*I sat staring at Facebook for a while, earlier today, and figured I'd try my hand at what Richard Jackson tried to do with his piece titled Facebook. But this time, I want to participate with Twitter.*
A rape victim from Vandy tells others they're not alone.
Click this link.
Amazon's 20% deal is promoted by Amazon, a wireless speaker.
Shop now.
Freddie Benson is a total babe, click to see his transformation.
30 tips for 30 days.
We all read about Vogue skiing in Iran, only to wish we could adopt a motherless pig
like that Sheepdog did in North Dakota.
@JessieJunior retweeted from BuzzFeed.
The world is bigger than we think. Without a follow, who knows you're there?
@BuzzFeed retweeted @BuzzFeedMusic with an article about @falloutboy's tour life,
which @haashleyha favorited. Poetweet, simple and elegant, is a bit glichy, someone notes,
while another ad endorses itself and a $9.99 deal on polka dot dresses it thinks I want.
Wind echoes outside, begging for rain, a break in the clouds,
to pattern our jackets with significance.
@amandagutterman does math with gun control.
8 things never to say to creative people.
I'm creative.
Also, not sorry Justin Beiber is a brat.
Or curious in Cookie's 28 fierce looks on "Empire."
Someone famous favorites a tweet from someone else famous, and two superheroes
start a riot with their Superbowl bets. The children benefit there.
#byefelicia #mydogdoestricks #RedneckABook
I need to follow these people on this left column because they mean something to the world.
Let me alert you when @HoodJesus tweets.
What's happening?
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Junkyard 3 Week 4
I never remember falling asleep. It's one of those things that you just know you do because the comforter wrinkles in the morning and you open to some guy talking through wavelengths. Most nights, I wake up with my computer open, Netflix asking if I want to "continue watching, go back to browse, or play from the beginning." I click "continue watching" to see who Ross married in that episode, or what Monica needed to clean. Sometimes, my quilt ends up on the right side of my bed, crumpled and unused. That sinking feeling appears between 8:30 and 9, when I melt into the pillow and somehow the bed feels the warmest, like hot coffee, or the moment when you try to cool off your overheated computer on frozen legs.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Original Post 2 week 4
Based on the mad libs idea for "Frying Trout while Drunk" by Lynn Emanuel.
Father is yelling to release a hatred
that could cover the potholes with distance:
come with me he hollered and she floundered
in his breath, its warm devastation
where her head swiveled
in the underlines of yesterday.
When I yell it is always 2010,
a song echoing from the radio in an Accord
and father, white knuckled in insults,
leaving a scar from the driver seat
to the passenger of words and spit.
He is a smart, unfortunate man
in cahoots with a woman of green so crisp
you could snort forgiveness through it
and when you did nothing, I would forget to speak.
I remember all of us surrounded at summer,
the light slicing across the table,
and then mother’s napkin hitting the floor,
wrapped chunks of chicken splattering like wine on a white shirt.
When I yell I am too much like him —
the fork in one fist and in the other
the ring with a gleam faded as my iris.
I have wished you all my life
she begged him and it was true
in the same that all his life
he yelled, focused to the want itself,
he arched at this table
and with the hatred of the very quiet
placed in front of him the ring.
Original post 1 week 4
Speak Softly, Big Stick
over rope on asphalt, when a low riding Cadillac turned over
in the next lot. "Three little monkeys in a peanut shell."
Rough Riding Roosevelt wrote Henry Sprague, between
two pages of government, said: "if I had yelled and blustered,
I would not have ten votes," waxing in New York's abandon.
Alas. The world is nothing without wind,
and only hummingbirds hover, unless dead.
You understand nothing because knowledge is sin.
New York in '01. Demeter refused trees to fruit until Zeus
brought Persephone from Hades. The ground was hapless.
Men on United 93 fought a fake bomb to the ground,
pushing past the detonator and waiting carts of Coke and pretzels,
taking a fire axe to the flight door.
This is based on what we did with "Adulterated" by Jack Gilbert.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Memory 2 week 4
I survived childhood with an imaginary friend named Grophy, who extended as my Id.
I remember a playroom, where some light split the carpet into two colors, and my sister asked to play Barbies and I just wanted to kick ant hills on the curb outside.
She, still young enough to be manipulated, wouldn't understand when I hit her for interfering in my death counts, knocking her onto the curb grass in our front lawn. She wouldn't cry, merely stare wide-eyed and confused, until I bent down and hugged her, almost clinging to her sweatshirt. I was 8 and scared of my father, soft spoken but always threatening the belt or a hairbrush.
Apologies exploded, intentional word vomit blaming not myself, anyone but myself.
"Did Grophy hurt you?"
She nods, my heart aches with knowing I'm free again.
I remember a playroom, where some light split the carpet into two colors, and my sister asked to play Barbies and I just wanted to kick ant hills on the curb outside.
She, still young enough to be manipulated, wouldn't understand when I hit her for interfering in my death counts, knocking her onto the curb grass in our front lawn. She wouldn't cry, merely stare wide-eyed and confused, until I bent down and hugged her, almost clinging to her sweatshirt. I was 8 and scared of my father, soft spoken but always threatening the belt or a hairbrush.
