Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Happy Snow Day!
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Dancer//Voice Poem
The Dancer
I am strong
and strive for perfection.
I steer my feet towards excellence
and with each strain of my toes
I gain stamina.
I am music and lyrics
and muscle and ligaments.
I am an artist of motion
and pink pointed shoes.
I am perfection.
I am tights and tutus
and turns on wood floors.
I am trembling nerves
and terrific smiles on stage.
I am a dancer.
.......
I wrote this in the voice of a dancer, but I've never danced a day in my life.
I am strong
and strive for perfection.
I steer my feet towards excellence
and with each strain of my toes
I gain stamina.
I am music and lyrics
and muscle and ligaments.
I am an artist of motion
and pink pointed shoes.
I am perfection.
I am tights and tutus
and turns on wood floors.
I am trembling nerves
and terrific smiles on stage.
I am a dancer.
.......
I wrote this in the voice of a dancer, but I've never danced a day in my life.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Replacement Poem
Homage to Her Legs
her legs are long legs
they need room to
stretch around in.
they don't walk into small
cramped spaces. those legs
are adventurous legs.
they don't like to be held back.
those legs have never been restrained,
they roam where they want to roam
they walk where they want to walk.
those legs are strong legs.
those legs are soft legs.
she has wanted them
to strut a walk on a runway and
rock it like a model!
As embarrassing as this sounds, this was really hard for me to do. I tried multiple poems before settling on this one, and it just seems corny. Especially the last two lines.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart//Homage to My Hips
Both Margaret Atwood and Lucille Clifton's poems personify a part of the human body; the former personifies the heart, while the later gives her hips a sassy personality.
In "The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart", Atwood describes the heart as a third eye living inside her; a person who cries "I want" and "I don't want". While she sleeps the heart keeps watch, yet never informs her of what's passed in her sleep. Her heart is a "constant pestering." It's almost like her heart is a metaphor for a small child that can't be put to rest after a long day of play. The last line reads "One night I will say to it: Heart, be still, and it will." It appears that the author has come to terms with the fact that her heart will never give her any rest until it is time for her to die and it beats no more.
Since we live in a society that constantly preaches diets and obtaining slimness, it's interesting to see a poem about "big hips." "Homage to My Hips" embraces the curves of the female body, even giving the hips a personality of their own. These hips seem fearless and determined: "they don't like to be held back." Clifton claims they are "magic" and "mighty." Her confidence in herself and in her body is evident in the last two lines where she brags her hips have been know "to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top!" Unlike Atwood, Clifton has no complaints in her poem.
Both Clifton at Atwood are successful at representing the female body. Just like a real female standing in front of a mirror, these poems together offer both criticism and praise towards the body.
In "The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart", Atwood describes the heart as a third eye living inside her; a person who cries "I want" and "I don't want". While she sleeps the heart keeps watch, yet never informs her of what's passed in her sleep. Her heart is a "constant pestering." It's almost like her heart is a metaphor for a small child that can't be put to rest after a long day of play. The last line reads "One night I will say to it: Heart, be still, and it will." It appears that the author has come to terms with the fact that her heart will never give her any rest until it is time for her to die and it beats no more.
Since we live in a society that constantly preaches diets and obtaining slimness, it's interesting to see a poem about "big hips." "Homage to My Hips" embraces the curves of the female body, even giving the hips a personality of their own. These hips seem fearless and determined: "they don't like to be held back." Clifton claims they are "magic" and "mighty." Her confidence in herself and in her body is evident in the last two lines where she brags her hips have been know "to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top!" Unlike Atwood, Clifton has no complaints in her poem.
Both Clifton at Atwood are successful at representing the female body. Just like a real female standing in front of a mirror, these poems together offer both criticism and praise towards the body.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Imagery Poem
Sunset
Blood red cuts into dusky blue
An ombré of nature's colors
On display for the world to see
Stars swirling with the day's last rays
Ignite the dark side of the sky
Fighting off the last signs of day
At last the red and orange relent
Handing the sky over to black
The sun kisses the sky goodbye
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Response to Lee, Olds, Neruda, and Bierds Poems
These poems interconnect in that they all tell some sort of story. At least I'm confident the first three tell stories, as I'm clueless as to what's going on in the last poem.
I really appreciated the way Lee's "Loading a Boar" was written; he captured the essence of the type of person who would be loading a boar. It would be strange if the poem had been written in neat stanzas with formal language. Instead the stream of consciousness, the beer and the profanity make this poem believable. I think John has a great point when he tells the writer "you gotta write poems about what you know." Instead of writing a poem on a subject the poet thinks a poem should be about, he writes about something he understands, even if it isn't a glamorous task, such as loading a boar.
