Week Ten - Junkyard Quote 1

"People say to me, Yes, I agree, but you're not seeing the big picture or You're right in the short run, but we have to look at the big picture. Where is this big picture hanging? Is it over a very big sofa at the Guggenheim? I need to see the big picture; otherwise, I'm never going to be a smashing success in the business world, expecially if I don't want to use the same phrase over and over."

Week Eight - Improv 2 - "Missing You," Again

This time, I did it with more intention of following the subject/verbs, etc., replacement method. It tends to yeild semi-worthwhile results, usually.

Missing You
-Shu Ting, translated from the Chinese by Carolyn Kizer

A multi-colored chart without a boundary;
An equation chalked on the board, with no solution;
A one-stringed lure that tells the beads of rain;
A pair of useless oars that never cross the water.

Waiting buds in suspended animation;
The setting sun is watching from a distance.
Though in my mind there may be an enormous ocean,
What emerges is the sum: a pair of tears.

Yes, from these vistas, from these depths,
Only this.
______

A luster-plucked eye without a plastic eyelid;
A doll sliced from a book of other dolls, with no tabs to attach her apron;
A cross-slinked slinky that collapsed metal against metal.
A pair of trike wheels that always sagged on nails.

Weighted seesaws in locked arrest;
The mature eye looks through a brand new microscope, looks through a fun house mirror, looks with kaleidoscope vision
Though in the recess of adulthood there may be an abandoned swing set,
What we dust off is the toy box: a pair of skates.

Yes, from this fledgling desert, from these captioned memories,
Only this.

Week Eight - Improv 1 - "Missing You"

Well--this is terrible. Not gonna try to deny that! I wanted to try a smaller poem because I think it's much more difficult than a longer poem; it's difficult to say much and do much and show off any technique in a tiny poem. I was going to try an even smaller one, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to try. Maybe next week. Anyways--I hate this, but it's an Improv, and it gave me a better idea of what I wanted to write, which is less overtly whiney, so I guess that's good...


Missing You
-Shu Ting, translated from the Chinese by Carolyn Kizer


A multi-colored chart without a boundary;
An equation chalked on the board, with o solution;
A one-stringed lure that tells the beads of rain;
A pair of useless oars that never cross the water.

Waiting buds in suspended animation;
The setting sun is watching from a distance.
Though in my mind there may be an enormous ocean,
What emerges is the sum: a pair of tears.

Yes, from these vistas, from these depths,
Only this.

______

Because she can wear crumbled-bag boots
and trousers mud-dyed like the cracks of a spit can;
Because of the soft lullaby of her vowels;
Because I know you held hands like thumb-wrestling,
          more like hayrides, more like deer carving, more like snapping on the camouflage vest--

I carve knish stains out of my blouses
and try to trade my sneakers for tennis shoes.
I crinkle at all the sound of my teeth-clacking consonants
I learn bow hunting in my cul-de-sac basketball court, aim between the Crape Myrtles
          and set a trap to mangle your hand to mine.

Week Eight - Junkyard Quote 4

We were given a long, awesome list in History of the English Language of insults from Shakespeare--three columns for you to design your own Shakespearean insult. It was pretty awesome. Here's just a few:

Thou mangled, milk-livered measle.
Thou loggerheaded, dog-hearted nut-hook.
Thou rottish, weather-bitten flax-wench.
Thou dankish, idle-headed strumpet.
Thou beslubbering, knotty-pated maggot-pie.
Thou paunchy, plum-plucked clack-dish.

Fun, yeah? Reminded me of the insults we had to come up with a few weeks ago.

Week Eight - Free Write

So this one isn't going to be quite as creatively productive as a traditonal free write, though the language-generating paragraphs are incredibly helpful for me (I guess the first calisthenic we did was the most beneficial for my writing mentality), but I think this one has it its place in my writing life. Due to recent reading, I'm suddenly obsessed with the idea of persona writing. We've seen it a few times this semester, I guess, with the Penelope poems, but I wonder what everyone's take is on that kind of writing? Is it too much, at my level, to try a series of poems in random personas?

