone that the builder refused; I am the visual, the inspiration that makes lady sing the blues."
-Asheru, "The Boondocks"
-Asheru, "The Boondocks"
Junkyard Quote 2, Week 5
"Now is not the time for verbal swordplay, for unlikely flights of imagination and wildly shifting perspectives, for metaphysical conceit, for wit. And nothing would be worse than a detailed scholarly analysis. Erudition. Interpretation. Complication. Now is a time for simplicity. Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness."
-Vivan Bearing, "Wit"
-Vivan Bearing, "Wit"
Junkyard Quote 1, Week 5
"This young shoot has poured its sap into the parent stalk, and we know this is not the way of life."
-The Praise-Singer, "Death and the King's Horseman"
-The Praise-Singer, "Death and the King's Horseman"
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Strategy Response 1, Week 4
Strategy Response
Poem: Seven Days of Falling
Strategy: Juggling
The strategy that I observed this week was that of juggling in order to construct poetic pieces. According to our Writing Poetry textbook, poems can consist of a variety of imagery, settings, notions, and experiences that are all juggled and blurred in a manner and eventually results in one composed piece (75). This is particularly evident in Adrian Matejka’s piece, “Seven Days of Falling.”
Concepts like movement, imagery, experiences, and notions are all tossed about back and forth throughout the poem. Each line or set of lines composes notions that are distinguishingly distinct from each other. For example, Matejka begins the piece with a ‘metaphor of movement,’ “Today, I’m assimilating like margarine into hotcakes” (1-2). With this line, he foreshadows the continuity of moving that is presented throughout the entire work. He continues by comparing himself to Danny LaRusso, also known as the Karate Kid of 1984. The next line then presents a completely different imagery of him being so low after the Karate Kid’s leg sweep, that he becomes a “flower in common decency’s / lapel” (5-6). Even later, Matejka mentions the experience of a friend minting t-shirts with Juan Valdez (10-14). Distinctions such as these are blurred over the course of the work the way balls blur while flying through the air in a juggling act. One can also see how the piece is composed of imagery from the implied movement and balance within the poem’s entire composition.
Transitions such as the concept of travelling “Going the way of skin—radio waves, thoughts / like ear-to-ear transmissions grounded / into the ozone on the way from mindless / space to forgetful Earth,” contribute to the piece’s constant movement that was foreshadowed earlier in the first stanza of the work (14-18). Lines 14-18 can also be balanced against, “hand grenades reshaping / my palms into their own militaristic orbit,” due to the correlation between ‘space, Earth, and orbit’ (21-22) The same balance can even be seen at the beginning of the piece with the Karate Kid’s kick sweeping as low as a flower in common decency’s lapel. These notions are contextualized and tempered by each other. Though they are different individually, they end up balancing each other when they are put together.
Continuous movement and contextualization work together throughout the poem to make it a successful juggling act of fusion and balance. The final result is a dynamically interactive performance of overlapping and blurring that produces an intriguingly vivid work on the part of the poem as a whole.
Poem: Seven Days of Falling
Strategy: Juggling
The strategy that I observed this week was that of juggling in order to construct poetic pieces. According to our Writing Poetry textbook, poems can consist of a variety of imagery, settings, notions, and experiences that are all juggled and blurred in a manner and eventually results in one composed piece (75). This is particularly evident in Adrian Matejka’s piece, “Seven Days of Falling.”
Concepts like movement, imagery, experiences, and notions are all tossed about back and forth throughout the poem. Each line or set of lines composes notions that are distinguishingly distinct from each other. For example, Matejka begins the piece with a ‘metaphor of movement,’ “Today, I’m assimilating like margarine into hotcakes” (1-2). With this line, he foreshadows the continuity of moving that is presented throughout the entire work. He continues by comparing himself to Danny LaRusso, also known as the Karate Kid of 1984. The next line then presents a completely different imagery of him being so low after the Karate Kid’s leg sweep, that he becomes a “flower in common decency’s / lapel” (5-6). Even later, Matejka mentions the experience of a friend minting t-shirts with Juan Valdez (10-14). Distinctions such as these are blurred over the course of the work the way balls blur while flying through the air in a juggling act. One can also see how the piece is composed of imagery from the implied movement and balance within the poem’s entire composition.