In contrast to "Loading a Boar" Olds' s "I Go Back to May 1937" is structured more like you would expect a poem to be structured. The inner turmoil the person in the poem is facing is fascinating to me: she wants to warn her parents of their future, yet she is selfish enough to still want to be born. I feel that as a college student I can relate to this poem in that, like the man and the woman in the poem, I don't know what the future might hold. Everyone starts out life as innocent, and at some point that innocence is taken. In addition, it is only human nature to make bad choices or mistakes. It appears from what the author says that the marriage between the man and the woman results in a loss of this innocence, and the beginning of a string of bad choices and events. I want to feel sorry for the person writing the poem, but I feel like I need more details other than "you are going to do bad things to children" (which I assume means bad things were done to the author). Bad things like what, exactly?
The title "A Dog Has Died" seems really impersonal to me, yet the poem itself offers insight into a relationship between a dog and his owner. He speaks of the dog as if he was the only dog to have ever not have been "obsessed with sex" or "full of mange." He seems envious of his dogs happiness and recalls fondly the times they have together. This last stanza doesn't seem to go with the rest of the poem. "So now he's gone and I buried him, and that's all there is to it." He sounds indifferent to his dog's death, yet if he was indifferent why would he recall so many good memories about his dog? Heck, why would he even write an entire poem about the death of his dog if "that's all there is to it"? It's almost as if he's trying to appear like he doesn't care, when in reality the event has upset him.
To be honest DNA by Biereds was the most confusing poem I've ever read. I assume during the course of the poem DNA is discovered..? "Star-shot elegance" sounds pretty but I have no idea what it means. The whole poem is just a strange collection of shapes and stars and then something about a lamb. Maybe I'll figure out what's going on in this poem when we discuss it in class, because right now I'm really clueless.
I really appreciated the way Lee's "Loading a Boar" was written; he captured the essence of the type of person who would be loading a boar. It would be strange if the poem had been written in neat stanzas with formal language. Instead the stream of consciousness, the beer and the profanity make this poem believable. I think John has a great point when he tells the writer "you gotta write poems about what you know." Instead of writing a poem on a subject the poet thinks a poem should be about, he writes about something he understands, even if it isn't a glamorous task, such as loading a boar.
In contrast to "Loading a Boar" Olds' s "I Go Back to May 1937" is structured more like you would expect a poem to be structured. The inner turmoil the person in the poem is facing is fascinating to me: she wants to warn her parents of their future, yet she is selfish enough to still want to be born. I feel that as a college student I can relate to this poem in that, like the man and the woman in the poem, I don't know what the future might hold. Everyone starts out life as innocent, and at some point that innocence is taken. In addition, it is only human nature to make bad choices or mistakes. It appears from what the author says that the marriage between the man and the woman results in a loss of this innocence, and the beginning of a string of bad choices and events. I want to feel sorry for the person writing the poem, but I feel like I need more details other than "you are going to do bad things to children" (which I assume means bad things were done to the author). Bad things like what, exactly?
The title "A Dog Has Died" seems really impersonal to me, yet the poem itself offers insight into a relationship between a dog and his owner. He speaks of the dog as if he was the only dog to have ever not have been "obsessed with sex" or "full of mange." He seems envious of his dogs happiness and recalls fondly the times they have together. This last stanza doesn't seem to go with the rest of the poem. "So now he's gone and I buried him, and that's all there is to it." He sounds indifferent to his dog's death, yet if he was indifferent why would he recall so many good memories about his dog? Heck, why would he even write an entire poem about the death of his dog if "that's all there is to it"? It's almost as if he's trying to appear like he doesn't care, when in reality the event has upset him.
To be honest DNA by Biereds was the most confusing poem I've ever read. I assume during the course of the poem DNA is discovered..? "Star-shot elegance" sounds pretty but I have no idea what it means. The whole poem is just a strange collection of shapes and stars and then something about a lamb. Maybe I'll figure out what's going on in this poem when we discuss it in class, because right now I'm really clueless.
Monday, January 13, 2014
A Response to "so much depends"/ "Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus, or The Mulata"/"Introduction to Poetry"/Photographs of the Interiors of Dictators' Houses
These poems were inspiring in that while their topics were varied, they all successfully demonstrated exceptional use of imagery.
The simplicity, yet effectiveness, of "[so much depends]" allowed me to realize that a poem doesn't have to be wordy to evoke imagery. The spaces between the stanzas allowed me to reflect on what I had just read, thus resulting in a picture building in my mind of the red wheel barrow glistening with rain beside the white chickens.
