Junkyard Quotes 2-4, Week 5

"Mommy made me mash my M&Ms."

"Your quicksand demeanor..."

"Get yourself informed."

Sign-Inventory 1, Week 5

Power

Audre Lorde

The difference between poetry and rhetoric

is being ready to kill

yourself

instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds

and a dead child dragging his shattered black

face off the edge of my sleep

blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders

is the only liquid for miles

and my stomach

churns at the imagined taste while

my mouth splits into dry lips

without loyalty or reason

thirsting for the wetness of his blood

as it sinks into the whiteness

of the desert where I am lost

without imagery or magic

trying to make power out of hatred and destruction

trying to heal my dying son with kisses

only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens

stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood

and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and

there are tapes to prove it. At his trial

this policeman said in his own defense

“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else

only the color”. And

there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man

with 13 years of police forcing

was set free

by eleven white men who said they were satisfied

justice had been done

and one Black Woman who said

“They convinced me” meaning

they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame

over the hot coals

of four centuries of white male approval

until she let go

the first real power she ever had

and lined her own womb with cement

to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction

within me.

But unless I learn to use

the difference between poetry and rhetoric

my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold

or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire

and one day I will take my teenaged plug

and connect it to the nearest socket

raping an 85 year old white woman

who is somebody's mother

and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed

a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time

“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.

--The second stanza only has one form of punctuation--the period at the end of it.

--In the second stanza Lorde repeats "without" twice, but follows it with a coupling of two intangible words.

--In the third stanza, Black Woman is capitalized.

--By the fourth stanza Lorde begins to use a repetition of numbers.

--The last stanza combines both the number repetition from the fourth stanza and the lack of punctuation from the second stanza. 

--The last stanza uses alliteration like "lie limp" and "useless as an unconnected."

Freewrite 1, Week 5

So I have to provide background because I'm still not sure how sentimental this is? But I got dumped Monday and I wrote this fantastically shitty draft (after a couple days) so I wouldn't feel so horrible anymore. And as I'm pretty sure I heard Tim admit, it sucked. But all things are salvageable...right? Now whether I'll call this salvaged is questionable but I will say it sucks a little less. So thanks Tim. And without further embarrassment:

Imprinting

I lie naked waiting for you to strip
the last of me, when you remember
my hair was never blonde.
And I learn that the imprint
I left denting in your plaid couch
has been remodeled recently.

There's no me left in you.
There is no lingering of the hot, hot
trail I left dripping in your right ear,
learned it in my left ear,
that while I'll be wretching
when the sun goes down
you'll be eyeing her down.

Tell me, if God speaks to you
what does He say about stealing
stupid hearts, you Aztec.
Pick up your stuff, leave me
naked so that I can wear bits of you
like drapery that bunches
at the waist, at the crotch, at the ankles
because I can't move without tripping on you.

I was your precious Bosheth, your golden Baal
but you've built things right recently
so you can wander less idlely.
Well, melt me down

so I might pave a golden path
so you can better trample me
and you can take me straight
to your plaid cloth couch.

That couch
with the flat pillows we squished each other's smiles with

That couch
we scooted on concrete slabs to roll on floors

That too small couch
I pretended to sleep in despite the neck pain

That couch
that stole every chapstick
every hair bow, every trace
of me between its cushions,
tied up in its blue-green stripes.

That plaid cloth couch.
Its cushions sagged under the weight
of movies watched and nighttimes cuddled
but now there's someone else--
there's someone blonde inside my seat.

Classmate Response 1, Week 5

In response to Samaria's Robert Frost Improv:

Kudos for you for attempting a rhyming poem. Honestly, I don't think I have the guts for that. It's really easy to confine yourself in a rhyming poem, and though I feel you fell into a few pitfalls (that happens when we limit ourselves sometimes) I feel like you successfully handled the rhyming without being too heavy-handed.  Still, I'd have to say that rhyming is better handled when it's a la Lowell, where it's natural and almost slips by unnoticed. A few of the lines feel slightly forced. Showing off for me... pinery... I think that might be why I identify so much with the second half of the piece. That's where you let the reigns go and you began to create some striking bits of language.
"green and wings pesting". it creates this vibrant image that the rhyme scheme inhibited in the first three lines. And I always love a nominal verb. Pest-ing. It ties in so well with the subject of this work, and yet, it is almost easy to miss this word in the line. This is what I mean by subtlety. 


