Hey everyone! Here is a link to one of Shane Koyczan's poems that I will be presenting on on Wednesday. He is really a great poet, I recommend checking it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY

Response to Ramona Ausabel:

Ramona Ausabel struck me as significant in a number of different ways. Her candid nature was very appealing, since it made me realize her life path more clearly. Her funny, lively personality didn't exactly line up with what I imaged her to be like based on her surreal writing and magical realism, but appreciated how she frankly discussed her writing process as the weird inner workings of her own mind. The thing that struck me most was her discussion of the revision process. I thought her way of portraying the revision process as part of the reward is something I could work into my poem about the body as a piece of text. By treating the revision process as a loving reward, I could re-frame revising of the body in my poem in order to alleviate some of the tension between the goal of the poem and the subject matter, while still making it better. I have a hang up about revising, and I thought she had a lot of great things to say about that also. It sounds so devastating to throw something away that you've worked on so hard, but her take on just reframing it as part of the process is something I would like to work on in my revisions. I also just loved hearing her read. It was a delight to be inspired to read her books by her, the writer herself. Her treatment of wealth in the excerpt of the food she read out loud was both sort of melancholy, as well as deliciously extravagant. I look forward to reading more by her.

A cool poem I found in Guernica Magazine -

Migrant Is Not a Metaphor

By Cynthia Dewi Oka
or the burning of possible sanctuaries.
Though where he emerged, blue-skulled,
gowned by his mother’s aloe, a canyon lifted
its eye to the sun. He shouldn’t have been.
Like wolves in the white-faced room or
everywhere power makes insignia
of the gaping body. But it happened,
to trombones of light and the villainous
dream of the river. He is there now, fierce.
I was wrong to believe he was a message,
a hand wiping away steam from the mirror.
At first, there was only night and day
and the animal cries of the city. One told time
by the number of spoons collected to calm
the various hungers. Rain, sugar, sleep—
at times the movements of a father like wind
through bamboo leaves. The only bamboo
of course, is in his bones. Outside: a pristine
grid of fountains and pine needles, sky-
scraping ambition, broken young bears
in scrubland marked for development.
Inside him weather is building. Roses erupt.
A migrant learns to love as mothers do,
by trying and trying again. On the opposite
bank, there are men bending tenderly
over their infants. From this distance
their teeth are pennies in the bellies of fish.
And he is real enough to bend in similar
fashion, to coax breath out of brass
and the republic of stalactites. His skull is not
the earth anymore. In the morning he greets
its howling with a glass of milk, soap
under his chin, the monsoon of his lungs.

"The Butterfly" by Louise Gluck



Look, a butterfly. Did you make a wish?

             You don't wish on butterflies.

You do so. Did you make one?

              Yes.

It doesn't count. 

A poem in response to Bakken - Miguel Arneson

                   There isn't an antidote for booty.
            Tell that booty to sit down and write.
      Maybe once a week for a few hours.
Just sit that booty down.
                 
              There is risk                           and responsibility.                   Remind people what is sacred      
                                       Remind people what they should be outraged about.

Do the things you avoid doing.

Bakken Reflections from VWRS...

*The quotes I’ve included are only what I was able to jot down from listening, so I can’t promise they are verbatim!

“You have to sit in that room and hope your muse shows up.”  —Chris Bakken

Here Chris was speaking about the little time we sometimes have to write, and how he wrote one of his works by always going to his office and writing (or attempting to) every friday morning. I love listening to other writers talk about writing. Writers always seem to acknowledge that writing is just hard, and if you want to be successful, you have to keep doing it. Even if some days all you do is sit and stare and think.

“Find the thing that you never do and then do that. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself as an artist”  —Bakken

I loved hearing Bakken say this. It reminded me that the sense of comfort writers establish in their work is most valuable when it’s shattered. I think what excites me most about writing is trying new things, releasing myself from my own expectations, going out on a limb, and being okay with the fact that what I produce will most likely be shitty. I realized that in my first creative writing class here at Whitman, and I think it’s the most liberated I had felt in a long time. Being reminded to push myself outside of my own writing patterns brings me back to that place of relaxed freedom, and makes me authentically want to write.

