Fairytales

Concentration, Fixation

The radiant thick strands of glamorized hair

Splayed across delicate innocent shoulders

Of the transparent, translucent skin

Exposing weak bones said to be beautiful

Blue, green, yellow and pink gowns

Shape the squeezed waists

Accentuates the voluptuous aspects

Of an unreal unnatural being

Lengthy lean limbs,

The towering heights, the symmetry

Makes ourselves incomparable or defected

The only one recognizable and yet

Fatal flaw of these creatures

Seems to be their desperation

For a male or the lack there of

Now this infiltrates minds,

Infiltrated my young mind

Distorting my creativity…

My perception of what I may deem beautiful

Replacing it with society views

Or unworthy and unwarranted opinions on such topic

I now depict and question why ever since my sweet 16

I fixate on images that aren’t real

 rather impossible to achieve

spiraling me out of control

and can’t help but notice how ironically,

my opinion of beautiful aligns with Disney Princesses

Poetry Journal

I picked out the poetry journal “Rooted” on blog spot. In my search for the perfect blog to indulge myself in, I skimmed roughly 8 blogs looking for something that would spark my interest. Rooted stood out to me because of the description of the journal which states: “Poetry for me is a way of living, it comes out of nowhere and I have to write it down. How I write, what I write, I decide. I am not asking for you to be judgmental. I am gifted with the ability to see beyond the obvious.” This interested me more than the others because of how spontaneous her poetry seemed. I was also thoroughly impressed by her self confidence and her ability not to care. Although ironically in many of her poems she expresses her reliance on either things or people.

In her poem “Erosion” she discusses her weakness and directly addresses what seems to be her self demise:  

I yearn for your breath

 that breath you stole from me..

I put on a mask again
throw a clay pebble into that imaginary pool
no one will allow bend the rules-
except you. except you

After reading a number of her earlier poems I have come to the realization that she must be talking about a spouse who has recently left her. She uses a poem fixated on baking and transforms it into a poem about cheating and consequences.

I have built a fence with bricks,
now I hide in that tastefully decorated
tasteless kitchen so that I won't cheat.

nothing is left for me-
everything tastes like gravel-
I seem to wallow in trash.

I precisely measure out portions-
that balance that you gifted to me
occupies a place of pride.

 I can now relate this back to the description of her poetry blog, and after further analysis I realize why she asks her readers to refrain from being judgmental. I may have perceived this incredibly wrong but to me it seems as though she was the one who broke her marriage (or broke something….but seems like marriage). She writes her poetry on a day to day basis and essentially puts her frustration, anxiety and stress into her poems. It is almost like a personal journal. Additionally, she often adds abstract pictures that shed light on important aspects of her poems. I think this is a really exceptional journal due to the risks she takes. She allows herself to open her life up through poetry on the world wide web which is something I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing. Not only does she open up her life but she criticizes herself and her own indiscretions. Definitely something we can all learn from. 

Final Project Proposal

For the final project I would like to be in the gender group and contribute a couple poems. I think being able to collectively put our poems together on one focused topic could be very powerful. It could also offer many different points of view. We have plans to have all of our final poems into bella and sela by 12/11/2013 where they will then be compiled. Looks like we will have around 20 poems in the book.

Yikes

Backseat.

Right? Left?

Where are we going?

Wandering the streets of New York,

Manhattan, Brooklyn 

A familiar face lost in an unfamiliar crowd 

Went out for a walk

But doesn't return

He changes as the season do

As it becomes colder, he does too

A father, a grandfather, a husband, a friend,

A doctor? 

He's a healer, suddenly confronted with a problem that he can’t fix

And where do I fit in?

Without thoughts or memories, does anything really exist?

I know our relation- he does not

So who is right?

Together, we have memories

Our ability to remember the past is something that we share

Something that I’ll always treasure

His memory

Poetry Reading

I went to the lowertown reading jam on October 23. It took place at the “Black Dog Café” which is a small café inside an old brick building. It reminded me a lot of tea garden. Not to draw stereotypes, but the ambiance this poetry slam gave was “hippyish.” 

I was amazed at how many different age groups were present. I saw families with babies and toddlers, teenagers, college students, adults and even some elders. It shocked me because in class we were warned that there was a high possibility that we’d be the youngest people present. Not only did the range of ages shock me, but the amount of people that were there! I walked in 10 minutes early and all the tables and chairs were already taken. Everyone was sitting with tea or coffee along with a pen and notebook ready to take notes. 

