Yeah I remember my freshman year and when the first snow came. I was so excited to see the white glistening powder over everything. And of course when all my friends found out that I hadn't really been around snow, they decided to hit me with snow balls every chance they got. It was really fun....for the first few weeks. Then it got wicked cold, and I thought I was crazy for coming here. But over the years I've gotten used to it. I just hate it when the sun doesn't come out for a few days. I'm friends with a freshman from California. She was super excited when it snowed the other night. She came to rehearsal screaming, "I love snow!" Its cool to see her so excited. Reminds me of myself. She is complaining how cold it is already. We all just laughed to ourselves and told her that its gets much colder.
I thought that assignment 7 was difficult. I'm not really sure if I did it right either. It was an interesting assignment though and I'm curious about everyones poems. Workshop will be fun. Also, in general, workshop has been interesting. It's cool to hear about everyones experiences. I will also have to agree that the whole class workshop was pretty intimidating. I was really nervous when it was my time to go. It ended up not being that bad though. I think I just got used to reading my groups poems and I was comfortable with them. It was nice to read poems from the other group though. It's interesting how everyone has there own style. Our class has some great ideas as well.

This morning I met a guy from California who saw snow for the first time..yesterday. He kept commenting on it, the way it felt to make a snowball, the way it stuck to your jacket, and how he couldn't wait to learn how to ski. Now, I was pretty excited about it snowing and all, but I definitely can't remember how it felt to see it for the first time. I've always been around snow, my mom has let me know more than once that she went skiing with me in utero. And there are way too many childhood pictures of my sister and I bundled up standing next to snow drifts. But I can imagine that it must seem and feel somewhat foreign, like being on the moon or something. I'm sure this guy saw plenty of snow in movies, saw pictures of white Christmas', and pictures of people skiing on vacation, but to actually dig your hands in and feel that achy cold feeling in your hands,.. you can't get that from movies and pictures. I feel like when you're a kid, or experiencing something for the first time, you get so excited about all the little things, like getting to wear a wool hat or ride down a hill on a plastic sled. I guess in a lot of ways I want to regain that excitement, find joy in all the little things, and stop stressing about the stuff I can't control.

Snow, among other things

Of all my four years here, this is the only time we have had snow before Halloween. Freshman year, it actually snowed ON Halloween, but other than that, it usually holds off until November. Last night when I was walking around I thought it was nice to have a change of weather, a change from the rain, but as I woke up this morning I realized Im not ready for it. Not ready for the wet pants, the sandy wet pants that come later, the snowplows that wake me up, and putting away my bike and experiencing that long walk to the townhouses. I don't run inside, ever, nor do I like going to the gym, so I run outside all winter even when its -20. I thought I could hold off on that for awhile, but I guess not. I'm not ready to put on a hat and gloves and only warm up when I'm about done with my run.
On another note, the senior breakdown occurred yesterday. The realization that I majored in the wrong field, the realization that I don't know what I'm doing after college, and everything else that goes along with the "What the hell am I doing with my life???" moment. Now I'm just kind of bummed.
On the last note...Assignment 7 was hard. I dont know if I completely understood it, so workshopping is going to be interesting. I hope I wasnt the only one who found it difficult. Enjoy the snow everyone.

Writing

My favorite author is Tom Robbins... Not because his stories are the best, or because he uses language in an unbelievable way. It's because it's real, for all of their outlandishness, they capture some "essence" of life. The stories have a side that is described so realistically that you can't help but to love them.
How does an author find such a place? how do I take my stories, and bring them to a place that is both crazy, and true?
If I could meet Tom, I would ask him things like:
What is your favorite thing to eat with oatmeal?
Do you like to write? If so, what feelings does it give you?
are you a Taurus? I am, so I figured you might be.

Well OK, so I can't think of good questions... I mean I don't want him to think I'm an asshole. I need deep, creative, new questions. We might as well not talk about his books at all. That would get him. Well Tom, keep writing, I'll try to keep up reading, and maybe we will meet up sometime.

P.S.
my poem about lexiconal sets was reallllllly bad, I didn't like it at all. I think bad Ideas should just be left to sit and die sometimes.
-Alex

Rainy Days

Gloomy weather always finds a way to put a damper on my mood. From the time I wake up it is bringing me down. It is hard to get out of bed when there are clouds blocking the sunlight meant to wake your senses. Getting up in darkness just seems unnatural. Then walking outside into the cold and wet. It all seems just so unappealing as I lay in bed fighting my alarm clock. Being forced to leave a comfortable bed and pushed into unpleasant weather really puts you in a pessimistic mood. Being outside is no fun, thus exercising and chasing that natural high just seems so unappealing. On days like this I am simply worthless. All day I feel lazy and don’t want to do anything but lie around and nap. I guess that is what rain is good for. It is good to escape and listen to and watch from a comfortable vantage point. There is nothing like the sound of a soft sound of rain to lull you to sleep. I guess you could say the rain is here to help is take a day off. It gives us an excuse to go for a run or go to the library tomorrow. Likewise it makes us appreciate the sunny days. As we rush from building to building hidden beneath a damp hood, all I want is the feeling of warm sunlight on my back. I guess I won’t be feeling that warmth on my back anytime soon, or even the sun for that matter in the next few days, but today I think I will take my chances on putting some things off until a sunnier day.