Apologies exploded, intentional word vomit blaming not myself, anyone but myself.
"Did Grophy hurt you?"
She nods, my heart aches with knowing I'm free again.
Memory 1 week 4
At seven years old, my family lived in Elgin, a small suburb of Chicago, where the smell of lilacs engulfed the block. The way the wind warmed your arm hairs and allowed the back of your neck to prickle if you sat in the shade of a cherry tree for too long eminating from every crevice in the asphalt.
I remember my sister, trying to tag along with my friends and me, as we rode bikes around the block. Lauren still rode a tricycle at this time, a handed down Barbie bike-- four years old, thinking she'd keep up. The way the back wheels rocked back and forth as she rode, hitting the cement one at a time as she wobbled, peddled too fast for her legs, too slow for ours, lingered as me and my friends swung around the corner, out of her sight. She called out for me, I know. She started to cry, I know. She stopped, I know, feet firmly planted on the concrete, wiping tears from her cheeks.
I popped a wheelie, this time leaving my friends, pedaling faster than before-- half in fear of my mother, my father, half in fear of that unmarked van we were warned about just last week in school: some stranger danger shit.
I remember my sister, trying to tag along with my friends and me, as we rode bikes around the block. Lauren still rode a tricycle at this time, a handed down Barbie bike-- four years old, thinking she'd keep up. The way the back wheels rocked back and forth as she rode, hitting the cement one at a time as she wobbled, peddled too fast for her legs, too slow for ours, lingered as me and my friends swung around the corner, out of her sight. She called out for me, I know. She started to cry, I know. She stopped, I know, feet firmly planted on the concrete, wiping tears from her cheeks.
I popped a wheelie, this time leaving my friends, pedaling faster than before-- half in fear of my mother, my father, half in fear of that unmarked van we were warned about just last week in school: some stranger danger shit.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Junkyard 2 Week 4
While driving home last night, I turned past a flipped Mercedes, a passerby kneeling in front of the driver window, and three men with radios not directing my traffic. He flipped over the curbed mud puddle, avoiding some nonexistent animal or man walking along. Half-tempted to pull over and help, I instead parked in my driveway down the street and watched three deer feed on my dead grass.
Junkyard 1 Week 4
The car in front hits a deer and speeds off, over the hill, towards the highway.
The car behind bumps over it again, the car behind again, the car behind again.
By the time my Accord thumps over, it's roadkill. Pink and fur splattering the two lanes.
I can't see the hooves, the ears, the nose or face.
In my rear view, I see someone slow, pull over to the side, look back and forth across traffic,
then bend over, pick up a tuft of a pink cotton sweatshirt, a jean pocket, a shoelace.
Back at home, my mother flips on the tv, calls me about I-285 being backed up to 400,
someone was walking along the highway.
The car behind bumps over it again, the car behind again, the car behind again.
By the time my Accord thumps over, it's roadkill. Pink and fur splattering the two lanes.
I can't see the hooves, the ears, the nose or face.
In my rear view, I see someone slow, pull over to the side, look back and forth across traffic,
then bend over, pick up a tuft of a pink cotton sweatshirt, a jean pocket, a shoelace.
Back at home, my mother flips on the tv, calls me about I-285 being backed up to 400,
someone was walking along the highway.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Original Post 1 Week 3
Using the line "only through us and nothing changed" and "seagreen white" from "The Sun of Auschwitz" by Tadeusz Borowski.
It was Friday. The asphalt came raining down,
some earthquake of humanity in the middle of a desert.
My neighborhood, torn apart by weather, existed only through us,
and nothing changed. Even when you told me you loved
the idea of me, the idea of a swing on a tree in the front yard of a picket fence,
a dog chasing two stubby legs in Oshkosh around, thinking it a plaything.
In the plywood rubble, I thought of building on the sand,
rocks and grass obviously didn't work before.
Seagreen white can't be the color of the world.
It was Friday. The asphalt came raining down,
some earthquake of humanity in the middle of a desert.
My neighborhood, torn apart by weather, existed only through us,
and nothing changed. Even when you told me you loved
the idea of me, the idea of a swing on a tree in the front yard of a picket fence,
a dog chasing two stubby legs in Oshkosh around, thinking it a plaything.
In the plywood rubble, I thought of building on the sand,
rocks and grass obviously didn't work before.
Seagreen white can't be the color of the world.
Memory Post 2 Week 3
People apply for a drivers permit at 15. I, being a paranoid teenager, sat in the drivers seat of my mother's Honda Pilot one year earlier, staring at the knobs on the radio, afraid that if I touched something, the car would do something it wasn't supposed to.
My mother pulled open the side door, situating herself in the passenger seat. "Alright, start the car," she said while buckling.
I turned the key gingerly, holding a little too long.
Her face crinkled in pain.
...
We pulled into the parking lot and my mother decided, too late, that I needed to park next to the cart return.
"CRANK THE WHEEL. TURN. TURN. CRANK IT!" My mother hollered from the passenger seat. My brain stopped working for a minute and my right foot hit the gas instead, ramming the left side of the car into the cart return, lodging the wheel between the asphalt and the middle rod. The right side, somehow swung around to knock the parked Corolla in front of me six feet into the aisle. Finally finding the brake, I put the car in park and stared.
