Journal 5 from Katie Vance

Dear Mr. LeVine,

     Before watching the video about you in class, I am ashamed to admit I have never heard of you. I am ashamed to admit that because I liked that video ad wish you were still around so I could learn more about you. It is sad you are no longer here, but your words and poems will live on in the books you have published. Death has not stopped you. You will be able to influence lives long after your death, as long as a reader picks up your book. What struck me most in your interview was how down- to-earth you were. You know how the world worked and that was that. You had your opinions, realized others would disagree with you but that was alright with you. I hope that I am able to be so warm and welcoming to others as you were. If I can achieve that warmth, then death will not stop me either because simple acts of respect and kindness can influence/ change other's lives.

       One thing that struck me from your interview was how you went back and explained your different opinions from the different stages of your life. It showed me how much one can change over the years without becoming someone bitter. It showed me people can grow old and still enjoy life, more so in their later years than their earlier ones. You said you were depressed in your twenties. I find that difficult to believe. Maybe the years were kind to you and helped changed your view. It shows me that I should still continue to wish the best for people even if they seem like meanie heads.

       My favorite poem you shared was "M. Degas Teaches Art and Sciences At Durfee Intermediate School." The way you were able to capture the students viewpoint of a long class was incredible. I have sat in classes where I knew they were going to be long, and I had longed for escape. Even though I have never been to Durfee Intermediate school, I have sat in classes where I felt like the speaker.  The lines "...the room stilled until the long hand of the clock went ti twenty one...and I knew this could go on forever" made me laugh. M. Degas seems like a teacher who wants a specific answer, yet none of the students know what it is so he keeps making them guess. I have had teachers similar and those classes do go on forever.

      I want to read more poems written by you. It seems like it would be fun. I hope you are happy with the life you lead. It seems like it was a fulfilling one for you.

Sincerely,



Katie Vance

Journal 5 from Maddie Nicol

Mr. LeVine,

I greatly admire your modesty and wisdom. You began writing poetry with the intention that it wouldn't last, and in fact, you joke about ever becoming a poet. Thankfully, you did decide to pursue it and shared with the world some terrific stories from your youth, which may not all be true, but the secret behind that will forever stay with you.

I think it's an important subconscious decision not to let death stop you. One of the most relatable things you said in your interview was that you are more afraid of losing someone close to you, such as your wife, than dying yourself. Personally, that, too, it one of my biggest fears. With that being said, the anticipation of death will never stop me. In fact, it has to opposite effect. Ultimately, all I want in life is to experience as much as I can before death, and that includes spending as much time with those who mean most to me.

One of my favorite poems from your reading was You Can Have It, I say 'one of' because they were all terrific. This poem really gets into what it was like for you growing up, including having your twin brother there will you. Being raised in Detroit during the Depression is sure to leave an impression on anybody. Perhaps that why you identify your earlier books as being bitter and angry. My favorite lines of this poem are "We were twenty for such a short time and always in the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt and sweat. I think now we were never twenty." Being the time and place you were in, you must have never got the chance to live like a twenty-year-old today would. This poem also shows how large a role those most important to you play in your life. You recognize that together you are one man, sharing a heart, hands, and a mouth, and that is a powerful statement.

Your poems will continue to fill its readers with all the wild emotions you intended them to have for years to come. Thank you for sharing you stories the best way you knew how.