Out of the multiple poets we saw, my favorite was Marcus Harcus. In fact he is running for State Representative. Consequently, his poem was about politics and how our society needs to provide more equal opportunities. It discussed how everyone should have an equal voice despite demographic statues, race, and age. He talked about his campaign and how he sought to make the government more diverse. Unfortunately Harcus doesn’t have a book or any poems online (like all of the poets there). He was so dramatic that after reading the pages his poems were written on he’d throw them off to the side. For me, this showed how much he cared about politics and equality. This changed my perspective on poetry because Marcus Harcus talked about a present issue in our society. It was more interesting to me because it was something I could relate to. I really enjoyed this poetry slam because I was able to see more than one poet. 

^ This is Marcus Harcus

Marcus Harcus Website: http://marcusharcus.org/

Genders

                After watching Charlie’s video on the difference between girls and boys, my mind immediately jumped to the gender agreements in languages. I took Spanish from kindergarten through 10^th grade and begun French in 11^th grade. Both of these languages have grammatical gender agreements where something is either “feminine” or “masculine.” A group of girls use the feminine agreements, and a group of guys use the masculine agreements. What’s interesting is that a group of both girls and guys use the masculine agreement. In every situation, in both French and Spanish, where girls and boys are both present the masculine ALWAYS overrides the feminine. In our society and within our languages and other like things, there are engraved sexist rules and ways that are present from the day we are born such as my example of genders in language. So, it feels almost impossible to reverse the idea that men are superior to women unless you question the base of our society.  

Louis Jenkins Response

                I decided to read and focus on the “Afterlife” and “Football.” The first thing I realized was that they seem to be paragraphs in poem form. Both of these also seemed to be telling a story initially, but then shifted into a larger more complete message.

                The Football poem was more straight-forward than The Afterlife. I like how Louis Jenkins started with something that his readers would find interesting or relatable, football, and somehow turned it into the moral message of self responsibility. The line, “One has certain responsibilities, one has to make choices,” really resonated with me because I feel this was when the poem really came together. I believe the message he was relaying to us readers, is that it’s up to us individually to set our own morals which will determine our own view of right and wrong. The only thing I had trouble understanding was the football comments strung throughout the poem such as “My man downfield is waving his arms.” I don’t see how this adds to the point he is trying to make, and I even believe that it detracts from his message.

                 From the title of this poem “The Afterlife”, I concluded that the poem was about two dead people talking about their life when they were still alive. Were they seeking to find the point of life? The quote inside the poem which stated “It didn’t seem to have any plot” suggests to me that they had concluded that there was no point to life. They talked about what they did and didn’t like, but what I couldn’t find was the message being portrayed. At first I thought it would be something cliché like “live life to the fullest” but when I reached the end, my theory wasn’t even close. It ended with the two people stating their regrets…regrets that they couldn’t even change. What is that trying to tell us?

                

Fear

Fear

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself”

Although it feels impossible to kick the fear,

That has bubbled inside moe for the last 15 years.

The endless thoughts of being sick,

Was a way I believed I would always live.

But now it seems I can finally see,

What this quote really is telling me.

To break the wall standing between,

Me and the uneasy acts us humans need.

To transform my fears into what I believe

To be a positive and to relieve,

The pent up stress within me.

Florida

Florida

Blow up arm life vests,

Squeezing my helplessly young arms.

To my star shaped

Sparkly pink sunglasses,

All left decorative shapes into my pale skin,

By the intensely bright yellow sun.

Building or mounding damp sand together,

To build, what I question now, a sand castle.

And flying vibrant lion kites in the bright blue sky.

Fishing alongside my cousins on a sail boat,

And the feeling of content as I real

In, a dangerously scared baby shark.

Are all memories which can never fade,

And all I have to blame is m age,

As to why I can’t re create these days.

Chris Martin's Poem Blog Response

Chris Martin Blog Response

Although Chris Martin’s style of poetry keeps me focused and involved, I cannot deny the fact that it is seemingly confusing. Lines such as “A muted computer Chip” and “the impossible Sky like itself only Vaster, bleuer, two and a half” makes me think outside the box as to what Martin could be saying. Unfortunately, I have not come to any conclusion as to what those lines mean. I have considered metaphors, symbols and even devices such as personification to try to uncover what the underlying moral or message in these poems and lines could be.