...
A woman in a pink sweater and jeans races out of the store, pushing a bag-loaded buggy. She blips the lock button on her key fob, testing to make sure, indeed, the intercom was correct; her car was hit in the parking lot. My mother opens the door, in official Mom-mode, with insurance cards in hand. I watch from the drivers seat; my front door won't open. Impact caused it to buckle, making a cracking noise, almost like a breaking bone.
My mother pulled open the side door, situating herself in the passenger seat. "Alright, start the car," she said while buckling.
I turned the key gingerly, holding a little too long.
Her face crinkled in pain.
...
We pulled into the parking lot and my mother decided, too late, that I needed to park next to the cart return.
"CRANK THE WHEEL. TURN. TURN. CRANK IT!" My mother hollered from the passenger seat. My brain stopped working for a minute and my right foot hit the gas instead, ramming the left side of the car into the cart return, lodging the wheel between the asphalt and the middle rod. The right side, somehow swung around to knock the parked Corolla in front of me six feet into the aisle. Finally finding the brake, I put the car in park and stared.
...
A woman in a pink sweater and jeans races out of the store, pushing a bag-loaded buggy. She blips the lock button on her key fob, testing to make sure, indeed, the intercom was correct; her car was hit in the parking lot. My mother opens the door, in official Mom-mode, with insurance cards in hand. I watch from the drivers seat; my front door won't open. Impact caused it to buckle, making a cracking noise, almost like a breaking bone.
Junkyard 4 Week 3
A washing machine, three tires, and a rusted oven lie strewn across the field behind my house. An overhanging branch knocks my window every few minutes, almost talking with the pregnant cat outside.
In the truck in front of me on 166, there's a short blonde behind the wheel, a shorter baseball hat in the middle, and a brunette man talking in the passenger seat. He's "No. 1" and someone named Charlie died in 1986, according to the stickers on the back window.
The puddle in my driveway, at the top right corner by the garbage can no one empties, looks like the face of Jesus Christ.
In the truck in front of me on 166, there's a short blonde behind the wheel, a shorter baseball hat in the middle, and a brunette man talking in the passenger seat. He's "No. 1" and someone named Charlie died in 1986, according to the stickers on the back window.
The puddle in my driveway, at the top right corner by the garbage can no one empties, looks like the face of Jesus Christ.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Response to Ryan Silver's Junkyard 1 Week 3
This is a response to Ryan Silver's Week 3 Junkyard 1.
I love the very beginning of this: "Lilies and roses cover the death smell,
mixing with the pounds of beige makeup and formaldehyde seeping up the staircase that leads down to the cold metal gurney where Betsy lay four hours ago.
Danny inched forward, bumping blacks slacks, spinning into a purse- a fat old woman caressing him behind the ear and speaking with his mother like Danny was a new doll" because it's supremely descriptive while not being explanatory. I especially admire the "bumping black slacks, spinning into a purse" because of the sounds these words together make. There's a technical word for this, but I'm not good at remembering technicalities. I think is assonance or alliteration or something like that.
But anyway, from this point to the bottom, the piece shifts into more of an explanation of what is happening, what Danny is feeling, and I feel that to be something of a missed opportunity.
My first thought for the next draft would be to beware of "because." There’s this whole chapter in Writing Poetry that I can go into about how dangerous the word is, use it sparingly, blah blah. Sometimes it can be used well, but for the most part, the word explains too much. It makes the piece lose the illusion. Showing the puppet strings, you could say.
What about: “like Danny was a boisterous doll, anxious and shiny. Receiving friends now was the peak of the old heifer’s social life—Betsy (include here something she did instead) for the last decade. But Danny, who didn't care about anything else, only knew there was something in her bulging eyes and painted smile and that wide brim, too black for her pale face, that he hated more pure than an infant. ”
Or something like that. The "more pure than an infant" might be edging into cliche territory.
You’re still getting at the fact that Danny has no idea how to act at this funeral, or that Betsy did nothing with her friends, or that Danny hates her so much without realizing why, but you’re avoiding the dreaded “because.”
I love this scene so much, though, because funerals suck as a kid. You never know anyone and you have to be quiet while everyone else talks, so I appreciate the fact that this isn't from a first person narrative, but rather a third, allowing the reader and the narrator to be above the action, making emotion seem further from the piece.
However, for a further draft, I’d love to know the history between Betsy and Danny. Is she his grandmother? Aunt? Mother’s cousin’s step-sister? Not even related to him in any way? There's a sense of context that I think is missing here, and I'm supremely curious.
And finally, why does the lunch line come in? It’s not necessarily an erroneous detail, because it gives us a way to assess the age of Danny's character, but is it a pertinent detail? What do we lose if Danny starts tapping feet or some other kind of fidgeting? Or starts watching someone else in the crowd? Either that, or utilize the lunch line to get off the topic of the funeral...which might be even more interesting...
Just some thoughts.
I love the very beginning of this: "Lilies and roses cover the death smell,
mixing with the pounds of beige makeup and formaldehyde seeping up the staircase that leads down to the cold metal gurney where Betsy lay four hours ago.