This is perhaps nit-picking but would the stinger poke holes or drag pits? I would love to continue this image of drudgery. I think the next step is to take the great image you have set up here and then run off with it. Make it into another tangent. You could so easily tie this into another idea. Continue to work with this, tie other things in, but always retain the image to bring you back in. I feel like this is a good beginning for something thought-provoking. 


I hope you can work something out with your rhyme scheme. As always, hope this helps.

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 5

"I understand, even I can't bring myself to hate her. She's woefully perfect."

Junkyard Quote 3 and 4, Week 4

--What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

--"You're wearing a lovely shade of whore today."

Classmate Response 2, Week 4

In Response to David's Freewrite, Week 4:


First off, I like the subject matter and I like the distant tone you applied to the subject matter. Reminiscent of how Meitner handled Sex Ed in my opinion. I like the contrast of the note card questions and answers (in italics) versus the setting. And while I'm on "likes" I like your lists. "sex, sexuality, and condoms." "gay marriage, homoerotic tendencies, rape." There's got to be a better way to say "homoerotic tendencies" though. It's a mouth-full and feels too Latin for that place in this piece. I do like, however, how the lists end with something so solid, one-syllable, and concrete. You can't necessarily touch rape but it sure is a lot more visual than "gay marriage" in my opinion. It also opens up another tone for the rest of the piece. 

Some of the lines could use some tightening. They tend to be somewhat wordy. You have great knack for detail but I think that what you should focus on is if the details you're providing create redundancy in the piece. For instance, and this is a personal preference, but most note cards aren't huge so to say they are little seems unnecessary. Also, would removing that word ruin or help your meter? 

I feel that "offensive and controversial material" paired with gay marriage works almost as a cliche. It goes without saying that gay marriage is controversial and I wonder if there might not be a better way to phrase that. 

I also feel you have the potential to play with some really great verbs here. For example, instead of "delivered" in the last stanza, does anything change if the answers skip straight to being born? I feel like in terms of language, born answers are surprising refreshing, especially when they're born like raindrops. 

Does the last line serve a purpose so significant that the piece can't stand without it? 

Anyway, hope you feel completely whole again soon. As always, hope this helps.

Sign-Inventory, Week 4

David Bottoms

Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump

Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride

to the dump in carloads

to turn our headlights across the wasted field,

freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish.

Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still

like dead beer cans.

Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow

into garbage, hide in old truck tires,

rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds,

or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light

toward the darkness at the edge of the dump.

It’s the light they believe kills.

We drink and load again, let them crawl

for all they’re worth into the darkness we’re headed for.

--The poem is five sentences long.

--The speaker uses a repetition of beer throughout the work--beer, wasted, beer cans, and drink.

--In the last two stanza the speaker plays on the image of light and dark, though the first stanza does mention headlights.

--The speaker implies a relation to the rats with the last line, implying that both the rats and the people are creeping towards darkness. 

--The poem begins and ends with the subject as "We".

Classmate Response 1, Week 4

To Kyley's Calisthenic, "The Cat." 



Since we both posted the same thing so closely to each other you will be my first victim for Week 4.


I like how you decided to take this litany in another direction than the rest of us. While the rest of us are focusing on Ginsberg-esque rants, you decide to develop your own individual path and I like that. I like that you used the list to describe a cat. I also like the focus on the cat's claws and teeth. 


Also, I'd like to say one of my favorite lines is "Why must you be so cruel to your overseer?" While I think the line is wordy it uses great connotation to create an interesting concept. The overseer is tied with the watchful figure in slavery. And yet, the speaker describes his/herself as the overseer--being treated cruelly. 


I think perhaps the biggest fault I find with this piece is that the lines need tightening. You have good bits of imagery here that seem to be ruined by over-description. This might seem odd in contrast to my recent rant of description, but I love the specificity in the first line of "my shin." It's a refreshing choice in comparison to "my leg."


Still, consider condensing. The second line seems to carry some redundancy. "Your claws of tyranny dominate your surroundings." I see what you were trying to get at with tyranny and dominance but they seem too similar. Also, do you think the line would work as well without "your surroundings?" I believe that the surroundings are implied under the tyranny. 


You have some interesting lines in here that seem somewhat shorter and contrast with the long, descriptive lines. I would suggest playing on that more as well. Once again, hoping this helps. 