A few ideas I had, totally random, I know:

-Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen (which spawned all of this. I'd love to mimic the way he sees destruction and is completely numb to it, watching distantly. It'd be a challenge primarily because how do you create poetic language and evoke distance simultaneously? Also, I'd like to play with how, in the movie when he is explaining his "accident," he states the date (and time?) that these things happened. If you don't know the movie/character, this would obviously be a bit confusing, but...)

-Flat Stanley (please someone know who this is? It's a children's book character frequently used in classrooms--you make a flat Stanley and send him off to another state, to someone you know, who writes back about where they took him, along with pictures of his "adventures." Mine went to an Aunt in Colorado)

-Huck Finn, Age 21 (I have no commentary to go with this one but...I have to wonder how Huck would be when he's a bit older)

-Waldo from Where's Waldo. Maybe he'll hook up with Carmen SanDiego...

Just a few ideas... I really want to try some of them!

Week Eight - Sign Inventory - "Sixth Grade" by Marie Howe

Sixth Grade

The afternoon the neighborhood boys tied me and Mary Lou Mather
to Donny Ralph's father's garage doors, spread-eagled,
it was the summer they chased us almost every day.

Careening across the lawns they'd mowed for money,
on bikes they threw down, they'd catch us, lie on top of us,
then get up and walk away.

That afternoon Donny's mother wasn't home.
His nine sisters and brothers gone - even Gramps, who lived with them,
gone somewhere - the backyard empty, the big house quiet.

A gang of boys. They pulled the heavy garage doors down,
and tied us to them with clothesline,
and Donny got the deer's leg severed from the buck his dad had killed

the year before, dried up and still fur-covered, and sort of
poked it at us, dancing around the blacktop in his sneakers, laughing.
Then somebody took it from Donny and did it.

And then somebody else, and somebody after him.
And then Donny pulled up Mary Lou's dress and held it up,
and she began to cry, and I became a boy again, and shouted Stop,

and they wouldn't.
And then a girl-boy, calling out to Charlie, my best friend's brother,
who wouldn't look

Charlie! to my brother's friend who knew me
Stop them. And he wouldn't.
And then more softly, and looking directly at him, I said, Charlie.

And he said Stop. And they said What? And he said Stop it.
And they did, quickly untying the ropes, weirdly quiet,
Mary Lou still weeping. And Charlie? Already gone.

Marie Howe

 

-The words become part of the poem. Nothing denotes/seperates speech from the descriptive acts of the boys (quotation marks, italics, etc.).

-The names--very specific, for one. But Mary Lou Mather really sticks out--sounds almost How the Grinch Stole Christmas? But eitherway it's very childish, highly innocent.

-Understandably, men are very much involved in this world--it's a father's garage door, it's lawns the boys cut, it's the emphasized action of them throwing down the bikes.

-Likewise, the gang-menality of the continual "they." The "they did it, and then they did it again, and again" moment, also.

-Interesting moment in the middle of the poem when the speaker teeters between genders.

Week Eight - Response to Kamau's "Improv 1 Week 8"

Improv 1 Week 8
Reality Demands - Szymborska 1st 15 lines

Reality demands
we also state the following:
life goes on.
It does so near Cannae and Borodino,
at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.

There is a gas station
in a small plaza in Jericho,
and freshly painted
benches near Bila Hora.
Letters travel
between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,
a furniture truck passes
before the eyes of the lion of Cheronea,
and only an atmospheric front advances
towards the blossoming orchards near Verdun.

Reality is.

Reality is fucked up,
we also need you to know that you've got to deal with it.
Its the same in Guyana, Trinidad, near the antiguan border and even
worse in jamacia and barbados.

There is a basketball court in Brooklyn and a small
corner store where one letter doesnt work
making the sign say Larys instead of Larrys
The mail man here moves on foot hoping the inhabitants dont take
his deliveries offensive.

I think the first draft handles a topic like "reality" because it unexpectedly claims that it will continue even though these horrendous things have happened.

Your draft shocks in the initial line but I don't know that it's entirely effective. You could definitely work with the remaining lines, though: showcase how awful life is all around not through big battles but, rather, the small, annoying details of the day.

