Sketches

I think this is very interesting. I like how she compares writing to sketching, and how it will almost complete itself: "You might call what I practice here "learned faith." I did not always know that the writing knew what it was doing" (69). I relate to this because I never know where I'm going with my writing until I finish it. I'm not a planner. If I plan, my writing comes out forced and too structured; there is not flow and definitely no personality or enjoyability. It's interesting to read that other people have this same process, as most of the writing learned in our early years is always taught to be planned.

Another main aspect I can relate to is getting excited about plot changes. "The writing knew~and l didn't~that on page 93 an intruder would crawl through a window and my heroine would need that gun" (70). For me, the only good writing I can produce is in the moment of writing it. It's that incredible moment when you realize that, for example, the intruder would crawl through the window. You get excited, giddy, and almost child-like with your unknown creativity. I often wonder what it would be like to have access to that creativity all the time, but it would definitely make writing way less fun.

One random, tiny piece of information grabbed my attention: "Many people-"nonwriters" if there is such a thing..." (71). I don't believe there is such a thing, at least in American culture. There are plenty of languages that don't have a writing system, but I'm sure these people still find ways to "write." Everybody who learns to write is a writer. Everybody who doesn't is one too. You don't have to be a published, famous writer to be considered one. There isn't a requirement for good or bad writing. Everything is artful, and as long as there is intent behind it, it can be considered writing.

Sitting on Satin

Sitting On Satin

She sat next to the woman in white pearls and lavish lace under-dressings. Turning away and blushing, she realized how transparent that woman’s navy blue dress really was. There were only a few seats left, scattered and spread around the very large room. She could barely see the dotted people in the row across from her. 

“Did you come with somebody?” she asked the woman, still embarrassed to look at her dress.

The woman laughed, surprised at her inquiry, “No, darling.”

She wasn’t the nervous type, but something about the room made her feel ill. Maybe it was the bright, harsh lights or the stilling silence. Maybe it was the fact that most the people here were triple her age.

The woman in white pearls grabbed her hand and smiled. “You didn’t expect to be here, did you?” she asked the girl.

“No. I’m a little lost. I was on my way to the theatre…Is this it?” she asked. She was never good with directions and often ended up in places that may have been her destination. 

“Of course,” the woman replied. Sighing with relief, the girl sank into her seat. It was very comfortable, lined with white satin overflowing a wooden trim. 

“I’m meeting a friend; she said the show was a surprise.”

“Indeed,” the woman responded.

Suddenly, the lights dimmed. A large screen rose up from the middle of the arena-type center, blinding the audience with brilliant light. The girl went to check the watch on her wrist, noticing it was gone. She often left expensive things at home.

 “I wonder where she is?” she thought, thinking about her friend.

The movie began to play. Panning to a sickly face, wrinkled and pinched from a devastating illness, the camera slowly faded in. The woman in the frame was obviously on the brink of death, gasping for air until it didn’t come. Family around her sighed and sobbed in quiet gratitude for the end.

The woman grabbed the girl’s hand, tears streaming from her eyes.

“This is a sad movie,” the girl murmured, allowing the stranger to grapple her for comfort. As the scene faded, she turned around to look for her friend waiting at the entrance. Spinning around dizzily, she noticed an absolute lack of entrance and exit signs. “Maybe the signs are broken,” she thought. It was dark, after all.

Focusing back to the movie, she turned just in time to see the camera fade into a funeral—presumably the woman who died in the previous scene. The camera zoomed across the room, showing all of the family and friends that dared to attend the funeral. Finally, the camera focused on the casket, and the body. The girl squirmed in her seat a little, uncomfortable with the idea of death.

The woman in the casket looked like a different person. She was no longer wrinkled and jaundice. In fact, her family had dressed her in her finest pearls and navy blue dress. One that was a little transparent even under the dim funeral lights.

The girl turned white.

“T-that’s you!” she screamed, pointing to the screen. She turned, noticing the woman’s grip on her was nonexistent. She wasn’t there. She was staring at an empty seat.

“What’s going on?” the girl screamed, looking around at the hundreds of people crying in their seats.

“Sit down, dear,” an old man sitting on the opposite side of her said. “You’ll see.” Stunned and scared, the girl focused back to the screen. 

This time, the scene opened to a place the girl knew well—the street she lived on. The girl saw herself walking down the street, wearing the same clothes she had on now. The only difference was her gold watch, dangling expensively from her wrist. It was a gift from the friend she was meeting.