Calisthenic 1, Week 4

This is basically the litany piece Tim was asking for, as well as what I've written for Davidson's competitive assignment. I'm actually on a title fart lately. If you guys have any ideas, please do suggest them along with any critique of course. For now i'll call it


Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs

Ronald McDonald, you pedophile, 

with your wide red lips and empty lap.

You defiler of childish ease. You clown.

Why is your food so good?

Your Big Macs so stacked,

Your french fries so golden?

And what about the Arch nemesis,

with his flame-broiled slabs

of quarter-pound goodness,

sandwiched between two sesame buns.

I’d have my buns my way--

Like garbage bags I'd have them Hefty.

Like a QuikTrip slush I want me large.

When did we become so obsessed 

with pounds?

I thought we left the British in 1776.

Skinny bitch, eat a twinkie.  Anna Mae,

eat the cake.

I wanna indulge the Cheerio, 

I don’t want to wear it. Hula Hoop

it. And don’t tell me you don’t mind

the weight, that its all about personality.

Next time I’ll wear personality

to the grocery store and we’ll see 

how much you like that.

Ronald, I thought you loved kids.

There’s a billboard on Hwy 5,

telling plump kids that fat

sucks the fun out of childhood.

You know what sucks the fun 

out of childhood? School desks,

pressed as pumpernickel

in a chair attached to the plastic top.

Cafeteria lunches. Recess line up

to pick tag football teams.

Kids should spend 60 minutes outside daily.

The last time I spent an hour outside

I was dining on the patio 

at Tony’s Mexican Grill.

Ronald, why do you keep telling me

to exercise? I don’t get high 

on running. I can’t see my feet. 

I’m handicapped.

Would you ask Tiny Tim 

to run a 5k marathon? 

I do enough running from teen years, mirrors

and I never liked Ms. Piggy. I am

no athlete.  I’m a food connoisseur.  

I sample snacks since shopping

is reserved for zeroes and maybe size threes.

I wear my clothes Wal-Mart sharp. 

My style assistant is a man named Lane. Mr. Bryant

gives me push-up bras in the hopes

I get a man longing for some cushion pushing.

We hate thongs. Do you know what those are?

Ass floss. Dental care for my biggest cavity.

That doesn’t mean I can’t be fashionable.

I’ve got role models to give me pointers:

Roseanne and Oprah in her purple days.

Weight Watchers, you killed Jennifer Hudson’s

underside. Where did you hide all that evidence?

I remember her before she’d been dismembered.

and now I see her on magazine covers.

I wanna see me in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan.

I want a two-page spread in Cover Girl.

I wanna strut my ass in Levi jeans.

My hips hear music, my thighs groove.

I want a goddammned perfume ad.

I sweat. I stink. I spend half an hour

scrubbing hard deodorant stains

out of worn white tees.

Don’t tell me men find my phero-funk sexy.

I won’t accept that jive. I wanna rock

to the melodies for Fat Bottomed Girls.

Ronald, when did X-X-X stop meaning sex,

appealing and explicit. When did it need the “L”?

Women with curves used to be Renaissance.

In my bed I’m Venus of Urbino.

My hips are semi-sweet Snocaps.

I am a continuous plane.

I'm 1.4 million pounds of 

Jared's nightmare. I'm Ben and Jerry's dream.

Ronald,  I have a need to self-satisfy.

Ronald, I get hungry sometimes.

Ronald, do children climb into your lap

and if they sit for a while and cut off

the rush of life to your toes,

make your knees buckle under pressure,

Ronald, what do you do? Push them?

Do you grimace? Laugh?

Ronald do you diet them?

Or do you pat their heads, hand them a McChicken,

and wide-mouth, red lip, ear-to-ear smile?

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 4

"Dismember and Remember." We're discussing Hope Leslie in my Lit. class and one of the ideas we went over is that one of the characters were dismembered in her fight for justice. The opposite for dismember is "remember" and how the heroine was "re"membered when she gained an extra burden. It made more sense in class.

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 4

"Oh God, he fingered my book flaps!"

Free Write 2, Week 3

Same piece as my first freewrite this week, just trying to improve it again.
I came up with a crappy title. Enjoy:


Basically


I remember cotton shifts painted with sky.
I remember I wore nothing underneath.

