Reading Response 1, Week 3

Text: Excerpt from Triggering Town by Richard Hugo

This text is fantastic. Richard Hugo conveys succinctly the principles of creative writing in a simple, yet captivating, manner.

Below I'll describe the techniques that Hugo provides in this excerpt.

Write from experience - A great poem flows not from abstraction, real or imagined experiences grounded in a writer's life.

Think small - Starting with a small and local idea allows for expansion, whereas large subjects cause the mind to contract quickly, destroying the possibility for creative expansion. As a philosopher myself, keeping this in mind is vital as I write.

Place/Setting - Focusing on "where you are" is a vital "source of creative stability" and is a platform for growth.

Don't explain - A creative writer should not explain; simply detail.

Germanic language - Poly-syllabic words should be used sparingly and intentionally, because they soften "the impact of language", and avoid the visceral response Germanic mono-syllabic words often trigger.

Triggering/Generated Subjects - A poem can (should) have a triggering subject which starts the poem and remains "fully in view", and a generated object that stays hidden till the end, but remains the impetus for the poem altogether.

Classmate Response 2, Week 2

This is a response to Kelsey's Free Entry.

Great entry!

Two great features:

1. The move to create distance between yourself and the character successfully allows it "to become more of a story". This technique is one that I will now employ more often.
2. Your detailed description of the room, the space, the setting, works well and is cinematic. The specificity you provide is great. Details about the "girl [who] was pouring a Crystal Light packet", and Maggie's weaving through "the mass of scattered, abandoned chairs," creates a vivid picture of the scene. The rich motif is also strengthened by your description of the cleverly named "Mrs. I-Don’t-Have-Earphones".

Two possible points for future development:

1. Describe "Mrs. I-Don’t-Have-Earphones" in greater detail. What is her demeanor as everyone stares at her in dismay? How should I picture her? Is she sweaty from a workout? Is this why she is about to consume a bottle of Crystal Light flavored water?
2. Try writing the story from your perspective. I think Tobias Wolff's "Next Door" is a great example of the potential of such an approach. It allows the reader to directly insert him/herself into the story, and more easily imagine and grasp the emotions that reverberate in that classroom.

Keep it up!

Calisthenics 2, Week 2

Completion of a Show/Tell exercise.

Tell: Jenna’s boyfriend left her and broke her heart.

Show: As James walked away briskly, hoping that Maddie wouldn’t run after him, and cling to the one-sleeved coat she bought him last Christmas from the Goodwill down the street, like the Samaritan woman. He heard her sob crescendo evolving - the farther he walked, the louder her wailing became.

Tell: I am envious of my sister.

Show: She thinks she is the best, walking with her nose to the ceiling like a peacock; like she’s counting the popcorns on the ceiling. One day, those beautiful feathers will fall off. I’ll pluck them off, with a bowl of hot water at my side.

Tell: The girl was bored.

Show: She sulked deeply as she stared passed the ugly curtains, out the window, eyelids lowered. She prayed to the cut-down oak tree that its branches would save her. Then she heard a voice, Mr. Jones’ croaky bass, approaching her, saying, screaming, screeching, “Ms. Bennett, wake up and wipe your slobber off my desk this instant!”

Free Entry 1, Week 2

Some more meditations about circum-Altantic slavery.


Flesh culled from the bowl,
the bowl pressed from both sides,
till its shape becomes a Nazi’s hat,
upturned,
no Jews,
just Blacks,
no – Slaves,
no – Niggers,
no,
dead folk.
Toss them overboard,
for the fish in the bowl.
Insurance money,
check.
Food in the bowl.



Gone too long,
Many faces forgotten,
names erased,
never recorded,
reverse logged,
memories receding,
quickly,
faster,
ferris-wheel-out-of-control-fast.
Everyone dead,
throats crushed,
water-gnash-larynx,
no more
laughter,
drifting away,
too long.

Calisthenics 1, Week 2

Dr. Davidson says we should write about our passion. I'm passionate about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. I decided to write about the murder of 133 African slaves that took place on November 29th, 1781, on the Zong slave vessel, by exploring the lives of those slaves, who, now being underwater, will never be known, apart from the logbooks that chart their entrance to the ship in Jamaica.



1 of 133.
Adorned
with rusty brown and silver
chains on his strong slender wrists,
similar to the bracelets his great
great great great grandson
wears, before
the awkwardly tall and thin
Texan jail guard drives
the surprisingly long poisoned porcupine spine
into his, and then flips the heavy light switch,
sending lines of blue light into, and out of, his body.

His ghost, passes the wet,
bleach soaked washcloth on his bald black scalp,
rushing to link up with the other ghosts,
with rust clinging to their wrists,
not from charm bracelets lovingly made by little girls for little boys,
quivering,
as all 133 did,
as they approached their Titanic,
their Ark.

2 of 133.
She had long droopy breasts,
not perky like a teen girl,
in a porno lick,
but not flabby granny-breasts
not deflated balloons,
nipples still succulent,
with a wide dark-brown areola,
perfect radii.

This is what drew Drew to her,
not too fast to pursue,
not too old to love,
by force,
till she bled,
down there,
or plead,
in dread,
or begged
not that he cared.

Three months away from home,
at sea,
sleeping on feces-
covered floors,
has driven him, everyone, mad,
not angry, but
crazy.

Junkyard Quote 1-2, Week 2

"We tend to think of white as the absence of color; its not!"
--Dr. Lewis Baumstark

"You're not talking a lot when you're underwater"
-Dr. Chad Davidson

Classmate Response 1, Week 2

This is a response to April's Calisthenic exercise to re-familiarize us with the maggot.

