Plum:
delicious
juicy
round-sounding
words
swirl
on lips
of readers
devouring
this poem.
Sestina:
tears
and children,
teapots
sing
in a house
where
no parent
seems
to live.
Like many of you, I am drawn to the poem "Plum" because of the way it sounds. You can tell the poet is really having fun thinking of just the right word, how it sounds, how it shapes the reader's lips. The experience of reading the poem mimics the act of savoring a juicy plum. I also am very fond of "Sestina." Not only is the structure of the poem fascinating (and hard to pull off! I have yet to write a successful sestina), but the topic of the poem is interesting, too. There is definitely a sense of loss and loneliness in the poem, a sense of how humans cannot always connect or comfort one another. Isn't it interesting how some of the objects come to life (the iron, the picture)? I look forward to hearing your interpretations!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Top Ten Favorite Poems
In no particular order, here are my top ten favorite poems (at least, my favorite poems at this time):
"Reading Plato" by Jorie Graham
"Passwords" by William Stafford
"This room and everything in it" by Li Young Lee
"Keeping things whole" by Mark Strand
"Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand
"I have taught the Japanese" by Lucilla Perillo
"This is just to say" by William Carlos Williams
"Your Life" by William Stafford
"Thesarus" by Billy Collins
"Sestina" by Elizabeth Bishop
This is the poem I'm bringing to class:
Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
I like this poem because it deals with both what is present and what is absent - for example, "the field and the absence of field." This poem makes me think of the genre of poetry in general, how poets use both words and blank, white space to create a text. This poem speaks to that relationship between words and emptiness, sound and silence, being and not being. The last stanza, in particular, emphasizes how there is unity between being and not being. It is this relationship between presence and absence that makes "things whole." This makes me wonder in what ways my life creates presence or wholeness in what is around me.
"Reading Plato" by Jorie Graham
"Passwords" by William Stafford
"This room and everything in it" by Li Young Lee
"Keeping things whole" by Mark Strand
"Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand
"I have taught the Japanese" by Lucilla Perillo
"This is just to say" by William Carlos Williams
"Your Life" by William Stafford
"Thesarus" by Billy Collins
"Sestina" by Elizabeth Bishop
This is the poem I'm bringing to class:
Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
I like this poem because it deals with both what is present and what is absent - for example, "the field and the absence of field." This poem makes me think of the genre of poetry in general, how poets use both words and blank, white space to create a text. This poem speaks to that relationship between words and emptiness, sound and silence, being and not being. The last stanza, in particular, emphasizes how there is unity between being and not being. It is this relationship between presence and absence that makes "things whole." This makes me wonder in what ways my life creates presence or wholeness in what is around me.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Response to Whitman's Song of Myself
Song of my Son
Myself, myself,
assumes, assumes
that you
belong to me.
You are
in my soul,
in my every atom,
in my blood.
A spear of summer grass,
this soil, this air,
is nothing without you,
I am your parent,
Your parent,
Always the same
Till death
Your parent.
Myself, myself,
assumes, assumes
that you
belong to me.
You are
in my soul,
in my every atom,
in my blood.
A spear of summer grass,
this soil, this air,
is nothing without you,
I am your parent,
Your parent,
Always the same
Till death
Your parent.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
These are a few of my favorite things...
By now I think many of you have realized that I really do love poetry. I enjoy reading it, writing it, and listening to it. This does not mean, however, that I always understand every poem I read. Some of my favorite poems are not ones that I necessarily "get." Sometimes I just like poems because of the way they sound. That is why I enjoy poetry, I think, because it is a genre that appreciates how language sounds. In this short blog entry, it is impossible for me to list every single poem that I love. Instead, I will just share two with you and explain briefly how each poem has influenced me.
Song of Myself
When I was an undergraduate student (majoring in English literature and creative writing), I remember "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman as a poem that really influenced me. I loved how this poem is long, rambling, and expansive. It talks about minute details (such as blades of grass) and enormous cosmos (such as the universe). I like this poem because, as a writer, it gives me permission to discuss anything and everything in the pieces I write. When I read this poem, I feel large, all-powerful. When I read this poem, I feel inspired to become a creator of my own world, a world of language. My favorite stanza in this poem is this:
"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the
earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."
