:)

hey all, i havent really been up to date on anything in my life lately so this is my first blog. first off i liked the contract with god. it was kinda weird with some of the stories like the one jewish kid who found the stone...then the story just ended, it seemed like there was no point to it. but thats jsut that one story, i liked the book overall. it was a simple read and fun. however, i do think that we go way to in depth in trying to find the hidden meanings of the novels and things like that. it is an english class and all but english teacher have always tried to get me to "dig deeper" when i just dont see anything else. im a straight up person so i tell it how it is, and i try to find some meaning in some of the works of thee authors but beyond a certain point i think were just bullshitting each other and makin stuff up. its the same way with art history and movies. critics always try to find some secret meaning or read way to into an art piece, but when the artist is asked they usually just say i thought it looked nice, there was no meaning to it. and so ends my bitching session of the night.

End of the Semester

So I guess it is that time of the year where everything is winding up. It seems like after Thanksgiving break everything has FLOWN by. While it seems to be relief that my other three classes are finally ending, Poetry is one class here that I will miss. I came into this class very unsure of what to expect; that is what was expected of me as far as creative writing. I was also worried about the workshop aspects as well. I found myself asking questions such as: how will people understand my poetry? Will I be able to take criticisms well? Will I grow as a writer? But after a couple of weeks of getting into the routine of writing poems about specific topics and reading published poetry, I found myself at ease with my own writing as well as interpreting other people’s poetry. One of the most beneficial aspects about this class was being able to communicate with peers about our poetry in a positive environment. Although it seemed that people were a little bit more reserved in the beginning, everyone seemed to open up very well towards the end. I do feel that I also learned firsthand from Theo about how professional writers work. This class served as a great introductory course for poetry writing, as well as creative writing.

politics of hunger

I attended the poetry reading some time ago called politics of hunger. I wasn't sure quite what to expect out of the reading and what sorts of poems people would find to fit the topic. It ended up being really interesting. I think the aspect of the reading that makes it the most memorable for me is the fact that it was on the Wednesday the day after the election. Everyone who read just could not say enough about the change that is happening and how our country is heading in a new and good direction. There was a great variety of people reading, some professors, community members, and students. There were two separate people who read in different languages, which bothered me at first because the majority of the people, myself included, couldn't understand, but I ended up liking it. These people were sharing how they felt about politics of hunger, using who they are to get it across. It also sounded really beautiful, especially if I just closed my eyes and listened. Another man went up and read an ars poetica, which is funny because we started talking about them the next day, or very soon after. I remember that he went up and said that he thinks that everyone should have an ars poetica. Well, I will have a completed one very soon.

And this is a pig you don't need to see.

My Mum sent my roommate and I a package full of little wrapped presents and chocolates. I opened one this morning and got a mini anteater named “Antsy”.
“Beatitude Anthology” is sitting on my desk as I write. It’s a bizarre old poetry book. One of my favorite stanzas:
“I dreamt
& saw her face in a hothouse sequence
kiss my loins & steam my ears .
I remember she had a big nose . O
The grief burned sadly, like the leaves
On that street in Rockville Center”
-David Meltzer
There’s a poet named simply “Jo” in the credits. She writes sweet little poems that are spread out all across the page. They’re a little cliché, but somehow sincere.
I’d really like to be an artist or a poet but 1) what if I run out of material and I can’t find the wire of inspiration ever again? 2)……
This all sounds too whiney, I’m moving on.
Instead of buying tissues, I use toilet paper rolls out of the bathroom. Antsy’s tail fits neatly into the center of the roll. His snout points straight up, sniffing my room for even tinier ants.
I wish I could leave on Monday but I think I’ll have to wait until Wednesday. I love doing laundry. I want to do everyone’s laundry on my floor. I bet I could do that in two days. The laundry rooms are always busy but I could practically live down there if I don’t have classes. The trouble is, I only know around two people on my floor and that’s not nearly enough laundry.

Break posting, uploaded late

Blog over break

I sure hope I read something in the next couple days! I was on my bum all weekend and I got out of the gates running today. I’ve done more work than I usually do in one day already. I brought one book home, but I’m just not amped on it… It’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” all the reports are good, but it just moves so slowly. Oh well. Reading is hard for me at school, normally I read a ton, but when I am studying it can take a lot of the fun out of reading. I am a social person, so I can’t balance work, friends, and reading for pleasure at all.

Still, how fortunate are we to be able to read for pleasure? That is a blessing not many people in history have had, and I don’t for a second take it for granted. I almost wish I could write a book but I don’t know what it would be about. Maybe a biography, a fictional biography, about a nun. I hope I can eventually learn to figure out something descriptive like Tom Robbins style. He’s definitely my favorite writer. Definitely different.

ars poetica

Before this class, I had never even heard the words  "Ars Poetica". So, this concept is pretty new to me. I have written two very different ars poeticas. I wrote one that was more of a biography about myself than a reason I write poetry. It talked about this semester and the events that have occurred and how everything has affected my person, myself. The other one I wrote in class when we had the last half hour to do so. It talked more about my poetry and who my poems were meant for. It talked about the things I find important in my life and why I write about what I do. Now that I have looked over these, it is difficult to decide which ars poetica to use. How do you know? It is really hard to capture everything you want to about yourself in only thirty or so lines. But, at the same time, it would not be a better poem if it were to be one hundred lines, I think it would just ramble. So, I need to decide what I think makes an ars poetica important and what would benefit reading my portfolio. Tough call.

Good luck everyone on the last week of class and finals!

coconutshell limbs

I am in the process of major revision of three poems. It’s much easier than I thought it would be. I was thinking about adding endings or visual accompaniment to a work of art and how permanent that always feels. For example, reading the end of the Harry Potter series made all of the possible ending I had in my head conform to the ending that J.K. Rowling wrote. Similarly, when I saw the first Harry Potter movie, the actor who played Hagrid became what Hagrid looked like in the books even though I had a very different picture of him in my head when I began the trilogy. I find it a bit sad that literary creations are the product of someone’s mind that is somehow untouchable by other people. Anything that is written down (besides purely factual documents) is made in someone’s mind. The outcome of story is made-up. So, why is my ending any less true than the author’s ending? Why is my image of a character less correct than the author’s image? Sure, it’s their work, but if the characters are to exist in my mind as well as in the author’s, then I can manipulate them as much as the author. This thought led to the thought that poems really can end in anyway that the audience wants them to. If the audience is willing to abandon the belief that an actual event exists on the page, then the meaning can change without guilt or constraint…but perhaps that’s not possible. We like our stories and trust our storytellers.