Film Spin

Rolling stones, rolling wheels, and a rolling camera. Today I made a short clip of skateboarding with one of our finest, Drew Perni III. From 3:45 to 5:00 I filmed both Drew and our friend Alex skating on the strip, a smoothly paved walkway starting from the bottom of the student center staircase and ending in front of the science library. It was definitely something I haven't done in a very long time because of the absent tools. I needed the equipment for one thing, the camera was broken and yet was still able to film, but only blindly. Both the LCD and the viewfinder broke while filming such such things as skateboarding, snowboarding, and escaping from the police. You'd expect me to say that it was finally fixed when really it wasn't, that's why I gave it the nickname "Ooch." The collar explains it, and so does the film. This also got me thinking. We all take damage, and as a result we heal it's a natural thing. After a fall we pick ourselves up, eventually building up a tolerance, and beatings of the body take different forms, shapes, and sizes and we still tough it out. I myself have taken such a beating over the years I have tentinitis in my left knee and countless scars, some with stories and some I cannot recall. Ooch is like me, and I am like Ooch. We do the same things. We keep filming, moving, ticking, acting, reacting, and laughing.

If anyone wants to watch the film, I'll play it after class tomorrow.

Peace, prosperity, and a little paper

Dang it.

I realize this is early. I downloaded the wrong assignment. *sighs*

This is my Literary Magazine review:

I read the October 2008 edition of Poetry literary magazine (Christian Wiman, Editor) for this assignment. It advertised Robert, Elizabeth Bishop, and Sarah Lindsay as featured poets on the cover which seems to imply that its readers are familiar with the poetry scene and that the featured poets are well-known. The cover is simple: a white background with a small burning house on the lower left side, the flames and smoke invading the center in a soft diagonal line.

Inside, I found the website for the magazine: poetrymagazine.org

The site featured a poem from each poet from the latest edition of the magazine which online audiences could read in addition to pictures of each poet. When I googled the poets, numerous results appeared and reinforced my assumption that to be in this literary magazine, poets have to be fairly well known and established.

What I first noticed while reading the magazine was the diction the poets used. It is stunning and effectively descriptive but very sophisticated. Some poems strayed from this but for the most part, each word seemed to be worth more than the word I would has used in its place. The poets are all older than I am and versed in the English language on a much higher level than I. A few poems mentioned characters that I did not recognize and I got the sense that you would have to be somewhat educated in the subject of history (or older literature) to understand them fully. Still, the mystery of the characters’ identities, I think, made them just as interesting if not more interesting. One poem depicted a young Amish girl stepping into a pile of snow outside of a fast food joint. It was short and simply put. In another poem by Eric Eckstrand (who I have fallen in love with), the speaker asks his sleeping audience if he or she has been visited by insects. The variety of content coupled with varying styles and structures made the poetry fascinating to me.

The second part of the magazine was a story/article titled “Bishop & Lowell: Words In Air” which detailed the relationship between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell through letters and poems they exchanged. I found the second part less interesting than the first. Then there was a discussion about “Why the Great American Poem” is so hard to write.

The magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe. I did not find a common theme in the issue or any evidence that each issue has a theme.

I loved the poetry portion of the magazine (the first thirty-two of its seventy-six pages). I will definitely read it again, the poems made me want to scrap all of my work and start over…we’ll see if that impulse pans out.

whole class workshops

It is interesting to see the difference between our whole class workshop and the little workshops. It seems more intimidating to speak, especially the first day we did the workshop on Tuesday. It is also interesting to hear the different ways people comment on poems from the other group. Everyone reads poems differently and therefore has very different things to say about them. I like and dislike the whole class workshop. I like hearing everyone's opinions, but I also feel more comfortable in the smaller group. It has definitely been fun to read everyone's poetry. It is really fun to have that insight into a person's thought process. Everyone thinks in their own way and typically their poetry reflects that.

Also, I like getting the feedback from everyone. Having written feedback is nice to refer back to when writing the next assignments. Even people who don't speak out about people's poems in class still have good written feedback to share. I think the discussion and written feedback make a total analysis. 

I have really enjoyed learning about everyone's experiences or feelings or creative talent by reading these poems.  

So I would have to agree with you guys about stanely moss. I was pretty surprised at the things he said in class. Especially how he attacked meredith and alex. You two were so brave. The entire time I thought "please don't call on me. please don't call on me."I had an idea in my mind what he was going to be like after we had read some of his poems. I was pretty dissapointed after having our class with him. I think the most interesting part would have been hearing about his life. I really wish he had talked about that more. Oh and I was also surprised when he just read his poems at the reading. He didn't talk about anything really or give us advice. The only point he really wanted to get across is that true poetry is being honest with your dark side. I can see why he would say this but i don't believe its all poetry is. I feel like he is really set in his ways. He didn't even listen to what people in our class were saying or consider ideas we brought up. The hard part is that I really like his poems. Even though he is a mean old man, he's good at writing. I have to give him that. He would make a bad teacher though. Reminds me of being in high school. A number of my teachers either left us with the book and expected us to learn everything on our own. Or they would do a problem on the board, not explain it, and expect us to know how to do all the other problems. Thinking back on how upseting it was it was pretty entertaining to watch. Makes me laugh now. Oh old man stanley moss!

Identity

The title of Emily's post made me think about identity. Especially about how we define ourselves and try to figure out who or what we want to become. College is all about exploring new ideas, separating yourself from your family and having that chance to start over. It is a chance for people to redefine themselves. But with this development of identity comes a kind of conformity. You walk into an environmental studies class and most people are wearing Carhartts and patagonia. Walk into a Government class and you'll see a lot more polos. And then there are the people that try to stand out, that try to defy social norms, but in a sense they too are conforming to a group of people doing the exact same thing. There is nothing wrong with this conformity; it is in our human nature to want to find a place, a sense of belonging, an acceptance from people with similar ideas, dreams, aspirations. But in this search for acceptance, for a place, do we lose a sense of who we truly are? Would we dress this way, act this way, think this way, if we were by ourselves with only our own minds to influence us? Who are we really?

