Changes...Maybe

So this week I'm really stressed out and I kind of really want to write a poem that's not about the same thing. Only two of my poems are not about this one situation and I realized that was why they were all angry. I guess I'm going to try to write something happy or semi-happy. I don't know what to write about though. As far as happy poems. Any ideas?

So, in my memoir writing course, I've writing a memoir about being 17 and a time when the cops showed up at my door because I had written some poems that sounded "suicidal".
I remember vowing to never write another poem...but as you see, this did not work. I guess I'm going to try to write a happy poem but we'll see how it turns out. Might sound happen in the beginning and turn into a sad poem...muahahahaha! =D

I'm kind of excited about this printing thingy on Monday. I hope my group has came up with some awesome ideas. I can't wait. Oh and I'm really excited for a break! I need one.

Tarr, a Vorticist novel

When we looked at the modernist poets earlier this semester, we read a manifesto by the Vorticists, some pre-WWI British dudes who liked blasting things and big fonts (also, saying "fire" and "damn"). Last week I was in somewhat of a blasting mood so I picked up Tarr, by Wyndham Lewis. Lewis was one of the main figures in Vorticism; according to him, "Vorticism, in fact, was what I, personally, did and said at a certain period," a statement that didn't exactly endear him to other Vorticists.

I'm about 168 pages into Tarr, in the middle of a chapter entitled "Bourgeois-Bohemians," and it seems to fit pretty well with the manifesto. Part I, "Oveture," follows this guy Tarr around Paris as he talks down to people, stresses out over having a German girlfriend, spouts some industrial-strength misogyny, and knocks a guy's hat off. The book is obsessed with questions of national character, and there are some pretty startling proto-Fascist rumblings:

"You are concentrated, systematic slop [Tarr tells Hobson].=There is nothing in the Universe to be said for you.=Any efficient State would confiscate your property, burn your wardrobe, that old hat and the rest, as 'infecte' and insanitary, and prohibit you from propagating."

There's a lot of angular language that seems deliberately ugly, and a propensity for accurate but bizarrely detached similes (e.g., "Her head was like a deep white egg in a tobacco coloured-nest.")

Some of my favorite quotes:

"'If we had numbers, for instance, instead of names, who would take the number thirteen?'
'I,' said Kreisler."

"Tarr turned to Hobson, and seized him, conversationally, by the hair."

"The leaden brilliant green of spring foliage hung above him, ticketing innumerably the trees, sultry smoke volumes from factories in Fairyland."

That was So Cool!

I was very impressed by our visitor in today's class. I learned a lot about what limitations and restraints can do to a poem. The whole idea of his site I found to be very intriguing. When he let us try out what it would be like to use some restraints when writing our own poems, I thought it would be easier than it actually was. While writing about the diagram on the board and trying to apply the picture to thoughts about Theo, I enjoyed writing about topics, I believe most of us would never write about. The felt like the whole point of today's class was to step outside into the world of poetry and experience it through the words of and feelings of a modern poet.
The deaf poetry of Lisa Jessie Peterson was one of the coolest poems I have ever heard. I thought it was a great closing for the end of class. The example that our visitor used applied all the techniques we had been talking about earlier in the class. Lisa explicitly showed the passion, stresses, rhythms, and dynamics that go into her poetry. Seeing Lisa's performance makes me wonder what it would be like if we wrote deaf jam poems for an a assignment and then performed them...

wow, i just listened to "i am the first fifty digits of pi" and am so impressed. i wrote a poem for this week and the words i chose were based on the number of letters in them. it was really hard because first i would choose the meaning that i was going for then try to find the perfect word that also just happened to have the right number of letters, and I only used nine words. I listened to it for a second time and found where there’s a zero and he throws that in there quickly, because what else could he do? The touchtone genius was pretty funny. The person who left the instructions was very detailed in what he or she wanted and he did it exactly. He is a touchtone genius. The star wars song is longer than the others and it sounds like more of a pop song. I really like the part where he starts talking and says something about princess leah, it shows that he does a little more than just listen to the directions and adds some things for fun.

Home again...

Hey guys! Guess what? I went home again. I had so much fun and did so many activities!!! Haha, the funny thing is I'm not kidding. I went snowmobiling, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing. As I was doing all these fun things I kept admiring the scenery around me. The experience was ironic because I started to think about poetry. I asked myself several questions such as, when people write about nature or feelings are they always right there or are they always experiencing the emotions.
So, with that being said, I did a little tester. I wrote a poem as I sat and looked at the waterfalls at the turnaround in the trail. I wrote about the objects and emotions that impacted me. Then when I got home I wrote another poem about the same emotions and objects that affected me. When I compared and contrasted both poems, I found minor differences. The emotions were still in both poems, but the descriptions about the nature didn't come across as the same.
As I asked my family what they thought about both poems they all said on seemed like I was writing about a painting and one seemed like I was writing about a one on one experience.