Transitions such as the concept of travelling “Going the way of skin—radio waves, thoughts / like ear-to-ear transmissions grounded / into the ozone on the way from mindless / space to forgetful Earth,” contribute to the piece’s constant movement that was foreshadowed earlier in the first stanza of the work (14-18). Lines 14-18 can also be balanced against, “hand grenades reshaping / my palms into their own militaristic orbit,” due to the correlation between ‘space, Earth, and orbit’ (21-22) The same balance can even be seen at the beginning of the piece with the Karate Kid’s kick sweeping as low as a flower in common decency’s lapel. These notions are contextualized and tempered by each other. Though they are different individually, they end up balancing each other when they are put together.
Continuous movement and contextualization work together throughout the poem to make it a successful juggling act of fusion and balance. The final result is a dynamically interactive performance of overlapping and blurring that produces an intriguingly vivid work on the part of the poem as a whole.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Improv 2, Week 4
The second improv is a riff of Adrian Matejka's, "This Be The Verse," which in turn riffed Philip Larkin's "This Be The Verse."
This is the skin they put me in,
my mum and dad. Remied melanin,
olio for the asthmatic and color blind.
See how it bronzes on command.
So how my hyrbrided daughter looks
darker while on the beach with me.
If my skin was a chicken wing,
I'd lick my eyebrows before
code switching inflections.
If my skin were a woman, I'd check
my leopard print steering wheel
at the door. I'd transform my crust
of rust and sea salt into something
more 21st Century. Borges said,
Things belong to the past quite quickly,
so I'd throw some butane on my funk
transistors. Face paint my brown
band aid convocation. Toss my sweaty
"Free South Africa" muscle shirt
to the crowd at the recycling bing.
I'd leave it to the ghetoo fabulous
to ID the magical backspin of skin.
Larkin's 1989 poem 'This Be The Verse' begins with the line, "They fuck you up, your mom and dad." Matejka's version begins, "This is the skin they put me in, my mum and dad." Though both poems have a similar beginning, they branch off into two completely different topics. Larkin speaks of how parents corrupt you and Matejka speaks of how his parents created his skin color (and the after affects of their actions). For my piece, I decided to use the "mother and father" line as a spring board and then let my mind run to see where I ended up. I began thinking of how parents discipline their children and received a lot of imagery from this that I decided to use for the construction of my piece. The work below was the end result:
They whipped me in and out,
mother and father, the immutable
pharohs of my youth. The
leash crackled and my
skin bled into my brain
marring what was once my
innocence. If my tongue were
a brick, it'd grate the concrete
with syllables of sharply
pointed cryptographs. If I
were rain, I'd pelt and stain the
inflections of skin-on-skin
rug burns. The metallic
whelps are dunes on my thighs,
mountains of things meant to be learned
only leading to a starved plague.
Adam and Eve envy my agony-
pleasanted only by the fact
that each strike feeds
a hungry child in Africa.
How many cents a day are
wasted on the cleansed and cleaned?
This is the skin they put me in,
my mum and dad. Remied melanin,
olio for the asthmatic and color blind.
See how it bronzes on command.
So how my hyrbrided daughter looks
darker while on the beach with me.
If my skin was a chicken wing,
I'd lick my eyebrows before
code switching inflections.
If my skin were a woman, I'd check
my leopard print steering wheel
at the door. I'd transform my crust
of rust and sea salt into something
more 21st Century. Borges said,
Things belong to the past quite quickly,
so I'd throw some butane on my funk
transistors. Face paint my brown
band aid convocation. Toss my sweaty
"Free South Africa" muscle shirt
to the crowd at the recycling bing.
I'd leave it to the ghetoo fabulous
to ID the magical backspin of skin.
