Saturday, August 28, 2010
Pedagogy Forum, Week 3
In an interview with poet/teachers Anna Leahy and Larissa Szporluk, “Good Counsel: A Conversation About Poetry Writing, the Imagination, and Teaching,” the (almost tired question at this point) poets discuss—Can creative writing be taught? Leahy expressed issue with the fact that even as creative writing as a course has grown significantly since the 70s people still seem to be asking that question—the old argument that genius and creativity arise out of nowhere, a vacuum, a muse of inspiration. Simply not true Leahy and Szporluck’s interview argues and certainly our class syllabus would back that statement up as well. I think the fact that is question of teaching creative writing—can it be done?—is still being asked then it is still a myth to a lot of young writers that they can only write when that lightning bolt of ideas hits. The two teachers here hold strong to the benefits of mentorship in a workshop environment and creative writing community—teachers, other poets, simple steady reading of collections, etc. Szporluck asks: “If mentorship can act as a kind of stand-in for talent, what kinds of mentorship activities are especially effective in fostering truly innovative and skillful writers?” This is a very important question for future teachers of poetry and their mentorship with their students. She answers herself in stating: imitation and encouraging imitation—“I find imitation exercises to be fantastic shortcuts to learning. I’ll ask students to imitate a Hopkins poem and suddenly they’re using alliteration and consonance and internal rhyme and performing technical feats and learning much more than they would by just listening to me discuss Hopkins.” This is exciting and encouraging for me as I hope to take on students of my own soon. I plan to teach this way, by way of imitation, as one tool to get students writing, because I have experienced it as a student myself and find it extremely helpful. Our improvs that are part of our weekly routine as a class has become the way in which I start to write. I have produced numerous poems that I am proud through this technique. One comment that Szporluck makes toward the end of the interview that really resonates with me is this: “Imitation teaches you how to be original while using conventional techniques. Invention teaches you how to combine, how to associate, so that when you encounter deep imagination, you trust what happens there. Deep imagination is where you surrender to creative energy; you follow along, and use your skills instinctively, not consciously.”
Sign Inventory, Week 3
Facing It
-Yusef Komunyakaa
*The speaker states being made of various materials: “I’m stone,” “I’m flesh,” “I’m a window.”
*The poem repeatedly notes black and white distinctions: My black face fades, black granite, the booby trap’s white flesh, a white vet’s image floats, his pale eyes, in the black mirror.
*The speaker instills in the stone wall the ability to own, he personifies the wall with the ability to possess him: “I turn this way--the wall lets me go.
*The speaker continually mentions being part of the wall or inside it: My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite, the stone lets me go, the names stay on the wall, I half-expect to find my own [name] in letters, he’s lost his left arm inside the wall, etc.
*The poem is scattered with specifics: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 58,002 names, Andrew Johnson; and more general descriptions: a plane in the sky, a woman’s blouse, the sky.
*The poems features numerous negations: “No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair,” “He’s lost his right arm,” “a woman’s trying to erase names,” “dammit,” “No tears,” “I said I wouldn’t”.
*The speaker makes sure to assign race to himself and the vet with the lost arm, even the bird is red, but the woman and Andrew Johnson remain raceless.
*Vision is opaque: my clouded reflection, white flash, a white vet’s image floats, depending on the light to make a difference, my own in letters like smoke.
*The poems has a series of short, direct, declarative sentences: I’m stone, I’m flesh, The sky, A plane in the sky--in amongst longer, more narrative sentences.
*There are numerous images of flight or things that can take flight: eyes me like a bird of prey, letters like smoke, red bird’s wings, a plane.
-Yusef Komunyakaa
*The speaker states being made of various materials: “I’m stone,” “I’m flesh,” “I’m a window.”
*The poem repeatedly notes black and white distinctions: My black face fades, black granite, the booby trap’s white flesh, a white vet’s image floats, his pale eyes, in the black mirror.
*The speaker instills in the stone wall the ability to own, he personifies the wall with the ability to possess him: “I turn this way--the wall lets me go.
*The speaker continually mentions being part of the wall or inside it: My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite, the stone lets me go, the names stay on the wall, I half-expect to find my own [name] in letters, he’s lost his left arm inside the wall, etc.
*The poem is scattered with specifics: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 58,002 names, Andrew Johnson; and more general descriptions: a plane in the sky, a woman’s blouse, the sky.