songpants

Holy crap!! Songs to wear pants to is sooo fucking funny!! I jut sat there and listened to so many, the politically correct holidays and the rest of Andrews favorites are sooo funny. Im literally just sitting by my self and laugin my ass off, I love the politically correct holiday theme. I can wait to meet this guy and talk to him, hes so funny. Why isn’t he a a professional musician, hes amazing at the stuff he does. Id like to know what type of software and hardware he uses and what types of music he’s been schooled in, and if production, mixing, DJing, what instruments, voices….. he should definitely be more well know, hes so funny. The tracie morris thing is really cool, I love how she completely changed the style and performance of her poem. Its awesome, because when I went to see saul Williams he talked about southern hip hop for a bit, and the blues and both of them focus on not what you are saying/playin, but how you say it. And her first performance was what focusing on what she was saying, while the second was all about how she said it. Cool stuff. Best assignment yet

Songs to Wear Pants To and Mushroom Clouds

I am really excited for today's class. I just finished going through the links posted today and I really liked the Songs to Wear Pants to website. I think my favorite song I found was Never Been in Love, which was about a rapping robot who is afraid to ask a girl out. I also thought Mike Celestino What Have you Done with Star Wars was pretty funny too. I thought it was really interesting how he could take the most obscure and challenging restraints and create something that sounded so good. I never considered for our last assignment making restraints that limited the subject content as an option. I instinctively thought of restraints that limited the structure of how it was written. I think it might be interesting to try a poem that limits the subject instead and see what is produced. I also like Christian Bok's readings, I particularly liked Mushroom Clouds. I think sound poetry would be rather difficult to write (at least for me), but I really enjoy hearing it.

Anybody ever listen to Bon Iver?

One of my favorite songs currently is called “Skinny Love,” and it’s by him. The tune has great lyrics and a beautiful sound, which is always a good combination. That being said, I highly recommend it to anyone who gets into Indie stuff. But, alas, don't worry, I have a cogent point! I actually played "Skinny Love" on repeat the entire time I was coming up with my poem for our last assignment. I’m trying to use music as a kind of segue way out of my recent literary rut, and to a degree, it’s been very helpful. I think that a good song can put a mood in context for us, whether it’s joy, sadness, or something in between. Music helps me feel deeply even on the days I don't see a single drop of inspiration to source – when I feel numb, so to speak.

“Skinny Love” served as a big source of inspiration for the poem of mine some of you will be workshopping this coming Tuesday, "Tainted Genes." The music wasn't helpful because the theme of Bon Iver's song is at all related to my piece, but because it gave me a tone to work with, a circuit for my electricity. The song might not on the same topic as my poem, but I think it carries a similar feeling of pain and anger, if that makes sense. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think music can be a valuable way to channel emotion. Anyway, I thought I’d suggest this method to anyone who might be having some trouble getting the creative juices flowing lately. Put on one of your favorite songs and just see where it takes you; it might be surprising where you end up.

Last assignment and new ideas!

I think last assignment killed me! I couldn't think of anything to write about, until i was writing one of my inspirational statuses.I wrote two poems, made rules I didn't see as rules, and hopefully I did ok with that. I'm trying not to stick with my normal patterns of writing about issues or love, but it's kind of hard. I like writing about this issues, because I find them some what fun to write about or just some kind of relief.
I think this week i will be a poem about some kind of problem I have or something involving my life. I think poems about my life are what I do a lot because I don't like really write to write, but to make myself feel better. I think this week, I will try to look at some problem from a critical stand point and maybe something I don't deal with personal. My new ideas involve something about stylist ways. I want to try more forms instead of sticking with free form Ideas.

Oops we do have assignments for the blog (:P)

I haven't been checking out the syllabus, well, I am now. Life cooling down since I got the thumbs for a job I am interested in !

Constraints doesn't shut down ideas, in fact, constraints may channel new forms of writing, innovation. I remember in my Adv Creat. Non fiction course our first assignment was to chose a word from the list. Brownie Points were to be given to the student(s) who used all the words. There were fifteen words, just to list a few: King Kong, irate, dreamt,Yankees. This limitation caused me to reflect on a memory (one that I didn't think about in YEARS). I wrote about my first 'real' idea about sex, when sex became complicated to me. Idea constraints aren't always a downfall for an artist. Our minds are capable of linking words to symbols, other words, idea, sounds so the possibilities are endless.I associated 'King Kong,' in the essay I wrote for Adv. C Non F, with the penis; King Kong isn't just an ape. The problem with constraints comes when there is a limit on the number of words a writer is to use. Maximum of 1000 words. I always want to write more than a 1000. When there us a limit on how much a writer can writer problems arise. It was hard for me to shape a GOOD Spencerian Sonnet. That poem was shit. I often wanted to exceed the rhyme. Example:

. . . tame
. . . it's a shame he

But I couldn't do this I had to keep the rhyme. So, I'd cut up the sentence and hope it still made sense. This must be life of a good rapper, not Kanye West.

For Chapter U performd by Christian Bok. It seemed like he had to use words that produced an 'uh' sounds, similar to a grunt noise.