Zipper poems
When I was working on my MFA degree (in creative writing, poetry)I was always looking for poets to emulate. One writer who influenced me profoundly was Jorie Graham. In her book, Erosion, many of her poems are written to look like "zippers." I found this form of poetry inspiring and began to write poems shaped similarly to hers. For example, here is the opening stanza from the poem "Reading Plato"
This is a story
of a beautiful
lie, what slips
through my fingers,
your fingers. It is winter,
it’s far
I am looking forward to hearing what poems you find interesting and inspiring!
Song of Myself
When I was an undergraduate student (majoring in English literature and creative writing), I remember "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman as a poem that really influenced me. I loved how this poem is long, rambling, and expansive. It talks about minute details (such as blades of grass) and enormous cosmos (such as the universe). I like this poem because, as a writer, it gives me permission to discuss anything and everything in the pieces I write. When I read this poem, I feel large, all-powerful. When I read this poem, I feel inspired to become a creator of my own world, a world of language. My favorite stanza in this poem is this:
"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the
earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."
Zipper poems
When I was working on my MFA degree (in creative writing, poetry)I was always looking for poets to emulate. One writer who influenced me profoundly was Jorie Graham. In her book, Erosion, many of her poems are written to look like "zippers." I found this form of poetry inspiring and began to write poems shaped similarly to hers. For example, here is the opening stanza from the poem "Reading Plato"
This is a story
of a beautiful
lie, what slips
through my fingers,
your fingers. It is winter,
it’s far
I am looking forward to hearing what poems you find interesting and inspiring!
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Poetry, poetry everywhere....
Thinking ahead to Wednesday's reading (when you bring into class poems you like), I decided to post some links to digital poetry archives. While you are free to bring in any poems you like (such as from books you own/have checked out of the library or other poems in Norton), you might find these digital archives helpful resources. I encourage you to explore, dig around, and enjoy! Just remember to bring in hard copies of the 2 poems that are your "favorite" and be ready to discuss these poems with the class on Wednesday.
Academy of American Poets, Poetry Archives, Bartleby.com
And, as for my response to Monday's poems...
Why roses? What is their symbolic significance? This is the second time this semester we have come across "the rose" as a symbol, and it makes me wonder, "Why do artists gravitate to this particular flower?" I know we talked earlier in the semester about how the rose is symbol of love and passion; it can also symbolize death. But doesn't it strike anyone else as just a bit odd that writers ALWAYS seem to reference the rose. I mean, have you ever read a poem about a tulip? A water lily? A carnation? Personally, I think tulips are my favorite flower. They are not showy, they are hearty, and they come in just about every color imaginable. They are easy to grow; you just plant the bulbs in the fall and voila - come spring you have beautiful flowers sprouting up all over.
I decided to do a little research on tulips and discovered they once were so popular (in the 17th century in the Netherlands) that "early enthusiasm for the new flowers triggered a speculative frenzy now known as the tulip mania and tulip bulbs were then considered a form of currency" (according to Wikipedia). Crazy, huh? That tulips might be more valuable than money.
So, tulips, here is my tribute to you:
Red Tulips
Just this week, the tulips
lining our front walk
returned. Each day
green stalks threaten
to bend and only one blooms
explosive petals, solid red,
defying the photo once
stapled to the bag of bulbs:
pale yellow and white blossoms
streaked in purple deep
enough to be veins.
Flames, the greenhouse owner
called them, their pattern
first caused by a virus carried
by peach potato aphids. This
made for flowers beautiful
and lethal –Holland’s Tulipmania,
the stock market crash of 1636 – entire
homes or heads of oxen sold for a single
bulb, when weeks later, each plant,
sick and dying, would be worth
almost nothing.
Academy of American Poets, Poetry Archives, Bartleby.com
And, as for my response to Monday's poems...
Why roses? What is their symbolic significance? This is the second time this semester we have come across "the rose" as a symbol, and it makes me wonder, "Why do artists gravitate to this particular flower?" I know we talked earlier in the semester about how the rose is symbol of love and passion; it can also symbolize death. But doesn't it strike anyone else as just a bit odd that writers ALWAYS seem to reference the rose. I mean, have you ever read a poem about a tulip? A water lily? A carnation? Personally, I think tulips are my favorite flower. They are not showy, they are hearty, and they come in just about every color imaginable. They are easy to grow; you just plant the bulbs in the fall and voila - come spring you have beautiful flowers sprouting up all over.
I decided to do a little research on tulips and discovered they once were so popular (in the 17th century in the Netherlands) that "early enthusiasm for the new flowers triggered a speculative frenzy now known as the tulip mania and tulip bulbs were then considered a form of currency" (according to Wikipedia). Crazy, huh? That tulips might be more valuable than money.