Warm regards,

Maddie Nicol

Journal 5 from Megan

Mr. LeVine,

             I really enjoy your sense of humor. Your poems and stories enthrall me and leaves me wanting to hear more. In your interview you spoke about how death doesn't stop you. That there is certain things about death that frighten you, like the death of a child or love one. I feel the same way. No parent should have to bury their child. Personally, I could not picture that for myself, I would fall apart. Death itself terrifies me. I am studying to be a nurse/ultra sound tech and I will be dealing with death. I have only dealt with death once in my immediate family and with that only experience I don't know how I will handle death of varied ages and loved ones. I don't even think I could tell someone that their child/ loved one didn't make it. But, since this is my dream job I will have to learn to accept the naturally of death. My death? I'm not gonna lie, I think about it. There are days I accept the fear and days I deny I will ever die. The fear of death will not stop me from my dream job or from my living my life because death doesn't have a date so we must live while we can.
          In your interview you spoke about how you had a dream about your friend calling you and you directing him to all these sights he wouldn't be able to afford and when you awoke you thought of yourself as an asshole. You said you found this dream superstitious and took a week off work to lay in bed and write poems. I don't understand what you were superstitious about? You worried that you weren't making enough money and felt like you needed to write to make money? Or were you worried your friend was coming? The poems you wrote over and over that week were about the friend and the dream in different aspects. Would you please explain this further?
         There was two poems that really stuck out to me, The Theory of Prosody and M. Degas Teaches Art And Science At Durfee Intermediate School- Detroit, 1942. I can relate to both of these poems, but my most favorite was The Theory of Prosody. I love this poem because I personally have two cats. You described them perfectly in this poem (even though the cat has nothing to do with prosody). The line- "When Nelle was in her prime she used to sit behind me as I wrote." My cats, both, try to squeeze themselves behind me while I do anything with paper or the computer. If I have papers lying around, they will lay on them. If I set my pen down, I will find it knocked on the floor. Sometimes when I write the cats will pat my hand because they wish I would pet them. I also am comforted by my cats, they will lay in between my laptop and my stomach or in bed they will both lay by my chest. This poem was my favorite because even though the poem's title is about prosody, the relationship between a writer and their cat is perfectly executed.
       Thank you for sharing your poems and stories with us. They will forever be read and told to many.

With Regards,


Megan Wittkopf

Journal Four: Ian

Part One: Hugo i think has an interesting style of describing his surroundings and how life was happening right in front of him. Chapter 8 of hugos book deals mostly with his trip to Italy during WWII. He recounts on page 77 his encounter in a tiny hotel bar, seeing only English soldiers in this tiny part of Italy. "One day in Foggia, I found a little hotel bar. The only other people there were the bartender and three English soldiers". He seems to explain the small details that an average reader of literature such as myself would not notice or even forget. He takes those tiny little details and creates a great sense of feeling and really seeing the location through literature. There were bigger things going on in the world at that time, but he was only focused on what was right in front of him.

Chaper 9, titled "How poets make a living", i thought was going to be rather interesting because i still don't know how a poet could make his or herself a comfortable living, hell authors make barely any money, so how can someone make any kind of money from writing 20-30 lines of mostly rhyming words? These were some of the questions that i thought of when reading this chapter. Hugo seemed to sum up his career on the last page of the book. "I suppose I haven't done anything but demonstrated how I came to write a poem, some what turns me on, or used to, and how, at least for me, what does turn me on lies in a region of myself that could not be changed by the nature of my employment" (109). I think the point he is trying to make is that he does not look at his occupation as being a poet, it is more of a lifestyle and way of expressing ones feelings and inner thoughts, I don't think he even cared if he got paid for his work or not. Because to make money a book of poems has to be published, your private work, out for the world to see. Some people seem to like the private side of writing poems, you do them for yourself, not necessarily for others. I think he means that one has to really have a passion for the craft, in order for it to take them anywhere in life.

Part Two: Making poetry is something that I think is much more satisfying than say writing a paper for an english class, because it gives you all the freedoms that you would ever really desire in writing. Essays always have to go by a prompt, and usually you end up changing and altering the paper in order to fill those requirements on the rubric, sometimes completely ruining the point you are trying to make because you don't know how to explain it. I have struggled for a number of years trying to wrap my head around this concept and i realize that nothing is really ever going to change because that is as important a skill as any you can take away from primary and post-secondary education. Writing poetry, you still have to abide by the boundaries set by the type of poem that you are trying to create, but that is pretty much it, and thats what i like. You can write about what you want, and you can write it the way you want to write it. And learning to balance those two skills can be something that will really help me in whatever career path i choose, the ability to write effectively to garner a response from the reader. If you can do that, the world is your oyster.

Journal Four

In chapter eight Hugo speaks about reputation and how it is hard to understand how anyone nice could get into a war. I like the quote " I didn't know how good the poem would be but it would be honest and I would like it  because it wouldn't be any  tougher than the human heart needs to be." I feel like he is telling us to soften our hearts towards others. Just because a place has any sort of a reputation, doesn't mean we need to toughen our hearts or hide our hearts from them. We need to be equally loving to everyone, not just the ones who are hospitable towards us.