Danny inched forward, bumping blacks slacks, spinning into a purse- a fat old woman caressing him behind the ear and speaking with his mother like Danny was a new doll" because it's supremely descriptive while not being explanatory. I especially admire the "bumping black slacks, spinning into a purse" because of the sounds these words together make. There's a technical word for this, but I'm not good at remembering technicalities. I think is assonance or alliteration or something like that.
But anyway, from this point to the bottom, the piece shifts into more of an explanation of what is happening, what Danny is feeling, and I feel that to be something of a missed opportunity.
My first thought for the next draft would be to beware of "because." There’s this whole chapter in Writing Poetry that I can go into about how dangerous the word is, use it sparingly, blah blah. Sometimes it can be used well, but for the most part, the word explains too much. It makes the piece lose the illusion. Showing the puppet strings, you could say.
What about: “like Danny was a boisterous doll, anxious and shiny. Receiving friends now was the peak of the old heifer’s social life—Betsy (include here something she did instead) for the last decade. But Danny, who didn't care about anything else, only knew there was something in her bulging eyes and painted smile and that wide brim, too black for her pale face, that he hated more pure than an infant. ”
Or something like that. The "more pure than an infant" might be edging into cliche territory.
You’re still getting at the fact that Danny has no idea how to act at this funeral, or that Betsy did nothing with her friends, or that Danny hates her so much without realizing why, but you’re avoiding the dreaded “because.”
I love this scene so much, though, because funerals suck as a kid. You never know anyone and you have to be quiet while everyone else talks, so I appreciate the fact that this isn't from a first person narrative, but rather a third, allowing the reader and the narrator to be above the action, making emotion seem further from the piece.
However, for a further draft, I’d love to know the history between Betsy and Danny. Is she his grandmother? Aunt? Mother’s cousin’s step-sister? Not even related to him in any way? There's a sense of context that I think is missing here, and I'm supremely curious.
And finally, why does the lunch line come in? It’s not necessarily an erroneous detail, because it gives us a way to assess the age of Danny's character, but is it a pertinent detail? What do we lose if Danny starts tapping feet or some other kind of fidgeting? Or starts watching someone else in the crowd? Either that, or utilize the lunch line to get off the topic of the funeral...which might be even more interesting...
Just some thoughts.
Junkyard 3 Week 3
My tank top, fading slightly in the middle, rubbed incorrectly at the waist. Readjusting for the umpteenth time, the boy to the left of me in the library glares, as though I am making too much noise. It's the first floor, so loud is heavenly. My bracelet rakes against the computer, making a slightly more appealing nails on a chalkboard sound. Two more people, sitting at the computers watching porn, turn away from the screen to whisper. A kid with a ninja turtles backpack walks by, slurping on some green frappuccino.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Junkyard 2 Week 3
In St. Charles, about an hour from Chicago, there's a cement tunnel under a highway,
where boys wrote hate notes to each other and girls scribbled names of the people they'd do
if their parents didn't always have the kitchen lights on.
This tunnel, with the perpetual river down the middle, even in hair frying July,
connected my town to Wasco.
Here, a post office, a corner store specializing in dime candy, and a gas station
with two pumps, but only one that worked.
Here, a woman who looked like my grandmother walked up and down the street,
smiling at everyone with that toothy grin, almost cliche. I saw forever from that corner.
where boys wrote hate notes to each other and girls scribbled names of the people they'd do
if their parents didn't always have the kitchen lights on.
This tunnel, with the perpetual river down the middle, even in hair frying July,
connected my town to Wasco.
Here, a post office, a corner store specializing in dime candy, and a gas station
with two pumps, but only one that worked.
Here, a woman who looked like my grandmother walked up and down the street,
smiling at everyone with that toothy grin, almost cliche. I saw forever from that corner.
Junkyard 1 Week 3
At the Fall Out Boy concert on Sunday, a girl in jeans tighter than mine started crying when the lights dimmed. She tugged at her ripped tank-top, adjusted her mascara and tattoo-choker no one's seen since the 90s, and began FaceTimeing her friend. I watched the phone, the little screen showing Fall Out Boy, the larger, some girl cross-legged on her bed, hand over mouth. The woman between this girl and myself, jumps up and down as the band begins "Sugar We're Going Down." She clasps the arm of the girl, who joins her, having lost the FaceTime connection at this point. She bends to adjust the red and black flannel around her waist and I notice the gel-pen tattoos that covered her arms.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Memory 1 Week 3
**I apologize in advance for any discomfort or TMI that this post might offer**
I memorized the pattern of our bathroom tile, tracing the caulk over and over again, lying on my right side, curled around the toilet. I clenched my tear ducts tighter than my ass cheeks, holding all liquids in for the 20 minutes my doctor scribbled onto the suppository box.
My mother sat on the lip of the tub, rubbing my leg, crying for me.
Three weeks earlier, my doctor ordered an all liquid diet, saying that my colon was clogged and the water and Welches white grape juice would "flush me out." I was in third grade that year and hadn't taken a shit in a month and a half.
For a two weeks, I drank nothing but a milky liquid that tasted like chalk and left residue on my lips and gums, which I then washed down with watered white grape juice. Lunch, even at school, consisted of apple sauce and juice, and threatened multiple bathroom runs.