Did phone chats become suggestive?
Wink ideas to transcend denim zippers? Tuesday panties?
What dared us to circuit our electric connection
of intermingled, intertwined, entered and oh so satisfying--

I remember my legs use to stretch much higher.
I remember you blocked my view sometimes.

creeping on sacred concrete, sandwiched between
a lawnmower and last year's beach balls.
I let you in and you and I contemplate birth
marks on the planes where darkness sleeps.
Everything trembles, like even the trees sigh,
and from where I am the ceiling wobbles into the floor.
Who is snoring on top of us right before the baby
screams? The ground is cold, the noise, Oh God, my noise--

I remember you sweating Gillette and sweet mold.
I remember tasting salt and unsanctioned prayers.

hovered over the edge of frozen intensity. You fingered
every scrap, every morsel, devoured slippery pieces
of my hesitation like a rabid dog in spring, panting and foaming
until the pain became too clumsy to endure.
And from our unbearable need for completion came
the heavy, squashing knowledge that this isn't it.
Tears on basement floors are best left 
for days that are not the middle of November--
Nights that don't hurt this bad.

I remember squeezing but never molding.
I remember how loud that door screeched
when you left.
I remember not getting caught. 
Do you remember that it felt right?

And instead of dancing, I remember we swam
in the atom juice of my joy, so basic.
Brought down to the smallest levels
of ecstatic animalism and awkwardness.
We drowned in comforting awkwardness.
Even as we crept in separate beds,
In our dreams hovered two trophies
of almost accomplishment.

There's a first time for everything.
I remember it never happened.
I remember I never cared.

Free Write 1, Week 3

I love to leave the free write for last it seems. Build up of suspense or neurotic fear of judgement? You decide. A friend, in an attempt to inspire me provided me with this video by Air called "Sex Born Poison". I stole a line off the sight that I plan on using here. I'm also attempting Erika no longer Meitner's calisthenic in this. Can't think of a title... it's no where near done so why bother? Here goes:


I remember thin skies on day-painted shifts.
I remember I wore nothing underneath.

What started these suggestions, the ideas
to transcend physical nuisances, denim zippers?
What dared me to circuit our connection
of intermingled, intertwined and oh so satisfying--

I remember my legs were thinner, pliable.
I remember broader shoulders marred by naked nails.

creeping on sacred concrete, sandwiched between
a lawnmower and last year's beach balls.
Who is snoring on top us right before the baby
screams? The ground is cold, the noise, God, my noise--

I remember you sweating Gillette and mold.
I remember tasting salt and unsanctioned prayers.

hovered over the edge of frozen intensity. You fingered
every scrap, every morsel, devoured slippery pieces
of my hesitation like a rabid dog in Spring, panting and foaming
until the pain became too clumsy to endure.

I remember how loud that door screeched.
I remember squeezing but never molding.
I remember not getting caught.
Do you remember that it felt right?

And instead of dancing, I remember we swam
in the atom juice of my joy, so basic.
Brought down to the smallest levels
of ecstatic animalism and awkwardness.

There's a first time for everything.
I remember it never happened.

Junkyard Quotes 1--4, Week 3

 Number 1:
"Aspire to be almost remembered"

Number 2:
"An underwhelming entrance"

Number 3:
"Moral Man, Immoral Society"

Number 4:
"Here I am expecting just a little too much from the wounded." A Perfect Circle

Sign-Inventory 1, Week 3

Amaryllis
Ellen Bryant Voigt

Having been a farmer’s daughter
she didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife, didn’t want
the smell of ripe manure in all his clothes,
the corresponding flies in her kitchen,
a pail of slop below the sink,
a crate of baby chicks beside the stove, piping
beneath their bare lightbulb, cows calling at the gate
for him to come, cows standing in the chute
as he crops their horns with his long sharp shears.
So she nagged him toward a job in town;
so she sprang from the table, weeping, when he swore;
so, after supper, she sulks over her mending
as he unfolds his pearl pocketknife
to trim a callus on his palm.
Too much like her mother, he says, not knowing
any other reason why she spoils the children,
or why he comes in from the combine with his wrenches
to find potatoes boiled dry in their pot,
his wife in the parlor on the bench
at her oak piano—not playing
you understand, just sitting like a fern
in that formal room.
So much time to think,
these long hours: like her mother,
each night she goes to bed when her husband’s tired,
gets up when he gets up, and in between tries
not to move, listening to the sleep of this good man
who lies beside and over her. So much time alone,
since everything he knows is practical.
Just this morning, he plunged an icepick
into the bloated side of the cow unable to rise,
dying where it fell, its several stomachs having failed—
too full, he said, of sweet wet clover.