Give us more about the Brooklyn basketball court. And keep the idea of Larry's, but take it out of it's prosaic(? prosey?) format. Maybe to play with the repetive/recursivity we've been talking about in class, you can make the mail man's name Larry...? That may be a bit confusing to read but it could always be cut if it's awful. And again, the last line (so far...because this needs to be expanded) is interesting, but it doesn't make sense structurally right now. If could just be a matter of making if "offensively" instead of "offensive," but I definitely want to know what he is delivering that may be offensive and to whom he is delivering them.

Week Eight - Response to Pauline's "Week #8 - Improv #1"

Week #8—Improv #1
The Tree and the Sky

by Tomas Tranströmer

 

There’s a tree walking around in the rain,

it rushes past us in the pouring grey.

It has an errand. It gathers life

out of the rain like blackbird in an orchard.

When the rain stops so does the tree.

There it is, quiet on clear nights

waiting as we do for the moment

when the snowflakes blossom in space.

Autumn and the Coyote

by Pauline Rodwell

A coyote prowls around my neighborhood.

It crossed the street one sunny morning.

The yardman saw it. It hunts prey

in the right-of-way like a lion in the outback.

When the sun sets it settles down.

I hear it, high-pitched and hungry,

howling for a mate like we do

when leaves kaleidoscope into autumn

What you got from this draft, defiitely, is "leaves kaleidoscope into Autumn." New and awesome, love it. Hold it close and dear.

What I wonder is if you could add some more of that kind of language to the draft. The original is intruiging because it's so "off"--what does it mean for a tree to be walking around in the rain? Yours is kinda opposite: whyis a coyote in the suburbs? Odd, but understandable. Kaleidoscope as a verb, for me, conjurs an explosion? Or, maybe, a falling apart? I see it as colors falling into other colors, disappearing, etc.

I'd like to see that in your draft--you have the possibility with the sun, definitely. Likewise, can you make this really suburb-y, to pull out the contrast of the coyote a bit more?

Week Eight - Junkyard Quote 3

"I like you better in Spanish" - Dr. Davidson, quoting someone else.

Week Eight Free Write Challenge?

I came across this today and I feel fairly certain that it's the reason so much bad writing exists in the world...the must be working off of some of the prompts on this website:

http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/tjresources-exercises.php#free

If anyone wants a serious challenge, you should try to write something good out of one of these horrendous prompts for your free write this week!

Week Eight - Junkyard Quote 2

"The initial 'h' is a pretty ephemeral thing" - Dr. Davidson, in History of the English Language.

Week Eight - Junkyard Quote 1

"Tacos are not accepted as legal identification, even in Florida" - NPR.

Week Seven - Improv - O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died"

This is a pretty loose "Improv," but I read Frank O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died" and wanted to work with the chain of specifity within the peice:

The Day Lady Died
-Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton   
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun   
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets   
in Ghana are doing these days
                                           I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)   
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life   
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine   
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do   
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or   
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and   
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue   
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and   
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

___

I thought to maybe use this draft along with the subject of the ridiculous GA road system--where everything has the same name, multiple names, and randomly stops being "Jimmy Campbell Parkway" to become "Jimmy Lee Smith Parkway" to become "Thorton Road." And finally, ending with the lovely tradition of giving directions using through landmarks that used to be there. As usual, I started writing and then...stopped. My peice being workshopped in class today is the same: I know it needs three more stanzas, I just don't know where to go with it.

Anyway, this seems rather prosey to me. And it's about six stanzas short of completion. But how do we feel about the current state of it? Too much? Too boring? Too pointless? Impossible to get to where I want to go with it?

It is 6:28 on a morning that began,
with overdrawn bank accounts and left-cracked car windows,
at 5:04: to farewell sounds of the carpool that stopped waiting.
At 6:26 I met Peachtree Street again, a long-running friendship of
6:02 CVS introductions, a 6:07 tip of the hat near the chained bagels,
6:12 greetings through the window of the Irish pub, and a 6:18 throttling
at Sage clothing supply. Our 6:26 meeting was more like a play date
that began with mismatched Legos jammed together:
I know where I am, do you know where you are?

It’s a bus stop kind of day, when the wind feels like the greasy shine
of newspaper on fingers and volcanic noses erupt and then decay at the tip. But
I am safe in my vehicle, a strip of ruled paper imprinting my hand.