*The poems features numerous negations: “No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair,” “He’s lost his right arm,” “a woman’s trying to erase names,” “dammit,” “No tears,” “I said I wouldn’t”.
*The speaker makes sure to assign race to himself and the vet with the lost arm, even the bird is red, but the woman and Andrew Johnson remain raceless.
*Vision is opaque: my clouded reflection, white flash, a white vet’s image floats, depending on the light to make a difference, my own in letters like smoke.
*The poems has a series of short, direct, declarative sentences: I’m stone, I’m flesh, The sky, A plane in the sky--in amongst longer, more narrative sentences.
*There are numerous images of flight or things that can take flight: eyes me like a bird of prey, letters like smoke, red bird’s wings, a plane.
Improv, Week 3
*excerpt*
Camouflaging the Chimera
-Yusef Komunyakaa
We tied branches to our helmets.
We painted our faces & rifles
with mud from a riverbank,
blades of grass hung from the pockets
of our tiger suits. We wove
ourselves into the terrain,
content to be a hummingbird's target.
We hugged bamboo & leaned
against a breeze off the river,
slow-dragging with ghosts
from Saigon to Bangkok,
with women left in doorways
marching in from America.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Women left grass, painted in mud,
hung in the doorways. Hummingbirds
zipped in range of the wet green
smell and licked the dirt to find
it tasted of refuge. Women tied
tigers' tails to children's wrists
for luck. The body of the tiger
was sent to America, cut and crammed
into a freezer bin then boated
across the sea. Americans salivated
for the body, the rust-color fur,
the black padded paws. The eye
for a necklace, the teeth for a pin.
Women wear coats made of tiger skin
to camouflage thier own paleness
and the river of bones they live in.
Camouflaging the Chimera
-Yusef Komunyakaa
We tied branches to our helmets.
We painted our faces & rifles
with mud from a riverbank,
blades of grass hung from the pockets
of our tiger suits. We wove
ourselves into the terrain,
content to be a hummingbird's target.
We hugged bamboo & leaned
against a breeze off the river,
slow-dragging with ghosts
from Saigon to Bangkok,
with women left in doorways
marching in from America.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Women left grass, painted in mud,
hung in the doorways. Hummingbirds
zipped in range of the wet green
smell and licked the dirt to find
it tasted of refuge. Women tied
tigers' tails to children's wrists
for luck. The body of the tiger
was sent to America, cut and crammed
into a freezer bin then boated
across the sea. Americans salivated
for the body, the rust-color fur,
the black padded paws. The eye
for a necklace, the teeth for a pin.
Women wear coats made of tiger skin
to camouflage thier own paleness
and the river of bones they live in.
Free Entry, Week 3
Some women marry fetishes.
Martha, for instance, dallies in yellow latex
gloves and feather dusters to keep her husband
coming home. And putting them back
each morning under the kitchen sink
next to the Brillo pads and Lysol, she smiles.
Some days she can’t wait for her husband,
for his red pick-up to roll up the driveway.
Naked, she layers herself in dish rags,
each one pinned to the next and stretches the gloves
up to her elbows to stroll past all her windows
waiting for mowers to start or dogs to be walked.
Her neck cranes at each rumbling motor that sounds
down the street, eager for her husband’s pick-up.
The street lamp clicks on, lightening bugs rise
then fall across the yard. He never shows,
never calls, and Martha unpins herself.
Martha, for instance, dallies in yellow latex
gloves and feather dusters to keep her husband
coming home. And putting them back
each morning under the kitchen sink
next to the Brillo pads and Lysol, she smiles.
Some days she can’t wait for her husband,
for his red pick-up to roll up the driveway.
Naked, she layers herself in dish rags,
each one pinned to the next and stretches the gloves
up to her elbows to stroll past all her windows
waiting for mowers to start or dogs to be walked.
Her neck cranes at each rumbling motor that sounds
down the street, eager for her husband’s pick-up.
The street lamp clicks on, lightening bugs rise
then fall across the yard. He never shows,
never calls, and Martha unpins herself.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Junkyard Quotes, Week 3
"In the twentieth century scholars have attempted to draw conclusions [...]."
--found in wikipedia entry for the Battle of Troy
"The almighty bottle has come a long way."
--Bottle Art, 8 ways to recylce a bottle
"Are morning people born or made? "
--webiste on How To Become an Early Riser
"Pea-Sized Frog Found in Borneo"
--headline on Discovery.com
"While shaving with a diamond may not sound pratical at first[...]