Identity in the Surrounding World:
So I thought for this blog that I might want to start a discussion about how everyone feels about the weather right now… I am sure that all of you are feeling the same pain I am getting out of bed in the morning and glancing outside to the dark gray clouds, and knowing that it is bitterly cold outside. (plus in Whitman they haven’t turned on the heat so it is frequently very cold inside our room) I have found that many times the sun outside has been playing mind games with me lately. This dreary cold weather outside we have been experiencing lately has been putting my mind into a funk. I feel tired, lazy, and extremely unmotivated. (but is it really that different when its sunny? Just kidding) I guess that is why they call it the blues. While I am still searching to figure out my personal identity and accompanying emotions, one personal aspect about myself that I am certain about is how I adapt to my surrounding environment. Most of the time, my mood can be like a sponge soaking up the physical environment around me. I don’t know if this is something I need to change before the winter months start to take a toll on me, but adaptation to the cold with positive energy is something that I need to learn how to create. How do the rest of you feel about weather?

Polytricum Moss (Jeremy should appreciate that)

So it turns out Stanley Moss is quite an interesting fellow. The reading seemed a bit boring, with a few bits of humor added in to spice up the presentation, but for the most part it was listening to poetry for an hour. I have trouble with this, no matter how hard I try. I cannot get anything from a poem that is just read through (and takes like 10 min at that). My mind can’t stay focused. I become caught on one concept and wander off with that and miss the rest of what is said, try to jump back into the poem and forget the one intelligent thought that I had actually formulated. We discussed this earlier today, but I really did wish he had done some explanation or introduction to his poetry. He just read it through and maybe waited a few moments for the mass of thought to sink in. It however was like a brick thrown into a glass of water for me, nothing hit home without some help.

My shortcomings aside I found the lecture to be somewhat stimulating. His poetry to me sounded like a sort of sermon given in church, minus a pushed message. What he said was much more rebellious and personal. One line that really struck me enough for me to write down was “The night after all is a shadow”. I forget the context and what I felt at the time, but it alone is quite a powerful sentence I think. It puts the world into perspective to me on the scale of the universe. We are such a small thing, this huge phenomenon we call night is really just the turning of our planet so that we are in the darkness. Something that happens in every other solar system in existence I’m sure.

From the class appearance, putting some of the disagreements aside I found some pointers to be helpful and worth the effort of me noting. He said poetry is about the “hidden life within us”. I had some sense of this, but he made a good explanation of the concept. We write about the conflict of thoughts in our head, our contradictions and debates as a human being. That is why poetry is often oh so personal. One more take home message I found was “the devil generalizes, angels are specific”. I know I am all too guilty of being too vague and he made a good point. By being specific a reader can follow exactly what you are saying and the meaning isn’t lost. In poetry the meaning is often a bit obscured, but the point remains that by being specific in imagery and such that the poem paints a much clearer picture.

Moss

I'd like to respond to the post about Stanley Moss and talk a little bit more about him. I agree very much that I wanted to know more about him; I thought that the point of having a poet or author or specialist in any field visit a class was to give the students an opportunity to learn more about the field, how to get into it, how the visitor got into it, and any other wisdom that the visitor can provide. He did seem interesting, but I was turned off by the fact that he did not seem prepared, and he seemed to offer mean criticism instead of constructive criticism or even compliments to one student. He may have meant what he said differently, but his wording about prose vs. poetry was condescending. I wasn't able to attend his reading the night before, but I'm surprised to hear that he didn't say much about himself then either. As I said, I found him interesting, and his poetry interesting too, and would love to have heard more about the person that he is and the process that he took to becoming the poet he is today. Also, I have a tattoo; I don't even know why I didn't feel like telling Mr. Moss, but I can't lie to you, class.

iTunes: John Brown's Body-"So Aware" on repeat

I learned about sleep today in Psychology class and I wanted to share it with all of you (or perhaps just you, Theo). There are two processes that affect sleep patterns:
1) Circadian Rhythm- which has something to do with the time of day it is
2) Sleep Cycle- which involves how long you’ve been awake
Has anyone ever taken a short nap and woken up with a slight memory of a crazy dream you were having? If so, you were sleep deprived at the time. Apparently, you do not fully dream until later, when you’re into the REM stage of sleep. The fact that you were able to dream after such a short period of sleep means that your brain is trying to catch up on REM sleep, so it dives into it without easing or slowly transitioning from wakefulness to sleep. This isn’t healthy (neither are caffeine, computer screens, all-nighters, long plane rides or insane schedules).
Here’s something useful I took away from the lecture: while you sleep (REM sleep, I mean), your brain strengthens and consolidates your memory. So, if you study for a test late into the night, you are much more likely to retain the information and arrive in class with a sunny demeanor if you sleep for even 90 minutes after studying. If you pull an all-nighter, there is no time for your brain to understand and commit to memory what you just learned.
There was a quote on my Physics teacher’s chalkboard in high school. Something along the lines of: “you never truly understand something until you teach it to someone else”.
I have just illustrated that point. Teaching is fun.

Does anyone really want to hear my opinion on Stanley Moss?