Larkin's 1989 poem 'This Be The Verse' begins with the line, "They fuck you up, your mom and dad." Matejka's version begins, "This is the skin they put me in, my mum and dad." Though both poems have a similar beginning, they branch off into two completely different topics. Larkin speaks of how parents corrupt you and Matejka speaks of how his parents created his skin color (and the after affects of their actions). For my piece, I decided to use the "mother and father" line as a spring board and then let my mind run to see where I ended up. I began thinking of how parents discipline their children and received a lot of imagery from this that I decided to use for the construction of my piece. The work below was the end result:
They whipped me in and out,
mother and father, the immutable
pharohs of my youth. The
leash crackled and my
skin bled into my brain
marring what was once my
innocence. If my tongue were
a brick, it'd grate the concrete
with syllables of sharply
pointed cryptographs. If I
were rain, I'd pelt and stain the
inflections of skin-on-skin
rug burns. The metallic
whelps are dunes on my thighs,
mountains of things meant to be learned
only leading to a starved plague.
Adam and Eve envy my agony-
pleasanted only by the fact
that each strike feeds
a hungry child in Africa.
How many cents a day are
wasted on the cleansed and cleaned?
Improv 1, Week 4
My first improv for this week is a riffs Adrian Matejka's "Seven Days of Falling"
Seven Days of Falling
Today, I'm assimilating like margarine
into hotcakes. I'm getting down
like Danny LaRusso after the against-
the-rules leg sweep. So low,
I'll be a flower in common deceny's
lapel. Factual, the same way "Zanzibar"
means sea of blacks to anyone who isn't
from there. Where is Juan Valdez,
his burroesque dependability when
you need him? I had a friend who minted
t-shirts with Juan front and center,
an afro instead of a sombrero, a power
fist in place of a smile. The inscription:
100% Colmbian. I'm going the way
of skin-radio waves, thoughts
like ear-to-ear transmissions grounded
into the ozone on the way from mindless
space to forgetfull Earth. Man, my skin
doesn't need me any more than mold
needs cheese. On this day of cellophane
lunchboxes and hand grenades reshaping
my palms into their own militaristic orbit,
there are only oceans to catch me.
On this day, someting needs
to catalogue me: a hall monitor
doubled wide by ambition,
a goldfish with thumbs hitchhiking
toward a fishbowl full of dub.
This poem uses a variety of transitional metaphors that mirror the
way the piece moves from idea to idea ("Assimilating like margarine into hotcakes; thoughts like ear-to-ear transmissons, etc"). Thre is a sense of steadily travelling between notions as Matejka presents a sense of the speaker's undergoing a development or transformation throughout the poem. This is what I tried to mimmick with my piece by using figures of current pop-culture and influential elements of my childhood. The choices of imagery depict the type of development experienced by the sepaker. When I finished writing, I was able to see how the my speaker had moved to his/her current state of being by the end of the piece because of the transitions that I used. My poem reflected the way famous people and fads shifted throughout time as well. I believe this same movement in change(that correlates with the poem) is also represented in Matejka's work.
Childhood Deterioration
Today, I'm driving like a nail
into a stake. I'm flipping open
like Janet Jackson after the malfunction
to-rich-for-television. So hot
I'll be an iron rod in a censored road's
rail. Foreign, the same way "Inuyasha"
means Japanimated nerd to anyone who doesn't
watch it. Where is Nick Cannon,
his childish maturtiy when
you seek him? My sister was autographeed by
snared drums with Cannon's blasting and bated beats,
a punchline instead of punchtime, a digital
camera in place of a Polaroid. The shot
100% Kid Nation. I'm marching the way
of juveniles-hand slaps stinging
down red-to-red silk layered
in sweat secreted from thoughtless
dribbles and belittled Street Fighters. Lowly
my toes no longer grip for bedded
sea scales. In this day of
tweets and i-ware wearing down
my identity into their newly designed race,
there are only mountains to release me.
Today, I need
a new tomorrow: Larger than
a Jackson with twice the power,
a forest feline with claws climbing
beyond a dog-dish of ebonics.
