ah, here we are, blog number 2. i really liked working in the groups that we did, in the size that we did because the whole class would have been way too long, its hard enough to limit the time of each persons comments to the alloted hour and a half already, so the smaller groups definately make it easier and more fun. i am looking forward to mixing up the groups and seeing what types of poetry other people write or are interested in, and im also interested to hear what they have to say about mine. I came across a book recently, that I bought last year I believe, its called the rose that grew from concrete by Tupac Shakur, yes the rapper. He has some really cool poetry and actually I am performing one of his poems, the poem ‘the rose that grew form concrete’ which the books name was based on, in my performance of poetry class with randy hill. If anyone has a chance to take that class it is really cool and I and jak are both in it and its an easy goin and fun class. I cant wait to workshop our next sets of poems, peace
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday Funday
I'm blogging today because I'm feeling totally overwhelmed with all my writing. I love when I have days when writing seems to come so easily to me, and I can just sit at my computer and type out pages of words. Today is definitely not one of those days. I guess I'm just very easily distracted. I've been trying to read a book for the past week, and every time I sit down to read I think of the laundry I should be doing, the food I could be eating, or I think of the things I need to tell my roommate. I'm making up excuses because I don't want to read this one particular book. I love reading, but I read for pleasure and I read books I relate to or connect with. I can't relate to a book written in the 1960's about Americans living in the prairies between the Montana and Canadian border when I've never stepped foot in Montana. Yes, that sounds like a very superficial reason not to enjoy a book, but I cannot find a way to enjoy this literature. It's funny how some genres of literature and written art are appealing to some and not to others. It reminds me how individually unique every human is, and how enormously vast the literary world is. I'm blabbering. This post is the perfect display and example of how my mind is working. Look at how many tangents I've gone on. I have to get back to my "reading"...hope your work is going better than mine.
A random question. Since definitions can change.
freedictionary.com's definition of a poem is: a verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme. But if you've been with poetry for a while now you must have noticed the changes poetry has been going through. For example, (because I do not want to upset persnickety classmates, who will and must point out that I am making a universal generalization of poetry) compare romantic poetry and contemporary poetry, again. The concepts of and in poetry have changed into something that is more abstract and connects the readers on a human level (relatable), instead glued to events or historical facts. Because poetry is morphing with the times, do you think it is possible for poetry to be visual icons? Once upon a time when AOL was popular we use to type out, 'laugh out loud,' soon laugh out loud became 'LOL.' LOL became a semi colon and a 'D' (:D). In the years to come will this be poetry? Must we involve words to create a poem?
printing presses....
So I just finished up looking through the websites for tomorrow's class and I was really surprised by the variety of the presses. I really liked the documentary about the old fashioned printing press. It made the actual act of printing and publishing seem so much more important than what is just done on computers. The printing process is so involved and intricate that it almost reflects the exact process of writing, which I found to be really interesting. A poet spends so much time becoming attached to their work and enraptured with finding the exact word to sound and fit precisely into their piece, but then it is coldly copied and printed quickly. There is no intimate connection between writing and printing with modern technology, but with the old fashioned methods, the process is slow, involved, and collaborative. There becomes something poetic in the act of printing, not merely just of writing and I found this to be really intriguing. I also really liked the flying fish press. I thought it was amazing how they created an art out of publishing books, something that is usually not considered to be the artistic piece of the publishing process. Their books almost didn't require words or writing, because they were so intricate and beautiful themselves. I find there to be something fascinating and exciting about publishing books through processes that are just as beautiful as the words that were chosen to go inside them.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
So So So....
Well,
I'm writing this post because I don't know what to write for my next poem. I think "Black Ink" was pretty effective, but I know that "Forget I ever started this" will be a little more difficult to understand. These poems that I write are normally about the emotions I'm going through at the moment.
When writing the last poem...It might have been a little confusing because it was out of anger. There's a lot within it which some might not understand. This poem was about a friendship that lasted over five years and ended because of a betrayal. It's not only this poem that was about this friendship, but so was black ink.
I'm going to try something completely different from what I normally do. I'm going to try to write about a topic without just writing whatever comes to me. I don't know how this will work out, but I'm hoping it will be fine. I think i'm going to talk about the casino, but I'm not sure yet. There's a lot I want to write about, but a lot that only seem to come out when i'm not writing it up.
I'm hoping this poem is effective and that people understand it. Well, I dont know if anyone understood the second poem because it wasn't workshopped yet.
I'm writing this post because I don't know what to write for my next poem. I think "Black Ink" was pretty effective, but I know that "Forget I ever started this" will be a little more difficult to understand. These poems that I write are normally about the emotions I'm going through at the moment.
When writing the last poem...It might have been a little confusing because it was out of anger. There's a lot within it which some might not understand. This poem was about a friendship that lasted over five years and ended because of a betrayal. It's not only this poem that was about this friendship, but so was black ink.
I'm going to try something completely different from what I normally do. I'm going to try to write about a topic without just writing whatever comes to me. I don't know how this will work out, but I'm hoping it will be fine. I think i'm going to talk about the casino, but I'm not sure yet. There's a lot I want to write about, but a lot that only seem to come out when i'm not writing it up.
I'm hoping this poem is effective and that people understand it. Well, I dont know if anyone understood the second poem because it wasn't workshopped yet.
Monday, January 25, 2010
hi!
My name is Phoebe Wood and I’m from Newton, Massachusetts, about twenty minutes away from Boston. I’ve lived in the same town my whole life, but moved when I was four from one part of it to another. My neighborhood is pretty quiet and there are a lot of little kids and dogs which makes everyone open to conversation. It’s funny, actually; my family got a dog a year ago and we know so many more people because of that. Dog walkers will come up and start talking to my dog and then me, the human holding the leash is an afterthought.
I’m studying English and education. I knew that I wanted to study education and started on the educational studies minor my sophomore year. English as a major happened because I wasn’t sure what to major in and it seemed like a broad enough topic that I wouldn’t be tied down to anything. I like it because I’ve always loved to read but stopped reading as much as I had before around middle school when school work started to pile up. Now I have to read for homework, plus it’s made me a more efficient reader so I usually have an extra book going on the side. Nothing too strenuous; at the moment I’m switching between The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler and Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. As I said, nothing too strenuous. One of my education professors asked us early on why we wanted to be teachers. He said that saying “because I like kids” wasn’t an acceptable answer; we had to think beyond that. As corny as it sounds, I want to be a teacher because it’s thrilling to see a child grasp a concept.
My interests and hobbies include skiing, knitting, soccer, watching movies, reading, spending time with friends, and traveling.
My most memorable workshop experiences come from a techniques of fiction class that I took two years ago, simply because it was the first workshop class I took. I’m very self conscious about my writing and it was scary to have an entire half an hour dedicated to people talking about a story I had written. The first comment, though, was a positive one, a compliment, and after that I was able to take everything in stride. I could have hugged that first person. I now know that people might not always like my writing, I may not always like it, but everyone in these classes giving feedback is doing so with the intention of helping me to improve, and I’m okay with that.
My favorite poem is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam, specifically section 95. It’s sad but a final acceptance of a friend’s death. I suppose I’d like to be able to write something as affecting as that poem. I’d like to avoid clichéd writing, but I tend to fall into it. I’d like to learn to branch out in my poetry writing, rather than sticking to more of the same, as I feel I do.
