Journal 5: Ian

Dear Mr. Levine,

I was really captivated by your interview. I really enjoyed how you put your life into perspective with others in order to make a bigger point, one of the few things i picked up on. You talked about how life growing up in Detroit was both a blessing and a curse at the same time, but you really didn't know why. I think it is really clever saying this because it is what you do with our very limited amount of time on earth, so you should exclude all of the bullshit.

I think it is interesting being such a distinguished writer and not really even being recognized for your work, but i think you made a good point in saying that it isn't that part that drives a poet, it really is done for oneself and oneself only. You don't do it for the glitz and glamour that some authors strive their entire lives for because that is really how they are going to make enough money to have anything evoking a normal life. But that doesn't matter, and thats how i think it should be with any profession, but obviously that will never be the case.

I enjoyed the poem You can have it, it seems like so many elements of writing are being put to use here, although it being for the most part a reflective poem. You are talking about how you could give your brother more than what you could give him at the time in the 1950's in Detroit, I really enjoy the thematic theme, and how it is a story. I really like the line "The City Slept. The snow turned to ice. The ice to standing pools or rivers racing in the gutters. The bright grass rose between the thousands of cracked squares, and that grass died". That is a case of sensory overload, to the fullest, yet you are also telling a story.

I hope to take what i have seen from you and apply it to my own writing, it might take some time and experience, but maybe someday it will come to me.