Calisthenic - Week 7

This is actually the week 6 format but for some reason it didn't post so I'm posting it for my week 6. I enjoyed the parameters I just hope I nailed them all. I used an alternating syllabic pattern of 8-9-8-9.

Crabapple Trees my Dad Planted

Spiderwebs collect and reflect the
morning dew. I am sure they would
shimmer if it wasn't overcast.
Continue through the woods. I shake
with the leaves, with wind, with the birds.
My natural polyrhythm.
My shoes soak up the puddles wrung out
from the greys and the whites above
I knew I should have worn socks today.
Doesn't matter, I'm almost there.
Three crabapple trees my dad planted
petitioning the sky's color.
Grasses converging into carpet --
Fabric samples try to mimic
these textures, this apparatus.
My Sherwin Williams, my Blooming--
Look! The Cherokee Rose is Blooming!
Grandma says it's our state flower.
Friends call me the modern day Huck Finn.
Usually, I think they are right.
The sun blasts through the quilt of greys and whites,
this afternoon, I'll nap outside.  

Sign Inventory - Theodore Roethke's "The Waking"

-Formal structure -6 stanzas, first five stanzas are 3 lines and the last one is four. -each line has ten syllables -Lyrical -repititon of the last words of lines; know, go, slow. -Closely resembles a sestina -also resembles the recursive method in practice -All lines capitalized -Present tense

Junkyard Quotes Week 6

•Hung from a wrecking ball to see a fashion show. •There's a monster in my room, we discussed movies over coffee. •The walls have teeth. •I am the daughter of 18-Wheelers.

Calisthenic Synesthesia! Week 5

As per Tim's calisthenic exercise, which on the surface seemed easier than I thought. I gave it my best shot to come up with a few quirky adages.

• Photographic aroma
• Shimmering insides
• Watered down ground round
• Cloudy skin
• Crackling stars
• Scoped through feelings

Junkyard Quotes - Week 5

• "This is human life at it's best, we'll televise this event" - Between the Buried and Me
• "Redneck lord you still soothe me" - Between the Buried and Me
• "Leading them blindly into brainwashed blood lands" - Between the Buried and Me
• "The mess you made was nominated" - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Most of these lines are just strange language, but they are also very rhythmic which also works in their favor. Additionally, I highly recommend Between the Buried and Me, if you like Progressive Metal....

Free Write Week 5

I finally did the exercise of writing without stopping. I timed myself to see how fast I could write in two minutes, surprisingly it was a lot less than I thought. Especially considering I never stopped moving my pen! Enjoy reading my brain vomit.

Starting now, I couldn't fathom what
is going to escape my mind in two minutes
but hopefully the cork is loose. Making
language flow freely from my noggin can
sometimes be -
rather enormous,
rather boisterous,
or sometimes
it is spilling over through my ears but I
never have a pen. Oh I almost stopped
writing that was close cramming what I want.

Sign Inventory Week 5 - Erika Meitner's "Absence"

Absence


grows the heart
open:  balloon surgery

inflated artery
distended implant

stunning single breast
condom gone awry & batted

around health class
elastic vase bypass

cloud seed, puffed
milkweed pod (your

shivering lung-
            fuls, exhausted lips).

This magician blows
party knots, twists

temptation:  squeeze
the yellow snapdragon

pop the pretty
               cherry then

plastic gunshot
(clown-spit)

snapped bombshell
(monster-sweat)

wound unlocked
wound unfastened
wound ajar
            this fragile
container

your body (rubber)
a gaping vessel
             of breath.

you sharded light,
you shoebox camera,
you pin-prick;

            this hushed leak
from mouth
          to mouth
                     to mouth.



This poem is really neat and also pairs nicely, I think, with Tim's calisthenic exercise about synesthesia.
Here are some of the "building blocks" I see in the poem.