In the midst of my confusion I couldn’t help but analyze each line in each poem. The one that I disagreed with the most came from “The True Meaning of Pictures” :

“I see pictures every day and by

God there is as much

Truth in them as in any shifting”

I couldn’t disagree more. In my view, pictures are everything but truthful. Usually, pictures only capture the most exciting parts of someone’s life –or the worst. For example: While facebook stalking someone you don’t know you automatically click on their pictures. Their pictures often look glamorous causing you to envy this person’s life when in reality; your pictures do the same. These pictures you’re viewing are not a good indication of what this person’s life may actually be therefore they are not portraying the truth. I understand that Martin’s line about pictures could be analyzed and interpreted in many different ways; this is just the way I understood it.

In conclusions I think Chris Martins poems make me think harder than any other poems I have read. I believe that they have many different meanings to them and what makes the poems so confusing are the small details that make up the entirety of the poems. 

Vermont

In Manchester,

The towns are small

and the countless stories,

go back way beyond us all.

Here my Nani's paintings hang,

Of me, my family and my friends

where water colors wash away,

family differences which have been obtained

My annual visit never seems to be enough,

Because this is a place that I will always love

Joyce Sutphen Response

Response to Joyce Sutphen:

Two things that I really liked about Joyce Sutphen poems are that they are relatable and easy to interoperate. They paint a clear picture of what the circumstances are in a poem as well as the “tone” readers should be reading to. These two lines I believe are very similar:

                It wasn’t like that. Don’t Imagine

                My father in a feed cap, chewing

                A stem of alfalafa, spitting occasionally.

And

                Tilt your head slightly to one side and lift

                your eyebrow expectantly. Ask questions.

I like how she connects the poems to the reader; making it an “interactive poem.” It’s easier to read and makes the reading more interesting. Another thing Joyce Sutphen does is breaks up sentences over stanzas. I think this is a good way to connect or “string” the poem along in such a way that it makes sense. It makes you want to keep reading. This is well displayed in this part of “On the Way to the Farm I think of my Sister”:

Once you're on it, you don't have to stop
for anything, except congestion in July
when everyone else is heading

North. You'd like it: driving at 80 mph
with the music forty years past when 
you left the planet ... but no more

gasoline at 29 cents a gallon! No more
Beatles (John and George—both dead),
v no more cows in the stanchions, no more hay
in the barn. Otherwise, everything is
pretty much the way you remember it.

Fall Sonnet

Fall

The change in leaves from bright green to gold rust,

Suggests the autumnal cool is right about to arrive

From a kaleidoscope of colors, to the brisk wind gusts,

The thoughts and plans of thanksgiving are being contrived.

When summer falls to autumn your wardrobe shifts,

Which leads to a cozy flannel or the comfort of a scarf

Then brings the limited edition flavors into the mix

Slowly the days get shorter and the light gets dark

When pumpkin flavored lattes begin to be made,

crisp red apples are again on their way

The longing for summer quickly starts to fade,

And all you want is for cider and pumpkins to stay

In the end the pumpkin bagels and coffee leave

Which leaves myself and others to grieve. 

My Violin - Privilege Poem

Un-revised Poem:

Privilege and Oppression Poem

Nearing my fourth birthday,

I quickly outgrew my makeshift violin built of plastic and cardboard.

I was eager to toss away its inability to produce sound,

Its shapeless thin Popsicle stick handle,

And even its wooden stick bow.

Unfortunately the excitement of owning a violin faded fast

It caused me to give up my weekends,

and cast away my disposable social life

My ability to play violin is a privilege

Although unrecognized in the past,

I realize now, it is somewhat an image,

Something to set me apart from the rest

More generally to be used as an advantage

And create passion to be the best

Revised Poem:

My Violin

Nearing my fourth birthday,

I rapidly outgrew my makeshift violin,

built of plastic and cardboard.

I was eager to dispose its inability to produce sound,

Its shapeless thin popsicle stick handle,

And even its wooden stick bow.

The excitement of owning a violin faded fast

It made me give up my weekends,

And cast away my disposable social life

Which at the time—I deemed my first priority.

It’s only now that I realize,

It made me that much more privileged.

My ability to play violin is a privilege

Although unrecognized in the past,

I realize now, it is somewhat an image,

Something to set me apart from the rest

More generally to be used as an advantage

And create passion to be the best.

One of the ideas in the reading that was most important to me would be the "diction." I think vocabulary really does a lot to poems and without interesting words the poem can become very dull. The next important thing would be the "syntax and grammar." I feel like this sets the tone for poems and can really personalize them. The revision part of the reading also made a lot of sense. I like how they said to not consider your first poem a poem, but simply a draft of words that will form a poem. After reading this, it made me open to changing a lot more than I would've. I hope we have more time to revise these poems again!