I’m studying English and education. I knew that I wanted to study education and started on the educational studies minor my sophomore year. English as a major happened because I wasn’t sure what to major in and it seemed like a broad enough topic that I wouldn’t be tied down to anything. I like it because I’ve always loved to read but stopped reading as much as I had before around middle school when school work started to pile up. Now I have to read for homework, plus it’s made me a more efficient reader so I usually have an extra book going on the side. Nothing too strenuous; at the moment I’m switching between The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler and Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. As I said, nothing too strenuous. One of my education professors asked us early on why we wanted to be teachers. He said that saying “because I like kids” wasn’t an acceptable answer; we had to think beyond that. As corny as it sounds, I want to be a teacher because it’s thrilling to see a child grasp a concept.
My interests and hobbies include skiing, knitting, soccer, watching movies, reading, spending time with friends, and traveling.
My most memorable workshop experiences come from a techniques of fiction class that I took two years ago, simply because it was the first workshop class I took. I’m very self conscious about my writing and it was scary to have an entire half an hour dedicated to people talking about a story I had written. The first comment, though, was a positive one, a compliment, and after that I was able to take everything in stride. I could have hugged that first person. I now know that people might not always like my writing, I may not always like it, but everyone in these classes giving feedback is doing so with the intention of helping me to improve, and I’m okay with that.
My favorite poem is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam, specifically section 95. It’s sad but a final acceptance of a friend’s death. I suppose I’d like to be able to write something as affecting as that poem. I’d like to avoid clichéd writing, but I tend to fall into it. I’d like to learn to branch out in my poetry writing, rather than sticking to more of the same, as I feel I do.
YES, I get to talk about myself (just kidding...)
Hey, everyone! This is actually my second go at this same blog entry, with these same questions, so this time around I think I'll try to put a new spin on some of them. To start off with, my name is Shaunie -- I know, I know, it isn't exactly one of those names soon-to-be parents go looking for in baby books, but after about fifteen years of absolutely abhorring it, I decided to embrace the strange "S" word. You see, my mother is a very free-spirited, hippie-liberal chick, who enjoys wearing overalls and patchouli perfume every day of her life, which might give you a hint as to why she decided upon my birth to let my older sister, nine at the time, name me. And so, yes, I am called Shaunie -- a title my sibling, Almeda (that one's a kicker too, huh?), chose after a character on the oh so famous television series, "Baywatch." Looking back, I figure it could have been a lot worse. You could all be in class with some weird girl named Pocahontas...Scary, right?
Anyway, I come from a small city called Plattsburgh that's about 2 hours away from Canton. In high-school, I used to complain a lot about my hometown -- that there wasn't enough to do, and that the only people there were to see had the same old faces. After leaving home to go to school, though, I have begun to appreciate it a lot more. I miss my small local shopping mall, bowling alley with a bar next to it, and randomly scattered downtown coffee shops SO much while I am away at college, and of course, some of those "same old faces" I realize are my closest friends, all of whom I wish I could see a lot more of during the year. I guess my new sentiments just prove the old saying true: You don't know what you got til it's gone...And yes, maybe youth is, to an extent, wasted on the young. BUT I like to think I'm not old yet, and so I still have time to make up for a lot of the great things in life I've taken for granted thus far.
Hobbies, you ask? This is always a hard question for me to answer. I'd say I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none, but that's not entirely true, as I'm not even a "jack" at many tasks at all. I do, however, as a writer, highly enjoy reading. Contrary to the stereotype, though, I like getting lost in a great movie story-line just as much as reading a good book (with the exception, only, of the Harry Potter Series) and enjoy almost any activity that helps me escape from some of the mundane and unpleasant realities of the "real-world." If it gives you any clues, over break I watched both the entirety of "The Secret Garden" AND "A Little Princess", and am not ashamed at all! Classics! I also don't like much better than good conversation, long walks in the summertime, trips to the beach, and just spending good old quality time with the people who matter most to me.
As far as writing...well, I've been at it for awhile. I wrote extensively in high-school and exhausted all of the creative writing classes I was offered pretty quickly, and have continued to take advantage of them here, as I declared an English Writing major the Spring Semester of Sophomore year. I'm also a freelance reporter for my local paper, which is a gig I scored from a high-school internship. I couldn't really tell you why I'm studying writing, aside from the fact that I absolutely love it when a sentence, a word, a paragraph, or an entire novel rings true. As I said before, I love delving through worlds that aren't my own, and of course, I love creating them. In specific regards to poetry, some my absolute biggest and favorite influences include Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Walt Whitman, and Allen Ginsberg. All of these writers are people who, in my opinion, have/had a real gift when it came to using "the word" to create solid images, scenes that make you stop and think, "I wish I had come up with that", or, better yet, "I've been there; I've felt that." And, to me, that is precisely what good poetry does.
Writing has always been part of my life, and I have always known, deep down and on the surface, that it is what I would go on to study. That being said, like any writer, I have a lot to work on, and have of course experienced negative criticism, especially regarding my tendency to be overly verbose. All I can say about that, though, is that I'm highly appreciate of it. In the end, it wasn't all the compliments that made me better at what I love to do, it was the critiques that were sometimes hard to accept. So, PLEASE, feel free to pick apart my stuff -- I look forward to it (even if it also makes me grimace sometimes) !
I took Intro to Poetry last semester, and one of the things I am most excited to find out about myself as a writer is that I, too, have the ability to write about more complex, tough, and even uncomfortably painful subjects. My pre-college poetry, though decent, has always been a bit more fluffy, with longer, flowery words that I always felt I needed. I have been please, however, to realize, I don't have to use long, latinate words to get my point across, and can instead write poems with "punch" -- that get right at the heart of the matter. Even so, I'm now where near where I'd like to be in that vein, and my goal for this class largely surrounds continuing on such a journey of power.
Woah, that was a mouth-full (type-full?) I'll see you all in class in about twenty minutes!
Anyway, I come from a small city called Plattsburgh that's about 2 hours away from Canton. In high-school, I used to complain a lot about my hometown -- that there wasn't enough to do, and that the only people there were to see had the same old faces. After leaving home to go to school, though, I have begun to appreciate it a lot more. I miss my small local shopping mall, bowling alley with a bar next to it, and randomly scattered downtown coffee shops SO much while I am away at college, and of course, some of those "same old faces" I realize are my closest friends, all of whom I wish I could see a lot more of during the year. I guess my new sentiments just prove the old saying true: You don't know what you got til it's gone...And yes, maybe youth is, to an extent, wasted on the young. BUT I like to think I'm not old yet, and so I still have time to make up for a lot of the great things in life I've taken for granted thus far.
Hobbies, you ask? This is always a hard question for me to answer. I'd say I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none, but that's not entirely true, as I'm not even a "jack" at many tasks at all. I do, however, as a writer, highly enjoy reading. Contrary to the stereotype, though, I like getting lost in a great movie story-line just as much as reading a good book (with the exception, only, of the Harry Potter Series) and enjoy almost any activity that helps me escape from some of the mundane and unpleasant realities of the "real-world." If it gives you any clues, over break I watched both the entirety of "The Secret Garden" AND "A Little Princess", and am not ashamed at all! Classics! I also don't like much better than good conversation, long walks in the summertime, trips to the beach, and just spending good old quality time with the people who matter most to me.