--This poem is only five sentences long.

--In the first stanza there is a repetition of alliteration like "cows calling" and "sharp shears".

--She uses the image of cows three times in the poem, though she uses the baby chicks only once.

--There is a suggestion that the speaker's mother did not appreciate the lifestyle of a farmer's wife as she is compared to her mother twice in the piece. 

--The speaker describes her husband as a good man, but then suggests that he sleeps "beside and over her," suggesting a role of male dominance in the relationship. 

--The speaker puts the words "didn't want" in the first stanza on the same line twice.

--The husband is often depicted with a tool or weapon of some sort: shears, pocketknife, and ice pick.

--The speaker puts a lot of emphasis on time, having use the phrase "so much time" twice in the same second stanza. 

--The poet ends both stanzas with images of plants-- a fern and sweet, wet clover.

--The formal room is described with the word "that" as opposed to "the" providing more emphasis or alienation to the room itself. 

Improv 1, Week 3

William Stafford
Traveling through the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.


-------

Waking Up At Night

My fingers traverse blankets of darkness
and find disappointment in barren bedsheets.
I roll over, because staring at your empty pillow
usually evokes banished necessities, like worthless meanderings

Thoughts pulse. I left you a sliver in the back of my head,
illuminated by the translucent glow of a Droid,
your name dancing light in nightmares until it too
disappears in the void of the frigid pillowcase.

How could I forget I no longer own you?
My lease is up on that armed shelter.
The heat's been turned off, and the bedroom's flooding
but I never got a bill and there is no insurance

that you'll ever come back, I don't
want you back. I don't. I can't forget I left you
for emotionally abusive reasons that turn the comforter
to tattered fragments of faked polyester blend. I can't.

I flip my pillowcase over to remind me,
that cold can feel better, and then I fall asleep.

Classmate Response 2, Week 3

In response to Dawn's 3rd week freewrite:


I really enjoyed this. Each line was something interesting and worth deciphering. Like the first line, "birth a child." It sounds so obligatory. Like you have to have a kid if you get married. And the tone sounds like its a necessity so I think that phrasing really ties in. In fact, I'd like for this tone to exist throughout the rest of the piece. It sounds like the speaker is obligating a need to change, but a change she (I'm going to assume its a she because she's wanting to give birth and guys can't quite do that yet) does not want to make. 

I like the specifics you have here. "factory on myrtle street" and "1,000 Egyptian threads". I feel there is a suggestion of some sexual discomfort in this piece. Secrets between sheets, a need to clean in Twilight Woods, and once again--- birthing babies.

I do not believe "they exist at bed, bath, and beyond" does anything for you here and that the line would be stronger without it. It confused me at first. 

I like the "truly, deeply, do believe." It makes it seem so obvious there is no truth or commitment in those words. I really adore this tone here, Dawn. 

This also has nothing to do with this poem, but my dog is part Shar Pei, part Beagle. Hah. Really did enjoy this. Please work on this some more, I'd like to see more of this one.

Classmate Response 1, Week 3

To Spencer's Freewrite:




I like how much you play with alliteration. I'm pretty sure I'm an alliteration junkie so when you play up on those elements I'm always sure to enjoy myself. However, I feel like there could be an overkill in some lines? "dynamite the doctors call a disorder". Initially it seems like a nice line but for the mood I think you're trying to achieve here it seems a little heavy-handed. I could understand why you would want to include the idea of the disorder but honestly, I think the line is just as strong without it. I find the two lines following this really wordy as well. 

I love the tick-tock of the playground swing. I can sort of see it and I think sandy shoes and ticking swings really work for you here. I like the images you provide. Also, I'm a set of three's girl and this is mostly personal preference so you can ignore this entirely if you like. But, you only have two images here. The speaker as a child on the playground. The speaker in college. I feel like I need another image. I'm not sure where the dead mother (God, that sounds horrible) fits on the timeline but perhaps...?

I feel like a line break could make that "smack" more powerful somehow. And I love the "unrecognizable fuzz". That just feels right. Way to work out that repetition. Hope this helps, can't think of anything else at the moment.