I remember a substitute teacher, having zero bedside manner, mentioning that "should I have to go to the bathroom, feel free to just leave," as she turned out the lights for an in-class video. As the class turned to stare at me, some kid in the back snickered and another threw a crumpled paper at me, and I lowered my face to the desk.
I returned to the doctor after my three week juice cleanse, only to have another milky liquid shoved through a hose in my rectum. It was something that would allow my colon to be shown on this little screen, and the hose had some camera attached at the end, causing my mother much pleasure as she watched the doctor go through my body.
I crushed her hand, focusing only on the small drips of nasty oozing incorrectly from me.
"Look Tay. How cool is that?" my mother shrieked in awe as the doctor laughed. I smiled half-heartedly, a stray tear dribbled down my cheek but I craned my neck, hoping the inside of me would take my mind off of the knifing going on at the opposite end of me, something jabbing, trying to mimic the alien emerging from the belly of that woman in the movie I watched the night before.
I memorized the pattern of our bathroom tile, tracing the caulk over and over again, lying on my right side, curled around the toilet. I clenched my tear ducts tighter than my ass cheeks, holding all liquids in for the 20 minutes my doctor scribbled onto the suppository box.
My mother sat on the lip of the tub, rubbing my leg, crying for me.
Three weeks earlier, my doctor ordered an all liquid diet, saying that my colon was clogged and the water and Welches white grape juice would "flush me out." I was in third grade that year and hadn't taken a shit in a month and a half.
For a two weeks, I drank nothing but a milky liquid that tasted like chalk and left residue on my lips and gums, which I then washed down with watered white grape juice. Lunch, even at school, consisted of apple sauce and juice, and threatened multiple bathroom runs.
I remember a substitute teacher, having zero bedside manner, mentioning that "should I have to go to the bathroom, feel free to just leave," as she turned out the lights for an in-class video. As the class turned to stare at me, some kid in the back snickered and another threw a crumpled paper at me, and I lowered my face to the desk.
I returned to the doctor after my three week juice cleanse, only to have another milky liquid shoved through a hose in my rectum. It was something that would allow my colon to be shown on this little screen, and the hose had some camera attached at the end, causing my mother much pleasure as she watched the doctor go through my body.
I crushed her hand, focusing only on the small drips of nasty oozing incorrectly from me.
"Look Tay. How cool is that?" my mother shrieked in awe as the doctor laughed. I smiled half-heartedly, a stray tear dribbled down my cheek but I craned my neck, hoping the inside of me would take my mind off of the knifing going on at the opposite end of me, something jabbing, trying to mimic the alien emerging from the belly of that woman in the movie I watched the night before.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Original Post 1 Week 2
This is based on Anna Swir's "White Wedding Slippers." What struck me most about this piece: the subject matter. It's so easy to write about the most expected images of the Nazis, but instead, she focuses on the minute detail of the slippers her mother wore to go get bread. If that's not combating expectation and heavy emotion...
Blue Hospital Socks
One night
my mother drove seven hours in the rain
and came home with this pair of wooly,
fraying, blue hospital grade socks.
She peeled off hers and put these on,
shaking fingers.
Early in the morning
I'd hear her crying, see her touching
her feet, the socks.
They smelled like an old man
and latex.
She wore them a year
but never explained.
They were handed to her by a nurse in Florida,
the only possession of my grandfather.
Blue Hospital Socks
One night
my mother drove seven hours in the rain
and came home with this pair of wooly,
fraying, blue hospital grade socks.
She peeled off hers and put these on,
shaking fingers.
Early in the morning
I'd hear her crying, see her touching
her feet, the socks.
They smelled like an old man
and latex.
She wore them a year
but never explained.
They were handed to her by a nurse in Florida,
the only possession of my grandfather.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Response to Wilson Chancey's Junkyard 3 Week 2
This is a response to Wilson Chancey's post Junkyard 3 Week 2.
Here is what I wrote:
Wilson,
Even though I don't know what’s happening in the narrative, I thoroughly enjoy the images you provide us, specifically “half-green strawberries,” “taste like melon shell, dipped in lime,” “dark pulp of an imperfect berry,” because they seem surprising in by themselves or in context with the rest of the line. The next step would be to work on the actual narrative, making them both work together to be surprising and make some kind of sense.
Although I like the line “gulp of discontent,” I’m not sure how I feel about that being so close to “disconcerted with me also.” Maybe it’s the word disconcerted, which is just so latinate, but I don’t think that line is as strong as the first. The first line seems more surprising, like the images. The other thing to think about—line breaks and end punctuation. Punctuation becomes highly important in poetry because it reflects some sort of control over syntax. It’s one of the things I struggle with most in writing. But in this piece, I think that the first line needs some sort of punctuation: a period seems most likely unless you decide to move “dipped in lime” up to the second line, then you could get away with a comma. The “dipped in lime” line seems a little out of place where it is right now, because I’m not sure why it’s important enough to merit it’s own line. It seems purely a description of the strawberries or the melon shell. Just some things to think about for the next draft or whatever you decide to do with this.