...obviously not completed. Where to go from here?

Week Seven - Junkyard Quote 4

"I had a dream last night that I got married at Weddings-R-Us. It was part of the same store as Toys-R-Us and Babies-R-Us, people kept walking by with their bright blue shopping carts."

Week Seven - Junkyard Quote 3

"You gotta be like a slinky. Flexible but sturdy."

Week Seven - Response to Kamau's "Improv 1 Week 7"

The Vacation - Wendell Berry
Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.



The Trip

There was a boy who recorded his death.
He went wrecklessly down the road in his 95 cadillac with his recorder mounted to the dash, making a motion picture of the concrete road he drove upon which his american muscle car smoothly allowed him to do.
He shared his death with his recorder, which captured it,
holding it forever within its grasps, the hills, the rocks, the mounatins, the street lights, the hood of his red cadillac which behind the steering wheel he sat with his recorder holding his death in a live manner. So that he would always be able to recall. It would always be remembered. Upon his finding someone would press play and be able to understand his pains, and why he did what he did. The recorder would be the only thing still in tact. But he would never be again. Only the recorded.


I think this is an intruiging draft, Kamau. Typically, and I say this somewhat ironically because I've written a horrible slew of it, death is a subject to be avoided. In this case, you may get a pass, though. I understand that this is an improv but if you want to go further with this, you'll need to seperate it substantially from the original. Keep the idea, alter the format.

Something you may want to retain from his: his ability to use repetition in a flipping awesome way. "Making a moving picture of the moving river upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation" is great because he uses "move" three times PLUS swiftly...and it works. I like your section that riffs off of this, but see if you can inject a little of this linguistic move into your own peice.

After that, I'd keep that section and your later part about the recorder being the only thing left in tact. Trash the expected lines like "always being remembered." Those two sections are your most promising, along with the concept of recording one's death. Using those three elements together will strengthen the draft and allow you to move away from the original. And do something with the form.

Week Seven - Response to Sheila's "Week Seven - Free Entry"

Free Entry week Seven Revision of Good Weave

Good Weave
Old Version

Stunning mop, strands extend long
Beneath the shoulders, it falls and shimmers.
Mollified! The length works well,
Opted for straight, not kinky this time,
Number 17B, need to jot this down!
The price tag, oh well worth it,
Fingers benefit, gliding from side to side,
Hope to sleep okay, in spite of the torment,
Got to get out and show-off to my friends,
Love my new weave; it’s better than that nap!

Good Weave
Revised Version

Stunning mop, threads extended
below narrow blades, falls like Niagara and shimmers Brazilian dried.
Placated, the distance means all,
Opted for straight, no kinkiness for a time,
Figure 17B, required to dot down
The rate, worth its value for the pocket
Extremities profit, gliding from side to side,
Optimistic about dozing, in spite of the torment,
Countless companions to tell
Adore my garden-fresh weave; so better than nap


I can see clear improvement between the drafts, Sheila. Your word choice stepped up a bit and the second draft seems more a bit more daring. Still, your reader will only have the completed draft, so let's see what more we can do for your revision.

I'm going to contradict myself a bit: In most of the poems I've seen you share so far, you've utilized fragmented sentences or sentences that seem to be missing key components, like a subject. In some cases, fragments are great ways to emphasize an element of your writing--but overuse of them dulls the sensation.

Here, you do that. Notice the long strain of sentences that have no subject--who'se jotting down the rate? Who opted for no kinkiness? Who has countless companions to tell? The first line forefronts this issue: Putting an "A" before "stunning" easily remedies the subject problem--it makes the "stunning mop" the subject in a way your current draft does not. This isn't to say you should have a slew of "I" in your poems. Rather, go for some sentence variation in a way other than just cutting out words.

Despite that, the poem could do away with some unneccessary words here and there. For example, "falls like Niagara and shimmers Brazilan dried" is pretty good, but the "like" and "and" seem bulky to me; it could be personal preference, because the traditional simile structure seems too visible to me, but given how invested you appear to be in cutting out components of your sentences, these are easy words to toss.

You loose me toward the end. It's clearer what's going on in the first draft, but that's only because the original is in simplistic language. Retain your more sophisticated language (or, maybe, try to ironically use colloquial diction), but allow the poem to explain itself more clearly.