The girl froze in her seat, immediately insisting it was a dream. But she wasn’t waking up.

Wake up.

The camera followed her down the busy city street, panning in on a strange man a few feet away from her.

“You really shouldn’t have walked alone after dark,” a man sitting behind her whispered. The girl watched, tears of fear and confusion swimming down her cheeks. 

The strange man pulled a knife and cut her throat. 

The watch slipped off her wrist like butter.

Wake up.

“Don’t worry dear, you don’t belong here.” The man next to her insisted.

Wake up.

The harsh lights turned on again, but nobody around her seemed to notice. They were still watching the screen. The girl tried to focus in on the scene, but the bright lights made it hard to see. She saw paramedics. An ambulance. The lights.

Wake up.

“C’mon, wake up…I got a pulse!” the girl heard somebody scream. She tried to open her eyes, but the dazzling lights in the ambulance were painful. Her throat felt numb.

She drifted to and from the theater until she felt solid again. When she woke, she wasn’t sitting on satin.

Fiction Packet 3

Finally! I was so happy to find a story with enough suspense to keep me reading. "August 25th, 1983" is full of detail. It starts out by describing a clock--ironic, seeing as one of the main themes is time. There is so much hidden meaning in this story I wonder if it was intentional. The moment Borges sees his own signature, I knew that he was waiting for himself in the room (if that makes sense). The conversation he is having with himself reminds me of aspects of Psychology--the Id and the Superego. They are the devil and angel you see on cartoon character's shoulders, persuading them towards good or evil. Not only is he talking to himself, Borges is connecting with his subconscious. Whether it is a dream or not, Borges has an unbelievable opportunity to dive deep into himself--something a lot of people wish to do.

Could you imagine learning of all the failures and fun you'll have in your life? What kind of life would that be, already knowing that no matter what you do your fate is determined? I could not imagine it, and quite frankly Borges is taking it awfully well. There's a bit of denial there, but he seems generally content with his future life. In contrast, he hates his future self with a disgust so strong that he voices it. His future self responds by shooting a "likewise" back and moving on with the conversation. It astonishes me that he could be so comfortable with himself by accepting his life, but so uncomfortable that he can't stand looking at himself. 

The ending is quite confusing, but satisfying in the least. Suddenly everything disappears like it would in a dream. I question whether or not Borges is going insane, like he told himself he would. Maybe it's all a mental breakdown and he's experiencing life as a dream. Nonetheless, it satisfies the story-telling aspect of the plot. It would be interesting to see if Borges wakes up from this, or if he "wakes up" in the sense that he realizes what he experienced was real.

Wreckage of Reason

"The Blue Girl"
I think "The Blue Girl" is quite interesting. It brings in a lot of funny, quirky detail that really paints a picture. The descriptions of the blue girl first make me wonder if it is some kind of disease; however, near the end I realize she is something from science-fiction. I'm also curious about the attitudes towards this girl and how the adults react. Are they so close-minded that they'd let a girl die, or do they know something the reader doesn't? I think this would definitely wear better as a novel as stated in the end--there is too much mystery to make it interesting. I understand the purpose of mystery in short stories, but this left too much to the imagination to the point that I don't really care what happens next.

"Word"
As I started reading this, I immediately thought poem. This is definitely suited to be a poem. As the story went on, it reminded me of late night ramblings that occur in my head. Making odd connections, like between the word 'word' and the word 'tongue.' It also reminded me of the Linguistics class I'm taking; 'Word' is a a group of sounds that have at least one made touching the tongue to the top of the mouth. There are also more subtle connections the author makes in this story. I like how it starts impersonal, develops to very personal, and then flies away to be a bit distant again. It was nice a short, and wasn't overfilled with details.

"Until the Reparations"
This story brings me back to a trip to Chicago. My family and I went and got two huge pizzas, thinking we were ordering the same quantity as if we were home. We barely ate half of one, so we decided to give the whole other pizza to a homeless man. He thanked us, but didn't look too happy. He smelled like booze. We went shopping a little bit and returned to the same street; the man had stashed away our pizza and still held a sign that said, "I'm hungry" with a cup full of change. I didn't really find any personal connection--besides that memory--with this story because it didn't have much purpose in it. It's basically just an anecdote of a homeless person. I didn't really get into it because of that. The detail was okay, but the plot was just awful.

Fiction Packet 2 Response

The stories in this packet were a little harder to read than the last one. I don't think it's because they're longer, I just didn't get pulled into any of the material like in the last packet. I could barely follow along to any of the stories as the details in most of them weren't very vibrant. I found my mind wandering off in the middle of most of them, and couldn't concentrate on any of the characters. I guess they just weren't as interesting to me as the characters in the previous fiction packet.