Here is what I wrote:
Wilson,
Even though I don't know what’s happening in the narrative, I thoroughly enjoy the images you provide us, specifically “half-green strawberries,” “taste like melon shell, dipped in lime,” “dark pulp of an imperfect berry,” because they seem surprising in by themselves or in context with the rest of the line. The next step would be to work on the actual narrative, making them both work together to be surprising and make some kind of sense.
Although I like the line “gulp of discontent,” I’m not sure how I feel about that being so close to “disconcerted with me also.” Maybe it’s the word disconcerted, which is just so latinate, but I don’t think that line is as strong as the first. The first line seems more surprising, like the images. The other thing to think about—line breaks and end punctuation. Punctuation becomes highly important in poetry because it reflects some sort of control over syntax. It’s one of the things I struggle with most in writing. But in this piece, I think that the first line needs some sort of punctuation: a period seems most likely unless you decide to move “dipped in lime” up to the second line, then you could get away with a comma. The “dipped in lime” line seems a little out of place where it is right now, because I’m not sure why it’s important enough to merit it’s own line. It seems purely a description of the strawberries or the melon shell. Just some things to think about for the next draft or whatever you decide to do with this.
Response to Isaiah Hinsley's Junkyard 3 Week 2
This is a response to Isaiah Hinsley's post Image Junkyard 3 Week 2.
What I wrote:
Isaiah,
As I’m reading your junkyard posts, I find myself both intrigued in your subjects and wishing that you would allow yourself to take a couple more minutes and lines to really expand upon specific sensory details. For instance, take the line: “Every time I hear a trumpet I just get in a good mood” can turn into something so much more: Every time I hear a trumpet, my face morphs as though (and you insert something that makes people happy that is surprising.) In this way, you’re not telling the reader how you feel, but more showing them. I love the line “The trumpet is like a good joke,” because it opens a lot of doors for the piece, but following with “it’s going to make you smile” seems expected. I’d love to see a little pushing of the limits as to what makes the trumpet a good joke. Is there a punch line to a trumpet? Is there a science behind a good joke? Could there be a science behind a good joke? Allow yourself to take some risks, especially on something as cool as a trumpet as a joke because I have never heard that before, but I want to know more.
What I wrote:
Isaiah,
As I’m reading your junkyard posts, I find myself both intrigued in your subjects and wishing that you would allow yourself to take a couple more minutes and lines to really expand upon specific sensory details. For instance, take the line: “Every time I hear a trumpet I just get in a good mood” can turn into something so much more: Every time I hear a trumpet, my face morphs as though (and you insert something that makes people happy that is surprising.) In this way, you’re not telling the reader how you feel, but more showing them. I love the line “The trumpet is like a good joke,” because it opens a lot of doors for the piece, but following with “it’s going to make you smile” seems expected. I’d love to see a little pushing of the limits as to what makes the trumpet a good joke. Is there a punch line to a trumpet? Is there a science behind a good joke? Could there be a science behind a good joke? Allow yourself to take some risks, especially on something as cool as a trumpet as a joke because I have never heard that before, but I want to know more.
Junkyard 4 Week 2
Around the corner from the nook in the library, a kid in red sweatpants and an oversized gray hoodie untied his shoes and began picking at his toes. Every so often a squelching sound echoed from his corner, followed by a muffled sorry. On his screen, a semi blows up and his phone rings. Grabbing a pair of pants and his shoes, he walks off talking, leaving everything else at the table.
Later, while driving home, a women with a bath towel wrapped around her head sits in a white compact at the entrance to a barn house once hidden by spring.
Later, while driving home, a women with a bath towel wrapped around her head sits in a white compact at the entrance to a barn house once hidden by spring.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Junkyard 3 week 2
My roommate rolls out of bed and starts a cup of keurig coffee before she opens her eyes. Standing at the four shelves acting as a pantry, she parses through two bags of ramen and a roll of bagels, looking for mold. She disappears for a moment, comes back in a bathrobe and pours her coffee from the M hand wash only mug that I accidentally put in the dishwasher last Christmas into the owl mug she keeps on her desk. Outside, some kind of bird starts chirping and the pregnant cat from down the street parks herself at our front door. A squirrel crawls down a tree limb that hangs onto our back porch and she spends the next fifteen minutes in a staring contest. My roommate won.
Junkyard 2 week 2
Parking at the university before eight in the morning mirrors the inside of a choose your own adventure book, where nothing is off limits and no one watches a terrible parking job.
It's still dark when my roommate starts rustling around in the bathroom, a not so silent remind that we're going to the gym. I almost wash my face with toothpaste but realize it right around the time Facebook sends the birthday reminder email.
Memory 1 week 1
There's dodgeball at recess, two girls in pink shrieking
after uncovering a dead snake in the sand pit
around the corner where the big kids go to smoke and
yell at each other, the smell of tangerines.
In the car home, I recount the day to Meagan's denim-clad
grandfather who insists my name is Trailor.
The grandmother smiles from the rear view mirror
as her oxygen tank bumps my knee for the fifteenth time.
We stop just before the lilacs
outside my parent's stucco.
He calls me Trailor.
Meagan laughs.
The door is unlocked.