As far as writing...well, I've been at it for awhile. I wrote extensively in high-school and exhausted all of the creative writing classes I was offered pretty quickly, and have continued to take advantage of them here, as I declared an English Writing major the Spring Semester of Sophomore year. I'm also a freelance reporter for my local paper, which is a gig I scored from a high-school internship. I couldn't really tell you why I'm studying writing, aside from the fact that I absolutely love it when a sentence, a word, a paragraph, or an entire novel rings true. As I said before, I love delving through worlds that aren't my own, and of course, I love creating them. In specific regards to poetry, some my absolute biggest and favorite influences include Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Walt Whitman, and Allen Ginsberg. All of these writers are people who, in my opinion, have/had a real gift when it came to using "the word" to create solid images, scenes that make you stop and think, "I wish I had come up with that", or, better yet, "I've been there; I've felt that." And, to me, that is precisely what good poetry does.
Writing has always been part of my life, and I have always known, deep down and on the surface, that it is what I would go on to study. That being said, like any writer, I have a lot to work on, and have of course experienced negative criticism, especially regarding my tendency to be overly verbose. All I can say about that, though, is that I'm highly appreciate of it. In the end, it wasn't all the compliments that made me better at what I love to do, it was the critiques that were sometimes hard to accept. So, PLEASE, feel free to pick apart my stuff -- I look forward to it (even if it also makes me grimace sometimes) !
I took Intro to Poetry last semester, and one of the things I am most excited to find out about myself as a writer is that I, too, have the ability to write about more complex, tough, and even uncomfortably painful subjects. My pre-college poetry, though decent, has always been a bit more fluffy, with longer, flowery words that I always felt I needed. I have been please, however, to realize, I don't have to use long, latinate words to get my point across, and can instead write poems with "punch" -- that get right at the heart of the matter. Even so, I'm now where near where I'd like to be in that vein, and my goal for this class largely surrounds continuing on such a journey of power.
Woah, that was a mouth-full (type-full?) I'll see you all in class in about twenty minutes!
First Blog
Hello all,
I'm Dominique. Most people call me Dom. I'm a senior Environmental and English combined major with two minors, one in Biology and the other in Outdoor Studies. I know this sounds like a lot, but when you look at it, all these disciplines are really interconnected, which is one of my favorite things about a liberal arts education. I've always been really interested in the environment and the natural world, and in high school I saw myself focusing on the sciences, but knew in the back of my mind that I've always really loved writing. Which is why I'm here. I've never really pictured myself (and still don't) as a person who spends all their time writing, nor do I plan to pursue it as a career. I want to be out in the field doing research in different parts of the world, because natural sciences have always intrigued me the most. But there's something about reading literature and writing that allows me to better understand the world we live in in so many different aspects, and that is why I am interested in English.
Like Jak, I'm also from New York City, although most people who meet me would never guess it. Grew up in an old 1800's tenement building in the East Village with my bathtub (no shower head) in the kitchen, my toilet room in the hallway of the building (outside my apartment), and a ceiling that occasionally caved in. My neighborhood used to be where all the underground artists of all kinds lived and shared and thrived. But the idea of the East Village as a creativity hub is now more a novelty than a reality, for wealthy people with extensive educations and high paying jobs have moved in, pushing a lot of these artists elsewhere. Such is the case with "gentrification" I guess. So, my neighborhood is safer than it's ever been, but I still prefer the junkies huddled on park benches to the college students from Connecticut, Long Island and New Jersey bar hoping with too much make-up and too little clothes talking about how cool New York is.
Anyway, people would probably never guess I'm from New York City because a large chunk of my interests and hobbies involve being outside. On campus I live in the Outing Club themehouse and I love hiking, paddling, climbing, skiing and all of those kinds of activities. I try to go on some sort of outdoor adventure as much as possible and every weekend at school. I also grew up riding horses and I have a horse named Merlin, who lived up at school with me for the first three years, but my mom decided she wanted to keep him at home with her this year (I miss him a lot). I love music, mostly indie/experimental and some folky stuff, and going to concerts. I'd like to pick up the guitar again, so I've started with that, and maybe the harmonica for kicks too. I also really enjoy making things out of wood, I find it to be a really satisfying medium to work with, and I've made a couple things already (bench, paddle, bowls and spoons). I did the Adirondack Semester and the Kenya Semester last spring, and both experiences have influenced me greatly in ways that would take way too long to describe. I love traveling and plan on leading outdoor trips domestically and abroad when I graduate.
This kind of atmosphere of my neighborhood and family got me interested in beat poetry such as Ginsberg, Burroughs, Bukowski, Kerouac, etc and other more contemporary stuff. My father also wrote poetry before he died, and actually knew Allen Ginsberg because he lived a block away from where my parents lived before I was born, and William S. Burroughs as well, so I've been very intrigued by their work because of its connection with and influence on my father, whom I never really got to know. I also really like some poems by Ted Kooser, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Louise Gluck, William Carlos Williams, etc. I've never really taken too much of a liking to the older stuff such as Shakespeare and before, although I've never really given it a chance. I enjoy a lot of the romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Whitman, and have learned a lot about that period of writing from taking a class and because of the period's connection to nature.
After writing all this I feel almost a little uncomfortable, because I don't really like writing too much about myself; I don't want to be tooting my own horn. And maybe that's something I can work on a little this semester, because issues involving the self can also pertain to others if it is phrased right. I don't think that's a priority though. Because my main focus of study has not exactly been emphasized on the English side of things I would really like to read more poetry this semester and broaden my horizons, because I really have not read as much as I feel like I should have by now, and I am ready to get inspired and influenced by other people's work and learn more about different styles of poetry. Some of my writing classes (not my intro poetry class however) have left me kind of uninspired, which is pretty disheartening to me. But, I've always had a pretty positive experience with workshops, although I do wish that people would offer my constructive criticisms rather than just saying "Oh, your poem was pretty good".
The use of language on the page really allows us to explore questions we might not be able to articulate in conversations, but need to be heard (but not necessarily answered). I think good poetry should inspire us to think along with the writer, to inspire a conversation with what the writer is saying and to have the writer create a common sense of wonder with the reader. I think a good poem should leave a lingering feeling in the reader that keeps them thinking about it after they have finished.
I'm Dominique. Most people call me Dom. I'm a senior Environmental and English combined major with two minors, one in Biology and the other in Outdoor Studies. I know this sounds like a lot, but when you look at it, all these disciplines are really interconnected, which is one of my favorite things about a liberal arts education. I've always been really interested in the environment and the natural world, and in high school I saw myself focusing on the sciences, but knew in the back of my mind that I've always really loved writing. Which is why I'm here. I've never really pictured myself (and still don't) as a person who spends all their time writing, nor do I plan to pursue it as a career. I want to be out in the field doing research in different parts of the world, because natural sciences have always intrigued me the most. But there's something about reading literature and writing that allows me to better understand the world we live in in so many different aspects, and that is why I am interested in English.
Like Jak, I'm also from New York City, although most people who meet me would never guess it. Grew up in an old 1800's tenement building in the East Village with my bathtub (no shower head) in the kitchen, my toilet room in the hallway of the building (outside my apartment), and a ceiling that occasionally caved in. My neighborhood used to be where all the underground artists of all kinds lived and shared and thrived. But the idea of the East Village as a creativity hub is now more a novelty than a reality, for wealthy people with extensive educations and high paying jobs have moved in, pushing a lot of these artists elsewhere. Such is the case with "gentrification" I guess. So, my neighborhood is safer than it's ever been, but I still prefer the junkies huddled on park benches to the college students from Connecticut, Long Island and New Jersey bar hoping with too much make-up and too little clothes talking about how cool New York is.