• Short stanzas, generally 2 lines until the end which is 4 lines.
• Very lyrical in nature, in my opinion, one of the most lyrical poems by Meitner.
• Not much regard for syntactical structure; broken up thoughts.
• Half rhyming
• Title reads as the first word in the poem.
• No syllabic format
• 3 Sentences, 37 lines
• Short alliterations - i.e. "pop the pretty"
• Repetition at the end using "Wound" with a word that is a synonym (Unlocked, unfastened, ajar)

Sign Inventory -Week 4- Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art"

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these things will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

• Alternation of master/disaster at the end of each stanza
• ABA rhyming pattern
• Very formal, tight writing
• Repetition of "The art of losing isn't hard to master."
• The use of losing, loss, lost, losing's -- riffing off that one root word
• Parenthetical side notes, speaking outside of the poem to the reader.
• Strict syllabic format which mimics the ABA rhyming pattern -- 1st and 3rd line have 11 syllables and the 2nd line has 10

Junkyard Quotes Week 4

• All good protests come with quizzes
• Practice ethical fitness!
• Cardiac Metronome
• If I had them they would sucker me out of my throne

Free Write Week 4

I can't decide whether or not I'm happy with this so I'm definitely wanting some opinion. In the spectrum of narrative vs. lyric this is as far narrative as I have experimented with so here goes.

Walking through my house I hear
the echoed footsteps behind; light,
barely noticeable. Like the typwriter
down the hall at the office tapping patterns.
It could be Morse code, but I wouldn't know.
But when I turn around it is no
machine, or ghost, or shadow. Well,
she is my shadow. Looking up at me
from two large eyes and mounds of fur
resembling an Eewok, is Tiki. One eye
dulled from a fight that wasn't her fault.
Later we share a biscuit and wipe our
mustaches of crumbs and fall asleep.

Calisthenic Week 3

Butter

I.

The doors of my town are yellow. Like a canary it would melt,

if you tried to touch it. Like mother love - it would burn your hand. 

It could kill you.

Is how soft and how yellow like Sandra Dee’s hair she married  Mack

the Knife. Her hair like pale butter next to his full-fat unsalted similes

pale beside true poetry, I’m told, but without them aren’t we a hard 

and sorry bunch.

Like unripe bananas. 

Like most all girls. 

I wanted  to be like her bright as a newborn chick, like a canary in a mine

shaft. Like satin in the grave the pale yellow things die first in my experience. Easter 

the canaries of Woolworth’s - the sign of the cross out of the corner of my eye. I saw her 

make as the motorcade passed slowly to our left, how bracing these yellow 

doors are. 

Like a cool drink. Like someone.

With his thumb on your forehead, like the light that hardly ever happens anymore.

Every year about this time.

II.

The doors of my town are yellow like a canary,

it would melt if you tried to touch it like mother.

Love it - Would burn your hand, it could kill you.

Is how soft and how yellow, like Sandra Dee’s hair.

She married Mack the Knife. Her hair like pale 

butter next to his full-fat unsalted similes pale beside true 

poetry. I’m told but without them aren’t we a hard 

and sorry bunch like unripe bananas. Like most all girls

I wanted  to be like her bright as a newborn chick like

a canary in a mine shaft, like satin in the grave. The pale,

yellow, things die first. In my experience Easter - the canaries

of Woolworth’s the sign of the cross out of the corner of my eye 

I saw her make as the motorcade passed slowly to our left.

How bracing these yellow doors are like a cool drink like someone 

with his thumb on your forehead like the light that hardly 

ever happens anymore every year about this time.

III.

The doors of my town are yellow like a canary. 

It would melt if you tried to touch it.

Like mother love it.   

Would burn your hand, it could.

Kill you is how soft and how yellow.

Like Sandra Dee’s hair she married  Mack the Knife

her hair like pale butter next to his full-fat unsalted similes.

Pale beside true poetry.

I’m  told but without them aren’t -

we a hard and sorry bunch like unripe bananas.

Like most all girls.

I wanted  to be like her

bright as a newborn chick.