Chapter 9 states "But no job accounts for the impulse to find  and order those bits and pieces of yourself that can come out only in the most unguarded moments, in the wildest, most primitive phrases we shout alone at the mirror. and no job modifies the that impulse or destroys it." I love this quote especially because he is referring to a job for a person not just a poet. He is correct though, no other job would let you show every aspect of you. yes. you'll be judges, but those people leave and the others will understand and accept you.

 What I have learned about my poems, comparing them to our books, is that I can write different styles with the help from our books. Similarly I could use metaphors and free verse. Differently I never thought about how important enjambment can be and how it can change a poem drastically.  Another difference was the use of stanza's to help my poem form. Similarly, I understood the basics of poetry but the book helped me learn how to make the basics better, overall better poems.

My process from writing a poem is to find a topic, style, and method of writing. Once I begin writing my first "mood" will most likely change. I write in free verse to help get all my ideas and words on the paper. When I need to rhyme, this is where I begin to struggle. When using symbols, octaves, or sonnets, I focus so hard on rhyme that I feel like it comes doesn't come out well. I  am not satisfied with the poem because I don't feel like I have said everything I wanted to say thus the poem feels fake and cookie cuter to me.

Journal Four from Maddie

Part One:
What I loved about chapter 8 is how much Richard Hugo took away from his first trip to Italy. He took complete advantage of being somewhere foreign. Most war stories are about just that, the war. But there was so much more to his story, and he took so much more in. He remembers specific encounters in places as trivial as a hotel bar, "One day in Foggia, I found a little hotel bar. The only other people there were the bartender and three English soldiers" (pg 77). He continues after quoting their conversation, "I've never forgotten that exchange. They seemed worldly to me, their view wide and deep" (pg 78). There is just something so real about how he tells his experience of WWII. On page 85 he talks about a casual run-in with a native woman and her asking him for cigarettes, which he denies her for. He goes on to say "I've made far worse mistakes than refusing that woman cigarettes, but no mistake came back so often." I know I can relate to the feeling of having one specific regretful memory return to my mind time and time again, even if it is silly.

From the title of chapter 9, "How Poets Make a Living," I thought this chapter had nothing to offer me, but of course Richard Hugo proved me wrong. On the final page of the book, Hugo writes "I suppose I haven't done anything but demonstrated how I came to write a poem, sown what turns me on, or used to, and how, at least for me, what does turn me on lies in a region of myself that could not be changed by the nature of my employment. But it seems important (to me even gratifying) that the same region lied untouched and unchanged in a lot of people, and in my innocent way I wonder if it is reason for hope. Hope for what? I don't know. Maybe hope that humanity will always survive civilization" (pg 109). From this, I took that it is important to not forget who we are. Regardless of our environment, our work, or any other factors, that part inside of us must never be changed by the outside world. This holds true to everyone, not just poets.

Part Two:
I have taken in a lot of the advice Richard Hugo gives in this book. As someone who has virtually no experience writing poems, I found almost everything he discussed helpful. Before this book, and this class, I would have written a poem based on what each sentence literally meant. I would have never thought throwing in a word simply because you like the sound of it would work, but clearly it does. There have been times where I have gone back and tweaked my poem for class after reading a section in Hugo. As far as my individual writing, the setting I write in is important. Every poem I have written has always been done sitting at my desk at home listening to music, but there can't be any lyrics in the music or I can't hear myself think. I find myself struggling most with my first two lines. The start of my poem is always the most difficult, however I am sure that's not uncommon. I'm looking forward to our work shop day and hopefully getting some great feedback on my poem!