On the couch, my mother watches tv. On the tv, two towers are burning. One falls.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Junkyard 1 Week two
In my lap, a pink bowl of spinach pasta with sausage and mushrooms. My knee hits an open folder of German 1002 homework assignments and Netflix asks how frequently I watch Dysfunctional Family dramas. In the back my hamster emerges bleary eyed from her gray- brown bedded burrow to lick water from a blue bottle. A FRIENDS episode begins to play. My bowl tips over onto my crossed legs and my hamster begins gnawing at her wire cage. Outside, my roommate's car alarm beeps. Her three week old kitten chirps along with the whirring washing machine.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Original Work 2 Week one
This is based off the unrhymed couplets and the images in the piece "The Stalin Epigram" by Osip Mandelstam. I borrowed a couple of things, shifting them slightly.
My body no longer feels the air around it.
After two minutes under water, I can't breathe.
But whenever I listen to those men in suits,
someone shifts talk back to that Islamic militant,
and the ten thick worms his fingers,
his speech like measures of lies,
the huge, white, looping mound on his head,
the graying of his beard.
Covered with the inconsistencies of homeland media,
his people ride the idea of amusement parks and the way of Allah.
Someone nods, another sniffs, one holds back a chuckle.
He waves his hand and someone else goes boom.
His decrees roll like metered poetry,
he writes them all for the waiting fellows back home.
My body no longer feels the air around it.
After two minutes under water, I can't breathe.
But whenever I listen to those men in suits,
someone shifts talk back to that Islamic militant,
and the ten thick worms his fingers,
his speech like measures of lies,
the huge, white, looping mound on his head,
the graying of his beard.
Covered with the inconsistencies of homeland media,
his people ride the idea of amusement parks and the way of Allah.
Someone nods, another sniffs, one holds back a chuckle.
He waves his hand and someone else goes boom.
His decrees roll like metered poetry,
he writes them all for the waiting fellows back home.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Response to Megan Fogg's Junkyard Week One
Link to original post.
My response:
Megan, I keep coming back to this post out of all your others partially because of the repetition you have in the second stanza and partially because of the line “as if I hadn’t stabbed a nurse with her rhinestoned pen.” The line offers a distinct bit of tension that I think would have been missing without the word "rhinestoned." She, besides the narrator, is the most intriguing character and I would love to see her developed or brought back in again. The rhinestone pen gives her a more humanizing feel that, again, we wouldn't have gotten without that little detail so compliments to you on that! And the repetition, like I said before, utilizes itself without being overbearing or too much. I like the fact that you broke up the monotony of the “as if i hadn’t" clipped lines with the longer lines. One other suggestion might be to take a look at the line breaks towards the end of the piece, specifically the two word line “to surrender.” Two word lines are always kind of iffy for me, as they never seem to pack the right amount of punch. I think that at this point in the game, you can combine the two last lines together to make one line. But the word embrace seems to be one of those words that you might expect in poetry…so maybe think of something more unexpected like “to surrender to a sudden tomorrow” or “to surrender, to forgive sudden respite,” or something like that. It offers something surprising in such a traumatic situation. I do like the distinct coolness of the language, like we discussed in class. It allows the emotion to not overtake the piece, but to simmer just under the surface, thereby making it interesting and tense. Hat's off to you, girl!
My response:
Megan, I keep coming back to this post out of all your others partially because of the repetition you have in the second stanza and partially because of the line “as if I hadn’t stabbed a nurse with her rhinestoned pen.” The line offers a distinct bit of tension that I think would have been missing without the word "rhinestoned." She, besides the narrator, is the most intriguing character and I would love to see her developed or brought back in again. The rhinestone pen gives her a more humanizing feel that, again, we wouldn't have gotten without that little detail so compliments to you on that! And the repetition, like I said before, utilizes itself without being overbearing or too much. I like the fact that you broke up the monotony of the “as if i hadn’t" clipped lines with the longer lines. One other suggestion might be to take a look at the line breaks towards the end of the piece, specifically the two word line “to surrender.” Two word lines are always kind of iffy for me, as they never seem to pack the right amount of punch. I think that at this point in the game, you can combine the two last lines together to make one line. But the word embrace seems to be one of those words that you might expect in poetry…so maybe think of something more unexpected like “to surrender to a sudden tomorrow” or “to surrender, to forgive sudden respite,” or something like that. It offers something surprising in such a traumatic situation. I do like the distinct coolness of the language, like we discussed in class. It allows the emotion to not overtake the piece, but to simmer just under the surface, thereby making it interesting and tense. Hat's off to you, girl!
Original Post 1 Week one
This comes from "THERE WAS EARTH INSIDE THEM, and they dug"--Paul Celan. I'm particularly interested in the repetition of the certain words and phrases.
There was silicone inside her, and she cried.
She cried and she cried, and my day went by
and I cursed my father, and some god,
who, so I heard, watched all this happen,
who, so I heard, did not impede.
She cried and did nothing else;
she did not eat, cooked nothing from scratch,
let my sister and me live off the courtesy of neighbors.
She cried.
Then, suddenly, a quiet undercurrent of nothing,
and there came a dry heave of winds, and nothing fell.
I cried, you cried, and all the birds cried too.