Punctuation would help.

Week Seven - Junkyard Quote 2

"When do you download your baby?"

Week Seven - Sign Inventory - Tadic's "Antipsalm"

I don't have my book with me, so this is a copy found online. I hope the translation is good...

Antipsalm

Disfigure me, Lord. Take pity on me.
Cover me with bumps. Reward me with boils.
In the fount of tears open a spring of pus mixed with blood.
Twist my mouth upside down. Give me a hump. Make me crooked.
Let moles burrow through my flesh. Let blood
circle my body. Let it be thus.
May all that breathes steal breath from me,
all that drinks quench its thirst in my cup.
Turn all vermin upon me.
Let my enemies gather around me
and rejoice, honoring You.

Disfigure me, Lord. Take pity on me.
Tie every guilt around my ankles.
Make me deaf with noise and delirium. Uphold me
above every tragedy.
Overpower me with dread and insomnia. Tear me up.
Open the seven seals, let out the seven beasts.
Let each one graze my monstrous brain.
Set upon me every evil, every suffering,
every misery. Every time you threaten,
point your finger at me. Thus, thus, my Lord.
Let my enemies gather around me
and rejoice, honoring You.

Translated by Charles Simic


- High emphasis on the self. In this list of selfless actions, almost every sentence has some version of “me” within it. Obviously this has a practical function, but it seems severe for it to be an accident.

-Sudden repetition in the second stanza-- “every,” “Thus,” “seven.” (There is also a double mention of “blood” in the first stanza and multiple “all” in the first, I just noticed. So, really, it may just be a marker of religious statement.)

-Both stanzas end with “You.”

- “Monstrous brain” really seems to stick out. Seems out of place, in a way. All of the other language is obviously biblical references. This seems very modern, for some reason.

-Both stanzas begin with “Disfigure me, Lord. Take pity on me.” “Take pity” seems contradictory given the list of things the speaker says to do to him--if you’re asking God to do them, why also ask him to pity you?

Week Seven - Free Write

Another try at the callisthenic we did last week, with the repetition. I pulled my initial line from the fairly awesome, poetic book by Paul Beatty called The White Boy Shuffle

I dreamed I was a flying, fire-breathing foam stegosaurus starring in a schlock Japanese film called Destroy All Negroes. Flying beside the gilded grandmother, who kept rack on racks, I dreamt of a foam Japanese man. Japanese men cracked at the screw of opportunity. The stegosaurus roared at the mop on fire, gilded to the Negro by liquid foam. Fall back in to the cracked flight of a breaching stegosaurus. I strummed my pocket watch and stood beneath the firefly’s lighted breath. I dreamt I was a flying, fire-breathing foam stegosaurus screwing mops of liquid flight into racks of Japanese films that destroy grandmothers. Destroyed by liquid lips on the wracked and wrecked breath of Negro Japanese film stars, the stegosaurus pocketed the foam man’s breach of contract. Beneath the strumming fireflies I film the cracking light, the fire-breath of a watching Negro Stegosaurus. I dreamed I was a flying, fire-breathing stegosaurus strumming a pocket watch that stood in a schlock Japanese film beneath the fireflies called Destroy all Negroes With Your Lighted and Tickled Breath.

Week Seven - Junkyard Quote 1

"People don't look at both sides of the story because reading backwards is really hard!"

-This was edited a bit, and I would personally switch "hard" for "difficult," and I don't really like it all that much, but I'm having some trouble finding JYQs this week and I sorta like this as a possibility for a line...maybe...somehow.

Week Six - Improv - "Fresco" by Marin Sorescu

I never thought I'd write an Iguana poem. I never thought I'd write a poem about excrement. I certainly never thought I'd write a poem about an iguana's excrement. But, well.

Likewise, I never anticipated wanting to write another iguana poem. Clarification: A friend of mine use to work at some kind of nature preservation or something. She mentioned that one of their jobs was squirting the iguanas with a hose for two reasons: 1.) The iguanas enjoyed it. 2.) It helped them go to the bathroom.