Seven Days of Falling
Today, I'm assimilating like margarine
into hotcakes. I'm getting down
like Danny LaRusso after the against-
the-rules leg sweep. So low,
I'll be a flower in common deceny's
lapel. Factual, the same way "Zanzibar"
means sea of blacks to anyone who isn't
from there. Where is Juan Valdez,
his burroesque dependability when
you need him? I had a friend who minted
t-shirts with Juan front and center,
an afro instead of a sombrero, a power
fist in place of a smile. The inscription:
100% Colmbian. I'm going the way
of skin-radio waves, thoughts
like ear-to-ear transmissions grounded
into the ozone on the way from mindless
space to forgetfull Earth. Man, my skin
doesn't need me any more than mold
needs cheese. On this day of cellophane
lunchboxes and hand grenades reshaping
my palms into their own militaristic orbit,
there are only oceans to catch me.
On this day, someting needs
to catalogue me: a hall monitor
doubled wide by ambition,
a goldfish with thumbs hitchhiking
toward a fishbowl full of dub.
This poem uses a variety of transitional metaphors that mirror the
way the piece moves from idea to idea ("Assimilating like margarine into hotcakes; thoughts like ear-to-ear transmissons, etc"). Thre is a sense of steadily travelling between notions as Matejka presents a sense of the speaker's undergoing a development or transformation throughout the poem. This is what I tried to mimmick with my piece by using figures of current pop-culture and influential elements of my childhood. The choices of imagery depict the type of development experienced by the sepaker. When I finished writing, I was able to see how the my speaker had moved to his/her current state of being by the end of the piece because of the transitions that I used. My poem reflected the way famous people and fads shifted throughout time as well. I believe this same movement in change(that correlates with the poem) is also represented in Matejka's work.
Childhood Deterioration
Today, I'm driving like a nail
into a stake. I'm flipping open
like Janet Jackson after the malfunction
to-rich-for-television. So hot
I'll be an iron rod in a censored road's
rail. Foreign, the same way "Inuyasha"
means Japanimated nerd to anyone who doesn't
watch it. Where is Nick Cannon,
his childish maturtiy when
you seek him? My sister was autographeed by
snared drums with Cannon's blasting and bated beats,
a punchline instead of punchtime, a digital
camera in place of a Polaroid. The shot
100% Kid Nation. I'm marching the way
of juveniles-hand slaps stinging
down red-to-red silk layered
in sweat secreted from thoughtless
dribbles and belittled Street Fighters. Lowly
my toes no longer grip for bedded
sea scales. In this day of
tweets and i-ware wearing down
my identity into their newly designed race,
there are only mountains to release me.
Today, I need
a new tomorrow: Larger than
a Jackson with twice the power,
a forest feline with claws climbing
beyond a dog-dish of ebonics.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Free Entry 2, Week 4
The curly Q’s quiver severely,
quaking the tendrils of my mind.
My cerebellum snoozes savagely in a
symphony of yips and yelps yanking
the bronze chain wrapped snuggly around
his bruised anaconda knuckles. And the breeze
bangs bullets of petals into his brain, and singes the
would be ashes of his inner gravity. Cantankerous
canines maul the hollow shell that is his brother’s,
rugged red mop top, bleeding onto the cotton coated
floor. I breathe deep the putrid lavender aroma that
that chops the rancid waters of sleepless days and
awakening nights: amnesia-tic.
His glare nails the vein of
my knobby neck, and I know he can see the diamond
studded shards piercing through my aorta.
quaking the tendrils of my mind.
My cerebellum snoozes savagely in a
symphony of yips and yelps yanking
the bronze chain wrapped snuggly around
his bruised anaconda knuckles. And the breeze
bangs bullets of petals into his brain, and singes the
would be ashes of his inner gravity. Cantankerous
canines maul the hollow shell that is his brother’s,
rugged red mop top, bleeding onto the cotton coated
floor. I breathe deep the putrid lavender aroma that
that chops the rancid waters of sleepless days and
awakening nights: amnesia-tic.
His glare nails the vein of
my knobby neck, and I know he can see the diamond
studded shards piercing through my aorta.
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