Anyway, people would probably never guess I'm from New York City because a large chunk of my interests and hobbies involve being outside. On campus I live in the Outing Club themehouse and I love hiking, paddling, climbing, skiing and all of those kinds of activities. I try to go on some sort of outdoor adventure as much as possible and every weekend at school. I also grew up riding horses and I have a horse named Merlin, who lived up at school with me for the first three years, but my mom decided she wanted to keep him at home with her this year (I miss him a lot). I love music, mostly indie/experimental and some folky stuff, and going to concerts. I'd like to pick up the guitar again, so I've started with that, and maybe the harmonica for kicks too. I also really enjoy making things out of wood, I find it to be a really satisfying medium to work with, and I've made a couple things already (bench, paddle, bowls and spoons). I did the Adirondack Semester and the Kenya Semester last spring, and both experiences have influenced me greatly in ways that would take way too long to describe. I love traveling and plan on leading outdoor trips domestically and abroad when I graduate.
This kind of atmosphere of my neighborhood and family got me interested in beat poetry such as Ginsberg, Burroughs, Bukowski, Kerouac, etc and other more contemporary stuff. My father also wrote poetry before he died, and actually knew Allen Ginsberg because he lived a block away from where my parents lived before I was born, and William S. Burroughs as well, so I've been very intrigued by their work because of its connection with and influence on my father, whom I never really got to know. I also really like some poems by Ted Kooser, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Louise Gluck, William Carlos Williams, etc. I've never really taken too much of a liking to the older stuff such as Shakespeare and before, although I've never really given it a chance. I enjoy a lot of the romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Whitman, and have learned a lot about that period of writing from taking a class and because of the period's connection to nature.
After writing all this I feel almost a little uncomfortable, because I don't really like writing too much about myself; I don't want to be tooting my own horn. And maybe that's something I can work on a little this semester, because issues involving the self can also pertain to others if it is phrased right. I don't think that's a priority though. Because my main focus of study has not exactly been emphasized on the English side of things I would really like to read more poetry this semester and broaden my horizons, because I really have not read as much as I feel like I should have by now, and I am ready to get inspired and influenced by other people's work and learn more about different styles of poetry. Some of my writing classes (not my intro poetry class however) have left me kind of uninspired, which is pretty disheartening to me. But, I've always had a pretty positive experience with workshops, although I do wish that people would offer my constructive criticisms rather than just saying "Oh, your poem was pretty good".
The use of language on the page really allows us to explore questions we might not be able to articulate in conversations, but need to be heard (but not necessarily answered). I think good poetry should inspire us to think along with the writer, to inspire a conversation with what the writer is saying and to have the writer create a common sense of wonder with the reader. I think a good poem should leave a lingering feeling in the reader that keeps them thinking about it after they have finished.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
poetry strikes back
hey all. im back on the blog for the third time with theo now. DAM! ive been hoping there was another poetry class i could take after techniques- low and behold- i found it randomly, not realizing we even had an adv. class. im really excited about the lack guidelines on the assignments, because it allows for a more fun assignment, at least for me. im not one for strict rules in any sense, but open projects, papers, and assignments are what i enjoy way more. i got into poetry accidentally a few summers ago on a trip to rhode island with a few friends. he had put on some hip hop and the song was utterly ridiculous to me- "we make it rain remix" by fat joe and lil wayne. i hated hip hop at the time and reluctantly let him put on some songs. there was nothin really special in the song except for lil waynes verse- it wasnt his words...in fact it was the complete opposite! he started out the verse with "blat, blat". its strange to write it because unles you know the song you have no sense of how it goes, or maybe you might not like it. but either way it struck me, and i was very intrigued. at that moment it hit me that poetry wasnt just working with words and that his opening line was, to me, the essence of poetry. i find it very funny because it was a hit song, which people stop listening to the second the next top track comes out, and its content was purely ridiculous. it the hollow 'money and hoes' bullshit that mainstream hiphop is all about. but his part just showed me creativity and its even kind of cool that i can pinpoint the exact moment in time that i became interested in both hip hop and poetry. so that is why im here
Hi Everyone!
I can't wait to dig into the upcoming assignments! Don't they sound fun? I think so. But, anyways...I registered for this class because I have already taken techniques of poetry and I am an English major. In several other English classes that I have taken the professor had us read poetry. When I enrolled in Bruce Danner's Pre 1700 British Literature class it was the first time poetry sparked my interest. We read all types of poetry such as Beowolf, an epic poem, and John Milton's, Paradise Lost. Having that been said, my interest in poetry is fairly new but will always continue to be a passion of mine.
In high school, I never had a chance to appreciate poetry. Even though I was in AP English, my classes always seemed to stick to reading novels and writing. Therefore, I never had a problem with my High school English curriculum until I came to St. Lawrence. It was in my sophomore year of college when I learned about famous poets such as Ben Johnson and John Milton. I didn't realise how influential poetry was until I studied readings from 15th, 16th, and 17th century.
I wish my high school could have introduced the history of poetry and important poems like Beowolf. When I first learned about poetry, starting with poems like Sir Gawian and The Green Night, I began to enjoy literature over writing. If my high school emphasized the importance of poetry I think their students might find literature a bit less boring.
Since poetry has made me appreciate and love classic literature, I hope to follow though with making a change in my high school. At St. Lawrence, I am also studying to become a teacher at the secondary levels. My overall goal is to teach twelfth grade English in my home town of Garden City. I would introduce my students to the inspiring poets and writers of earlier centuries in a way that would show them the importance of literature.
Since I have showed an interest in poetry, I really have only been inspired by poetry that is now centuries old. So, this semester I would like to learn more about contemporary poetry. I really don't know much about current poets or current styles of poetry. I hope to see and understand the drastic changes made in poetry over the past centuries. Being that poetry is a new passion of mine and that it aloud me to appreciate literature, I want to pass on the same opportunity I was given to my future students. I would like to learn about the countless styles that are in poetry today, so that I can show my students that their is no such thing as bad poetry.
This doesn't mean there is never room for improvement on a piece of work. I am always trying to improve my writing, so I will always appreciate constructive criticism. I love when a class holds workshops because it gives the students a wide range of opinions and suggestions on how to improve their work. I have always enjoyed the process of putting a piece of writing together and working on it to the point when you know you have done your best. But, if a student doesn't receive encouragement from the students or the professor, the whole process of writing becomes painful; this has only happen to me once where a professor didn't encourage his students and gave the harshest feed back.
At times during that semester, the professor's feedback made for a miserable learning experience and made some of us feel as if he had given up on his students. While that class was painful, my other professor's encouraged me to fight though the bad experience. So, when I kept trying my hardest and when I refused to give up on myself, I felt proud of the work I was handing in. When the class was over, I was surprised to feel as if there is still no such thing as bad poetry or bad writing because there is always room for improvement.
In high school, I never had a chance to appreciate poetry. Even though I was in AP English, my classes always seemed to stick to reading novels and writing. Therefore, I never had a problem with my High school English curriculum until I came to St. Lawrence. It was in my sophomore year of college when I learned about famous poets such as Ben Johnson and John Milton. I didn't realise how influential poetry was until I studied readings from 15th, 16th, and 17th century.
I wish my high school could have introduced the history of poetry and important poems like Beowolf. When I first learned about poetry, starting with poems like Sir Gawian and The Green Night, I began to enjoy literature over writing. If my high school emphasized the importance of poetry I think their students might find literature a bit less boring.