Now, I've looked all over the internet and haven't found any one else that practices this type of Iguana care, but when I read Sorescu's first line in "Fresco": "In hell, maximum use/Is made of the sinners" it seemed too prevelant to my recent conversation with my friend to pass up on the possible improv.

I ended up doing a little iguana research and jeez, those weird little animals are chock full of intruiging poetic images...one site in particular mentioned that they have no vocal chords and communicate via head bobbing. He mentions: "Hasbro (one of my iguanas) loves to bob his head every few minutes. He will bob his head every time he succeeds at something like climbing on top of something. He may climb on to my chest when I am in bed and bob and shake his head in my face."

The whole thing is just oddly fascinating to me. Anyways, here's what I've got. I'm seriously going to keep working with this (I don't care for it right now, other than the opening couplet) and I feel like I'm going to end up with a slew of Iguana references in my work. Jeez.

Iguanas Full of Shit

In the cage, maximum use
is made of the water spigot.

With the help of volunteers,
the ancestor to the
secretary that cracks her gum,
snuggles her glasses
between nose and bristled forehead,
and ticks down each disposable pen
crouching in the depths of your purse
is pleasured with the jolt of pressurized water.

Some slide to bellies
and bob heads of slow, gentle
excreted discourse.

Some bob and vibrate sideways,
in the glorified head dance
of success.

After, the men are employed
for the heaviest work,
for the remnant removal,
for the dregs discharged from bowels


(The original is on page 222).

Week Six - Free Write

When the Street Lights Came On

As a child, I had that locked up in hopscotch feeling.
Garbled lines of jump rope and Laffy Taffy curled around
my world and I lived for Playdough blisters in elbows, in shoe soles.
I lived for sandy collisions on bikes that tarred up knees,
for mothers divulging pavement encrusted skin
in slathers of soap and slapping us with peroxide.
Puddles of Snoopy’s ears, jaw, nose,
collected for later keeping in the bend of your elbow
and berries like blisters smashed up with dinosaur leaves and mud.
When juggled teeth still crumbled Doritos,
no one noticed Fisher Price picnicking
with Crayola continents atop Matchbox racetrack mats.
When we had fence play, when we had box play,
when we had shed play and sewer play.
When the streetlights came on, the hierarchy emerged:
the kids willing to toss their ice cream man money
on that Fisher Price bench, and wager the bet
they could squeeze ten, fifteen, thirty minutes of
Tag time out of their parents, before they were
remembered, or succumbed to.

Week Six - Peer Response Two - Response to Pauline's "Free Write"

Sign Inventory

Keep door closed
No shirt—no shoes—no service
No food allowed
Please use other door
All deliveries at rear
No smoking
Caution
Slow
Yield
Stop
Wet Floor
Blind drive
Bridge ices in winter
Neighborhood watch
Hospital
Church
City center
Roundabout.
Do Not Enter
Deer crossing
Watch for Children
Falling rocks
Dead End
Open
Closed
Turn cell phones off
Private
Be back at ?
Drive-thru
Keep out
Keep off grass
Pay here
Correct change only
Start
Save as
Don’t save
Restart
Turn off
Log in
Sign out
End Program

Neat idea, Pauline. I was thinking today about road construction jargon, actually. Without a doubt, you've got a pretty cool found-like poem available with this material. I'm sure you've heard it before, but it's definitely reminiscent of George Carlin's "Modern Man": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkCR-w3AYOE&feature=related

I know you've got a great grasp on language and I think you could definitely pull something like this off. In my opinion, you have to be careful about being obviously socially didactic. Some people are in to that, but don’t let it guide your poem before you even get the words out.

Anyways, I’d love to see you do something like this in a tight, short-lined, frequently enjambed poem.

Week Six - Sign Inventory - "Vista" by Faiz

Vista
-Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated from Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali

Deserted street, shadows of trees and houes, locked doors--
We watched the moon become a woman,
baring her breast, softly, on the edge of a rooftop.
Below the earth was blue, a lake of stilled shadows,
on which a leaf, the bubble of a second, floated
and then burst, softly.
Pale, very pale, gently, very slowly,
wind that is cold color
pouring into my glass,
and the roses of your hands, the decanter and the glass,
were, like the outline
of a dream, in focus, for a moment.
Then thye melted, softly.
My heart once against promised loved, softly.
You said, "But softly."
The moon, breathing as it went down, said,
"More, yet more softly."