The story that I did get through was the very first one, Internal. The thing that kept the story alive was the repetition. There is a lot of repetition that seems almost lyrical. The funny thing about this repetition is that it's usually the character repeating a characteristic of somebody, like himself: "hardly the typical intern."  This repetition is a theme, in my opinion. It reminds me of the effort one must make in order to even become an intern, and I think it this was intentional, it was brilliantly done by the author. The narrator does his crazy assisting by using the same methods he used in medical school. It's somewhat ironic as his current methods are very shady.

The aspects of psychology are also interesting to me as I am minoring in psychology. It reminds me of the early days where people were experimented on and concepts of psychological knowledge were somewhat crazy. His observations read almost as a textbook, and then as a journal. It is certainly not the typical short story, but more of a psychological analysis. I also question the narrator's frame of mind in this story; is he so driven that he will do anything for his mentor? Or is he simply "crazy?"

Fiction Packet Responses

Survivors by Kim Addonizio

The first story in the packet is funny, depressing, and sentimental--all wrapped up in one terse bundle of words. At first I didn't understand why the narrator was referring to their partner as "lover" and then it clicked. It's an interesting look into the life of a group of people that I am not a part of. I'm certainly open to understanding anything, but I believe you can't truly understand something unless it is happening to you. I'm very close with my parents, so to have them disapprove of my partner would be devastating. This story shows the other side of the fence, referring to how these parents see their son's partner. I could not imagine having parents who do not like me simply because of my sexual orientation. It's awful, and luckily this story makes light of it.

Bleeding into their lives, the narrator describes other aspects of their life that the family would disapprove of. It is a subtle and interesting way for the author to include details. The quirky things that she describes are things one could find in any household (save a few). This also helps the reader see what would be left if the narrator's partner dies. There is a saying floating around that emphasizes what we are when we die; it's usually a pile of things. Walk into somebody's house, and you can get a feel for them simply based on their things--or lack thereof. Take away the few quirky things that define them, and the character's home seems like any other home.

Finally, the major theme in the poem is death. The first line describes T-cells, which are a part of the process of developing HIV. The stigma sticks in this story, and whether the characters are gay or not, it leaves the reader to wonder if they are really sick. As I read on, I see that the narrator thinks that his partner's family will blame him; this is where it hits me that they probably are very sick with the same STD. Upon reading this for the first time, I didn't even notice this dark undertone to the story. I thought it was simply a story of a man in love with a man, who dreaded the thought of dying after his lover. Don't we all think about that from time to time? How dreadful it would be to die after your love already has? The second time around I understood, and it didn't change my perspective much. It's still a touching, depressing story.

Lamott - Polaroids - Character - Plot - etc.

When beginning this passage, I started to think about all of the times I've written something. There is always an immediacy about it; I never sit down and plan to write. I'll be mid-sleep and my brain will provide me with the strangest, most beautiful phrase that I had ever thought up. I'll be driving and a song--with lyrics and melody--will suddenly erupt my senses, forcing me to pull over and record it with my cell phone. However, these instances never form a complete piece of work. I can't just whip out a song because my brain tells me to. They give me the building blocks that completeness crave. This is the thought that sums up my opinion on Lamott's work. It all starts with a Polaroid: "First you just point at what has your attention and take the picture" (Lamott 1).
As she goes on to talk about characters, I realize the love/hate relationship that I have with some of the characters I've created. I love them because they can do things that I can't. They express thoughts and ideas that I've had built up for years. And I hate them for the same reasons. I think the main thing I took away from this section is that your characters are a part of you, and that I should be putting every detail I can think of into them: "You are going to love some of your characters, because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason" (Lamott 4). Creating characters is like getting to know somebody new; you interview, observe, and probably over-exaggerate their qualities. You have a deep talk that strengthens your friendship, or you have a huge fight that weakens it. I don't really do this with my characters, and I'm excited to try.
Finally, I love Lamott's take on plot. The plot can't happen unless you have characters. Plot's remind me of life in a big way. You have thousands of choices everyday, but the choices you make create your plot, in a sense. It really strengthens the argument that you make your own life; this should be even easier with characters you are creating, right? I think it's harder because the pieces of you that are your characters aren't whole. You may make them whole, but plot has a lot to do with who they are: "Your plot will fall into place as, one day at a time, you listen to your characters carefully, and watch them move around doing and saying things and bumping into each other. You'll see them influence each others lives, you'll see what they are capable of up and doing, and you'll see them come to various ends" (Lamott 10). Overall, Lamott has shown me that the important aspects of writing are your experiences, and what makes you whole will eventually make your story whole.

