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.