- Cylical, in an expected sort of way. Begins with the cliched image of woman/moon pairing and ends with the moon as well.

- Composed, initially, of two very long sentences. A distinct shift in the 13th line when, suddenly, we get a series of short, end stopped lines.

- The use of "shadows" twice in a very short period of time.

- Actually, general repetition in small spaces: the previously mentioned "shadows," as well as "glass" in lines 9 and 10. Obviously "softly."

-Along with the cylical nature of the moon imagery, both times the moon is connected to breathing. With personification of the moon.

Week Six - Peer Response One - Response to LaRue's Improv

At Daybreak
Adam Zagajewski

From the train window at daybreak,
I saw empty cities sleeping,
sprawled defenselessly on their backs
like great beasts.
Through the vast squares, only my thoughts
and a biting wind wandered;
linen flags fainted on towers,
birds started to wake in the trees,
and in the thick pelts of the parks
stray cats' eyes gleamed.
The shy light of morning, eternal
debutante, was reflected in shop windows.
Carousels, finally possessing themselves, spun
like prayer wheels on their invisible fulcrums;
gardens fumed like Warsaw's smoldering ruins.
The first van hadn't arrived yet
at the brown slaughterhouse wall.
Cities at daybreak are no one's,
and have no names.
And I, too, have no name,
dawn, the stars growing pale,
the train picking up speed.

At Midnight
Casey LaRue

From my bedroom window at midnight,
I saw empty mausoleums starving,
lids stacked crookedly across gaps
like mad hats.
Six feet under, only my soul
and a snaking worm wandered;
dampness crept in the cavities
souls started to awaken from bones,
and in the roots of the trees
water stretched to feed.
The transitive light of the moon, smiling
guardian, reached not to those depths.
Crickets, finally expressing themselves, rubbed
like twigs to create fiery songs;
plants curled like inked paper.
The first moment hadn't arrived yet
of the new and promising day.
Mausoleums at midnight are no ones yet,
but one day will have names.
And I, too, will have a name,
midnight, the stars glowing brightly,
the crickets' chorus rising.

I know this was a construct of the original piece, but this poem is a pretty good example of Dr. Davidson’s suggestion that we place our poem within a particular time/setting from the beginning: “From my bedroom window at midnight.” It’s a great start to the poem and adds an important level of specificity. Now that you’ve drafted the improv, though, you can break away from the original. So, in your next draft, why not make it a bit more specific? “Bedroom window at midnight” is just fine, but can’t you imagine the poem with something more potent? I imagine something both more detailed and more domestic to contrast with the outdoorsiness. The opening six lines are your strongest: “lids stacked crookedly across gaps/ like mad hats” and “only my soul/and a snaking worm wandered.” I usually nix anything that mentions such a lofty topic as a “soul,” but it may almost work in this case. Likewise, I would typically say it’s too obvious that “dampness crept in the cavities,” but it’s cool if you imply no the cavities of the crypts but, rather, of the bodies. Play around with the line a little, trying to keep the same general concept.

“The first moment hadn’t arrived yet/of the new and promising day” does get lost in cliché, though, and syntactically confuses the reader. The second half of the poem begins to sink into expectedness. Stay with the wicked images reminiscent of the “mad hats.” Feed off of the awesome original lines like “Carousels, finally possessing themselves, spun/like prayer wheels on their invisible fulcrums.”

Overall, break away from the original now, though. You have a great start. I’d like to see more from it.

Week Six - Junkyard Quote Four

"We don't have puree in English. What? 'Blend to Shit'?" - Dr. Davidson in History of the English Language (you all are missing out, for real!)

"Americans are always eating their words" - in relation to pronunciation.

Week Six - Junkyard Quote Two

"Usually I just pray in my head. And when it doesn't work, I know God hears me better on my knees. Something about the acoustics of the linoleum or something."

Week Six - Junkyard Quote Three

"Dogs in Mexico may be skinny, but they don't have psychological issues." - The dog whisperer, heard on the Bert Show Thursday morning.

Week Six - Junkyard Quote One

"I need a transcendental, transgenerational cuddle, man." - Dr. Masters