For my
final project I do want to take the traditional approach with a chapbook. I
know a really good book making place that allows me to what I want and put what
I want on the page. I’d really like to have my poem on a page in different forms
and structures, with a picture/pictures in the back ground that would allow me
to fully encapsulate my poems (with nature specifically). I’d take all the
pictures at different locations, much like I did with my video project. But I’d
go to different locations or back to the locations that inspired my poem. Like
the poem ‘the park’ which is the park right by my house that is beautiful in
winter. I’d want to take pictures there, around my house, in the empty rundown
buildings in lower town, more train tracks, and another place that really tries
to mix both, which I haven’t found yet.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Thursday, October 31, 2013
‘THEthe poetry’ takes its name from Wallace
Stevens poems, but encourages a cultural mixture of writers and critics,
writing poems, posts, debating, and analyzing each others writing. The blog name
draws the reader in with its seemingly obscure title, but the inclusiveness and
recognition by everyone involved in the blog that there are many different
forms of poetry brings a new feel to poetry I hadn't experienced before.
“The land of ABCs, we abracadabra
to acacia accordion.” The first line of Gene Tanta’s poem ‘The Poem of A with
no Beginning grabbed my right away because of the euphory she uses. I thought
it was my favorite line in the poem until I got to this one. ‘The river was like watching silent film alone
with nothing to alphabet the amen.’ I can’t put the image this gives me in
words. It made me think about how we contemplate silently inside our own minds
without using language to describe it to ourselves. We just know.
However, I was very intrigued by
Aimee Suzara’s poem ‘Tiny Fires.’ Her interpretation of free verse really
caught my eye. The disorganization and confusion allows for the poem to be read
in a number of different ways. Not just with tone like other poems can, but
literally in the order of the words. I found it quite interesting how she did
this. What I really like though was the paragraph in the middle of the poem. I
think this poem defines what free verse is in the best way possible.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Confusion
Creator created
craze
Calming caesura
Claustrophobic
change
Channeling concussed
clashing
Ceasing certain certainties
Curtain calls
calling
Cauterizing calamity
Criticizing cities
crackle
Chasing chitchat
claiming
Chastising charging
Christians
Compact clanging
clamor
Compare compromised
component
Closing cues clue
Craze created
creator
The inevitable Reality
It’s the first big step in the direction of your life
path.
If it’s so important how can I be so torn?
One second hating school and begging for college,
Then feeling lonely the next, just thinking about leaving
everyone.
The numbers precariously grow smaller,
Invisibly counting down the days.
It will be creating lifelong friends in college that I am
looking forward to most,
While losing touch with the ones I already have causes
sadness.
We will be set free from the bars of SPA that protect us
from the real world,
And then realize that we don’t want to leave.
It’ll be Purging the nest that will be the hardest.
Leaving the same house I’ve been in for fifteen years,
No longer having seemingly infinite resources,
Not having a purring kitty greet me every day after
school
And not seeing the people and teachers I see every day at
school.
That’ll be the hardest.
Yet it is an inevitable reality, coming for us all.
We have just months left to prepare for the real world,
And all that hardships, joy, sadness, and disappointment
that make up life,
Will be waiting for us to turn onto Randolph avenue on
June 8th, college bound.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Journal Response to Chris Martin
Martin clearly is a fan of short,
meaningful lines. My own style doesn’t agree with it but his style works well
for him. He is able to get important meaning across about whatever his subject
is. He also can use a lot of caesura even though he has those short lines. They
make the poem choppier, but this allows the poem to get more to the point. To
the true energy of the writing that Martin seems to try to center his writing
around. I was very intrigued by his ‘Time’ poems. All the different ones just
called ‘Time.’ That in of its self is quite interesting to me. How this series
shows how time is always there with something different happening in each
moment.
These poems to me are harder to
follow and seem much more abstract. With more of a broad meaning, the clarity
of the poem is lost but the sounds seem to be what matters. For example, in The Bubble, the lines “doubling bubbling bubble/we grow young/who
sing/endless babble/who add only/another flawed wing/aloft
in our Merzbau.” Then it’s not just the physical aspects of the poem
such as line set up, length, stanza use etc, but it is the way the poem sounds
that becoming intriguing. I find it quite interesting how much more power a
poem has when read aloud versus when it is just words on a page. It says the same thing but can have
multiple different meaning after being read aloud.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Ben Morris
10/8/13
Poetry
Mr. Wensman
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Poetry Analysis of
‘We Wear the Mask’ by Paul Laurence Dunbar
WHAT?
“We
Wear the Mask” has three stanzas with an ABABC/DDEF/ GGHHIJ rhyme scheme. In
the first stanza Dunbar is clearly using the mask as a metaphorical
representation of our own face, yet he exploits how we use this mask to deceive
everyone around us. The first stanza has many details pertaining to the face
and how it act, showing one thing when we feel another. How we lie to each
other with a smile and what makes this more interesting is that the wearing of
the mask seems voluntary. Dunbar here is seemingly trying to exploit how
deception and lying is already engrained in our human nature.
The
second stanza has fewer lines than the rest but has a very clear message.
Dunbar openly states that we use our face to literally mask our emotions from
both others but also the world. That we have to be closed off to everyone and
we only truly feel comfortable wearing the mask of deception.
The
third stanza is the most powerful of the three. Dunbar brings religion into his
poem in the first line of the stanza, calling out to him for his relief of the
opposition towards African Americans and their struggle to gain equal rights.
The clay is a symbol, showing how his race as a whole is seemingly stuck in
this ‘vile clay’ and that the ‘mile’ of clay they have to get through is to
gain equal rights. But that no matter what they would wear the mask.