Since poetry has made me appreciate and love classic literature, I hope to follow though with making a change in my high school. At St. Lawrence, I am also studying to become a teacher at the secondary levels. My overall goal is to teach twelfth grade English in my home town of Garden City. I would introduce my students to the inspiring poets and writers of earlier centuries in a way that would show them the importance of literature.
Since I have showed an interest in poetry, I really have only been inspired by poetry that is now centuries old. So, this semester I would like to learn more about contemporary poetry. I really don't know much about current poets or current styles of poetry. I hope to see and understand the drastic changes made in poetry over the past centuries. Being that poetry is a new passion of mine and that it aloud me to appreciate literature, I want to pass on the same opportunity I was given to my future students. I would like to learn about the countless styles that are in poetry today, so that I can show my students that their is no such thing as bad poetry.
This doesn't mean there is never room for improvement on a piece of work. I am always trying to improve my writing, so I will always appreciate constructive criticism. I love when a class holds workshops because it gives the students a wide range of opinions and suggestions on how to improve their work. I have always enjoyed the process of putting a piece of writing together and working on it to the point when you know you have done your best. But, if a student doesn't receive encouragement from the students or the professor, the whole process of writing becomes painful; this has only happen to me once where a professor didn't encourage his students and gave the harshest feed back.
At times during that semester, the professor's feedback made for a miserable learning experience and made some of us feel as if he had given up on his students. While that class was painful, my other professor's encouraged me to fight though the bad experience. So, when I kept trying my hardest and when I refused to give up on myself, I felt proud of the work I was handing in. When the class was over, I was surprised to feel as if there is still no such thing as bad poetry or bad writing because there is always room for improvement.
First Blog Post of 2010
Helllloo!
I’m Carrie. I’m a senior at St Lawrence, and I’m SO excited for the Grace Potter and the Nocturnals concert tonight. I am infatuated with the band’s music. Loveee them
I’m studying English, with a concentration in writing. I have always been interested in the writing process and language in general. I love exploring the way language can influence individuals who how its unique properties of communication differ from culture to culture. I’m also fascinated with the idea of creating art through writing and expression. I’m also pursuing a teaching career, and I just finished my Professional Semester at SLU. I taught 7th grade English/Language Arts in Canton, and I absolutely loved it.
I’m from Fairfield, Connecticut. It’s a beautiful town, located on the Long Island Sound. A little less than 60,000 people that live in my town. There is a Dogwood Festival (because we have a whole lot of Dogwood trees in my area) which is a big artisan fair that takes place in early May. Its one of my favorite events that take place in my town; the local artists and their work never cease to amaze me.
I love to travel and volunteer. I’ve been really fortunate that my parents have supported me and allowed me to travel to different countries all over the world. The first country I traveled alone to was India, my senior year. It completely changed my life. Since then, I’ve been volunteer teaching or volunteering at community centers in different countries, mainly those in South America. I hope in my next life I will pursue a career in travel photography or travel journalism. I also love to read. The first book that really caught my attention and evoked my passion for reading was, Under The Hawthorn Tree by Marita Conlon-McKenna. My Irish grandmother gave me this book, and I remember I could not put it down once I started reading it. A weird hobby many people don’t know about me is I collect the fortunes in Chinese fortune cookies. However, I only keep the fortune if my lucky number 24 is on the back. When I was younger, I actually wanted to pursue a job writing the fortunes in Chinese food cookies. I enjoy swimming, hiking, lacrosse, and being outside just for fun.
I’m really open to critiques, and suggestions from fellow writers. I’m always working to improve my skills in writing. I believe I struggle with writing in a voice that is too cliché, so I’m really working to break out of my comfort zone and regular writing style this semester.
Bruce Weiner, a professor at St Lawrence, introduced me to the depth and to a fond understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poetry. I’ve had a real attraction to her poetry and life since I started reading her work two years ago. What I love most about Dickinson’s poetry is its ambiguity, and it’s historical relevance to her life and the experiences she had during it. I also hold a special place for Shel Silverstein in my heart. My uncle used to read me poems from Where The Sidewalk Ends and A Light In The Attic when I was younger. I love how Silverstein’s words are intended for children’s’ ears, and depict characters or events that take place in a dream world.
This semester I really want to expand my vocabulary and awareness of writing mechanics when creating poetry. I guess I always assumed that poets unknowingly created poems having perfect sets of meter or syllables. I thought that distinguished poets (Poe, Dickinson, Whitman, etc..) would naturally produce works that came easily to the writer. I believed there would be no work or thought process involved whatsoever. However, I understand now, even the most gifted poets had to work to produce their infamous pieces of written artwork. Therefore, I hope to learn or develop more ways of becoming inspired and finding unique focus areas for creativity.
This is a blog post I guess
Hi poets. I'm Jon Willer. Class of '10, living in Whitman, need to do a load of laundry later today.
I'm an English (writing) and history major. History was neat when I was learning about stuff that happened (massacres in Canada over beef jerky and Stakhanovism and Oscar Wilde's libel suit and stuff) but is getting progressively less neat now that I'm in upper level classes and am supposed to find documents and order musty old books from Colgate and use Chicago citation, the bane of my citing existence. I'm almost finished with the major but I think after undergrad it's going to end up being a hobby more than anything.
Writing, on the other hand, is endlessly fun for me. Even if I had stuck with my original plan of pre-med, I would probably be writing all the time for my personal enjoyment, and if I can get course credit for it so much the better, you know?
I'm from Norwood, which is about half an hour north of here. We have a barbershop and a Sugarcreek. Basically the most exciting things to do are look in the Courier-Observer to see which of my high school classmates are going to jail, and shoot b-b guns in my friend Parker's garage while he welds stuff. The Hometown Cafe has totally kickass poutine and peanut butter pie, though.
I like walking and playing Tetris and loathing Bobby Flay. I enjoy watching professional bowling and the films of Michael Haneke. I like Michel Foucault a whole lot, even when I have no clue what the dude's trying to say. I'm fascinated by obsolescent and outmoded things, and using them out of context (http://sodapopquiz.blogspot.com if you want to see what I'm talking about, plus a smidgen of my poetry). Music is pretty great, too; lately I've been into a lot of lo-fi and noise stuff, plus New Zealand music of all stripes (http://last.fm/user/general_tso for details).
My workshop experiences at St. Lawrence have, by and large, blown. It's not that I haven't received positive feedback; it's just that the vast majority of critiques seem to end up being, "It's good, don't change anything," or, "You used too many big words, I had to use a dictionary." Even if you get complimented it's frustrating if you don't get any criticism that helps you to revise. I'm hoping we can all do our best to have useful advice for each other.
One living poet I definitely admire would be David Berman. I've read a lot of poetry I like, but his collection Actual Air is poetry that actually makes me jealous. The details are crisp, they're witty and poignant, and his voice is distinctive and confident. I like T.S. Eliot's precision, but not the aridity, and Charles Bukowski's terseness, though I feel despite that his poems still suffer from some dead weight. I consider the other Dirty Realists like Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver influences as well, though I know them more from fiction than poetry.
In my Techniques of Fiction class, somebody said one day, "I like this poem because it's so vague;" my views on poetry are the exact opposite. I think good poetry gets its power from specificity. Even when dealing with the abstract or surreal, attention to detail is key.