In contrast to "[so much depends]", Albert Goldbarth spared no words in his "Photographs of the Interiors of Dictators' Houses". Even the title is a mouthful. Once again, however, the poem demonstrates imagery that creates a (very detailed) imagine in the reader's mind. However, the abundance of words seems necessary for this poem; in contrast to the simple scene painted in "[so much depends]", "Photographs" provides a snapshot into a very elaborate, gaudy home complete with "gold commodes." This gold monstrosity and the inhabitants that "drunkenly saunter" around the house is excessive in every way imaginable; therefore it is only appropriate that the poem itself in in excess.
"Introduction to Poetry" took me on a journey as I imagined the poem going through each scenario Billy Collins describes. The poem becomes more than a piece of paper with ink; it becomes interactive. I could easily imagine a reader diving into the surface of the poem and "feel the wall for a light switch." The stanza that says, "They begin beating it with a hose, to find out what it really means" stuck out to me the most, however. I find myself a victim of attempting to "make" a poem have a purpose. I feel through imagery Collins is encouraging readers to stop trying so hard and just enjoy the poem for what it is.
Natasha Tretheway uses little words to describe the actual physical appearance of the kitchen maid in "The Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus, or the Mulata", but instead uses the kitchen itself to create the image of the maid. It's strange how unconventional descriptions can result in a better understanding of a person; I could easily see the woman silently tipping the copper pot into empty glasses or moving around the kitchen stacking bowls or brushing her hand against the basket hung on the wall. Tretheway's technique allowed me to simultaneously imagine the kitchen as well as its matriarch.
These four poems approached imagery in four different ways; however, they each accomplished what they set out to do: evoke images in the readers' mind. Sometimes these images helped prove a point, such as in "Introduction to Poetry," while others relished in simplicity "[so much depends]" or excess "Photographs." Meanwhile "The Kitchen Maid.." proved that unconventional ways of describing a person can still produce a powerful image. Before reading these I assumed that all imagery required a lot of words and basic details. However, I now see there are many ways to create imagery, and I hope to use these works as inspiration to add variety to my own poetry.
The simplicity, yet effectiveness, of "[so much depends]" allowed me to realize that a poem doesn't have to be wordy to evoke imagery. The spaces between the stanzas allowed me to reflect on what I had just read, thus resulting in a picture building in my mind of the red wheel barrow glistening with rain beside the white chickens.
In contrast to "[so much depends]", Albert Goldbarth spared no words in his "Photographs of the Interiors of Dictators' Houses". Even the title is a mouthful. Once again, however, the poem demonstrates imagery that creates a (very detailed) imagine in the reader's mind. However, the abundance of words seems necessary for this poem; in contrast to the simple scene painted in "[so much depends]", "Photographs" provides a snapshot into a very elaborate, gaudy home complete with "gold commodes." This gold monstrosity and the inhabitants that "drunkenly saunter" around the house is excessive in every way imaginable; therefore it is only appropriate that the poem itself in in excess.
"Introduction to Poetry" took me on a journey as I imagined the poem going through each scenario Billy Collins describes. The poem becomes more than a piece of paper with ink; it becomes interactive. I could easily imagine a reader diving into the surface of the poem and "feel the wall for a light switch." The stanza that says, "They begin beating it with a hose, to find out what it really means" stuck out to me the most, however. I find myself a victim of attempting to "make" a poem have a purpose. I feel through imagery Collins is encouraging readers to stop trying so hard and just enjoy the poem for what it is.
Natasha Tretheway uses little words to describe the actual physical appearance of the kitchen maid in "The Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus, or the Mulata", but instead uses the kitchen itself to create the image of the maid. It's strange how unconventional descriptions can result in a better understanding of a person; I could easily see the woman silently tipping the copper pot into empty glasses or moving around the kitchen stacking bowls or brushing her hand against the basket hung on the wall. Tretheway's technique allowed me to simultaneously imagine the kitchen as well as its matriarch.
These four poems approached imagery in four different ways; however, they each accomplished what they set out to do: evoke images in the readers' mind. Sometimes these images helped prove a point, such as in "Introduction to Poetry," while others relished in simplicity "[so much depends]" or excess "Photographs." Meanwhile "The Kitchen Maid.." proved that unconventional ways of describing a person can still produce a powerful image. Before reading these I assumed that all imagery required a lot of words and basic details. However, I now see there are many ways to create imagery, and I hope to use these works as inspiration to add variety to my own poetry.
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