Calisthenics 1, Week 3

Butter I
Kathy Fagan

The doors of my town are yellow, like a canary.
It would melt if you tried to touch it.
Like mother love, it would burn your hand.
It could kill you.
Is how soft and how yellow--like Sandra Dee’s hair,
she married Mack the Knife.
Her hair like pale butter next to his full-fat
unsalted similes, pale beside true poetry
I’m told, but without them aren’t we a hard and sorry bunch?
Like unripe bananas. Like most all girls I wanted  to be.
Like her bright as a newborn chick.
Like a canary in a mine shaft.
Like satin in the grave.
The pale yellow things die first in my experience.
Easter the canaries of Woolworth's, the sign of the cross, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her make
as the motorcade passed slowly to our left,
how bracing these yellow doors are like a cool drink,
like someone with his thumb on your forehead.
like the light that hardly ever happens anymore,
every year about this time.



Butter II
Kathy Fagan

The doors of my town are yellow.
Like a canary, it would melt if you tried to touch it.
Like mother love, it would burn your hand.
It could kill you is how soft--
And how yellow like Sandra Dee’s hair.
She married Mack the Knife, her hair like
 pale butter next to his full-fat unsalted similes,
pale beside true poetry, I’m  told.
But without them aren’t we a hard and sorry bunch?
Like unripe bananas?
 like most--all girls--I wanted  to be?
like her bright as a newborn
chick like a canary in a mine
shaft like satin in the grave
the pale yellow things die first.
In my experience, Easter, the canaries of Woolworth’s, the sign of the cross
out of the corner of my eye I saw her make as the motorcade passed slowly to our left.
How bracing these  yellow doors are.
Like a cool drink.
 like someone with his thumb on your forehead.
 like the light that hardly ever happens anymore,
 every year about this time.

Now we'll switch word order.


Butter III

The doors of my town are like a yellow canary,
would melt it if you tried to touch it like mother love.
It would burn your hand, it could kill you.
How soft and how yellow like Sandra Dee’s hair. Is she married?
 Mack the Knife, her hair like pale butter
 next to his full-fat unsalted similes
I’m told pale beside true poetry but without them--
a hard and sorry bunch. Aren't we like
ripe bananas, like all girls?
I wanted most to be like her.
Bright as a newborn chick, like a canary.
In a mine shaft like yellow satin in the grave.
the pale things die first.
In my experience  I saw her make Easter, the canaries of Woolworth’s,
 the sign of the cross out of the corner of my eye.
As the motorcade passed slowly to our left, how bracing,
these yellow doors are like a cool drink.
Like someone with his thumb on your forehead.
Like the light that hardly ever happens anymore.
Every year about this time.

Butter IV

My town doors are the yellow of a canary,
like it would melt if you tried to touch it.
It would burn your hand like mother love.
It is how soft and how yellow? It could kill you
 like Sandra Dee’s hair--she married Mack the Knife.
 like pale butter her hair next to his full-fat.
 Unsalted similes pale beside true poetry.
 But without them I'm told we aren't a hard and sorry
 bunch, like all unripe bananas.
 I wanted to be like most girls, like a newborn chick
bright like a canary in a mine as her shaft,
like satin in the grave.
The pale, yellow things die first in my experience: of Easter,
the canaries, the Woolsworth's sign of the cross are out of the corner of my eye.
I saw her make these yellow doors, as the motorcade passed slowly to our left.
how bracing, like a cool drink. Someone with his thumb on your forehead
like the light that hardly ever happens anymore,
like every year about this time

Junkyard Quote 5, Week 2

Seriously, I'm done for the night after this.

"I will try and be the person my dogs think I am."

Free Write 1, Week 2

This is actually something I wrote about a girl I guess I really didn't even know? I had to read about a lot of people being torn up over her recent passing--and when I say recent I mean yesterday. I don't know what to think about what I have here--I just hope no one finds it insulting or misinterprets anything I said. Obviously feelings surrounding this matter are understandably raw and I meant this to be a tribute of sorts to her as opposed to a commentary against facebook. I hold a lot of respect for the families and friends of T.M., and I will them all the strength I can imagine. I guess I just found it fascinating how so readily available media made me to her heartbreak and I wanted a record of that.