Journal Four: Dana Dreher

The most important idea in chapter eight, for me, was that World War II wasn't just a story in the history books. I'm young - I'm turning 19 in 11 days - and World War II was 4 of my lifetimes ago. One generation from now, only the history books and the old black-and-white video tapes will remain. Reading about Hugo, someone who has almost modern takes on the writing process talk about WWII so personally, in non-archaic language, makes it seem so real.
He even has the gall to crack jokes about that sober time. "We won. If you had seen me bomb, you might have doubts."
I'm not learning much from making my own poems, frankly. Something about the technical aspects of making poems isn't clicking in my head. I've spent ten minutes trying to decide if except is two syllables or one, only to get the wrong answer. I've tried to sit down and figure out iambic parameter, but the phrases "stressed syllables" and "unstressed syllables" are gibberish to me. I'm not a bad student. I'm not awful at english. Yet when I sit down to write my own poems, a single stanza can take forty five minutes and still be garbage.
I'm not looking for praise. I love reading poetry and writing fiction. Trust me, I know the quality of poem I am producing.
I've been learning the most from reading the poems the book has selected and seeing them discuss the elements of the professional poems. I love reading poetry! I do enjoy poetry. I'm learning a lot about it. But I'm struggling so much with creating it, in a way I've never struggled before.

Journal Four: Katie

Part One:
In chapter 8 of Triggering town, I think the fact that Hugo tried to be someone he wasn't was an important idea. Hugo tried to be a brave man while the war was going on and when he returned he came to the conclusion he won't ever be a brave man. This is important because it seems people tend to aspire to be like someone else, and feel like they always fall short. Once Hugo embraced his sensitive side, he felt better about his experience in Italy when he returned. He states "I am not sure why I'd come back, but I felt it must be the best reason in the world." Hugo went on a journey to finally come to peace with himself, and I think people, including me, show learn from his experience so we do not waste time in our lives.

In chapter 9, I think the idea that is most valuable is the idea that everyone is human and deserves to be treated as such. He claims he worked with  a man named "C" and the that "C was easy to dislike if you only saw his surface." Then he goes on explaining why C was misunderstood, and that even he (Hugo) realized C was a person with feelings and deserves to be treated as a human. I think it's a lesson everyone should learn, and if people treated each other with more kindness then the word would be a happier place.

Part Two:
Learning poems from the book is helpful because it helps me get my ideas out onto paper in a way readers can understand it (hopefully). However the bad thing about the book is that it sometimes limits my ideas into a certain amount of line and syllables. Either way my poem is created and I feel better because of it!

My process of getting poems starts with me finding inspiration, which can be very tricky to find. Once I find it, the rest of the poem comes much more easily for me. I may have a difficult time finding the right word or phase, but that gets remedied soon enough. I tend to struggle when I have a great idea and I see the picture of it in my mind, but I have no idea how to transfer the picture into words. I tend to get all worked up, and no work can get done when I am in that state. I also like to write when it is quiet, so my opportunities are slim on when I can write because I tend to be around noise more often than not. Writing poems is not always the easiest but I am able to write them eventually.

Reading connections for the last Two Chapters of Hugo. From Mike Lohre

Students,

I tried to do a little research and internet work to give me a sense of place and time for Richard Hugo's book.  I was struck by how important it was for him to go back to Italy, even 20 years later, to try to find places and memories that he could not escape.  In some ways the trip is a metaphor for writing.

Here's some fun stuff about Italy, the times, the food, drinks and the cantinas he spoke of as now being lost to globalization.

Popular songs during the war:

http://youtu.be/kOO8Gzr__zc  Benny Goodman song "Don't Be That Way"

http://youtu.be/j2fbOAyNOpM  original Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael

http://youtu.be/DjU6ZjrQulc  Stardust later made popular by Nat King Cole

Food and drinks they spoke of having in Italy

Pasta e fagioli, meaning "pasta and beans", is a traditional meatless Italian dish, with peasant roots.  Now in vogue in all social classes.

See website for more on this popular plum brandy.

http://postprohibition.com/liquor-cabinet/strega/

Strega.  

http://www.slivovitz.us/

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/02/what-is-slivovitz-best-brands-plum-brandy-marska-navip-rudolf-jelinek.html

Language

https://translate.google.com/?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&client=tw-ob#it/en/troppo%20fame

Troppo tensione.  Troppo miseria. Troppo fame. means "Too much fear.  Too much misery.  Too much hunger."

https://translate.google.com/?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&client=tw-ob#it/en/come%20mio%20fratello

come mio fratello means "like a brother"

Places and Maps

Cerignola
https://www.google.com/maps/place/71042+Cerignola+FG,+Italy/@41.2626817,15.896163,9z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x13383195503ac599:0x40f7058ccbfd0d2e

Huge stone church in Cerignola.