In this class, I'd like to learn how to experiment more with form and style. Looking through the anthologies of contemporary poetry we'll be reading, I saw that poets are going in many different exciting directions. I think this will be an opportunity to be more adventurous with my work.
Thanks for reading. Looking forward to a good semester.
I'm an English (writing) and history major. History was neat when I was learning about stuff that happened (massacres in Canada over beef jerky and Stakhanovism and Oscar Wilde's libel suit and stuff) but is getting progressively less neat now that I'm in upper level classes and am supposed to find documents and order musty old books from Colgate and use Chicago citation, the bane of my citing existence. I'm almost finished with the major but I think after undergrad it's going to end up being a hobby more than anything.
Writing, on the other hand, is endlessly fun for me. Even if I had stuck with my original plan of pre-med, I would probably be writing all the time for my personal enjoyment, and if I can get course credit for it so much the better, you know?
I'm from Norwood, which is about half an hour north of here. We have a barbershop and a Sugarcreek. Basically the most exciting things to do are look in the Courier-Observer to see which of my high school classmates are going to jail, and shoot b-b guns in my friend Parker's garage while he welds stuff. The Hometown Cafe has totally kickass poutine and peanut butter pie, though.
I like walking and playing Tetris and loathing Bobby Flay. I enjoy watching professional bowling and the films of Michael Haneke. I like Michel Foucault a whole lot, even when I have no clue what the dude's trying to say. I'm fascinated by obsolescent and outmoded things, and using them out of context (http://sodapopquiz.blogspot.com if you want to see what I'm talking about, plus a smidgen of my poetry). Music is pretty great, too; lately I've been into a lot of lo-fi and noise stuff, plus New Zealand music of all stripes (http://last.fm/user/general_tso for details).
My workshop experiences at St. Lawrence have, by and large, blown. It's not that I haven't received positive feedback; it's just that the vast majority of critiques seem to end up being, "It's good, don't change anything," or, "You used too many big words, I had to use a dictionary." Even if you get complimented it's frustrating if you don't get any criticism that helps you to revise. I'm hoping we can all do our best to have useful advice for each other.
One living poet I definitely admire would be David Berman. I've read a lot of poetry I like, but his collection Actual Air is poetry that actually makes me jealous. The details are crisp, they're witty and poignant, and his voice is distinctive and confident. I like T.S. Eliot's precision, but not the aridity, and Charles Bukowski's terseness, though I feel despite that his poems still suffer from some dead weight. I consider the other Dirty Realists like Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver influences as well, though I know them more from fiction than poetry.
In my Techniques of Fiction class, somebody said one day, "I like this poem because it's so vague;" my views on poetry are the exact opposite. I think good poetry gets its power from specificity. Even when dealing with the abstract or surreal, attention to detail is key.
In this class, I'd like to learn how to experiment more with form and style. Looking through the anthologies of contemporary poetry we'll be reading, I saw that poets are going in many different exciting directions. I think this will be an opportunity to be more adventurous with my work.
Thanks for reading. Looking forward to a good semester.
hello
I am technically an undeclared sophomore, but as I am actually sending in my major card this week, I will therefore soon be a French and English double major with a minor in Education. I am studying English because I love to read. It sounds like a lame reason to base a major life decision on, but I figured that I couldn't go wrong if the homework was something that I would choose to do voluntarily anyway. Ever since middle school I have known that I wanted to study English in college, but it was not until last year that I changed my mind from literature to writing. I love both reading and writing, and I have especially enjoyed the opportunity to take creative writing classes here at SLU. Prior to college, I felt like I never really had the chance to experiment with different forms of writing and never knew how much fun it could actually be. I decided on being a French major too, because someday I would like to be fluent. I love learning other languages and I think its really interesting reading books and literature in the languages they were actually written in. I am also hoping to go abroad to France to study in the fall because I have never really traveled before and I'm excited to try out all the French I have been learning. I am an education minor because I think I would someday like to be a teacher. I am a tutor right now and have had to do some field work in a couple different classes with a range of ages and I haven't decided yet what level I would like to teach, but I know that I do love teaching and working with kids.
I am from North Sutton, New Hampshire. It's a small town, but I love it. We have one business in Sutton and that is Vernondale's General Store. At Vernondale's you can buy one can of any type of food you might want, but there is rarely more than that and it's usually wise to check the expiration date just in case. It's a typical small town, where most everyone knows each other and usually the most exciting thing going on is a meeting of the volunteer fire department or a high school football game. We aren't far from Concord, the capital city, though, so if we want a little excitement most people usually head there.
Aside from writing, I love to knit and I actually spent a couple of years working at a yarn store in high school. I am currently working on a sweater and only have to finish the sleeves, so I am pretty excited about that. I like being active, usually running in the summer and ice skating or playing pond hockey in the winter. Other than that, my hobbies aren't too exciting or unusual. I like hanging out with friends and here at SLU I am in Kappa Delta Sigma.
The feedback I received in Techniques of Poetry last year was very encouraging for me. I am still a little nervous about reading my work aloud, and actually to be honest, I am even nervous being in the room while I know that someone else is reading it, which is admittedly, for someone who loves to write, kind of a silly fear to have. On the upside, I have found that after workshopping both in poetry last year and in creative non-fiction last semester, I am slowly getting more confident and comfortable with sharing my work and actually allowing what I've written to be read. I would say overall, that that is the one thing I would like to work on most this semester, aside from of course, improving my writing.
I don't know for sure yet who my influences are. I wish I could name some really great poets, but I feel like I am still a bit of a beginner poet and not much of my work seems to resemble a lot of the work I've read, but hopefully someday maybe it will. My favorite poets are probably Adrienne Rich and Maya Angelou, I think what I like best about them is their voices. After reading their writing I feel like I actually met them; they have poured so much of themselves into their work that their poetry is like a little slice of their personality and experience. I think it takes a lot of courage to be that genuine and revealing, and I guess I hope someday to be able to write like that. I also think that that is what makes great poetry, the reader should walk away feeling like the poet actually spoke to them. On the other hand I think the biggest pitfall can be writing so honest and open that it sounds gushy and the reader feels like they got just a little too much information.
Friday, January 22, 2010
HELLO...
Says an excited but over-anxious English major. My passion has always been writing—the ability to write things you’re voice won’t allow you to say. How did passion for writing manifest itself into my soul? Well unfortunately, I am the quiet, anxiety-worrier, but when I write, I’m a loud, in your face, feel my pain…not his or her…but mine, kind of person. As the middle child, I liked to spent most of time reading, pretending I was a vampire, and doing a hobby I like to call...BOTTLING UP EMOTIONS, I was always an over-sensitive person and the fact that I was a pound or twenty above average didn’t help my case. My sisters and brothers were evil tormentors and my own self-esteem despised me.
In seventh grade, My English teacher, Mrs. Schmidt hated my poetry. I recall her pulling me to the side and explaining in a nice sweet voice "your poetry sucks"...well maybe she didn't say that exactly. "Where's the emotion?" She asked me. I explain to her my hobby of bottling and storing for later(no, i really didn't). She said"You can't keep everything inside. Let it out...you have so much to say."
So that night i went home and opened lids to bottles i have had inside for years. I cried (onto the page), release everything, every emotion. It felt so good...that it became my way of expressing myself. I love writing non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. I couldn't see myself doing anything else with my life. well, maybe i could, but writing is what makes me happy. I don't know what I will do with writing yet, but i'm sure my ability to write will come in handy with whatever.