Well well well. Where to begin? I went to hear good old (old being they key word) Stan the Man read on Wednesday night. I, like Molly, was also very surprised he was so old. I also thought that instead of launching right into his poetry with no explanation, he might tell us a little about himself, his background, how he got to where he is today, etc. But he just started reading and reading and reading without really any kind of outside information. I did like his poem about the louse and how he put a positive spin on something that most find so disgusting. After hearing that, I decided I wouldn't mind knowing more about him, and hoped that was what would happen in class.
When he came to class, I thought he would talk about himself...not start with the conversation of what the worst thing a human could do, or talk about tattooed ladies. The only thing he did was tell us he knew he wanted to write when he was 7 years old in third grade (first of all, third graders are not 7 years old)and that was it.
After talking about Charlie's poem and offering some suggestions, I KNEW he was going to ask me to read as well. It was one of those times you get a feeling and you know its true. So of course I broke all eye contact, looked down, and pretended to be taking notes. But that didn't work. I didn't want to read anything, and when Theo suggested I read my backwards narrative, I started sweating...knowing that the first like began with the phrase "He still stares at my ass." It was one of those "Oh, fuck" moments.
Anyone else like being interrogated? Anyone else like being told their poetry was not, in fact, poetry and was all lies right from the beginning? Anyone like reading a personal, somewhat embarrassing poem (oh, excuse me, I mean PROSE)over and over because someone cant hear? Anyone else like being mortified, turning the color of a tomato, and ruining a sweater because you had pit stains to your belly button? No? Cool.
Why cant I stand up for myself and just give it back to an 83 year old? If only he had sung that sonnet perhaps I could make it even.

Stanley- both in class and speaking

Stanley is definitely a character. I  went to see him speak on Wednesday evening...along with about half our class. My first impression was a big surprise. I did not expect him to be so old. I thought, after reading some of his poems, he would be a little younger or at least look younger. Also, I had never been to a legitimate poetry reading before...I thought he would read a poem, then speak about it for a few minutes and then read another. Instead, he just read a bunch. I learned something new about poetry readings that night. 

Also, I am very curious about his life- but I was too scared in class to ask him about it. After hearing a lot of his poems on Wednesday, I want to know what he is all about. I even googled him to see what they wrote about him and it was all very vague. Does he travel a lot? Has he been to war? What is his wife like? Where does he live? How did he get to be so opinionated? How privileged is he to have had all of those experiences? He writes  a ton about events from all over the world. How did he get to have all of those experiences? Also, from some of his comments, it seems as though he went to war. But, I feel as though that is not something I can ask. He talks about rape, starvation, war, pillaging, disease. Are all of these horrible experiences his own?

He is a person who most obviously, in his old age, does not care what anyone thinks about him or his opinion. From class, I think we all realized that. He talks very openly about sex in his poems- which is a little uncomfortable for me to hear coming from an 83 year old. But, he wouldn't care what I thought. I guess I'll give him the upper hand because I don't know his life story. Maybe he is exceptionally wise, and by cursing us he meant well, but to be honest, he scared me. 

Allen Ginsberg's Selected Poetry

The book I reviewed was the selected poems of Allen Ginsberg, a powerful poet who wrote during the first half of the twentieth century. He is well known for his pugnacious poetry against America, the government, and other strong political movements not just during his own time, but also throughout history. One of the poems that I focused on was Howl, which to me set a strong image of the author’s environment. It’s broken up in three parts in which each part bellows a message to society about how the environment around them can be corrupted. His language tells different stories about people in his life that he felt have been corrupted, like Carl Solomon for example. Ginsberg writes in part three of Howl about one person’s life is taken away and set in elsewhere in a place called Rockland, an insane asylum in New York. Ginsberg grieves with him, recognizing that he didn’t do anything wrong, it was the environment around him. The author mostly writes in the narrative form. Telling stories about characters that relate to him, mostly about Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac (other fellow beat writers). Ginsberg was one of these few that created the beat generation, a time when you could say anything and get away with it. Some may shun his work others may love it. His structure of poetry can vary from piece to piece but his ideas are still the same. He strives for freedom in any shape or form. It’s rare to find a rhyme scheme in his works but it seems like his writing doesn’t need a rhyme scheme. When you read the poems aloud you can feel pain, anguish, anger, tension, and other hardcore feelings that make you want to fight against the opposing force. Another poem I found interesting was America, which rips into every sort of wrong doing that Ginsberg believes should be recognized. Even now in our demographic we can see things that way that he does, and as an active poet of this society, his poems make me want to write something against I hate. It makes me want to question my history and what other people have done wrong in that situation, such as Bush, Elizabeth Smart, global warming, even the drinking age in our community. How would you feel if the drinking age was lowered in order to keep kids away from strong binge drinking and becoming so ill they need to be transported to the hospital? What would it do for us? Don’t we in our time, like Ginsberg in his, enjoy breaking a few rules every once in a while? I feel as though the Beat Generation is the reason why people not only want to write want that want, but feel it necessary to send that message, because if no one else does, what is there to argue with?