20 Poetry Projects

1.) Begin the poem with a metaphor:

Melting the Sky

The sky is the sea

The line where they breathe

The clouds in their teethe

The sun at their feet.

The moon is their foe

Cause where do they go

With darkness below

And blackness beneath?

3.) Use the 5 senses:

Lemon

Taste the sweet

Hear the beat.

Feel the rough bumps on its skin.

Smell the tough,

Sour’s enough

To make you squirm into your grin.

See the color?

It’s like no other.

With yellow dripping from its chin.

 

Patricia Smith - Blood Dazzler

Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler is an interesting piece of art. It's the type of poetry that keeps me reading, but disturbs me all the same. I didn't really like reading it because it left me with a sick feeling that I couldn't escape. The horrors that the victims of Katrina felt (feel) are not something that I want to feel. In these poems, I almost feel like I was there. The minute details that Smith describes are what sicken me the most. Some of the most memorable poems in this collection are about the evilest concepts of mankind.

One of the main themes of Blood Dazzler is the concept of abandonment. I think this resonates with me greatly for some reason, as the most memorable poems for me involve it. The first poem that kept me wondering is "Ethel's Sestina." It's about a son who had to leave his dead mother in her wheel chair after telling her to wait for help. I couldn't imagine having to do that, and it tears me up inside thinking that somebody had to. I'm not sure why humans grow attached to a body once the person has died, but it is just as traumatic as leaving a living person in my opinion. In that moment, Herbert is forced to let go of his mother without the proper closure, and I think that's what scares me most. I like Smith's ending to the poem, almost as if Ethel is telling her son that she ended up okay: "Wish you coulda come on this journey, son, seen that ol' sweet sun lift me out of sleep" (page 46).

The poem that freaks me out the most is "34." It's about a retirement home left to fend for itself, and the 34 victims inside that weren't evacuated. Thinking about what is going on in a person's head right before or during their death is incomprehensible. It's a concept that can shut down one's mind. The most chilling line, appearing multiple times in the poem is "Leave them." If it was an active choice to leave the remaining elderly, it's obvious they had to know something about it. Whether they are old or unaware, people can always sense those sort of things. It's upsetting to think of the people who abandoned these elderly people; why do they have less worth than that of the people who left them? The poem not only describes their deaths, but their lives, and it's awful to think that any life was lost due to human carelessness.

Ed Roberson - City Eclogue

The first poem that really caught my eye in this collection is "The Distant Stars As Paparazzi." From the beginning, it's obvious that the subject of the poem (the paparazzi, in the most obvious sense) is not tolerated well by Roberson. The adjectives and nouns that color the actions are often undesirable, as well as some of the verbs.  For example, Roberson starts out by describing the subjects as "cattlebirds" (line 1). In the third line, Roberson incorporates the term "rubbish." More undesirable words are emulated in "The Distant Stars As Paparazzi." The terms "dump" (5), " "garbage" (5), "horns" (9), "odor" (11), "stink" (12), and "compost" (15) all appear in the poem. Going more in depth, the poem seems like it's referring to dying stars (in the literal sense). Roberson talks about recycling after death and how the planet turns into a beautiful mirror; it's almost as if he is relating celebrities to stars. As one 'dies out' another is readily available to take their place.

The next poem that spoke to me is "Beauty's Standing." Roberson displays what I interpret to be his sense of beauty. In the first verse, he describes the old saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder: "Only eye lives in this no place anything else can come to rest on." The next verse implies that beauty is only an optical illusion: "...proposing your sight on the room as beautiful." Branching off of that concept in the next two verses is the idea that beauty has no function but to be beautiful. It also appears to be a projection of beauty being shallow: "That this is his only company for conversation he gets/ A room physically functionless..." (lines 9-13). Developing into an even shallower beauty is Roberson's description of a "magazine culture" (16). Finally, Roberson adds mystery to the poem by implying that beauty fills a void: "...to caulk the hole in such pockets" (22-23).

