Poetry

WITH A CONFIDENT AND DETERMINED HAND

With one movement of the hand,
another piece of clay falls to the floor.
After a few more strokes,
a figure begins to appear.
Somehow, he always seems to find
the art within the clay.

I could never do it.
The blob of clay remains a blob
despite my endeavors to make something beautiful.
Even after years of watching,
my hands have failed to imitate his movements,
or, at least, produce the same result.

The problem is, he makes it seem
so easy. His eyes determined and unblinking
with his lower lip jutted out in a pout,
he sees something others can’t
and he knows just how to let it emerge.
I could watch him for hours,
pushing and molding the clay
with tools until it is just so.
When he begins to use his hands,
you know he is in the final stretch.
His large, masculine hands move the clay
more delicately than one could imagine.

It is worse when he draws.
When he begins, the whole page seems like a mess of scribbles,
but the more his hand moves over and around the page,
the lines become more defined
and the figures materialize.
As he presses harder upon the pencil,
the details I wouldn’t have thought of come out:
the dimple in her left cheek,
the mole on his right forearm,
that one strand of hair that won’t stay in place.

He says anybody could learn.
He tried to teach me once.
With my awkward, inexperienced hand,
I mimicked his movements and confidence and followed his instructions,
and a face appeared.
It was not a face that I foresaw,
but it was a face.
Sometimes when he’s not around, I open a notebook
and try to replicate his movements
once more,
but nothing comes out
but scribbles on a blank page.



Here is an attempt at prose-poetry:


MUSE

When did it become so hard? Writing words on a page without any intent or purpose used to be what I did for fun after a long day of school in the fourth grade. I pumped out poems, short stories, and even short books quicker than my family could keep up reading them. I looked forward to submitting my words to writing contests and took pride in the fact that I won a ribbon or two. I was going to become a writer; there was no doubt in my mind. As time went on, our ’94 Gateway began to gather more and more dust. I would go back and tweak previous works, but I had felt as though I had run out of words to write and things to say. Eventually, I abandoned it all. My dad bought a new computer six years after my writing career, and in the transition, all my work was lost. When he told me, I shrugged. I had moved on to bigger and better things. I was going to become a veterinarian. And now I had a boyfriend. Sometimes I think about going back under the basement stairs and pulling out the computer that once held my prized works. Maybe that was my muse. But I doubt I ever will. Instead, I need to seek new words to say, more stories to tell.

Response to Sandra Alcosser

I really don’t like saying that I don’t like certain poems, but overall, Sandra Alcosser’s poetry really didn’t do anything for me. I liked certain lines, images, or stanzas, but I’m not sure if I liked a complete poem of hers. So I guess I will comment on observations I made and some images that I did like.

Alcosser seemed to address some “isms” that previous poets we have studied have not acknowledged. What initially comes to mind are feminism and racism. The feminism was a little more prevalent; in fact, by the poem in the section Sugary Heat had undertones about comments she was making about men. The poem “Pale Boat at Honey Island” had a lot of sexual imagery (“the way he pushes deeper,” “he poles deeper”), but the imagery is more disturbing than pleasant. For example, Alcosser follows “the way he pushes deeper” with “into everything I hate” (7). She also uses words like “silt,” “muck,” “rotten breath,” and “sweat the odor of crawfish” about her lover; not exactly what one would expect (or want) to hear about a sexual experience.

A similar but different comment about feminism was made in the poem “A Warrior’s Tale” where a man tells the horrific story about a woman who had been raped, pushed over a cliff, and left to die. At the end of the poem, a woman who heard the story, Rachel, breaks down and cries in another room where the men could not see her. This seemed to be a comment about women not wanting to show fear in front of men. This made me wonder, if a woman shows fear in front of a man, does this give him power over her? Why do some women choose to act tough in front of men but breaking down once they leave their presence. It is an interesting comment on genders: what is a heroic story to the man who found and called attention to the attacked woman is a story of absolute horror to a woman to a woman.

Another poem that had some comments on women was in “In the Jittering World” (20). The line that made the comment was “Perhaps we both are lost in our landscape, woman and chameleon always changing to save our skin.” This seems to comment on the way the woman role has changed so much since the beginning of time but probably more in recent times with women’s lib. There is the pressure for women to change from the roles they used to be forced play (being only a wife and mother). Women are now supposed to want a high-powered career and to be able to fulfill a role that was traditionally reserved for men. This idea also seems to be present in “Wildcat Path” (where Alcosser writes “When I serve my family at the kitchen table, they lick their lips, turn toward me – mother, wife, teacher no longer, but now the woman who walked with a lion” (49).

The other “ism” (racism) was addressed in the poem “Worms,” but I won’t go into detail because that was a lot more upfront an obvious than some of the feminist imagery.