Hey April,

You’ve taken a great approach to de-familiarization. I like the level of specificity of entomological terminology. It is chilling, but provides a fresh way to re-familiarize ourselves with insects. I think that we can dwell specifically on what the maggot, insect, does in the forensic process. What does it allow us to achieve? How is it vital to that process?

I was really inspired by your post, and these questions, so I decided to jot down some ideas below. Keep it up!


Healers,
witch doctors with no wings
yet!
Babysitters,
taking care of,
dating,
teenage girls.
Blue bottles,
three days,
the beatles,
seven days,
spring tails,
winter acaris,
thirty days.

Reading Response 1, Week 1

This week I am responding to, writing down my ruminations about, David Madden’s Abducted by Circumstance.

This is an interesting and riveting novel for several reasons, which simultaneously make it challenging to read. The first is Madden’s ability to construct vivid, descriptive, non-abstract, but complex sentences. This method is important because it allows the reader to become immersed in the cold and exciting world of Alexandria Bay, and upstate New York, that Madden wants to illustrate. However, for students of language and grammar aficionados, this can be frustrating as they (I) try to divide the sentences into discrete grammatical entities. To put it finely, it is hard for me to take off my “grammar-Nazi” hat and simply enjoy the (sometimes fast-paced) motif that Madden creates.

The second innovation in this novel is the experimentation with time, space, and dialogue. Madden breaks time/space conventions by creating a character (Carol) that engages a dialogue with another woman (Glenda), who is never truly encountered by the reader. Carol talks with, and subsequently describes, Glenda’s setting, while far away from the exact location. The latter combined with Madden’s placement of interior dialogues (that is, Carol’s mental fantasies, or should I say, creations) next to real (exterior) conversation is truly fantastic, but creates a challenging terrain to traverse as I enter the world Madden has (is) creating.

These techniques will be useful in my writing, as I practice creating captivating fiction, and experiment with memoir techniques.

Classmate Response 2, Week 1

This is a response to Brittany's improvisation of “A Martian Sends A Postcard Home”, which can be found here.

Interesting improvisation.

I particularly like the first few lines: "Those cotton balls that float/Day in and out/They carry many emotions". I think that you can reduce the level of abstraction, that is, introduce more specificity. You can show the variety of emotions that humans oscillate through.

For example: In the morning, the girl's mouth remained crooked upwards, revealing her iron-laced teeth. At school, when other children laughed at the steel molars, her lips reversed their shape. In the evening, she stabbed her eyes with soft white papers.

Secondarily, I think certain point fall into the 'poesy' trap by evoking words such as pillows, puffy, hazy, and warmth. I think you can use, but defamiliarize these words, as you've begun to do elsewhere. Particularly, when you speak of humans "choking the sun" I think you have a great junkyard phrase/concept that can be explored. Is this not how a Martian would describe pollution?

Great entry. Keep it up!

Classmate Response 1, Week 1

This is a response to Drika Hayes' improvisation of “A Martian Sends A Postcard Home”, which can be found here.


First, and foremost: great “improv”! I think you captured the heart of the exercise: quick, fast-paced, jazz-esque improvisational practice.

Your piece leaves me wondering, just as a human first reading the Martian's postcard: what is being described? Is the object of reference here an onion? Or, is it some other object that invokes sadness, and brings people to tears? Is my reading too literal?

These are a few questions that stir, but only after the visceral element of the poem, the words on the screen, grip me, almost drawing "raindrops" to my "cheeks". Nevertheless, you can elaborate; perhaps write a few more stanzas, to more succinctly describe the event. To put things finely, keep it up!

“Improv”-ing/imitation 1, Week 1

This is an improvisation based on Craig Raine's "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home".

Selected stanzas:

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

Improvisation:

The teens make wafers
with their flesh,
in hiding from the adults.

The adults make wafers,
with their bodies,
in hiding from the children.

The children build entire cities
with their hands,
whilst eating wafers.
The adults do not possess these gifts,
such architectural powers!

Note: some adults possess the ability to
pour out miniature children when others shout "push!"
in unison.
But only after the adult has made wafers.

Free Entry 1, Week 1

Whilst revisiting an earlier post, "Junkyard Quote 1-2, Week 1", my mind drifted to a lyric/poem that has been lurking in its recesses. Below is my first attempt to expose it.

I told Suzie I loved her,
She said "Shut up!
Just lie here,
and hold my hand."

So,
we kept floating.
Floating in a sea of light.
Floating in a sea of light.

We looked to our left,
and saw several mute angels;
stupefied.

We imagined them singing:
"They are floating,
Floating in a sea of light,
They are floating in a sea of light."

When we finally stopped,
no longer fading,
I looked over to her,
and parted my lips.
She inserted a pill,
and said,
"Don't make promises you can't keep."

So,
we kept on floating.
Floating in a sea of light.
Floating in that glorious sea of light.

Calisthenics 1, Week 1

The following is based on an in-class exercise about a maggot.

A Poem for Maggie

You are all
I love.
You always approach me slowly,
never too fast!
I miss your fair skin,
your slender thighs.

You make my world
fly.
You feed our birds.
Your daily sacrifice,
that strong-meekness,
is magnificent.

Junkyard Quote 3-4, Week 1

"We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself."
Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz

"What you share with the world is what it keeps of you"
Noah and the Whale, "Give a Little Love"

Junkyard Quote 1-2, Week 1

"She said shut your mouth, you don't know what you're talking about."
Noah and the Whale, "Mary"

"Don't make promises you can't keep."
Schizophrenic man, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (episode six)