“filling up her soul-well again” —Bakken

This line of Chris’s work really stuck with me. He used it when describing his friend who spent nine months out of the year giving all her energy to provide support to people living in destitute situations. For her, spending the summer in Greece, surrounded by beautiful things rather than tragedy, allowed her to fill up her “soul-well” again. Thinking about that woman prompted me to write the beginnings of a poem:

Broken down and unbeautiful,

the wild dripping out of her,

trying to remember the flavor of fullness,

sipping at their suffering,

knowing not to take too much,

knowing in a few months

she gets to be touched by beauty,

again able to taste her bliss.

Christopher Bakken VWRS reflection

I brought a pen and a notebook to Bakken's reading, thinking maybe I would glean things. I wrote down a few short phrases from his writing
("precipice of a smile"
"mundane revelations"
"we only spoke in present tense")
and a couple paraphrased shards of answers he gave while answering questions
("The role of the poet is praise. Notice the things people overlook, shine a light on their value. The second role of the poet is disgrace. Call out injustice and wrongdoings, bear witness."
"The best thing for an artist to do is think of the place you always avoid, and then go there."
"Write down your top five habits for writing, then do the opposite").
I wrote a sentence about the audience, purely descriptive
(perhaps you remember the "amen" woman).
One thing I didn't write down, but remember now, is when someone asked to whom, if anyone, Bakken was referring when he used "you" in his poetry. I think he responded by quoting from the Bible, God speaking of his creations using "you." The implications have been interesting to try to decipher.

I wrote down this list of gleanings here so that I could stare at it for a while and see if anything inspired me. This resulted in a poem meant to praise, use an oxymoron, and break (or do my best to break) at least some of my usual rules. It is about Amen Woman's creator.

and the ghost

I took the path to the lake
where water skippers
dart over the surface
as I once did, stretched tight
and thin, spilling out
most of my paint, trying to save
what I tried to make. 

I sat beneath the canopy 
on a rock, out of the way
where little spiders sew and hang 
their hammocks in the cold 
warmth of the shade. I take
a stick, draw in the dirt; if I 
keep touch, I will not float. 

why I tried to make?
I see you wonder
why you are here
I need you to remind me
now and again that
I am real

Hi all, 

Here's a poem I read this weekend that I thought was kind of funny, kind of sad. I read it in the dreaded New Yorker (Katrina told us during our last class that they fact check their poems, which I think is very odd - what do you think?) Anyways, it's written by Billy Collins, and I mostly like the Rolling Stones reference. 

Cosmology by Billy Collins

I never put much stock in that image of the earth

resting on the backs of four elephants

who are standing on the back of a sea turtle,

who is in turn supported by an infinite regression

of turtles disappearing into a bottomless forever.

I mean how could you get them all to stay still?

Now that we are on the subject,

my substitute picture would have the earth

with its entire population of people and things

resting on the head of Keith Richards,

who is holding a Marlboro in one hand

and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the other.

As long as Keith keeps talking about 

the influence of the blues on the Rolling Stones,

the earth will continue to spin merrily

and revolve in a timely manner around the sun.

But if he changes the subject or even pauses

too long, it’s pretty much curtains for us all.

Unless, of course, one person somehow survives

being hurtled into the frigidity of outer space;

then we would have a movie on our hands—

but wait, there wouldn’t be any hands

to write the script or make the movie,

and no theatres, either, no buttered popcorn, no giant Pepsi.

Putting that aside, let’s imagine Keith

standing on the other Rolling Stones,

who are standing on the shoulders of Muddy Waters,

and, were it not for that endless stack of turtles,

one on top of the other all the way down,

Muddy Waters would be standing on nothing at all.

Hello everyone, here's a poem I recently read and enjoyed-

The Sea and the Man

-by Anna Swir

You will not tame this sea

either by humility or rapture.

But you can laugh 

in its face.

Laughter

was invented by those

who live briefly

as a burst of laughter.

The eternal sea

will never learn to laugh.

Welcome!

Hello, All! Welcome to English 251, Intermediate Poetry. I'm so happy to have the opportunity to get to know each one of you through your writing and participation in our workshop this term! I hope this Blog will become a place you feel free to share whatever inspires you that's in any way poetry-relevant! Images, poems, ideas, events, videos, news-items, whatever's prompting your thinking! Also, you're welcome to continue here discussions that emerge during our classes; my hope is that this term we'll be able to create an illusion-of-infinite-time, rich with writing and reading together! And, please don't ever hesitate to be in touch with me via e-mail if you have any questions. Cheers!