What I do like about Alcosser is her strong imagery and the way she played with the poetic form. Some poems seemed more like prose (“The Red Dress” [35]), some had a less conventional shape (“In the Jittering World” [20] and “Wildcat Path” [48-49]), some looked like their subject (“Throughout the Duration of a Pulse a Heart Changes Form” [57]), and some changed back and forth between poetic form and prose form (“Buying the Carnival [27-29]).

Dreams and wedding dresses

Over spring break, I purchased my wedding dress, and afterwards found a few interesting things about it. First of all, the dress is part of a collection by the designer called Dreams. Secondly, the name of the dress is oleaje, which is spanish for surge, which brings me right back to water and waves.

I don't think I'll ever be able to do anything again without thinking of this class!!

Golems

Last night, I could not get elements out of my head. And then I remembered an X-Files episode I had watched a few days before that was about the Golem. Naturally, I started thinking about how the element of earth functions in the Golem.

The golem is part of a Jewish folklore where man tries to emulate God by making a being out of mud. Golem actually means "raw materials." Once the golem was created, he was unable to disobey its creator. Having a golem servant is the ultimate sign of wisdom and holiness. However, no matter how holy the creator appears, the creature they create will always be a shadow of the creatures God has created. Golems are hindered from some things that are everyday for normal humans. For one thing, they are unable to speak, because if they spoke, they would have a soul. Golems are not very intelligent either; they are brainless and are either obedient to man or hostile toward man. Golems do have some special powers, such as invisibility, a heated touch, and the ability to summon spirits of the dead.

Now, it is important to remember that the name Adam actually means earth. In some theories, God created Adam himself out of mud. It is interesting to consider what the implications are when making beings out of the earth. The earth is cold and is associated with the underworld. The earth is also the only element humans have any real control over. One cannot control fire, air, and water, but in some ways, they do have the ability to control some aspects of the earth, such as growing plants, destroying mountains, building cities. Despite catastrophes, such as earthquakes, the earth is also predictable.

So what does it mean if humans are made of mud initially? Even if we're not, what are the implications when people attempt to make servants out of mud to do our bidding? If we are also made out of mud, why don't we have the ability to communicate with the underworld like the golem?

I want to look deeper into the golem. Not sure if it will be very fruitful, but I am interested about these men made of earth.

550: an attempt at surrealism

I am having a really hard time writing surrealist poetry. I can't seem to let go control. Well, here's what I have so far.


BLOODSTAINS

I.
You look nice today.
Did you get that sweater
at thrift shop? Because I made one
just like it
and donated it.

II.
Blood, blood,
bloodstains, but the casket
was two feet shorter
than the man who lay
inside.

III.
The bunnies hopped
out of his mouth
and scrambled across
the green grass.


TODAY’S DATE

I like the idea
of people running
for office. There’s a positive
effect when you run
for office. Maybe some will run
for office and say, vote
for me, I look forward
to blowing up America.
I don’t know,
I don’t know if that will be their platform
or not. But it’s –
I don’t think so.
I think people who generally run
for office say, vote
for me, I’m looking forward
to fixing your potholes,
or make sure you got
bread on the table.

-President Bush on 16 March 2005

510: Early musings on the elements and literature

As a way to organize my thoughts as to how elements relate to certain seasons and genres of literature, I drew a diagram. My fiance, the photoshop genius that he is, illustrated my amateurish diagram to the diagram below (although he was nice enough to try to give me credit for doing it).

Here is the diagram that helped me visualize all of this (an explanation follows):



What is important to realize is that the elements of earth and fire are both dry and do not change. They are consistent, just like the genres of irony and romance. Unlike earth and fire, air and water are wet and do have the ability to change. Air rises as it is warm and is thus closer to the sky. Water cools and sinks, both in rainfall and in currents in the sea, and is thus closer to the earth. Therefore, air resembles comedy (with the upward movement) while water resembles tragedy (where everything goes down toward the underworld).

Although some of the elements differ in their ability to change or remain sturdy depending on their wetness or dryness, the temperature of the element also gives them some attributes. Fire and air, for example, are both hot. Since fire is romance, the story begins well and by the end, not much has changed besides the fact that the hero has gone on a mission and succeeded. Air, on the other hand, starts off cool, just how comedy begins with some sort of problem that the hero has to solve. By the end of comedy, however, the hero has defeated the problem and lives happily ever after with the hero from romance. Therefore, warmth seems to be associated with a happy ending, as indicated by the upward movement toward the heavens.

Likewise, the endings of earth and water are similar because both of them are cold. Earth is irony, so things start off with a negative tone and that negative tone remains until the end. Tragedy, on the other hand, starts off with a "divine" hero who seems to have everything going for him when fate catches up and s/he falls. Earth and water both have a downward movement, toward the earth, and often have a more "real" tone.

Well, there is the basis of my paper. You'll have to wait until Wednesday for everything else.