Book Review of Sparrow Poems by Carol Muske-Dukes

Book Review
Sparrow Poems
By Carol Muske-Dukes
The basis of Muske-Dukes’s compilation of poems is to express her love for her late husband through free verse poetry. Modern in its style, but traditional with its syntax and form, Sparrow Poems utilizes strong allegorical verse to convey strong companionship. Sparrow Poems differs from the most common form of poetry that is simply about “love” because Muske-Dukes seems to still be coming to grips with her loss. It seems that she is not fully aware of the fact that it is death that has altered her universe.
When reading the titles of the poems grouped together in the index, one may assume that Muske-Dukes randomly organized the poems. But after careful analysis, it can be seen that the order of the final compilation has been chosen in order give the book time intervals. It seems as though Muske-Dukes is rummaging through the house where she lived with her husband and is picking up objects or looking through pictures and translating spots of memory into verses. One poem that illustrates the idea of “rummaging” through memories is Anniversary. In this poem, Muske-Dukes repeats the phrase “eighteen years” as well as the word “chimes.” One stanza reads as follows: “Exhausted by pity, I sit/ in the sun near the pool/ The wind lifts the chimes/ you repaired so patiently/ last year, knotting the strings/ from which the silver cylinders/ depend.” (33)
Mixing modern personal style with verses from classic poetry, Muske-Dukes has created variation that is unique and incomparable to other modern poetry. She has incorporated verses from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Two Gentleman of Verona, and Romeo and Juliet. Lines of poetry written by famous authors such as Samuel Beckett, Christopher Frye, Oscar Wilde, Eugene O’Neill, B.L. Joseph, and Amanda McBroom have also been integrated into various poems throughout the book. This type of incorporation makes Sparrow Poems unique because it mixes intense emotions of love while utilizing the negative imagery of death as the underlying antagonist. This idea of contrasting images can be specifically seen with the poems that incorporate Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In her poem Romeo¸ the author brings David’s image for interpretation alive, while leaving space for the reader to imagine his presence. She identifies him in the following stanza: “the lit trap door above that leads to heavens/ resembling a parenthesis between identities---/ where players wait to be cast/ Come night, come Romeo/ come loving black-brow’d night!”
David was not only referred to as “Romeo” in order to present him to the audience. Throughout several of her poems, David is referred to as the “actor.” While one poem is specifically called Actor, the concept of David as an “actor” is brought up again in the poem Like You. She personifies the idea of David as an actor in order to resurface some visual concepts of time and death. In Like You, she also refers to death as a critic. “Death was a critic, like me/ Death could never be the actor.” (6)
Muske-Dukes has translated her feelings of recent loss of her husband, David, into a complex book of poems. She has incorporated emotions such as lust, love, companionship, and loss into free verse poetry that exemplifies her personal style. As a single project book, Sparrow Poems was compiled by Muske-Dukes with the specific goal of expressing personal insight while creating a narrative of the time shared with her husband, David. The title, “Sparrow,” holds significance with the content of the poems. Throughout many of the poems, Muske-Dukes makes references to Lesbia’s Sparrow, written by Gaius Valerius Catullus. Lesbia’s Sparrow is about a woman losing her lover and the impact it holds on her emotions. Her lover is referred to as a sparrow “flying the dark no one ever returns from.”
A compelling book of poetry that embodies intensity as well as solitude, I would recommend Sparrow to anyone who wants to travel inside the mind of someone who has channeled their experiences of tragedy and loss into passionate poetry.

Poems by R. Frost

For one reason or another, I have always admired Robert Frost.  One thing that I like is that he lived in New Hampshire and he spent many years writing on New England landscapes.  He has as much imagery and description of any American poet and his meditations strike me in a good way.  So when I saw a few of Frost’s compilations in the book store I was eager to get one and check out some of his lesser-known poetry.

“The Road Not Taken” is the featured poem in this book. That is one of my favorite poems, and it is just one of about 40 works of poetry from Frost.  I also spent some time reading some of his other books in the store that interested me.  When I flipped through the pages, a few things stood out to me.  First, the poems were generally one or two pages long and the lines were short as well.  Second, most of the titles of the poems described one single scene or person.  The poems are simple, and direct.  For example, “An Encounter,” “House Fear,” “The Smile,” and “The Impulse” are four short poems that focus on one simple subject.  Finally, Frost’s form is evident from just glancing at the poems.  There are many sonnets written in different styles of prosody – mostly iambic pentameter.  There are a few narratives as well, but generally it is in lyric form.  There are many different rhyme schemes and the lines are both end-stopped and enjambed.

One poem that I was fascinated by was “The Bonfire.”  This poem was written in a narrative form and there was no real rhyme scheme.  It tells the story of some mischievous kids who are looking to spice up their night and earn a name for themselves in the town in the process.  “Oh, let’s go up the hill and scare ourselves, / As reckless as the best of them to-night / By setting fire to the brush we piled/ With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow.”  The wind picks up and the entire hill upon which the kid built his bonfire becomes ablaze.  Frost’s description of the uncontrollable fire and helplessness of the children is striking.  He concludes with a lesson about innocence and how war has corrupted not just the men of society, but the children too.  The bridge he constructs between a fire and war is remarkable and puts the reader to the test.

This book is a just a forum for exhibiting some of Frost’s best work, rather than being set up to promote some sort of overarching message.  The poems however do seem to be organized by theme.  There is no unique ending or beginning though.

I love how Frost tackles simple, every day subjects similarly to the ‘familiarizing the unfamiliar’ assignment we worked on.  On more than one account he wrote about Snow, comparing it to newspapers and providing the setting for multiple scenic masterpieces.  I will try to use his simple understanding of nature to influence my own writings.  Maybe just a metaphor or simile mixed in with my poetry, or maybe using his writings for inspiration on a whole new poetry based on landscapes, I feel this book of writings is tremendously valuable as a writer.