I strayed away from capitalization on purpose. XD Don't ask me why--it just felt right to do with this. Also, there might be a section in there that might be confusing. I don't know why I did it, but it felt easier to type for me. T.M. passed away from cancer at 17, and instead of addressing the disease I instead used dates? So that's what that is. Anyway, please give feedback. I'd like to polish this up quite a bit for personal reasons.

+ New Message

beauty is terminal--
it shrivels in a battle
against the inside. curls
fetal under time's asphyxiation.
lives croon necked
and moon skinned
on wall photos
and facebook profiles.
hers were the eyes they'd kill for--
piercing in a cropped prom photo, they
were the same eyes she'd left in,
never for a moment dulled.

what happens to her wall
when there's no user behind it?
when the hearts left empty
blot their sorrows and share their tears
in the translated patter of 1's and 0's--
drowning a community without bodies,
simply solemn faces beyond a blue screen
connected in trial without touch.
prayers delivered in 19 words per minute
and tributes made in intangible inboxes.
who reads those password protected letters?
how can she know her final goodbyes
if those eyes--
still like the split of broken glass,
has slipped into darkness--
then elevated into light?

if she could read my goodbyes
i'd type her a letter,
titled "June 21st
to July 23rd,"
and tell her how i miss her
though i never really knew her
until yesterday.
i'd tell her it's unfair she's gone
though she heard it many times before
and will hear it many more
in whispering hallways on birthdays
and holidays passing.
i'd tell her she hasn't updated statuses lately
and i'd like to know what heavens like,
and to upload photos if she can
so her family can see smiling faces.
i'd tell her to add me to her friend's list
and that life down here is about the same--
forever moving but missing that last ingredient
to make what's left seem special.
and at the end of my letter
though i've never been good
at sentimental sayonaras
i'd say

that even the young leave early
and that beauty dies once
but lives in memories,
in mobile photos,
in cropped prom pictures,
in high school year books forever.

Improv 1, Week 2

Please don't think I'm a sex fiend! I'm seeming so dirty lately.

Lucille Clifton

wishes for sons

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
I wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn't believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

----

wishes for men

i wish them dry.
i wish them in matted beds
flustered in self-burdens
with no drop of K nor Y.

i wish them responsibility,
all deals in latex and estrogen.
i wish their condom breaks.

later i wish them dry heaves
with open toilets
like gasping faces. let the
vomit come when they
wake in the morning.
let the toilet flush
like an upbeat tempo.

let them think they've grasped
the rounded edges of pain,
then let them watch support skip town
before the water breaks.

Sign-Inventory 1, Week 2

The Artist as Left-Hander
Stephen Dunn


Each morning, thinking of you,
I rise from the counterworld of sleep
into those right-handed conventions
of day, so right I know
they must be wrong. Surely the world
belongs to others. Stick shifts.
Can openers. Definitions of decency.


I never recognize myself when America
gives back its images. The sitcoms,
billboards; sometimes I feel insane. 
Only baseball with its beautiful word 
southpaw has given me a proper name.
Southpaw. I'm about to attack, I'm
crouching in the woods with a name like that.


The other side, my advantaged ones,
is always angry, and is not dumb.
I've learned your language.
I've gotten into your workplaces and your homes.


--Dunn mentions "you" in the first stanza but does not mention you again to the last stanza. The second stanza focuses mainly on the speaker.


--The poem uses the adjective "counterworld" to describe dreams as an opposite of reality. 


--The word "those" in the third line alienates the conventions before the speaker establishes them as wrong.


--The poem plays on the multiple meanings of the word "right".


--The first alliteration in the piece comes at the end of the first stanza. "Definitions of decency." It brings attention to the line in order to emphasize that this poem is more than just right versus left. That we use right to define decency.


--The poem illustrates America's images as sitcoms or billboards. 


--By putting the word "southpaw" on the next line, Dunn emphasizes the word long before he italicizes it.


--There is a contrast versus the media of right-handed America and the woods-oriented surroundings of the left-handed speaker in the second stanza.


--The speaker focuses on his neglected left side throughout the piece, but then closes the poem by describing his "right" side as angry. 


--The poem focuses on the ostracizing of the left but ends focusing on how the left has assimilated, and hints at capable danger. 