Spinazzola
https://www.google.com/maps/place/76014+Spinazzola+BT,+Italy/@40.965786,16.0895029,10z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x1338431450de3d31:0x7f25e56c0f90a5d7

From the 460th Bomb Group historian, writing about Spinazzola:

"Records show that Spinazzola existed as far back as the third century B.C. It was situated along the Roman road known as the Appian Way, which extended from Rome to the port city of Brindisi on the southern Italian coast. Opened in 321 B.C.,this road was built to connect Rome with the southern provinces of the peninsula, with Africa and the East. One could travel from Rome to Brindisi in 13/14 days. It is probable that most who served with the 460th Bomb Group (H) were unaware that the narrow, dusty tree-lined road that ran along the north side of the 460th air base was so historically significant."

Seattle and Boeing. Where the Admiral lived.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?oe=UTF8&t=h&ie=UTF8&msa=0&mid=zjuyk18FfWKU.kmXvsVROgIUo

This was Boeing Plant 2 and the company actually built it to look like a village from the air to keep it from getting bombed.

B-17 Flying Fortress, the most famous product of these Boeing wartime plants.

From Boeing website: "Companies around the country coordinated their war efforts. B-17s were built at Boeing, Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed Aircraft factories. As American men went to war, women built airplanes. Thousands of women, symbolized by "Rosie the Riveter," took up the slack in the workforce, both at Boeing and at the Douglas Aircraft Co. At Boeing, they helped boost production from 60 planes per month in 1942 to an astounding 362 planes per month by March 1944 -- at one point the Seattle plant rolled out 16 planes in 24 hours. A total of 12,731 B-17s were produced around the country; of these Boeing built 6,981."

Metaphor Found Poem Exercise from Dana

Your touch is like

like the motor

of a Harley

Revving

after a long winter.

Stuck, want to Go

Running

like Still sand Through the cottonwood tree

green leaves- comforted, yet unsure.

feel invigorating Wind in my hair.

school student’s hot holiday summer days.

and what will happen?

everyone’s got to suffer To Get To a reunion

where they party.

being in elementary school

family Driving you

where they like.

Metaphor Found Poem Exercise from Katie

Your touch is


Like an alarm that won't turn off
        and only grows louder
Like the motor of a Harley
        revving up after a long winter
Like driving to a family reunion
        unsure about what will happen and yet
              you still feel comforted
Like wind through the green
         leaves of a cottonwood tree
Like running through a sprinkler
        on a  hot summer's day,
invigorating

Metaphor Found Poem Exercise from Maddie Nicol

Your Touch Is Like

Like wind, through the
green leaves of a
Cottonwood tree.

Like the feeling of 71
on my skin,
when I'm going on 75.

Like running through a
sprinkler, on a hot summer's
day, invigorating.

Like living in a hurricane, where
you get swept up in the excitement,
and forget how to live.

Like being in a pinball
machine, and I don't know if i'm
blinking points, or ready to shoot
straight down the drain. 

Your touch is impossible to forget.

Metaphor found poem exercise from Ian Webster

Your Voice is like...

like living in a hurricane, 

where you get swept up in the excitement, and forget to live

like being in a pinball machine,

and i don't know if I'm blinking points

like an alarm clock that won't turn off,

and grows louder

Metaphor found Poem Exercise from Megan Wittkopf

Your Touch Is Like

Like sand,
stuck in my hair.
Like the motor of a Harley,
revving,
against my skin.
Like living in a hurricane,
where you get swept up,
in excitement, and
forget,
how to live.
Like wind,
through the green,
leaves of a Cottonwood tree.
Like running,
through a sprinkler on a
hot, summer's day,
invigorating.

Katie Journal 3

The English Canon By Adrienne Su

Its not that the first speakers left out women
Unless they were goddesses, harlots, or impossible loves
Seen from afar, often while bathing.

And it's not that the only parts my grandfathers could have played
Were extras in Xanadu,
Nor that it gives no instructions for shopping or cooking

The trouble is, I've spent my life
Getting over the lyrics
That taught me to brush my hair till it's gleaming,

Stay slim, dress tastefully, and not speak of sex,
Death, violence, or the desire for any of them,
And to let men do the talking and warring

And bringing of the good news. I know a girl's got to protest
These days, but she also has to make money
And do her share of journalism and combat,

And she has to know from the gut whom to trust,
Because what do her teachers know, living in books,
And what does she know, starting from scratch?