Like a canary in a mine shaft -

Like satin in the grave the pale,

yellow things die first; in my experience Easter the canaries 

of Woolworth’s the sign of the cross. Out of the corner

of my eye I saw her make as the motorcade passed.

Slowly to our left.

How bracing these yellow doors are.

Like a cool drink.

Like someone with his thumb on your forehead.

Like the light that hardly ever happens anymore,

every year about this time.

IV.

The doors of my town are yellow like a canary, it would melt if you tried to touch it.

Like mother love it, would burn your hand, it could kill you, is how soft and how yellow

like Sandra Dee’s hair. She married Mack the Knife her hair like pale butter next to his full-fat,

unsalted, similes. Pale beside true poetry I’m told, but without them aren’t we a hard and sorry bunch.

Like unripe bananas, like most all girls I wanted to be like her. Bright as a newborn chick,

like a canary in a mine shaft like satin in the grave; the pale yellow things die. First, in my experience,

Easter the canaries of Woolworth’s the sign of the cross out of the corner of my eye.

I saw her make as the motorcade passed slowly to our left. How bracing these yellow doors are like a cool drink like someone with his thumb on your forehead - like the light that hardly ever happens anymore every year about this time.

Peer Review 1 - Week 3

David - Ballpark Sheep (Freewrite)


I like the direction this poem is going in David. I like the flow of tension in the first 3 stanzas, using the alliteration to open up the poem was nice even if it was vague or nonsensical it does sound nice. The third stanza, as short as it is, held a lot of climactic power. Short, to the point, after describing what was going on in the second stanza. The fourth and fifth stanza however seem to be packed with a lot of language that is bumping heads. Specifically the line - "Abhorrent in the way that bathing in a pool of contraceptive will permutate flesh or." That's a lot to say without really making the point, or to me it wasn't made. I like the language, it is just a lot of it. I did like how you ended the poem though, 'properly perforate' - great. You're use of 'fuck' wasn't out of place... I'm still wary of using it, just as I was wary of using hyphens. I got passed that, who knows maybe next week I'll be swearing. Thanks for trailblazing David :P

Junkyard Quotes - Week 3

• Those goats who worship Jesus.
• Days when video games were just flying geometry.
• Trying to mask that southern accent with a mouthful of food.
• My burrito sits untouched in front of me. I live for anticipation! 

All of these quotes were from sitting around school eavesdropping more or less. Ok maybe more. For the record, people on this campus have the most awful conversations.

Sign Analysis - "Sex Ed"

I chose Erika Meiter's "Sex Ed" poem this week for my sign analysis. It's funny, I honestly had no idea how much her work was influencing me until I re-read my free write today. A lot of that influence comes from this poem I discovered after also re-reading "Sex Ed" today. Anyhow, these are some tools or truths I see that are working within this poem.

• The poem is narrative in style which is very well executed.
• She uses lists and inventory to convey her message, - "..drinking in backyards, smoking blunts in parks, making out in bathrooms, etc."
• Use of repetition - Lines 36-54 have 10 sentences, all starting with the word "We" which works very well because it makes the point of view more broad and experience more vast. It widens the poem's frame.
• The second stanza is one sentence - there are some dashes and a semi-colon but it is one continuous thought and it creates tension and sets up the third and forth stanzas.
• The third and forth stanzas employ short sentences to counter-act with the previous stanza. Sentences like, "We are at risk. We are self-conscious." 
• The poem uses company names like K-Y Jelly, Trojan, and Seventeen which can be related to, it ups the specificity. 
• Alliteration at the end of the poem - "Exahusts, exalts, raises us up ecstatic." "Forgiveness for exploring fingers..."

Free Write 3

I started playing with point of view and this is my attempt at someone who isn't me. I tried to incorporate the repetition tool we learned and see how I could work with it.


 Scrapbooking


I bought the baby three new outfits
but don't get excited, my mind is still
the same.