May Swenson: Poems to Solve

May Swenson put together the collection of poems, titled Poems to Solve, with the intention of making her readers work for their meanings. In a letter at the beginning she says that "A characteristic of all poetry, in fact, is that more is hidden in it than in prose" (Swenson 1). One strategy of making meaning in poetry "hidden" is defamiliarization, which she uses a bit of. She'll talk about something, like an egg for breakfast, and never say its name, so we must just assume that's what she's describing. The topics of the poems do not relate; it is a collection of poetry, instead, for each poem's individuality.
In terms of format, I'm reminded by some of her poems of the book of poetry called Nets by Jen Bervin that we looked at last class, not because they are poems made from pieces of previously published poetry, but because the layout of some are unique and interesting. One in particular that I found exciting is entitled Feel Like a Bird. The words that are important or indicators are capitalized and set apart from the rest. I would love to have had the chance to hear Swenson read this poem because there are several options for how to do it and each is interesting. Others have a very straightforward layout, with even stanzas. For the most part, the lines are relatively short and end-stopped. I enjoy this book of Swenson's poetry because instead of attempting to rhyme each line or set up a rhyme scheme, she focuses on saying exactly what she wants to say. The poems are mostly short, about a page or two, and focused. They are not predictable, but distinctive.
The vocabulary that she chooses, while understandable and not too challenging, is interesting and flows nicely. There is one poem in which she uses scientific vocabulary to serve her purpose of describing a familiar object in an unfamiliar way. As a result of the vocabulary and shorter lines, the tone is one of intellectual superiority, but not in a condescending way. It's hard to explain, but I get the feeling that Swenson is trying to share something very precious with us, but understands that it's not straightforward and so she must spell it out for us.
A young poet might aspire to be as talented as Swenson, but because of her constantly changing layout and complicated defamiliarizations, it would serve this young poet best to pick out certain techniques that are used and work up slowly.

Jen Bervin Review

Jen Bervin’s book Nets is a wonderfully inventive artistic expression of poetry. The title comes from the word sonnets, from “The SonNETS of William Shakespeare”. However, the title also signifies the fact that the author uses a “netting” technique to form her poems. Bervin successfully “nets” or captures specifically chosen words and phrases from preexisting verses and makes them into her own works of art. She makes her poems from language found in a selected 60 of William Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. As the author herself explains, “I stripped Shakespeare’s sonnets bare to the “nets” to make the space of the poems open, porous, possible---a divergent elsewhere.” Bervin’s Nets has without a doubt achieved to highlight the ways in which poetry can be “open” and “porous” through beautiful simplicity. The ways Bervin uses her very few selected bold words to write a verse within a verse is brilliant. The technique Bervin uses of “netting” the poems not only unveils the personal narratives and smaller poems that can be found within the greater poem it also reveals the how the selected words are “nets”, entrapping the readers attention. Great examples of these personal narratives and bold signifying words can be found in Bervin’s version of sonnets, 55 and 63. In these poems, Bervin has successfully achieved the ability of showing herself on the page through another poet’s words. Bervin’s narrative within the sonnets is what ties the book together, to form one fascinating piece of art.

Bervin’s poetic style falls under the labels of both the Cubist and Surrealist artistic expression styles. Through analyzing poems and finding stories or separate poems within the work it exemplifies the world of poetic ambiguity, and versatility. The book is a great example portraying a poet’s personal artistic expression, and the inspiration many can find from fellow poets’ works. It is obvious that Bervin is a true fan of William Shakespeare and that her book is somewhat of a response to and celebration of the 16th century poet. In sonnet 135, Bervin even takes the opportunity to highlight only the word “Will” in the poem, making it seem as though she was paying homage to the late writer.

I wholeheartedly agree with W. Scott Howard’s review where he states, “Nets shapes not only juxtapositions of simultaneous fields of linguistic experience, but also rhapsodic (often nostalgic) lyricism in the new tracing lines that Bervin superimposes upon Shakespeare’s originals. Considered from this twin perspective, Bervin’s texts, therefore, are prose poems.” The language the author uses is again prose---simple, and used in everyday conversation. Bervin’s way of taking late 16th century/early 17th century poetic language and turning into a contemporary, easy, and everyday language is an accomplishment to be marveled.

Although it seems unlikely, before learning about or reading Jen Bervin’s work I had thought of the similar idea, making individual poems using selected lines from famous authors’ published works. I think that’s why I’m so attracted to Bervin’s unique style and creativity, because I too had thought it to be clever and ingenious.

The Wellspring

The Wellspring, by Sharon Olds, takes readers through the journey of life. There is one speaker throughout the entire collection which seems to be of an autobiographical nature, giving readers a more intimate look into the speaker’s life. The collection of poems is divided into four parts. The first section of poems, take us from the speaker being inside her mother’s womb; and then forward to the speaker’s birth and childhood. The second part contains poems about adolescence and early adult life. Here we see the speaker’s first encounters with sexuality and love. The third part continues the speaker’s life with the birth of her two children and her experiences with being a mother. Finally, the fourth part completes the journey with experiences dealing with growing older, the death of parents, and true love between partners.
The language of the poems is simplistic. The speaker describes different experiences and her feelings during the specific situation. In some of the later poems, the speaker references to experiences in earlier poems which I found interesting. This helps to give a more intimate setting between the speaker and reader. It's the feeling you get when you say something simple like "cucumber" to your best friend. She starts laughing hysterically while everyone else is confused as to what happened. The speaker also leaves out some information about her life. She implies about other experiences in her life but simply glides over it. As a reader, I felt I knew everything about her; yet, I wanted to know more.
Most of the poems are a page or less, but there are a few that go on for two pages. The poems are not specifically end-stopped or harshly enjambed. The poems do not contain a rhyming scheme or meter pattern. There is some interesting imagery and the poems are straightforward for the most part. The tone of the poems is very reminiscent. It is obvious that the speaker is looking back at her life experiences from an older age. Although there are poems about the very beginning of the speakers life, the collection does not come full circle; there are no poems about the speaker's death. However, death is discussed when the speaker's father dies, as well as, the death of her husband's father. I liked that the author didn't include the speaker's death in the collection of poems. It made me feel that the speaker was really Sharon Olds. I think including such poems would take away from the intimacy and closeness of the collection between the reader and speaker.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Wellspring. I could relate to an number of the poems and I am positive that other readers could find at least a few that they could relate to as well. The collection is simply about life experiences and the irrationality, beauty, and complications of being human.