Re: Writer's Block

Hey, Shaunie, I just read your post bemoaning writer's block and figured I'd share some things that have worked for me in the past. When I'm stuck in a rut, writing-wise, there are a few things that always seem to work.

First, vigorous exercise is often a good way to get rid of those mental blocks and get the words flowing again. If exercise fails, a little liquor can sometimes do the trick. You don't need to drink much before your inhibitions will begin to ease. Even if what you write while drunk isn't that eloquent, you can always edit it the next morning when sober. The point is to get the words flowing. Another method is to read some good poetry and get inspired by what other poet's are saying. Break out some of our texts from class and read a little to see if something strikes you as poignant.

You can also change the way you approach poetry. Try starting a short story and then cutting down the lines into a more poetic form. Hope some of these help.

Some notes on a failed ghazal

So the other night I was pondering the current assignment, writing forms of poetry. Wasn't really feeling the idea of a sonnet, so I asked one of my poetically inclined friends and she suggested a ghazal. I hadn't heard of it before and was pretty intrigued. The ghazal, I found out, is a form from Arabic/Persian/Urdu where the first couplet rhymes, and then every subsequent stanza's second line uses part of the B line for a refrain. They also need a strict rhyme and rhythm pattern. Here's a bit of a ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali as an example:

Okay, I was going to post some of it, but Blogger's not letting me paste it because we live in a police state. Instead I'll direct you to the Wikipedia page where you can read some of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ghazal

So you've familiarized yourself now, presumably. Connections to Sufism, close relation to music, fairly neat form all things considered. I wanted a topic I had a lot to say about for trying a new form, so I decided to write about Smug TV Chef Bobby Flay. I think Bobby Flay was the guy who danced on his cutting board on Iron Chef and everybody was all mortified by his disregard for Kitchen Stadium, and even if he didn't do that it totally seems like something he'd do. On Bobby Flay's Throwdown, he goes to little neighborhood restaurants and makes spicier chowder or lasagna or whatever than somebody and gets judges to declare his dish better than these people's trademark dishes in front of a crowd and he manages to be smug about that, too. Food Network under Flavian hegemony is going to hell in a grilled-tomatillo handbasket.

I don't really like his shows.

So I embarked upon a ghazal beginning,

Will TV ever see a day
Without the grating Bobby Flay?

8 syllables, then 5 syllables, but actually I'd already broken a rule of the traditional ghazal - no enjambment across the lines. I continued, though:

Oh look! I use chipotles! Wow!
The "innovating" Bobby Flay.

I came up with a few more refrains - berating Bobby Flay, exasperating Bobby Flay - but I was feeling a lot less vitriolic after getting started and decided to abandon my slanderous ghazal. I think I just needed a change of topic - for the structure/rule assignment, I wrote some haiku with extra restrictions, which was interesting. Has anybody else had difficulties with trying new forms?

Writing Block: The Great Wall of China

Hey, guys! I hope all of your weekends went well. I, like Chesney, went home, am SO much better for it. To me, there is just nothing in the world like getting to see my mom and my best friends, all of whom are pretty much like sisters to me. I miss them already! :(

But, of course, now is time to buckle down and talk some strictly poetry-related business. As I mentioned to my last workshop group, my relationship with language lately has been more on the side of the hate involved in love-hate relationships. She (if I may for a moment personify language with a female pronoun) seems to be evading me, and I can’t seem to catch up to her. I suppose most people call this dilemma “writer’s block,” but for some reason I just that term. Whenever I start facing a serious wall when it comes to writing the problem seems to be a lot more monumental than a block, it’s like all the blocks it took to make the Great Wall of China (and then some), and nothing gets me down more. What is worse, I think the problem has a bit of a snowball effect. I mean, it’s hard to go out and start chiseling away at being creative when you feel bad for not being able to be creative in the first place. You feel me? Or, for those of you who enjoy more eloquent diction – am I making sense? I would love to hear about any ways you guys have found to break out of your own personal obstacles to creative work. Maybe they will help me out too.

All that being said, I can’t help thinking that maybe this week’s assignment has given me some much needed motivation. I still have a ways to go on finishing my piece up, but I find that sometimes working within constraints can actually foster creativity. This seems to be the theme of our class as of late, and I can’t wait to meet and talk with Andrew Haung. What a crazy job it must be to write songs about whatever other people feel like jamming to! The whole idea seems like a really interesting thing to make a career out of, and so, I can only imagine how interesting the actual man who works the job is. At any rate, I’m sure we’ll all find out soon enough!

Poetry!