--article on new market items: razors coated in a film of man-made diamonds
"The man as a unit of weight is thought to be of at least Chaldean origin."
--defination of batman, a unit of mass used in the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia
--found in wikipedia entry for the Battle of Troy
"The almighty bottle has come a long way."
--Bottle Art, 8 ways to recylce a bottle
"Are morning people born or made? "
--webiste on How To Become an Early Riser
"Pea-Sized Frog Found in Borneo"
--headline on Discovery.com
"While shaving with a diamond may not sound pratical at first[...]
--article on new market items: razors coated in a film of man-made diamonds
"The man as a unit of weight is thought to be of at least Chaldean origin."
--defination of batman, a unit of mass used in the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia
Calisthenics, Week 3
When we did battle and fell down
the finish line was the old fig tree--
prayer bell and dream of days, the dress I shed.
However a poet feels about himself,
the elastic belt with its metal tongue
still rusts like unwashed dogfood cans.
They are all here, the races, the classes,
at the resturant the bus boys,
like most adults, were born during a war.
I woke up. What I saw first--the light.
It is unusal that a board game involes cards
but no job accounts for the impulse to find.
I emerged through those curtained booths
like a diver surfacing, wet gleam of polish.
Greeks gave up old dishes and slid into repose,
in this way they can also articulate two stages
of the psychoanalytic process:
the brick and mortar, foundation gives way.
After this long excursion into the more
distant regions of daydream
an anthology arises devoted to small boxes,
such as chests and caskets.
The Burns boys, like most adults,
were born into a war, devoted
to aluminun wheels, planes, caskets.
They emerged from their mother's legs,
each a year apart, surfacing divers
to break the wet gleam of polish
between worlds. When they did battle
and fell, they were buried under
the old fig. Here lies brick, mortar,
and metal, etched on the headstones.
They say the Greeks fought Troy
in two stages: daydream and repose.
The Burns boys died without anthology,
without a curtain of process to drape
their shoulders and washed in war, rust.
the finish line was the old fig tree--
prayer bell and dream of days, the dress I shed.
However a poet feels about himself,
the elastic belt with its metal tongue
still rusts like unwashed dogfood cans.
They are all here, the races, the classes,
at the resturant the bus boys,
like most adults, were born during a war.
I woke up. What I saw first--the light.
It is unusal that a board game involes cards
but no job accounts for the impulse to find.
I emerged through those curtained booths
like a diver surfacing, wet gleam of polish.
Greeks gave up old dishes and slid into repose,
in this way they can also articulate two stages
of the psychoanalytic process:
the brick and mortar, foundation gives way.
After this long excursion into the more
distant regions of daydream
an anthology arises devoted to small boxes,
such as chests and caskets.
The Burns boys, like most adults,
were born into a war, devoted
to aluminun wheels, planes, caskets.
They emerged from their mother's legs,
each a year apart, surfacing divers
to break the wet gleam of polish
between worlds. When they did battle
and fell, they were buried under
the old fig. Here lies brick, mortar,
and metal, etched on the headstones.
They say the Greeks fought Troy
in two stages: daydream and repose.
The Burns boys died without anthology,
without a curtain of process to drape
their shoulders and washed in war, rust.
Response to classmate's journal, Week 2
Laura,
I love the possiblities of this draft. I particularly like the line: “At the door of the house, who will come knocking?” and “A wind from a distant autumn is trying to rise.” It may be later in Triggering Town, or perhaps another poet/critic said that if you ask a question in a poem you should never answer it (the source of this quote escapes me). I think that these are the two most vivid and detailed lines from your draft that give exact images. One suggestion that would make would be to play with the order of words in these lines to make them more active and less passive. How about instead if the lines read: Who knocks at the door? And “From a distant autumn tries to rise.” If you eliminate gerrunds it helps keep words active.
I love the possiblities of this draft. I particularly like the line: “At the door of the house, who will come knocking?” and “A wind from a distant autumn is trying to rise.” It may be later in Triggering Town, or perhaps another poet/critic said that if you ask a question in a poem you should never answer it (the source of this quote escapes me). I think that these are the two most vivid and detailed lines from your draft that give exact images. One suggestion that would make would be to play with the order of words in these lines to make them more active and less passive. How about instead if the lines read: Who knocks at the door? And “From a distant autumn tries to rise.” If you eliminate gerrunds it helps keep words active.
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