Holy Tango, reviewed by comeau

Holy Tango (anthology) of literature, by Francis Heaney
Reviewed by PA Comeau

Looking for a poetry book can be quite an adventure. If you are anything like me, than you would have no idea where to start, you wouldn’t even know what you wanted. Enter the bookstore, wander around and you might find the poetry section. It is dominated by tomes from the “greats” with small, deadly looking, books. Little collections with killer names like “Turnings,” or “Empty Dreams.” Feeling flustered, when I was put in this position my hand darted for the bright glossy green cover of “Holy Tango.”

It’s light, it’s fun, it’s pointless(?), it’s free versed occasionally, it’s not really that scary. On an introductory level, this book starts and plays with many writing styles. Any well rounded reader can enjoy famous authors being lampooned. Francis Heaney’s book takes the style and form of each poet/writer, and twists a new piece into those shapes. Things get… skewed, but only in content. The themes are out of hand, but the language and modes are all appropriate.

Heaney’s only overriding principals are irreverence, irrelevancy, indecency, and inappropriateness. Or, as he would like to propose himself, is there more to be found in this sacrilege? Is the idea of Shakespeare writing about sperm whale’s sperm really that much more offensive than the master himself? At the vary least, this work is a good repose, (or even entry) to the “typical” heavy subjects of poetry.

The unpredictability of topics (see Heaney’s explanation of the poem titles), and the quick changes in technique make the book excellent for just picking up, or reading end to end. All the poems get to the point in a page or two, and none seem old. Although if its appropriate one or two poems may ramble on for several pages, not unlike some famous authors... Unless you have a problem reading clever pieces, you will have no problems enjoying and thinking about the book.

That might seem a bit vague, so let me elaborate. What is the point of silly poems? These poems satirize famous methods and modes, and in one way that is the greatest flattery. Heaney has “updated” these old poems with new content. Now the masters are accessible to anyone. Ok, even I admit that was BS, I mean these are trashy poems. Still why don’t you read them and tell my why you think he wrote them. I have my own idea, but its very subjective.

As I mentioned, on a formal level, the book spans the spectrum. All the way from a Shakespearian sonnet, to a script like Woody Allen, individual verses are tried and tested. The effect is disconcerting to a focused reader, one never knows if Heaney is reaching for and idea, or just commenting on a superficial, signifier level. Maybe this review reads the same, but you will have to read both to tell me.

Howl and other poems

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg contains 50 plus pages of mind-altering poetry. This book may change the way you feel about America, drug and alcohol use, sexuality, and poetic style. In some cases Ginsberg adheres to conventional form, while he is also not afraid to manipulate the structure of the sentence, stanza, and poem to create something new and interesting in other cases. Ginsberg plays with the structure of his poems to add interesting visual enhancement to the imagery in his poetry.

The title poem “Howl: For Carl Solomon” pays tribute to the Beats’ all-hours-of-the-day exploits, while addressing deeper, controversial (at the time) human issues, like poverty, insanity, sexuality, God, freedom of expression, and the consequences for breaking the law. Ginsberg begins “Howl” with the now iconic line “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical naked,/dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,” setting up the idea that he feels as though he and his closest friends have come short of attaining the American dream and have nearly (or have in fact) died in the process of trying to find it. In this and other poems, Ginsberg manipulates form as a way of creating his own individual responses to all of these issues. “Howl” is written in a style that Ginsberg experiments with throughout the book, where the length of each line is determined by how much the reader might be able to say in one breath. This has the effect to make each line stand on its own as a unique part of the poem (and of life), but at the same time Ginsberg’s repetition of the first words of lines draws the entire poem together. “Howl” comprises nearly half of this book, and it is clear that this poem is one of Ginsberg’s most important works.

While the majority of the poems are written between 1955-56, Ginsberg includes several of his earlier poems (1952-54) at the end of the book. As a reader it is interesting to see these poems in comparison to “Howl,” for instance, which is much cruder and less hopeful than Ginsberg’s earlier poems. One might see the evolution of Ginsberg through these poems because strands of later Ginsberg can be seen in these early works. Certainly, it is apparent that a great number of life-changing events happened to Ginsberg between 1952’s “Wild Orphan” and 1956’s “Howl.”

After reading the book, it is clear that Ginsberg has a thorough understanding of the styles and traditions that came before him. The author touches on a number of styles of writing in addition to his breath line form. Ginsberg writes the poem “A Supermarket in California” as a prose poem, where he pays homage to one of his influences, Walt Whitman. As he chases Whitman up and down the isles of the supermarket, Ginsberg connects himself to Whitman through the common longing to be America’s poet. Ginberg writes, “Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love…” There is a definite feeling throughout the entire book that something has been lost in America, and Ginsberg wants to be the one to rediscover it.