Hey guys! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. I went home and enjoyed it very much. I was able to get a lot of work done and catch up with my family. I always feel better when I go home for a couple days, don't you?
Anyways, being home got me thinking about my next poem and the poem that was work shopped last week. I felt that my poem last week was strong and very different from other poems I have been writing. I got to thinking what made me write that poem to begin with. I wrote the poem out of anger and when I handed it in I wasn't even sure how it would come across to my fellow classmates. As I read aloud during the work shop many people mentioned its strength. I was very surprised because the poem only took me a matter of minutes to write.
The point I am trying to get across is that when I write poems that are very personal and current, I feel that they are my best work. I also noticed the poetry that might seem very personal to the poet, can somehow relate to others that read them even though it seems so personal in such a case where others might not understand it or relate to it . Therefore, I didn't think anyone would be able to relate or understand what I was talking about in some of my work shopped poems because they are so personal, but somehow I found that the more personal and intimate the topic is that I am writing about, the more meaningful it becomes to its readers. So, for my next assignment, I am going to write about the biggest issue I have ever had to come across. I never thought I would want to write about this topic, but I believe it will receive great reviews, hopefully.

n+7...

So I thought this week's assignment was really interesting. I found it extremely helpful to have guidelines and restrictions. I had been having trouble coming up with ideas of topics to write about and so it was nice having a base to begin working off of. However, I am not sure how I feel about n+7 poems. I wrote my own poem first, following a set of rules I had established and then i n+7ed my own poem and while it came out funny and strange, it seems a little too mad-lib-esque for me. I was also a little confused on what to do if it was a compound noun. For example rain showers, i didn't know if I should look up rain alone or put in two new words. Probably it doesn't matter at all since n+7 poems seem to be pretty nonsensical in the first place.I guess the one thing in particular that I don't really like about the n+7 poem is that it isn't really self sufficient. I feel like it isn't exactly accessible to the everyday reader, you have to understand the rules and structure behind it to truly appreciate it, an unaware person wouldn't be able to pick it up and admire it for its language or rhythm since the words that are replaced typically seem awkward and jarring inserted into the poem. I found the n+7 I wrote to be pretty awkward sounding, but maybe that's a result of the dictionary I used too...

Review of Two Literary Journals

When I was looking through several journals to choose from, I found a journal that involved a teacher with a master's degree in English literature. Her name was Jane Piirto; she included writing of poems as educational research. I am an Education minor with the hope of becoming a high school English teacher, so I thought this journal might benefit me, somehow in the future. The second literary journal I chose to read consisted of a bunch of poems. I found the two journals worked together because one was reportage based and the other was just poems. the reportage based journal was published by Ashland University and the second journal titled, Poetry, was published by Poetry Foundation.
The first journal I found online through the St. Lawrence library. I read it cover to cover and then decided to find a journal that corresponded to my first choice of journals. I was more attracted to the second journal because it had a nice cover. The poems in the second journal were about personal experiences and journeys the poets had gone through. I found many similarities to the poems used in my first literary journal because of Jane's poem's about traveling to other schools. Jane mentioned the "notion of quality and qualification in the use of art forms as qualitative research." When I read the poems in the second journal, the poems consisted of quality art forms. The poems that emphasized personal experiences and journey that were taken could be used in Jane's educational research. I found Jane's idea about the use of art forms and it being a domain, "a formally organized body of knowledge that is associated to a given field," gave me the inspiration to teach poetry as a high school teacher.
The concept of respecting the quality and qualification of poetry helped me see all the poems in the second journal in a different way. I had a new found respect for poetry and a new desire to teach the creativity that could be found within the history of English Literature. In the second journal there were poems that had both a contemporary feeling to them and a romanticism feeling to them. I found that the poems that had a romanticism touch were the poems that many people were able to relate to; these poems had a more universal sense about them. In the more contemporary poetry, I found there to a less sense of relation to the everyday person. In the second journal there was also less poems with a contemporary style then there were romanticism style.
The poetry that I am drawn to most is romanticism poetry. I love the sophistication about it and the whole heart feeling they have in them. Since I enjoy the romanticism style, I believe I will use poems of that genre for examples in my classroom in the future. To understand the quality and qualification of poetry I think you need to be attracted to a specific domain within poetry; Piirto explains this in the first journal I read, and it led me to thinking that once I have found a style in poetry that I am attracted to, I will be a better teacher at teaching overall objective for a particular unit or class.

stuuuuuffff

Hey, I hope everyone had a great weekend. I got to go back to my hometown and snowboard at my local mountain, although I did have to work there. But it was fun and sunny so I hope the weather was nice here too! I couldn’t sleep one night so I decided to pull out one of my notebooks and start writing a few poems. I think I wrote about 4 or 5 poems that night. Wow that is the first time I have done that on a Friday or Saturday night. Well while down there I got a hold of some music from a friend that I had never had before. Some big pun, or big punisher, I’ve had a hard time finding him because I cant really buy cds or itunes songs and nobody seems to have him. But alas I am victorious, his style of rhyming is awesome is beginning to influence me because of its uniqueness. Also im excited to work on these books or print projects were doin. I think they’ll be really fun and I have a few ideas floating around of what I want to do for some graphics on them. awesome