I was born in Atlanta, Georgia but spent my childhood in a suburban area called Guilderland NY. My house is surrounded by old white people who don't have anything better to do but pay attention to make my family (the only black family on the block), kids who give us nicknames (mine was Mardog) and ofcourse neighbors who didn't like us. Being the only black kid in class was hard, especially when everyone expected you to act a certain way. It makes me who I am, tho.
My hobbies/Interest include: Listening to music...I like any kind of music that fits with my mood. Well, I'm not a big country music fan, but i like some. Shot put and Discus...which was something I used to love to do, but I find myself without the time and effort it takes to do it here at slu. Reading...my favorite author is and will always be James Patterson. He is not a poet, but an amazing writer who has inspired me to write novels about psychopathic killers and the brave /heroic detectives who go out to stop them. Learning Japanese and Anime: ok..so I'm not exactly an anime nerd, but I do enjoy it more than I should. I have learned some japanese, but I give it up this semester, because I do not have time to do it and all my other courses. I still plan to learn more, just gotta find the time. I enjoy dancing, hanging out with friends, going to parties (when my anxiety isn't present) and ofcourse spending time with my family.
Maya Angelou is a poet I liked, but not in influence or maybe I just don't consider her as an influence. I like her poetry because its really deep and emotion. I like reading all kinds of poems and i think most poets I've read have had really awesome poems. I don't really consider influences the way i probably should. I think any poem that express emotions in a new/exciting way as good poem. Bad poems to me don't really exist to me. There are just poems that could use more work. I try to avoid rhyming poems and poems that I don't really enjoy reading myself.
With all my writing so far, I have gotten positive feedback on my work. I used to hate sharing my work with others, because I was too afraid they wouldn't enjoy it. After a while, because i was afraid to share my own writing style, i changed my writing style to fit what other people normally writing about/ how they write and found myself miserable. Writing was always something I enjoyed and giving myself limits really made me not what to write. When I grew enough courage to not care what people thought about my writing was when i wrote things I loved. I have always gotten back good feedback and good/positive suggestions that helped my voice sound stronger and my structure more stable.
I'm in this poetry course to improve my poems through the process of workshopping. I think having people look at your poems help you sort things out and make any corrections if there are any to be made. I took this course because I enjoy writing poetry and I enjoy people being able to read (in a way) who i am. I want to be able to write amazing poem and just amazing writing without needing revisions (even though there can always be a revision). =]
Monday, January 18, 2010
Introductory Post
Cool Hand here.
I'm studying creative writing because I love art and words. Creative writing is a field in which my facility with language functions to help me convey strong sentiments, emotions, and beliefs in an imaginative way. Fiction and Non-Fiction are powerful genres, but for me, as a lover of words, no form of textual expression is more affecting than poetry.
In high school I read many poems by radical poets like Arthur Rimbaud, Jim Morrison, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. At St. Lawrence I've had the privilege to study poems by William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Byshhe Shelley, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, and numerous other poets I've forgotten. I'm fond of non-linear, surrealist poetry because I feel that poems written in this aesthetic accurately describe my own experience of existence. I'm also found of John Keats' Odes which I found very beautiful and upsetting (the two go hand in hand for me) though I can't imagine ever writing as eloquently as he did.
I have received mostly positive feedback in creative writing workshops but I've also received a number of useful critiques. I'm comfortable with my writing's imperfections and welcome respectful feedback from anyone interested enough to read it.
I love poetry because it can express ideas in ways which logical prose cannot. Through abstraction, suggestion, and the patient pruning of words, the poet has the capability to convey important universal truths about human nature, specific subjective truths their own nature, or merely express their creative consciousness.
I'm from Potsdam New York, about twenty minutes up the road. Potsdam is a pleasant rural town much like Canton, with lots of open spaces and not much going on.
Aside from writing I'm very interested in philosophy. I am particularly compelled by the teachings of Zen Buddhist philosophers and existentialists like Sartre and Dostoevsky. I also find Marx's theories on political economy, alienation, and capitalism in general quite engrossing and relevant.
I'm an aspiring audiophile with a rack of vinyls, a functioning turntable, and a pair of high fidelity headphones. When I listen to music on my computer I try to listen to music encoded in lossless sound quality codecs. I listen to lots of ambient, drone, avant-garde, shoegaze, electronica, hip-hop, jazz, and post-rock. If you're interested in specific artists I like feel free to ask, I love to talk about bands more than anything.
Film is another art form, which I'm quite enchanted by. At SLU I've completed a film minor, which allowed me to study countless wonderful films. I'm particularly fond of art house directors like Jim Jarmusch and Andrei Tarkovsky as well as more mainstream directors like David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, Darren Aronofsky, The Coen Brothers, Christoper Nolan, and Terrence Malick. Sound and sight (respectfully) are the two most powerful senses for me and cinema represents a fusion of sound art with visual art - a true spectacle.
In this class I hope to read more inspiring poems both by poets on the syllabus and poets in class. In addition, I hope to artfully express some of my emotions about life experiences through words.
I'm studying creative writing because I love art and words. Creative writing is a field in which my facility with language functions to help me convey strong sentiments, emotions, and beliefs in an imaginative way. Fiction and Non-Fiction are powerful genres, but for me, as a lover of words, no form of textual expression is more affecting than poetry.
In high school I read many poems by radical poets like Arthur Rimbaud, Jim Morrison, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. At St. Lawrence I've had the privilege to study poems by William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Byshhe Shelley, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, and numerous other poets I've forgotten. I'm fond of non-linear, surrealist poetry because I feel that poems written in this aesthetic accurately describe my own experience of existence. I'm also found of John Keats' Odes which I found very beautiful and upsetting (the two go hand in hand for me) though I can't imagine ever writing as eloquently as he did.
I have received mostly positive feedback in creative writing workshops but I've also received a number of useful critiques. I'm comfortable with my writing's imperfections and welcome respectful feedback from anyone interested enough to read it.
I love poetry because it can express ideas in ways which logical prose cannot. Through abstraction, suggestion, and the patient pruning of words, the poet has the capability to convey important universal truths about human nature, specific subjective truths their own nature, or merely express their creative consciousness.
I'm from Potsdam New York, about twenty minutes up the road. Potsdam is a pleasant rural town much like Canton, with lots of open spaces and not much going on.
Aside from writing I'm very interested in philosophy. I am particularly compelled by the teachings of Zen Buddhist philosophers and existentialists like Sartre and Dostoevsky. I also find Marx's theories on political economy, alienation, and capitalism in general quite engrossing and relevant.
I'm an aspiring audiophile with a rack of vinyls, a functioning turntable, and a pair of high fidelity headphones. When I listen to music on my computer I try to listen to music encoded in lossless sound quality codecs. I listen to lots of ambient, drone, avant-garde, shoegaze, electronica, hip-hop, jazz, and post-rock. If you're interested in specific artists I like feel free to ask, I love to talk about bands more than anything.
Film is another art form, which I'm quite enchanted by. At SLU I've completed a film minor, which allowed me to study countless wonderful films. I'm particularly fond of art house directors like Jim Jarmusch and Andrei Tarkovsky as well as more mainstream directors like David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, Darren Aronofsky, The Coen Brothers, Christoper Nolan, and Terrence Malick. Sound and sight (respectfully) are the two most powerful senses for me and cinema represents a fusion of sound art with visual art - a true spectacle.
In this class I hope to read more inspiring poems both by poets on the syllabus and poets in class. In addition, I hope to artfully express some of my emotions about life experiences through words.