The final poem that reached out to me is "Untitled." First of all, the mystery of the poem's subject really makes it much more interesting. I think the titles for most of the other poems were too suggestive for a real structuralist approach to interpreting them. This poem emulates life, birth, and death (and also what happens in between.) The first verse is a symbol of birth: "Sky walls and white neoclassical moulding cloud wedgewood days room after room of palace season." The descriptive words in this verse imply a happiness and a new beginning, thus emulating birth. The second verse is the interpretation of what happens in between. By saying, "Vacation a blue gown of ocean..." (line 5), Roberson is describing the process after childhood in which we are searching for our true self (the imaginary, according to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan) that we had since birth. By saying, "...not since anyone remembers seen" (7-8), Roberson is describing how fast our lives really go, and that time is simply an illusion we've created. In the third verse, he is projecting the essence of old age: "Any fall of palaces seemed shelved among the porcelain exhibits of narrower centuries from this beach" (9-12). Words like "porcelain" and "centuries" are important in determining the interpretation of this verse because they imply fragility and age. Finally, Roberson implies death and rebirth in the next short verses: "A smoke dust empties the sky of its blue as if emptying  building--a whole other day clears under a shadowless cloud" (13-18).

My Thoughts On Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" and the Poetry Packet

I think Natalie Goldberg has a good idea of what helps her write. She is consistent, funny, and her tone is really readable. However, I don't agree at all with her techniques. For a beginner, this is a good place to start; but for somebody who has been writing for a while, her suggestions don't apply.

Everybody has their own technique. On page 7, Goldberg says, "Handwriting is more connected with the heart." This would be true, if she specified that it's her opinion. I am much more thoughtful when I type because I can get my thoughts out faster.

Another concern I have is about her rules. Page 8 has rules like "Don't cross out" and "Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar..." Personally, I write better when I edit as I go. Some may think that this disrupts my thought process, but it actually helps me to decide where I'm going next. I am the type of person who is constantly thinking, so by editing I am organizing and arranging my thoughts (it's my way of taking a break to assess.)

I think what gave me the most pause is when Goldberg talks about practicing on page 11: "You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run." I wait around. What's the harm in that? Why can't I wait for an intense, emotional moment to write? I don't practice my writing by writing nonsense everyday. I practice by writing meaningful things that happen on the spot. I think this is also an important skill to develop; can you just drop everything and write in an intense moment like that?

Getting deeper into that subject, Goldberg touches on it again on page 15: "...I attempted several times a month to write about my father dying. I was exploring and composting the material. Then suddenly...a long poem about that subject poured out of me." That was probably one of her most treasured pieces of writing. I guess I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around the requirement to write nonsense everyday and only having a few moments of pouring yourself out. Why waste your energy when the "pouring out" is coming anyway?

My problem is that I don't think people should be writing if they don't have anything to say. (Isn't that what Facebook is for?) As Goldberg says on page 19, "The blank page can be intimidating, and it does get boring to write over and over again for ten minutes of practice." Why write something if you have nothing to say? I don't see the point in practicing if you are a blank state. I guess I'm just attracted to emotion in my writing!

All in all, I think beginners will definitely benefit from reading Goldberg's book. Her description of detail and how to go about it is flawless. Unfortunately for me, I have already developed a technique that has made me (from a personal standpoint) a good writer. I hope people don't think that they have to follow this to the letter as I truly believe that finding your own process is the main part in becoming an excellent writer.


The most interesting poem in the assigned packet, in my opinion, was the very first one. Reading it in a quiet place, I finally could piece apart the poem. 
"Geology of Water" seems to slowly get darker and darker as the poem goes on. First, I observed the colors used in the poem; in the first verse, indigo and cobalt are the two colors. In the second verse, the author describes a drowning, "...I can hear him/ drown, a man made out of water/ whose words arise like bubbles/ to the surface..." (lines 14-17). Keywords that darken the poem in the next verse (or continuing verse two depending on how you look at it) are "catastrophe" (23) and "...some things aren't worth surviving" (24).
The poem gets even darker in the next verse: "...like scars, the rings a fallen tree keeps to itself...sun and steel, moon and slate..." (33-35).
Using more violent terms in the next verse, the poem almost reaches its darkest spot: "Water is a momento they've thrown back...and those who came too late to be remains" (38-45).
Finally, "Geology of Water" reaches the point of death in the last verse. As time goes on, the poem goes from peaceful colors to  "...the sea grew old here, and here it left its will to live..." (46-47). There is no hope remaining at the end of the poem. I felt like I was attending a funeral after watching the person grow up. It left me with a sad, bitter taste in my mouth. I think this poem took the most emotion from me, and that is why it was so easy for me to interpret.

Intro

Hello I'm Kari!