Literary Magazine Review

The first literary journal that caught my eye in the lower section of the ODY library, hands down, was the Southern Review (autumn 2009 edition), which is published quarterly at Louisiana State University. The journal features short stories, as well as a small section of essays and visual arts, in addition to poetry, but it was without a doubt the verse that I was most enraptured by. The journal has a very interesting cover, which immediately inspires onlookers to wonder about the reasoning behind it, if any happen to exist. It portrays a small toy vehicle atop a colorful package, set in front of a backdrop of black polka dots. The illustration is so random, it immediately catches attention, and I’d bet it is for that reason alone that I first picked the literary magazine up in the first place. Although the edition I read through did not appear like it would be too costly for the average individual to purchase, after looking around inside the pages, I found the subscription prices for individual patrons to be even cheaper than I originally suspected. A one-year subscription for the Southern Review is 40 dollars (60 dollars for two years, and 90 for three). In addition, single copies only cost twelve dollars a piece – much cheaper than the average paperback at Borders. Anybody interested in checking it out can also found some samples online at http://www.lsu.edu/thesouthernreview/. It became clear after reading the autumn 2009 copy of the Southern Review that the statement the magazine’s website makes about its requirements for accepted submissions are true. It tend to stay clear of most experimental writing, and instead sticks to publishing poetry and other literature that has a clear purpose, and one which requires very little guesswork on the part of the reader. I couldn’t help but smile a little after reading that statement, as I personally tend to enjoy this kind of poetry more as opposed to modern poetry from which meaning is sometimes had to glean. To me, modern poetry can sometimes take on the same persona of the splatter paintings that are all too popular today – they are nice to look at (or, in this case, read), but it doesn’t always appear that much effort is put into their crafting. Although I’m sure there are tons of holes in that assertion, it is a bias of mine, and it was comforting to know that I’m not the only one in the literary world (or at its fringes) that shares that opinion. One of my absolute favorite poems in the Southern Review is entitled “Blaze.” The poem, written by Bruce Bond describes the speaker’s feelings after his home was almost burned to the ground, and the consequent reality check he received concerning the true implications of “ownership.” I like this piece not only because of its seriousness of subject matter, but for its absolutely incredibly imagery. One of my favorite scenes is described as follows:

“God know s all that wrinkled in the fire
that night my house burned down
what it was I felt beneath the tower
of light, there’s where it crowned
everything I owned or thought I owned.
I recall the murmur
and awe of other kids who left their homes
to see the brilliant flutter
of sky, as if it were God’s sword returned
To take back what he gave”


What a powerful scene the above description creates in one’s mind, and what an amazing begging to a poem! It is a description of this nature that I can only hope to someday write, and, that being said, I would be honored to become published in the Southern Review. In some ways, certain aspects of the writing within this edition reminded me of Kevin’s style, at least in their elusive nature.

The second literary magazine I decided to take a look at is called the Seneca Review. I’m sad to say I was not quite as impressed with the selection of poetry I found in this edition. I’m guessing my hesitancy with embracing the material I found within the magazine is due to the fact that it ignores the standard rules regarding line breaks, which, as far as I’ve heard, signify an important difference between verse and prose. The best example I can give of this is found within the poem “The Laurel Crown”, by Dan Beachy-Quick. This poem, by introducing a new lens through which to view Greek Mythology, describes certain anecdotes not in stanzas, but in what appears to be plain paragraphs, only occasionally intercepted by traditional poetic verse. The use of language in the poem itself is actually quite charming, describing Greek heroes like Apollo and their love affairs in way I have never before thought of, and thus making them new. I am just not used to such an abrupt change in writing style, and would guess that such experimentation is an acquired taste, but one that can indeed come to be appreciated. Anyone interested in checking out the Seneca Review online can go to
http://www.hws.edu/academics/SenecaReview/.

Literary Journal Review!

The Poetry Foundation is an independent literary organization that publishes Poetry magazine. As the website states, “it exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.” This online literary magazine has multiple features and links to help broaden the reader’s experience and expand his/her network with the poetry world via the Internet. The Poetry Foundation website offers a history of the independent foundation and publisher, and the authors showcased in current or past issues. The literary journal blends art, scholarly articles, history, and postings of poetry events to entice visitors to subscribe to the monthly magazine. The foundation’s website also includes links to different audio links and podcasts so readers can listen to a poet’s reading of his/her poem. There are links to many different poetry books, included the month’s “featured” books. The Poetry Foundation works with small press publishers and advertises books related to the poetry genre/theme of each individual magazine issue. Any person accessing the website can read the current February 2010 issue, and upon clicking the “current issue” link, the poet’s names, and a randomly selected poem (featured in the issue) pops up. Readers are able to access the newly published poetry, and submit his/her own pieces to the magazine. All the information for editors, commentators, and submission pages are easily accessible. Interestingly, a link brings readers to different articles related to poetry in the media. For example, the latest issue of the magazine includes a link to an article featuring the American Idol judge, Simon Cowell, and his collaboration of creating a song inspired by the poem entitled “Footsteps”. If a reader is looking for the ultimate experience of reading contemporary poet’s works with numerous resources to art, events, media, and scholarly articles The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine is the reader’s best source to browse and explore.

"Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics" is a wonderfully easy-to-use website that posts “posters” of artists’ works within each issue. The latest poster, “No. 85 2010”, features fives poems from Isis Leaves Idaho by Judy Huddleston, a contemporary prose poet. Huddleston’s poems all connect to tell a sort of story or vignette into the life of a woman with a lover and an unwanted pregnancy. Mudlark does an excellent job of creating an “easy on the eyes” webpage and publication, which compliments the intriguing work being showcased within each issue. I believe Mudlark strives to highlight each poet in the issues they release, since there is usually only the work of one poet in each issue. If you are looking for individual displays of a specific poet’s work, check of Mudlark, you’ll find wonderfully talented artists receiving the individual recognition they deserve.

Literary review assignment

For my assignment, I looked at the Exquisite Corpse Journal. I looked at this one because I found the name really appealing and liked the cover of the magazine. This magazine is published by a group of people but the editor's name is Andrei Codrescu who is a poet and a novelist. There's another poet named Dewitt Brinson and a web developer, poet and etc., Plamen Arnaudov. This issue is the second edition of the magazine, which is why I'm not sure of when it started because in the title/ headline it says it's the date of today and says it was established in '83. So, I think this is both an internet website and a magazine. I think this magazine is based offline, but there are only two printed issues. I think they just started printing copies and they might be doing it once every year. I think the piece itself is well put together. They have colored pictures, poems, artwork, interviews, and so much more. The cover page was very appealing to me and looks like it would have cost a lot to print. There is a picture of an old man sitting on a chair, near a refrigerator, saying "well, hell". I thought this was kind of funny, which is why I continued to read this one. The poetry has its own button in which you press to read all of them. I don’t know if the ones I read were from all the same magazine or just poems that were collected at the time. The poems with in the journal are very diverse. I think the ones that appeal to me most are the conversational poems in which it says like the poet is talking to you or another person who isn’t someone you know. Well, so far all the poems I’ve read seem to be about old age or death. I don’t know if this is a theme, but it would go well with the title of the magazine. In this magazine, I think I like the poet Pat Nolan. He’s structure seems very free flowing and he’s stanza don’t really make sense, but flow anyway he wants them to flow. I like his poem Lost and Found, well the beginning, because of the repetition that he uses within the poem. He also has some other poems on the site that I thought were quite interesting, but I don’t know if I liked them as much as I liked this one. Well, I don’t really enjoy the poems in a different language because I’m not able to read them, but I don’t really think there are poems that I don’t like. I mean, I think some of them are too long for what they are trying to accomplish and maybe a little too wordy for me. Compared to the drunken boat, I think this one is a lot better. The Drunken Boat was very boring to me because of the way it was set up. I mean, they had the poets, the writers of non-fiction and fiction, but I couldn’t access any of their material. The only thing I did like about them is the art work and statements/ history they had for the writers. There isn’t really a cover page you can see and I don’t really know what’s going on with it. I think the Exqusitite Corpse is just more accessible which is why I’d look it up online again. For as for an actually copy of the magazine, I don’t know which one would be better.

scooters, vacation, fall

The two literary journals I decided to look at are the American Poetry Review and the Antioch Review.

The American Poetry Review is a bimonthly journal, that is published by World Poetry, Inc., which is a non-profit corporation. It is based out of Philadelphia and its website is www.aprweb.org, which is actually a great website to navigate around, you have the option of seeing a lot of poetry in there you should check it out. Anyway, the journal is printed to look more like a poetry periodical on newspaper quality paper, and not at all bound in book form, which is almost a deterrent at first because I doubted how credible this journal would be. But it doesn't seem like there's an overwhelmingly large amount of journals out there with just poetry, so I figured I'd have to give it a look. Many of the authors to this journal submit multiple poems. Only a few (one maybe two) of the poems are really experimental with the format and shape of the poems, giving it an almost conventional look to the journal as you leaf through it before you actually read any of the poems, but in reading some of the poetry you can definitely see that this is new contemporary poetry. There are a lot of insets and blurbs from the authors on the practice of writing itself, which makes reading this journal seem a lot more personal and makes the reader want to go experiment themselves rather than solely appreciating the writing. Because there were so many poems it was hard for me to pick out a favorite, it was also hard for me to focus on just one poem because I knew there were so many more and my mind kept flitting back and forth between pages and poems. Just like a newspaper, there are adds scattered all over the place in this journal advertising different MFA programs, spreading the word about poetry contests, and displaying books that the reader should explore.