Junkyard Quote 3 and 4, Week 2

I actually have a thing for foreign films... They're really good if you watch them, and honestly, I enjoy them a lot more than mainstream American movies. Occasionally the concepts of these movies are difficult to understand because of cultural understanding, but overall, with some focus and understanding I feel like
I come off with something more substantial. Take for instance, this Japanese cult classic "Suicide Circle". I love this movie... Possibly not for the faint of heart, but overall, good movie. It takes a couple watches to get it all the way through but if you're willing to try it I recommend this movie. Think of it as a commentary on the high suicide rates in Japan and then put a bunch of crazy kids in it. I was like... literally scared of kids for a week after this movie. Moving along.

Our two junkyard quotes come from the same scene in this movie, actually. There is this scene where a man named Genesis randomly breaks out in song and dance as his women are "entertained" around him. It is so random. Think like... a horror movie of a Japanese Beatle busting out his guitar in a bowling alley. Sheer brilliant. Actually, this is giving me ideas for freewrite... moving alone.

Anyway, the quotes from the song "Because the Dead."

My favorite is, "I want to die as beautifully as Joan of Arc inside a Bresson film."

then there is "A unfamiliar yellow dog keeps grinning as it tears us from the ones we love."

I've actually yet to figure out what the yellow dog is? So if anyone has some guesses, I'd like feedback on it.

Classmate Response 2, Week 2

In Response to Dawn's freewrite: 

I'm not going to lie, I love a good freewrite and I think this one was much more successful than your last attempt. I've said before that I'm kinda neurotic. I love to nitpick and when I do I shut off my mind to possibilities. That's why I love the freewrite. It forces me to open my mind to any sensory information around me. I'm then scrambling to put words on the page as opposed to erasing them all off. This probably is a good exercise for you in the long run but after you're done with it I'd like to see it utilized.

What you want to do after you're done with a freewrite is not leave it. You want to explore with it. I've been mentally picking at your freewrite and have assembled a sort of junkyard by rearranging and picking out/adding words. For instance--your first section about that girl became:

marbled concrete pressed under,
bitching students rambling
about paralled parked cars 
and limited space.
a girl in oversized sweat pants, tight tank, 
nipples exposed--I guess that’s why 
they call this nippy weather-- 
carries the conversation elevated
no one hears.

Anyway, not a great example but I wanted to show you that in every freewrite you have something you can carry over into poetry. Find something that you connect to emotionally. I find my environment provides the best outlet. When you spill words out on a page like that they tend to sort of come out in this interesting odd way, hence the phrase--marbled concrete. And you have a lot of words coupled here that creates great imagery. I'm sure this wasn't on purpose but-- Ha, ha, ha. Wrist hair? Love it. Stick THAT in a poem somewhere. Who the hell writes about wrist hair? And what's more you seem to continue this infatuation with hair in the last couple lines. Perhaps you have your focus here? Things reoccur for a reason in my opinion. 

But I'm rambling. Please do try and utilize the freewrite. You have an interesting writing style. In fact, perhaps a sort of list poem might work for you, like Meitner's "Instructions for Vigilant Girls". These freewrites dish out the language for you, and your need to control could help create a really great list poem. Hope this is helpful.

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 2

"Don't you understand now? Your tongue made her pregnant." --Old Boy

Calisthenics 1, Week 2

This is Tim's allotted Calisthenic: The "Thing". I started writing about this stupid gnat that just flew by my face a couple times. I remember being told that gnats are attracted to water, and that the Egyptians put those black rings of coal (kohl?) around their eyes to actually keep them away from their pupils. So I guess my focus was the gnats search for water. I have no idea how this ended up taking a religious context. I suppose I couldn't help myself, and I fear it was too heavy-handed. Ah well. I loved this calisthenic because... well actually, one of my favorite poems is Donne's "The Flea". I love the idea of taking something so everyday--so insignificant, and then making it this huge deal. I like the new perspective. I think one of my better poems was taking something typical and making it clever. This is no where near the level of Donne, but here it is on the chopping block. Enjoy?

The Gnat

Incessant search for substance
seeking crevices with quenching
fountains of youth, reeking
with the stench of fermented
fruits--Eve's sin browned.

Home is that molded potato
lurched in the stinking chasm
of that forgotten trash bag.
Crucified by maggots darting
in last's months T-bone, Roaches
like nomads, unimpressed.

But you will grow by thousands
and as the meek, this world is yours
to swarm and divulge. Forever
searching, haunting every eye
and nostril, hovering for the hope
of liquid salvation--the kind fresh
out the faucet;Wading in the baptismal
pool. Until then you beat your wings

and search just over the radar.