There is no doubt that Ginsberg and the rest of the writers of the Beat generation partook in their fair share of drug and alcohol use, and Ginsberg is able to capture these frantic, exciting times in his poetry. The author recounts true stories from his life and the lives of his closest friends in these poems, repeatedly hitting on the theme question: What is America, and how does one find it? While the poems in this book are not necessarily connected through a single, uniting concept, the majority of the poems reflect Ginsberg and the Beats’ desire to rediscover America for their generation.

Poetry Review: Susan Minot

In her collection of poetry, “Poems 4 A.M.,” Susan Minot focuses on the mixed emotions associated with loving someone, primarily the feelings of heartache, betrayal, and loss experienced when men refuse to commit or lie about their true intentions. Her poems have a raw wounded tone to them, and appear to be written when the memories of failed relationships are still fresh in her consciousness. Minot is constantly questioning the ability of men to stay faithful to one woman, and she struggles with her own desires as a human being to find love, while exploring the possibility that true love does not exist.

 

           I dive into a pile of leaves

and hit the ground hard.

Would that these rocks lodged here

so fixed and stern

would give me something fixed and firm

as belief.

 

Throughout her collection, Minot expresses a certain vulnerability that is evident by her fractured sense of self; her sense of identity and self worth have been jeopardized by the manipulation of men.

 

            And soon enough you’ll shift your weight

            adjusting to a ruined bed,

then say you need to be alone.

and you’ll give the hand a little squeeze,

and you’ll pat her lightly on the head.

 

By organizing her thoughts and emotions into poetry, Minot is dealing with the emotions and questions she is struggling with, generating a therapeutic escape from the thoughts reverberating in her mind.

 

The title of this collection of poetry, “Poems at 4 A.M,” represents the commonality between the darkness of Minot’s own thoughts and the darkness associated with the night. Glimmers of hope in Minot’s poetry hint that love or happiness may come again, but these glimmers are overshadowed by the same hesitation of belief and doubt that the Sun will remember to return and light a new day. Minot's inability to accept that love is long lasting and true, even in the light of day, is shown by her personification of the world as being cold and hard. The sky like white marble shoulders.

This collection of poems includes many forms, including prose poems, free verse, and sonnets. Minot’s poems are written simply with casual diction, and she usually employs short sentences with the exception of her prose poems. The simplicity of her poems work well with the chosen subject matter, as the emotions experienced by Minot are clearly conveyed to and felt by the reader.

The poetry is broken into sections referring to different places. The first section is labeled “Massachusetts,” which refers to Minot’s current residence and family history. This is an appropriate place to start, as she first sets down her roots, and then expands the universality of her themes and subject matter to include other places, such as “London,” “New York City,” and the “Islands.” The book ends with the poem “Dawn in a Chilmark Dawn” where the poet awakes from deep sleep or mediation, and comes to the conclusion that “no one stays.” Instead, of experiencing a moment of renewal with the morning she is filled with the same sense of gloom that pervades the majority of the poetry in this collection.

today is not a day for poetry

For this assignment, I read Wake-Up Calls by Wanda Phipps. It is a collection, as the cover describes, of 66 “morning poems”. Phipps writes in short free-verse of her sensory experiences in the morning, and of her (often alcohol-filled) last nights. Her changing subject matter makes the audience question what a morning really is. Is it not simply a time for recollection and reflection on the previous days, months, and years? When we sleep, we are allowed a short amount of time to stumble into a state of unconsciousness. When we awake, we spend the first few seconds and minutes realizing our identity and our history once again. This, it seems to me, is what Phipps is writing of.
The author’s diction is simple enough. It is the fractured manner of her lines that make the poetry interesting. Her capitalization is slim and I only spotted two periods in the entire book. Phipps has no problem beginning a line with a noun or a verb. She jumps into her lines, ignoring the common literary courtesy of using transitions. In this way, her verse is truly free verse. She is writing what is in her mind just as it comes to her: jumpy and often illogical.
The titles of her poems are simply numbers: “Poem #1”, “Poem #14”, “Poem #54”. Without suggestive titles, the audience reads the poems without a preconceived notion of what they will address. It seemed almost as if the pieces all ran together and formed one, 82 page poem.
Phipps is excellent at describing the actions of everyday life. She references alcohol and sex and is unafraid of profanity (this reminded me of Meredith’s second poem). This makes her poems real and amusing, they are playfully blunt. Sometimes the poems have a plot or some sort of logic and sometimes they are simply jumbled thoughts put on the page and separated by space. I had to admire her carelessness in entertaining the audience. She writes beautiful, funny, and disgusting words but does not place them in a familiar way so as to make the audience comprehend her words or hold their attention. It is as if she is saying “read them if you want, they’re just poems,”.
Although the poems narrate the life of one woman and can be seen as light-hearted, Phipps does mention larger aspects of life, such as class. Her description of the poorer area of a Black neighborhood is reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
Oftentimes, Phipps repeats phrases like “I am a perfect fool” or “the loss of”. Her repetition and her willingness not to write when the words aren’t there, make her work seem like an inner monologue. Poem #26, for example goes as follows: “today is not a day for poetry.” Phipps’ poems are deliberately intimate. She writes what comes to her without censoring herself or condemning writers’ block.
The collection is a compilation of her written thoughts based around one idea: the morning. Whether she intended them to be read in the morning or whether she wrote them shortly after she woke up is uncertain. But the way in which she writes makes the morning timeless. She describes every part of the day and night in her writing using simple language in short poems.