The Antioch Review, unlike the American Poetry Review is a literary journal that is not solely about poetry. It is one of the oldest and most well established journals for writing, and features both contemporary and older writers within its pages. It is published quarterly by Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and its website is antiochreview.org (no www. part in the beginning, that threw me for a little spin there). The book itself is very cleanly printed and the material inside is separated into six categories: Essays, Poetry, Fiction, France, From Our Archives, and Et Cetera. I didn't really know what to think about the section "France"... but basically it's a whole section in the journal dedicated to literature about France or the French culture. Go figure... I'm not sure if that section is present in every issue or what, but it was funny to me that the "France" section has more pages filled than the Poetry section. However, I really enjoyed all of the poetry in this journal, more so than some of the poetry I read in the American Poetry Review. Maybe it's because they had to be more selective of the poetry they published. I especially liked one poem entitled "Bunny Hole", with text that was separated in a way to form the image of a bunny hole itself with the words. The types of poetry in this short section seemed to hit all the bases. I feel like as a starting out poet you'd have more luck submitting to the American Poetry Review. I would definitely pick up another copy of both issues!

Literary Review Assignment

I choose the winter 2009 issue of Granta: The Magazine of New Writing. It is published by a press called LegoPrint located in Italy. It is published four times a year, March, June, September, and December. Granta is a mixed genre literary magazine that publishes poems, memoirs, short stories, photography and more. It was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as an outlet for their literary experiments and political opinions. Today Granta publishes well known authors whose writing attempts to tackle and make sense of the major issues in human society. It’s website is www.granta.com. Granta is a sizable literary magazine, the one I looked at being over 300 hundred pages with many color photographs and advertisements. This particular issue has a completely black and white cover, though the cover art work changes for every issue. It is bound with a soft-cover and feels like a substantial paper-back. It does not contain a literary or political mission, though its editors do remark on the website that selections are chosen based upon the magazine’s belief in the power and urgency of the story, and the story’s fantastic ability to describe, illuminate and make real some of the world’s most important issues of the day. Granta is intended for the publication of the more experienced author, and one whose work has a serious purpose and whose general intent is to draw attention to important issues in our society. Some of the authors who have been published in Granta include Raymond Carver, Ian McEwan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Steiner, Graham Swift, and Tobias Wolff. One essay in particular that I read was called What I Think When I Think About Robots by Steven Hall, and though it wasn’t a poem it reminded me of Jon’s poem about the astronaut.
The second journal I choose to review was the winter 2010 edition of The Fiddlehead: Atlantic Canada’s International Literary Journal. It is published four times a year by the University of New Brunswick. It publishes short stories, poems, and personal essays and is Canada’s longest living literary journal, published for over 65 years. The Fiddlehead publishes several new poets and fiction authors every year who enter into their Fiddlehead Contest. Their literary mission is to publish good writing that contains freshness and surprise. There was a range of poems included in the journal and the majority of the pieces included in this issue were poems. Many of the poems focused upon nature or a connection with the outdoors, though there were a variety of other subjects included as well. The Fiddlehead seems to be a place to publish for less established writers than Granta, though they said their acceptance rate is around 2% of all submissions.

Maybe we should have a general question to ask each week?

since I'm not sure what to write about today I guess I'll ask the class for some suggestion. No one will answer of course, since this blog is so individualized (is that the right word, I'm not sure, but who cares since I can practically write whatever I want to :) ). I'm working on this poem and I'm not sure where to take it next:

Title: This is kinda for a no one

Dear Johne,
I know you’ve been watching me
Because I’ve been watching you
I think it’s time to stop, now
Stop looking out the window
For a tomorrow that will never come
Why don’t you ease yourself into
Your cold bed and settle in
Between your lonesome sheets, hmm?
Don’t wait for me to kiss your clammy
Forehead. Just kiss your hands and sing
Yourself a lullaby close your
Eyes and whisper my name
“God’s never been closer to you”
Dear Johne,
You’ve been walking with death in front
Of your toes and life behind your heels.
You’re frown has never been as deep.

I want to be God in the poem, but I'm not sure how to make this clear without stating: I'M GOD. Maybe just having it up with give me the motivation I need to finish it.

Another love poem

So, I know there have been poems about love and this poem is no different. I know there have been poems about both aspects of love, the good and the bad. This is another on about the bad. This poem is an attack on love itself. This poem is angry...like all my other poems. I use the word "bitch" to describe not only the opinion "love is a bitch" but as a re-frame that happens through out the poem. I don't know if this poem will be effective. This poem is a fragment of a poem I wrote in the past and revised. I found it among some of my documents and wanted to complete it.
This is as far as I got.

Bitch,
Yea…you,
Breathing out your lies,
Twisting up hearts with your brutal hands,
Bitch,
I trusted you
Gave into you
Like fools often do,
I gave in and gave up me
And here you are,
You bitch
Yea…raise your hand
Strike me down,
Rape my body
You bitch
Don’t like it,
Do you?
Being called a bitch

I cried, every time I watched
my motherfucking father
Raise his hand
Crushing my mother’s beauty
With pain and distress,
punished on her face,
All because you
Bitch.

And here,
You are with me,
Turning the most
Beautiful man I ever saw
into an animal with a fist,
a fist against my face,
And laugh,
You…bitch.
Is it funny I can’t leave him,
Because you have me bounded down,
Hoping in the impossibility
That he will change, he can change.