Part One: This is a free verse poem, written without meter. I also noted there is some consonance throughout many lines, like the fifth one with the "x's" sounds. It also occurs in line 10 with the "st" sound. The lines form a tercet and well because each stanza has 3 lines within it.

Part Two: I believe this poem is about the author coming to terms with herself and her capabilities. She knows the stereotypes given to women and though they are there, she wants to live outside the box. I feel like the tone is somewhat blue. Not bitter, not depressed, not melancholy, but more of a matter of fact type of tone.  It makes me think because it bring into play a lot of differing sides of being a woman, and whose words to listen to.

another thing

I kind of like the sound
of bitch-   such a word,
seems to leap right off the tongue:
reminds me of a woman looking
 directly at a man
  (and he doesn't like it)
of a woman fighting with her kids
  (but they need it)
of a woman needing something real
 and swearing at the world
  (and the world doesn't have it)
reminds me of when I have to
reach right down
inside me, right into
the fleshy hurt and let it
come inching out-then bursting out
by way of laugh/cry, and cry
being the best of all because then
the ocean that lives within
me shatters the seawall
of my reason
and washes over my sandyface and
I catch them on my tongue
and replenish the salt that evaporates
between tidal waves;
and maybe when I'm
reaching down to
fathoms of this sea
I never dreamed existed,
and the pull of the moon is
stronger than usual,
 maybe I look like a bitch, probably
because that's what
I am.

I think this poem is a prose poem because it doesn't have stanzas and I don't think it fits into any of the other forms. The tone seems to be light, but the more you read, the more serious the poem is. It's almost a juxtaposition where she's like "I like this offensive word," (making fun of it, being light) then she's like "of a woman fighting with her kids" (suddenly serious and dark.) She's got a powerful metaphor where she connects the idea of laughing and crying, but mostly crying to being like overcome by the sea. She's got all of this imagery about the beach and it's easy to get lost in it and forget she's talking about crying, but that's okay because it's the same feeling. You get the same feeling from the two, so if you get lost and forget what the metaphor was about.
I love this poem. Especially that last metaphor, where she's crying with the sea metaphor, and then the sea metaphor becomes a metaphor for deep emotion. "Maybe when I'm reaching down to fathoms of this sea I never dreamed existed, and the pull of the moon is stronger than usual, maybe I look like a bitch, probably because that's what I am." She's saying that yeah, when she's being emotional, deeply emotional, she's a bitch. Because that's what she is. It's like the entire poem is a response to some jerk who called her a bitch for feeling deeply and expressing that emotion.

Megan Journal Three

Teaching the Ape to Write Poems

They didn't have much trouble
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
and whispered into his ear:
"You look like a god sitting there.
Why don't you try writing something?"

This poem uses imagery- mental pictures or impressions that evoke one of the five senses. You can picture perfectly, in your mind, that there is an male ape who is strapped into a chair, pencil tied, and about to write. This poem is free versed because there isn't any meter or rhythm meter. This poem uses enjambment- the alternative to breaking a line at a mark of punctuation is to wrap it in the middle of a sentence so that the related words are different poetic lines. There is a use of end-stops- a period, semi colon, comma, or dash throughout the enjambment of the poem (high lighted in yellow)

I personally love this poem because it makes me think of evolution. I feel the mood is poking fun because it plays with religion and evolution, "you look like a god sitting there" but yet they're trying to make this ape write, evolution. I like the imagery and the enjambment. Each line read I can picture and then the next line adds to the picture to see the total scene at the end of the poem. Science shows how apes and man are closely related but yet they still tie the pencil and nail down the paper. It kind of mocks science's comparison to man. Even though the first line says they didn't have much trouble teaching the ape to write, it sounds like they had some trouble! I just love how it can have so many meanings and can sound sarcastic and then sound simple and funny, or it can mock a huge religious argument!

Ian: Journal Three

Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races: by Lorna Dee Cervantes

In my land there are no distinctions.
The barbed wire politics of oppression
have torn down long ago. The only reminder
of past battles, lost or won, is a slight
rutting in the fertile fields.