WHY
Dunbar
is seemingly trying to explain that there is more to a person than just what
their face or ‘mask’ tells you. This
mask may say one thing when the person is feeling the exact opposite way on the
inside. The mask is hiding the people’s deepest secrets, fears, and harsh
realities. Yet he favors wearing the mask even though it is a detrimental
attribute that humans have
WHO
‘We
Wear the Mask’ is written in first person and written with a longing and almost
suffering tone to it. A tone of defeat. It implies he feels like his culture
has to wear a mask of happiness while they are being subject to awful treatment
being slaves.
WHERE/WHEN
It
was written in 1896 when African Americans were not still slaves yet were
fighting for equal rights. This is very significant because the poems
foundation is upon racism and how the culture feels they have to act. This poem
was very dangerous to write since at the time speaking out against whites could
result in being murdered.
HOW?
The
breaking up with the stanzas fits how the flow of the poem works. The first
stanza reveals how Dunbar believes that all people as a whole do is deceive
each other. And how the African American race feels it the most at the time.
The second stanza is shorter, and allows Dunbar to say how he feels that their
race should keep the mask on with almost a feeling of defeat and contempt. The
Final stanza captures how they feel stuck as a culture. That they are in the
thick of it in the ‘vile clay’ and must continue on towards their goal of
equality.
SO WHAT?
The
Metaphor of the mask hiding the essential pieces of the face that reveal
emotion is the perfect one for explaining how he and his race felt. It allows
for him to indirectly say how the African Americans of the time had just gained
their freedom but yet are still not equal.
Friday, September 27, 2013
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
'If'' by Rudyard Kipling
I chose this poem for poem of the day because it spoke virtue in the most concise form possible.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
The Park
The cicadas sing their evening ballad,
as the fiery red sun becomes nothing but a
glow, behind the
slowly swaying trees,
while the crickets sing the melody.
The bench is littered with cigarette butts.
the much too small jungle gym covered
in graffiti and
firecracker marks.
As the swings sway in tandem with the breeze
The sound of cars is constant,
and calming as dusk subtly evolves into night.
the fireflies come out,
putting on their nightly show.
I sit between the road and a forest,
Not knowing what side beacons me more.
Seemingly forced to make a choice,
But I am content to sit and admire both
Journal Response
Joyce Sutphens nature poems have some of her best work in them. The way she uses her line breaks much like another form of punctuation is always something that catches the eye first but her best skills lie in other areas. She is fantastic at describing and giving objects/specific things voices through a function they don’t have. Such as in Sutphes poem ‘How to listen’ where she writes, ”Listen with your eyes, as if the story you are hearing is happening right now.” Something about the idea of listening with your eyes gave that one stanza a lot of visual power and mental capability in imagining how to ‘truly listen.’ Another place she gives another meaning to something we take as literal. In her poem ‘crossroads’ she writes, “ The second half of my life will be ice breaking up on the river, rain soaking into the fields, a hand held out, a fire. And smoke going upward, always up.” In this stanza she seems to describe the end of the second part of her life which is death. The breaking of the ice on the river represents the final crack that allows death to seep in, but there was a more powerful line here. The line ‘and smoke going upward, always up’ gave a very strong mental image of the smoke almost representing what we imagine a spirit to look like rising into the heavens.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Ben Morris
Ellen Samuelson
Sela Patterson
Stupid things we
did as children
At age 3
We put gum in our hair,
Ate ants,
And slammed our fingers in car doors
Then at age 5
We controlled our younger siblings,
Fed our dogs chocolate,
And gave our siblings stitches
But at 7
We ran away for thirty minutes at a time,
Ate all the Halloween candy at once,
And were pyromaniacs
At 11, the tween years
We cut our own hair,
Did back flips off swings,
And prank called 9-1-1
After that at age 13
We roller-bladed down huge hills,
Slammed the door when we were grounded
And tried to drive the car
Then at 15
We went pool hopping,
And ding dong ditching,
And almost set the house on fire
Now at 17
We speed on the highway,
Do as we please,
And hope the light stays yellow for one more second.
Realization
“We’re the land of the free and home of the brave”
“We’re the land of the free and home of the brave”
Well 180 of 206 sovereign nations have freedom
And there is a fine line between bravery and ignorance
We used to be lead by great, fearless men
Who stood for what was right, not what they wanted
“What makes us number one?” many ask
We are no longer number one in this world
What we are in this world is
7th in literacy
27th in math
22nd in science
49th in life expectancy
178th in infant mortality
3rd in median household income
And 4th in imports
What do you mean number one?
However, we are number one in
Number of incarcerated citizens per capita
And defense spending
We explored the universe
Made the greatest technological advances the world has
seen
And we never used to boast about it
But now we can’t build a 35E bridge to get across town
We no longer have a war on poverty,
We have what feels like a war on the impoverished
We no longer have a war on poverty,
We have what feels like a war on the impoverished
We can no longer assume we are number one
We have to prove it.
From
the reading the very first paragraph and the second suggestion given on pg. 189
were the most helpful. The first paragraph talks about how we should be ‘afraid’
to edit in fear of losing that raw emotion. This is one of the reasons I don’t
like editing poems, especially this one since it was on something we feel
strongly about. It’s hard to write something you really like then come back and
tear it apart and maybe even stray from your original idea to a better one. Then
the second suggestion talks about how changing the lay out and structure on a
poem. I did this almost as another form of punctuation. By isolating certain
lines it makes them more punctual and forceful. It allows for your reader to
see how you felt when writing the poem. It’s something I utilized in this poem
and will continue to do as part of the revising process.
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