I dont really know how I'm going to finish it, but I hope I'm able to do so soon.

Re: ruts

It's easy to feel the way Chesney describes when writing sometimes - that you're in a rut, writing about the same things over and over again. For me personally, it's especially apt to happen when writing poetry, as it's still the genre I'm least comfortable with writing and there are subjects I'm not sure I could do justice in poetic form.

One thing I like to try when I feel a rut coming on is to take a piece and "translate" it from one genre to another. Writing a short story or essay idea as a poem is an interesting experience. I think taking fiction or nonfiction into the poetic form sensitizes you to considerations of word choice and significance. Dead, ineffective verbiage that might slip under your radar when it's written in paragraphs as prose can become glaring when you write it as lines of poetry instead. Poetry can also encourage you to be succinct, and leave out passages that aren't necessary to tell the story/make your point/what-have-you.

That said, writing about the same thing for a while doesn't always signify a rut. It might just be a subject that's especially fertile for you creatively. If you're still finding new things to say about it and not repeating yourself, there's really no need to stress out about changing topics.

Hope this is semi-helpfullish. I'm going to go shave, see everybody at workshop.

blogblogblog

Since our last workshop class I have been wondering about the question of why it is that we write at all. It seems as if all our classmates have different motives for writing-some do it to convey their anger, to express feelings on love, to make some sort of observations or statement on the condition of the world, and some do it because they like the way words sound when put together in a certain way (now, I am wildly generalizing here). This doesn't just have to do with our classmates, it has to do with all writers, what is it that motivates us to write? Is it to illicit a sharing of feelings? Do we want to use ourselves as vectors to allow others to feel? And will we be able to achieve this over the course of a semester? Maybe, or maybe at least touch upon it-get slight glimpses of what we strive for in writing to get that spark going in us. I think Chesney had a good point in her blog about trying to write about subjects she isn't exactly comfortable with yet. We should all do that, because isn't that what keeps writing interesting for us?

And how are we going to get it all out there? I'm really excited for the class we're about to have (in 15 minutes, yikes), because I feel like amateur writing can get lost in the cracks so easily, leaving people discouraged, and with no venue through which to publish their writing so that it can be seen. Even if I don't use it to "publish" my own poetry, I know I'd really like to use the skills of creating a book in the future.

I don't know about you guys...

But I haven't until fairly recently ever thought of myself as "a writer." In fact, it wasn't until other people, mainly friends and professors, started giving me this title that I really thought about whether or not I might fit the writer "mold", so to speak. I have always been someone who enjoys playing around with language and experimenting with different orders of words. Likewise, I have always gotten a kick out of trying to deduce which combination of these words is actually capable of inspiring absolute beauty. That being said, I don't really know if I have hit the mark on that "absolute beauty" bit, but, nevertheless, the goal is one I think ties into the question I would like to pose in this blog entry.

What exactly are the qualities that make someone a writer -- and better yet -- what are the qualities that make someone a good writer?

Is it writing prolifically? Putting together a sentence which is rhythmically, metaphorically, and logically spellbinding? Or is it all a matter of opinion, as many argue is the case with all art forms?

I'd love to hear everyone's feedback!

Workshop #2

Hey Guys! I really enjoyed reading everyone's poems last week. Not having any guidlines for the workshop poems made each peom uniquely different. I hope that I will be able to contibute to a wide varity of different styles and themes in my own poems. I have a hard time escaping from writing poems about love. Recently I feel like I am stuck in a rut because my poem for this week is also about romance. I am not very witty or savy when it comes to writing about current events. I am always afraid of mentioning something that someone might get affended by. However, for next weeks workshop I am going to take a chance. If I embarras myself, then I can at least know I tried to write a poem that inculdes issues other then romance. I want my next poem to have to do with an issue that everyone deals with and is anything but love, falling in love and romance. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.



Ps. I hope Im not the only one that is having this type of issue.

Synesthesia

Hey class, for this week's blog post I decided to share a few snippets on the phenomenon known as synesthesia. According to Wikipedia, synesthesia is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

Basically, this means that two of your senses are mingled in some fashion. People who are genetically predisposed to this condition are described as congenital synesthetes, while others who develop synesthesia through psychedelic drug use, stroke, or some other way are described as adventitious synesthetes.

I myself have a moderate case of synesthesia, wherein single digit numbers (and 10) are always associated with specific colors. For instance, the number "9" always appears olive green in my mind's eye, while "1" is white, "10" is gold, "4" is blue, "2" is red, and so forth. Synesthesia is common in poetry and some easy examples might be "I tasted the clouds" or "I heard the grass". Each describes a sense organ experiencing a stimulus that it can't normally detect.

The French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire wrote of synesthetic experience but there is no hard evidence to prove they were synesthetes themselves. The linked poem is a poem by Rimbaud in which he explores this experience of synesthesia.


"Vowels" by Arthur Rimbaud