It's still packed with dynamite the doctors call a disorder.
It's still packed with enough hormones to supply an entire
school system of teens to complete puberty.
Still packed with the image of the day my father told
me my mother shot herself.
My shoes sandy from the playground.
The swing was my favorite, tick-tock,
like a pendulum I spent my recess rocking my feet.
Most days I played tether ball with another girl
who was older than me.

It's still packed with that one semester I wasted at
community college in Florida. Nights set to slow
frame rates skipping around - molding every beer
pong tournament, every pill, every kiss, grope, wink
and smack into unrecognizable fuzz the next day
waking up to clicking and squelching of metal detectors
at 10 A.M., late for class. Sea gulls cawing at the tide.

It's still packed with the time I warned you to be careful,
but you didn't listen.

Reading Response: The Sequel

Josh- Calisthenic Week Two

The language you used in the first opening stanza is great. The words you use create a nice flow. Particularly the "four false screws" and the "leather cuff cracked." Nice crisp rhythm about them and how they're ordered. I had to reread the questionnaire part a few times. It appears as though you riffed off of the watch while at the same time cataloging it's different attributes. I can just picture the type of watch you are describing without even seeing it, so in that respect you succeeded in illustrating and with all questions nonetheless! While at the same time you include questions like "Can a cow be satisfied?" and "Why didn't Newton include Indigo?" which balances out the sort of inventory you built around the watch and describing it. Good balance, some repetition. It left me wanting answers to the questions, or maybe more questions. Regardless, I wanted to see more.

Samaria- Free Write week 2

I am going to start with my favorite part, the rhyming of care and chair was very well timed and flowed very nicely. The end of line two, "Ha!" was a nice way to change the rhythm of the poem and reset the mood of it. Overall this is a good first write, I would encourage you to try to strengthen the power of the language, specifically the last three lines and the first two lines. The skeletons are there, maybe do what we did in class today in regards to picking and choosing words or adding words. "Hovering morning birds" is a mouthful and may be more powerful if you use some other words to reduce the syllable count. Additionally it's understood that birds can fly (hover) and that birds eat in the morning. Like Dr. Davidson says you get that for free. Overall I like this poem, specifically because it does paint a picture and it's something that I have totally done or can relate to.

Free Write

Family Game Night

Greasy digits crushing cast plastic, pacing
commands, spoken through squeaks and groans -
fumbling to order digital bricks at random.
Cans pile, crumbs coat, sweat sits.
Each hour identical with
fuzzy glares,
beeping ang booping,
chewing and slurping.
Eyes tethered
crackled and glazed
stretching for sips of sunlight.
Pottery baking in a kiln. Unobliged.

Purple suitcases shine, a trophy of persistence
or an exhibit of addiction?
Pixels and mortar disappear when ordered.

Sign Analysis of Erika Meitner's "Blow"

This poem is pretty wild and racy and that's why I enjoy it. It also offers a lot of little tricks to try to employ in your own writing. I hope to one day be able to write these long sentences she executes over and over in her poems. Also, I hope she reads this one Tuesday. It's awesome.

• Use of words with similar sounds, best illustrated by lines 20,21 -- "lick and suck; slide and glide" Creates a rhythm when read.
• The second stanza is beautifully rhythmic until abruptly cut off by the last line, "my hips towards what?" Cutting the rhythm out immediately creates tension.
• Uses a real, current, news story to create a metaphor for her own topic. Referring to the Colorado wildfires from a few years back, even including such factual evidence as 130,000 acres. 
• Use of rhyming are found at the end of the poem.
• Repetition of certain phrases and/or words. I.E. - "I want," "down," and "Mine" 
• Short lines
• Last stanza is ordered differently with a space down the middle.
• Use of dashes 

Junkyard Quotes -- Week 2

• "Some merfolk choose to rest their fins in the water."
• "Shrink from the harsh glare of scrutiny."
• "Amazing, isn't it, what humans will throw away while they're drowning?"
• "On a world of five suns, night is compelled to become an aggressive force."

