Response to classmate's journal, Week 5

Rachel,

I love this exercise that you have given yourself to find unexpected language. You have found some truly fresh images and revisited language in a new light. What really strikes me as interesting is:"the straggling wish of park rangers". A straggling wish is totally unexpected, at least for me, and I think that you could go even further with this exercise: the straggling wish of the gate, the straggling wish of chickens, of first cousins, of wildlife, and see where that exercise takes you from there. I would suggest to reconsider some other things in this draft too: fire and water never do the trick--fire and water is an expected combo and "never do[es] the trick is somewhat cliche. I think its awesome that realize a recurring "expectation(s)" in your drafts and you are addressing it through various other exercises. Sometimes, I've been told by other poets, that when you revise a draft it helps some days to not look at the whole thing, but put on your "verb glasses," or "syntax glasses," or "line break glasses,"--you get the point. Awesome work. I love what you've come up with here.