First Blog Entry: To be completed before class, Monday, January 26
Length: at least 450 words
• In the upper right-hand corner, you’ll see two options: “Create Blog” and “Sign In.” Choose “Sign In.” This will take you to your Blogger dashboard; hit the “New Post” button under our blog’s heading on your dashboard.
If it doesn’t want to let you log in, email me and remind me to add you as a contributor!
• Make your first blog entry. In that entry, please spend at least 450 words answering the following questions:
• What are you studying, and why do you like it?
• Where are you from, and what’s it like there?
• Aside from writing, what are your interests and hobbies?
• Have you had good or bad experiences getting feedback on your work? What were they?
• Who are your influences? Name some poets, living or dead, whose work you admire (and try to articulate what you admire about them). A poet you detest can also be an influence--if you can articulate how you want to write differently from him.
• What’s good about good poetry? What poetic pitfalls do you try to avoid?
• What do you hope to learn in this class? (Don’t be lame and say, “I want to learn to write better poems.” Be more specific than that.)
• In the upper right-hand corner, you’ll see two options: “Create Blog” and “Sign In.” Choose “Sign In.” This will take you to your Blogger dashboard; hit the “New Post” button under our blog’s heading on your dashboard.
If it doesn’t want to let you log in, email me and remind me to add you as a contributor!
• Make your first blog entry. In that entry, please spend at least 450 words answering the following questions:
• What are you studying, and why do you like it?
• Where are you from, and what’s it like there?
• Aside from writing, what are your interests and hobbies?
• Have you had good or bad experiences getting feedback on your work? What were they?
• Who are your influences? Name some poets, living or dead, whose work you admire (and try to articulate what you admire about them). A poet you detest can also be an influence--if you can articulate how you want to write differently from him.
• What’s good about good poetry? What poetic pitfalls do you try to avoid?
• What do you hope to learn in this class? (Don’t be lame and say, “I want to learn to write better poems.” Be more specific than that.)
Blogging for English 311
The blog is a curious, hybrid form--somewhere between private journaling and public journalism--so it’s fitting that in this course it fulfills a couple of different functions. To a certain extent, you can treat the course blog as a kind of writing journal--a place where you make note of ideas, images, repetitions, words, and themes that you're noticing in your reading; a place where you begin to articulate the questions and tensions that will drive your poems. At the same time, though, this blog is a shared space, one in which you place your ideas in dialogue with your peers’. It’s a space where you can do a kind of thinking “aloud”--where you can collaborate, brainstorm, debate, support and challenge one another. It’s an informal extension of the classroom discussion space, and a jumping-off point from which you (individually or as a group) can also get involved in the larger debates bouncing around the literary blogosphere. Printing out your and others’ recent contributions to the blog and bringing them to class with you may also help you organize your thoughts and participate more meaningfully in our discussions.
Each week, please contribute 200 words to the class blog before class time on Thursday--unless otherwise directed. For example, this week I’d like you to contribute 450 words. This week I’m asking you some questions to get your blogging started, but often you’ll be free to write about whatever you’d like (as long as it’s related to class discussion, to our reading, or to your creative practice in general). Responding to your classmates’ posts can be a great way to avoid writer’s block and to keep the conversation rolling!
Please remember that the blog is a public forum. Don’t write anything here you’re not okay with your professors, your grandma, and your future employers reading. Broaching touchy, tense, or vexed topics is okay and even encouraged--and feel free to be completely honest--but remember to do so with respect.
Each week, please contribute 200 words to the class blog before class time on Thursday--unless otherwise directed. For example, this week I’d like you to contribute 450 words. This week I’m asking you some questions to get your blogging started, but often you’ll be free to write about whatever you’d like (as long as it’s related to class discussion, to our reading, or to your creative practice in general). Responding to your classmates’ posts can be a great way to avoid writer’s block and to keep the conversation rolling!
Please remember that the blog is a public forum. Don’t write anything here you’re not okay with your professors, your grandma, and your future employers reading. Broaching touchy, tense, or vexed topics is okay and even encouraged--and feel free to be completely honest--but remember to do so with respect.
J.a.k Mussington (Cooper)
Currently, I am studying English and Japanese (on the side). I was forced into English, I wanted to be a Religious Studies major, but because I studied abroad in Japan and I didn't have enough credits to complete an Religious Studies major I am now an English major. So me and English have a love hate relationship. I am from New York City. I was originally born in the boogie down Bronx, but I moved to Harlem, which-in my opinion-is better than the boogie down, however the boogie down will have my unconditional love. I don't know what to tell people when they ask me about the city since most people have the Sex in the City, stiletto heels stereotype reeling through their brains as soon as I mention my place of origin. Or most people have this Crooklyn, guns being shot, ambulance blaring type image of the city, so when I tell people, 'I led the middle life,' they do not understand. It makes me wish I did lead either one of these extremes, so I wouldn't get that look. Living in the New York City was nice; gun shots, for me, were only heard in newspapers.
Damn without writing it seems like I don't have any other hobby, I'm a bore! I guess one of my hobbies is pretending to be artsy and cool (really I'm always nervous), but not like those stuck up artsy people. I draw in a sketch book, since one of my artsy friends gave it to me because she noticed I doodled in my notebook while in class. O' and buying random shit like wasabi and ginger plushies because they are cute \0/
I have had no bad experiences. All of my experiences were good. No complaints. In Creative Non-Fiction, for example, people seemed very supportive.
I'm into spoken word. I love people who get up there and just wow me. I can't remember his name and because I am too lazy to do a google search, but I +heart+ this spoken word poet. My favorite line from his poetry is, 'I defecated on your microphone,' I saw him in the Bowery Poetry Club and I was wowed. . . Don't get me wrong I've heard that phrase before Lauryn Hill sang-rapped it in Ready or Not but he made it new. That's what poetry is making things new. Leaving the listener or reader with an epiphany breathing through a sign. I try to avoid cliches. . . and not seeing the world through my eyes. We all see the world differently, another person's junk is one man's treasure, so if I find my poetry lacking in the JAK department then I want to scrap it.
I hope to accomplish JAK (maybe more of Jazmine because JAK is my pretending to me artsy and cool name :P ) .
Damn without writing it seems like I don't have any other hobby, I'm a bore! I guess one of my hobbies is pretending to be artsy and cool (really I'm always nervous), but not like those stuck up artsy people. I draw in a sketch book, since one of my artsy friends gave it to me because she noticed I doodled in my notebook while in class. O' and buying random shit like wasabi and ginger plushies because they are cute \0/
I have had no bad experiences. All of my experiences were good. No complaints. In Creative Non-Fiction, for example, people seemed very supportive.
I'm into spoken word. I love people who get up there and just wow me. I can't remember his name and because I am too lazy to do a google search, but I +heart+ this spoken word poet. My favorite line from his poetry is, 'I defecated on your microphone,' I saw him in the Bowery Poetry Club and I was wowed. . . Don't get me wrong I've heard that phrase before Lauryn Hill sang-rapped it in Ready or Not but he made it new. That's what poetry is making things new. Leaving the listener or reader with an epiphany breathing through a sign. I try to avoid cliches. . . and not seeing the world through my eyes. We all see the world differently, another person's junk is one man's treasure, so if I find my poetry lacking in the JAK department then I want to scrap it.
I hope to accomplish JAK (maybe more of Jazmine because JAK is my pretending to me artsy and cool name :P ) .
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