This week's inspiration: Magic Cards!

Calisthenic Exercise - Act 1 Scene 2

For this week's exercise I chose to use the syntax mimicry exercise found in our textbook on page 100. I chose to use Erika Meitner's poem "Faith-Based Option."


Faith-Based Option

Don't take this for granted:
glue things down.


A computer terminal
crusted with post-it notes
is ephemeral. The translation
could take years, still leave us
baffled, like crop circles, like
UFOs. Just plug
into the flow.
Don't waste
a moment. Speak
as quickly as you can
before you get married
or abducted.

Flag me a cab. Read me
a testimonial
              of recovery in the back seat
while Mohammed takes us west along Division Street.

Remember:
fine-lined tattoos
blur over time.
The skin absorbs ink
as if it's thirsty.
Your name will smudge.
My name will smudge.

Manage solidity. Start anew.

(Some nights I miss you
more than others -- unspeakably,
irreparably, irretrievably.
Last thing
before bed.)

________________________________________________
Ok I removed all the nouns and verbs and revised and came up with this. I chose to exclude the last stanza and the lonely line at the end because I thought it was unique and I had a hard time trying to replicate it.


2046

Don't mistake this for mania:
pulling towers down.

An animal
weakened with poison
injected precisely. The adder
could lie flat, still waiting
sluggishly, like compromise,
like discord. Just floating into
the natural.
Don't move
an adder. Creep
as heavily as you can before
you disappoint
or relent.

Employ me a path. Employ me
a frame
             of company in the nest
while generations design us
along unquestionable scenes.

Remember:
subtle output
lumps over time.
The shock sustains frenzy
as if it's predictable.
Your voice will flourish.
My voice will flourish.

Reading Response

Dawn-

“Improv” -ing/imitation, Week 1 

That exercise, is awesome! I'm most certainly doing this next week I only wish I had a purse to randomly grab from. I feel like you most certainly made the poem your own while also getting good practice out of it. I can't wait to start playing with that technique. I definitely agree with Chris in regards to the 1 fl oz, something so simple yet so descriptive in nature. It's great because by the end you didn't have to change anything, you made the poem work for you with the changes you already made.

David-

First off, I have extreme 'writer's envy' of your blog in general. Next week once I have oriented myself further I can only aspire to detail as cleanly as you have thus far. Secondly I chose to respond to your calisthenics exercise about peanut butter, mostly because I was interested in the progression of that lion and his home canyon.

Kaptain Kalisthenics! Calisthenics for the first week--AND BEYOND

 That said, I found things that I did like and things that I thought you could improve or change. The second half of the poem was the better half for me. I liked the line, "It slopes gently against the nose." Great use of the verb in relation to nose, as a nose itself seems to slope. Then the last two lines are a great use of the 'ladder of specificity.' I can identify with that scene, its 'filmable' as Dr. Davidson would say. I liked your word Earth-meat, very accurate and strange way to portray it.  I feel like the word smells/smell/scent was overused and perhaps could have been left out altogether. In fact when I re-read it without those words, it still seems to work. The use of dashes was interesting and I may try to implement that technique in my own writing when I find the right way to use them. Perhaps a pointer or two is in order?

 

Calisthenic Exercise

This is the exercise we did in class today, 9/1/11. I left it largely unchanged due to the nature of the exercise but added on to it.

Introduction to Poetry

The first element of the name sounds like a hooting bark.

Paper sprinkled with black tipped hairs, the black ink

of procedure is this; IMITATE a Man's voice.

Keep in your sandals pious suppliant,

and the perspiration pools.

The work diminishes by design, arrogant attempts

to do just that, artificially. Passing through

the current cycles of creation,

you may stumble upon

found perfection.

Junkyard Quotes

1.) "Cold quarter from the Coke machine."
2.) "There are rules! This isn't 'nam!"
3.) "Dehydrating their bubble."
4.) "Unthrow the anchor!"
5.) "Open your heart to the snake oil peddler."