So, tulips, here is my tribute to you:
Red Tulips
Just this week, the tulips
lining our front walk
returned. Each day
green stalks threaten
to bend and only one blooms
explosive petals, solid red,
defying the photo once
stapled to the bag of bulbs:
pale yellow and white blossoms
streaked in purple deep
enough to be veins.
Flames, the greenhouse owner
called them, their pattern
first caused by a virus carried
by peach potato aphids. This
made for flowers beautiful
and lethal –Holland’s Tulipmania,
the stock market crash of 1636 – entire
homes or heads of oxen sold for a single
bulb, when weeks later, each plant,
sick and dying, would be worth
almost nothing.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
My Barbie
Poor, poor girl.
5 feet 9 inches tall, with 36
inches of chest, 33-inch
hips and a mere 18-
inch waist, why she is wasting
herself away. Critics say
she is an anorexic, shop-a-holic,
high-heeled , brainless icon
out to destroy the self
image and esteem
of every girl.
As if this tiny girl-
like doll, just a doll,
had a mind and motive
within her empty, plastic
head, this smiling, shiny
haired head on an 11.5 inch-tall
body, a body modeled
after a paper doll,
a person made of nothing
but paper, so thin
and fragile. Nothing
at all.
5 feet 9 inches tall, with 36
inches of chest, 33-inch
hips and a mere 18-
inch waist, why she is wasting
herself away. Critics say
she is an anorexic, shop-a-holic,
high-heeled , brainless icon
out to destroy the self
image and esteem
of every girl.
As if this tiny girl-
like doll, just a doll,
had a mind and motive
within her empty, plastic
head, this smiling, shiny
haired head on an 11.5 inch-tall
body, a body modeled
after a paper doll,
a person made of nothing
but paper, so thin
and fragile. Nothing
at all.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Memoir: Story of the Survivor?
After our last class, I got to thinking again about the memoirs we are reading in our literature circles. Although these texts focus on very different events (rape, wartime displacement, poverty/homelessness, natural disaster), the memoirs do share this common theme: the story of the survivor.
I find it interesting that the "rowdy girls" group has chosen to name their project on Farewell to Manzanar "Survivorship." This seems a very fitting title, considering this memoir details one Japanese-American girl's experience surviving the internment of her family during World War II. This group also has mentioned how the narrator/author expresses guilt over surviving. True, this young woman survived while many other people (i.e. soldiers, Holocaust victims, Atomic bomb victims) perished. Further, this young woman was able to leave the internment camp, go to college, have a career and family, and live a normal life. Her success contrasts the life story of many Japanese-Americans who were interned. Having lost their possessions, properties, and jobs, many of these people became impoverished, depressed, and homeless.
As I reflect on this idea of the "survivor," I'm curious to know how you think this theme may or may not apply to your memoirs, too. In what ways do Jeanette Walls, Jon Krakauer, and Alice Sebold survive their tragic circumstances? In what ways do their memoirs tell (or not tell) their survival story?
Finally, I'm including a link you may find valuable. This link is an article entitled, "Survivor Guilt in Holocaust Victims and their Children." Although none of our memoirs deal specifically with the holocaust, they do raise the issue of survivor guilt and how it affects the human psyche. I encourage you to take a look at the article; you may find it helpful!
I find it interesting that the "rowdy girls" group has chosen to name their project on Farewell to Manzanar "Survivorship." This seems a very fitting title, considering this memoir details one Japanese-American girl's experience surviving the internment of her family during World War II. This group also has mentioned how the narrator/author expresses guilt over surviving. True, this young woman survived while many other people (i.e. soldiers, Holocaust victims, Atomic bomb victims) perished. Further, this young woman was able to leave the internment camp, go to college, have a career and family, and live a normal life. Her success contrasts the life story of many Japanese-Americans who were interned. Having lost their possessions, properties, and jobs, many of these people became impoverished, depressed, and homeless.
As I reflect on this idea of the "survivor," I'm curious to know how you think this theme may or may not apply to your memoirs, too. In what ways do Jeanette Walls, Jon Krakauer, and Alice Sebold survive their tragic circumstances? In what ways do their memoirs tell (or not tell) their survival story?
Finally, I'm including a link you may find valuable. This link is an article entitled, "Survivor Guilt in Holocaust Victims and their Children." Although none of our memoirs deal specifically with the holocaust, they do raise the issue of survivor guilt and how it affects the human psyche. I encourage you to take a look at the article; you may find it helpful!
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