A one, a none, a no one, a you:
Where did you go when no one could go?
Did you cry when she cried?
yet on your shoulder no one cries.
There was silicone inside her, and she cried.
She cried and she cried, and my day went by
and I cursed my father, and some god,
who, so I heard, watched all this happen,
who, so I heard, did not impede.
She cried and did nothing else;
she did not eat, cooked nothing from scratch,
let my sister and me live off the courtesy of neighbors.
She cried.
Then, suddenly, a quiet undercurrent of nothing,
and there came a dry heave of winds, and nothing fell.
I cried, you cried, and all the birds cried too.
A one, a none, a no one, a you:
Where did you go when no one could go?
Did you cry when she cried?
yet on your shoulder no one cries.
Junkyard 4 week one
An oak tree, not quite full grown but not still a sapling, toppled over the night before, landing on an elderly woman's house. Across the street, a man with a tool shed in his front lawn plucks through a series of broken lawn chairs and umbrellas, not quite sure what he's looking for. Three men climb on the roof with the tree, lugging a couple of chain saws and down the street, a man with a glowing orange and yellow vest blocks the street, piles branches along the curbs for the garbage men. Someone sits on a log, opens a bottle of water and looks around, rubs the back of a work glove on their cheek, nods at another. The man across the street carries a welcome mat across his lawn, squints in the sun and waves to no one in particular.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Junkyard 3 week one
In Cutbank, Montana, there remains one working bar with the name "Spud's" written on the side, two grocery stores with boarded windows, and a post office. As my grandmother creeps over the railroad tracks, next to the field of abandoned oil rigs where my grandfather worked when my father was still sledding down Dead Man's Hill with his sister tied to the back, I notice a child, no older than eight, chasing a mangled dog around the corner. "I had no idea people still lived in this God-forsaken town," someone in our car says. Each house, peeling from weather and age, has sunk to shack-dom, welcoming the meth addicted transients of the closest town, still fifty miles away. My father set the prairie up the hill on fire, next to the yellow and green dog house that some kind of bird comes half flying, half running out of. Out of a cracked window peers two faces, wrinkled and pale. From my seat, I watch the woman's already faded blue eyes dim even more.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Junkyard 2 week one
In a park near Dallas, there's a boy no older than eight wearing a neon green under armour shirt with a pair of orange shorts standing behind what could only be his brother, in a blue nike shirt and a pair of red shorts, holding a football as big as his head. Two Labradors barrel across the street while an older woman runs behind, trying to catch them, hollering their names as though they would listen. Two younger boys climb on a nearby swing-set, pushing and shoving to reach the top. I watch as one tumbles down the slide backward, landing on the wood chips wrong, clutching a sob for the split second it takes for the other boy to fall down the slide right after him, crashing just as hard. It takes the second descent to make the first laugh instead of cry and a nearby woman, their mother, breathes and instantaneous sigh of what I make to be relief. Behind me, the dogs have made their way around to the back of the park, barking incessantly until the gate opens and they can tear up some child's leftover jacket on the basketball court.
Junkyard 1 week one
At the base of the alley outside my house, there's a spray-painted picture of the word happiness in white and a blue box around it, filled in. Above the word happiness, a third grade image of a house: the box with a triangle perched on top. Underneath the whole thing, a quote: "if you want something in life, reach out and grab it." Three dots underneath, right justification. Turning around, cars line the street, parked and sitting pretty like the Pomeranian yapping just inside the window of the 60-somethings who are watching this dog while their daughter prances around Europe with her boyfriend. A Jeep Grand Cherokee still spotted with melted skittles, the revenge of an ex-lover, cruises slowly past me, a hat tipped to acknowledge me. A pigeon squawks somewhere behind me.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Memory week one
In third grade, I received my first invitation to a boy-girl birthday party. My mother only let me attend because the birthday boy, Matt, didn't have a mother and he sent me chocolates on valentines day. She drove me out to this parking lot in middle-of-nowhere Illinois where sixteen blow-up "attractions," if you will, sat. I can't tell you where we started or who all attended, but about halfway through the party, Matt, our friend Scott, and I found ourselves at the top of a 40 foot tall Titanic themed slide. As we climbed up to the top, Scott peered over the edge, hopping up and down on his step, making the whole thing shake. I climbed the lane next to him, watching the feet of Matt, who climbing directly in front of me. Having a desperate fear of heights, no way on God's green earth was I looking down. Two teenagers dressed in red and yellow jumpsuits greeted us with "sit with your butt firmly on the slide and keep your feet out in front of you." Matt proceeded down the slide, peering over the ship's railing, watching his descent. I like to imagine that he envisioned himself with the rest of the crew and passengers of the actual Titanic and that's why he leaned too far over the side. I never saw him hit the ground, I never heard him scream. As I propelled myself towards the base of the ship, his body seemed to melt into the grass, like he gave up. Scott hollered at me to slow down as I ran, maneuvering through the lot to where Matt's dad parked the beat-up Yukon, frantically explaining, feeling a twinge of superiority since I knew what happened to his son first. Watching the EMT load Matt into the back, lights flashing way to brightly for the middle of the day, I remember shivering, standing too far away to matter, and a man in a jeep rubbernecking.
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