In my land
people write poems about love,
full of nothing but contented childlike syllables.
Everyone reads Russian short stories and weeps.
There are no boundaries.
There is no hunger, no
complicated famine or greed.

I am not a revolutionary.
I don't even like political poems.
Do you think i can believe in a war between races?
I can deny it. I can forget about it
when I'm safe,
living on my own continent of harmony
and home, but i am not
there.

I believe in revolution
because everywhere the crosses are burning,
sharp-shooting goose-steppers round every corner,
there are snipers in the school...
(I know you don't believe this.
You think this is nothing
but faddish exaggeration. But they
are not shooting at you.)

I'm marked by the color of my skin.
The bullets are discrete and designed to kill slowly.
They are aiming at my children.
These are facts.
Let me show you my wounds: my stumbling mind, my
"excuse me" tongue, and this
nagging preoccupation
with the feelings of not being good enough.

These bullets bury deeper than logic.
Racism is not intellectual.
I can not reason these scars away.

Outside my door
there is a real enemy
who hates me.

I am a poet
who yearns to dance on rooftops,
to whisper delicate lines about joy
and the blessings of human understanding.

I try. I go to my land, my tower of words and
bolt the door, but the typewriter doesn't fade out
the sounds of blasting and muffled outrage.
My own days bring me slaps on the face.
Every day i am deluged with reminders
and this is not
my land
and this is my land

I do not believe in the war between races.

but in this country
there is war.

Part One: I believe this poem could be considered a Prose Poem. Because the author is telling a story, but using incredible sensory imaging. It almost seems like she is telling a story to a friend, but we know she isn't and i think that has a great effect on the reader. There really isn't much Rhythm to this poem and could definitely be considered an experimental piece of writing. Metering I believe comes into the picture in this poem, simply because there really is no sentence structure. The Syntax in this poem is very interesting, she creates a great cliffhanger effect after every sentence it seems, and its almost as if her sentences are completed by fragments, which might help her convey a point easier.

Part Two: I believe this poem was a statement that was never meant to be heard, i think that the author didn't really seem like publishing this poem would do any good because its more of something for her to write, rather than something made for others to read. The tone varies, from calm and reflective to stern and angry. She is trying to create a mood that describes how she, an african-american, felt during the very turbulent 1960's. She had to get her emotions out in whatever way she could, and she did. I really liked the flow of this poem a lot because it takes you on a roller coaster of emotions, which is what i believe the author intended to do.

Ian: Journal Two

A little belated but hello fellow bloggers! I want to start off by saying that i am looking forward to all that is in store for this year and can't wait to really get into the swing of things! A little background on me: My name is Ian Webster and i am currently a freshman at Ohio State Marion but have never taken a class up there, as the Delaware C-State is much more conveniently located, and after this year if all goes according to plan i will be attending main campus in the fall. Overall, i consider myself a pretty laid-back person but i can be committed and enthused about anything if i am into it, from sports to work and even school. I attended Olentangy Liberty High School right off of Home Road and it was certainly a great four years. I played football, ran track, even got some ultimate frisbee mixed in (which is a great game, highly recommend it). If i could describe myself as a student in one word i would say I'm a Procrastinator because i always found myself completing assignments hours sometimes minutes before it is due, one of the parts about me i would change. In my free time i enjoy playing and watching sports, riding motorcycles, exercising, and sometimes if i want to pick up a book, i get anything sports related and i like reading different autobiographies, i'd say the last book that really had an impact on me was Walter Issacson's Jobs, the autobiography about Steve Jobs that gave such an incredible insight into how he was such a great businessman and visionary, and was overall just a phenomenal read.

Something i noticed in reading our Creative Writing book, is the amount of lyric poems throughout the first chapters of the book. They are the most appealing to read, and i think that they are the easiest to understand as well. Something that struck me about the text of the book was that there are several different ways you can interpret poems, and that odds are, you may read a poem, think you know what it's about, and its about something entirely different! And also the many different meanings of words and phrases that you would never even really think about.

I thought the poem Homage to my Hips was rather interesting. It was written with a style that seemed to get its point across by just using fragments and short statements that have meaning. I also liked the way the stanzas were spaced, they seem to put emphasis on the last part of the sentence in the poem.
Like the three lines of the poem, the third line is three words, those types of fragments can have a profound effect on how a poem can be interpreted.