Kearney & Bryant

I began by reading Douglas Kearney, The Black Automation, and was confused by the theme. Each poem was titled a different bold text and every time underneath the poems was a different colored lion. The poems use descriptive words that tie along with the color of the lion for each specific poem, for example when writing about the "Blue Lion" She refers to, "a lake is no place for a cat like you. at least a river, or a sea floor of coral tenements. at least a delta" (page 14). Obviously the colors are used to guide the poems into different directions but to still keep them together as a whole. My favorite poem out of this packet was the very last one called, "From Voltron". It is written very unique with large spaces and uneven lines, it caught my attention and suddenly I was enjoying it. The poem seems like it's a last thought or last breath moment, the brain was forgetting about where her legs were or left hand and it ends in a cliff hanger which I wish it didn't, she says, "Our bodies said yes, and our mouths said … …." (page 15). I'm not quite sure what message Kearney was trying to portray to her audience with this being with ending to her whole short book of poems, but it was drastic and memorable.

In Tisa Bryant's ,Unexplained Presence, I felt she was focusing on history through fiction to explain how it has shaped our culture today. I found this story hard to follow because it seemed as if she was mixing fiction and facts all within her story and it was hard to determine what was true and false. I liked the sarcasm that was used in this article, I thought that it made it a little less awful to read. Danny Victoria was my favorite character because of how bold his personality was and how he was filled with spunk, "My name is Danny. They call me Victoria if they like me, and fuckhead if they don't" (page 35). I typically am not interested in this type of writing because it's hard to follow African American culture because I am not informed or very interested. The last line, similar to Douglas Kearney, leaves you with a cliffhanger, "When the credits roll, Violet isn't there at all" (page 38). I do not like when writers leave their stories without a finish because it leaves me feeling unsatisfied with the whole story in general and the only part that I'm left thinking about is the last sentence.

Fiction Packet #2, Juice, & Natalie Goldberg

I'd like to start this blog off with a concern of mine. I find these blogs rather confusing at times, I know that we are suppose to write about what we were assigned the previous week and what we will be discussing in class, but often times I do not understand the readings and want to wait until we further discuss them in class and then reflect on them in my next blog. Sometimes I will find a reading particularly interesting and want to reflect on it in multiple blogs if I find it important enough, the best way to get a point across is repetition. I believe that a blog has to be personalized in a sense in order for it to truly reflect the student, especially since this is a creative writing course, we should have some freedom for creativity and our own thoughts on the readings we like as long as it relates to the class or an article, right? I got a pretty poor grade on my last blog and I don't think it was deserved. I understand that it was not as long or as in depth as my previous writings, but I had had trouble with analyzing the Fiction Packet #2 and did not want to reflect on it until this weeks blog after we discussed it and I understood it.

After reflecting upon Fiction Packet #2 written by three different authors, the first time reading it I did not understand the main purposes of the stories. The first story, Internal, was rather confusing and I could not tell if the man was actually crazy or if he was doing research on real people. I learned from my classmates that I was perhaps correct on my first guess and the man was actually crazy. We came to the conclusion that he most likely had schizophrenia and was not ever seeing patients. The article is written similar to a research paper, it has headings before each paragraph that describes an event or action that took place. At the end of the story the author, Brian Evenson, gives a clue that the intern may be insane himself when he said, "During my sleep, something pushed through the hole. A rolled sheet of paper. I unrolled it. Blank, nothing on either side" (page 70). I believe that this piece of paper was a reference back to all the times he had "written" something down or I think that it may be a reference to his mink, blank. I think that Evenson wrote this as a satire on phycological treatments for people with disorders by the way his scholarly tone was throughout the article.

Juice was an interesting book and was led by Renee Gladman's tone and diction. I feel like the point of the book was not so much a big moral or purpose but more so the style and how you can write a short story off of creativity. Her main topic was Juice and spent most of the book writing about random events that had occurred in her life. She focused a lot on her obsessions: trains, apples, her lover, sleep, dreaming, juice, and the lack of juice in the city. The reason that I think that this book is strange is because of a line that I can't quite understand where she ends the chapter saying, "So far it has been sex and leaves that keep me alive" (Page 16). She's taking about her past life a lot in the book and is very visual with her audience.

I really enjoyed the article written by Natalie Goldberg, she has such a beautiful writing style and made valid points about truly freeing yourself to be able to write. I love the beginning of her article how she starts off with the topic of obsessions because it is relatable to every single person and grabs the audience's attention right away. She suggest to give your obsession a few pages, not to avoid it because, "the act of repressing it seems to repress everything else too, simply because I am spending a lot of energy avoiding something" (page 38). That's such an interesting thought that I haven't given much time to analyze. Natalie Goldberg is an intellectual thinker and I feel as if I can relate to her writing purpose: to inform and create awareness.

October 16th

During class on Wednesday October 2nd we discussed the fiction packet in depth as a class. It was hard to follow because the fiction packet is a bunch of short poems put together that are very different and confusing. The first poem was about a homosexual couple who were both passing away from a disease sounding similar to AIDS. One of the partners does not want to pass away before the other because losing a loved one is hard and he did not want to deal with his partner's parent's and the parrot. He did not want to be blamed for possibly giving him the disease, he loved his boyfriend and they were both terribly sad. Both men want to die first because being the surviver in a gay relationship is far too difficult in that time era. 

My favorite part of the fiction packet were the Mystery Stories because they were a collaboration of small poems that left you hanging at the end of each. They all have a setting that they create and are very visual for the reader. The first short story about the cat shaking hands with the women was very creative and left the audience believing that it was only a dream or possibly just made up. The short stories in the fiction packet were attention catcher most definitely and created pictures inside of my head. I enjoyed the stories for the most part I just wish they would have been more clear and understanding. 

Fiction Packet

This week we are focusing on a short fiction packet that consist of several different poems all from various authors and all about a page or so in length. The poems themselves are all different and I believe that they are all suppose to come together being diverse to create an interesting read for its audience. Fiction is all about imagination and these poems are all so creative, they make sense to the author but to the audience, especially with fiction, they can create their own interpretation.

The poem that interested me the most was "Walking the baby to the liquor store". The caption alone catches my interest because babies are not allowed to drink and it seems as if someone is encouraging this behavior because they are walking the baby. Before even reading the poem and only focusing on the title I assume that this is about a baby drinking alcohol. After reading the poem it is very unclear and confusing, it never really says that the baby doesn't drink, in fact it says the baby does drink when Michael Ran Walleghen says, "Sometimes when we get home from the liquor store, the baby and I are so happy we even do the dishes and have a drink, by God, right there in the kitchen." It never says what kind of drink they have, but of course we assume it's alcohol if they're specifically going to the liquor store that is not close by, as Walleghen describes it to be, "unimaginably far". I would like this poem to make more sense because the writing style is very interesting and his diction is unique the way he never says the baby's name or give it a gender but just calls it "The baby". 

My favorite short poem out of this packet is by Sharon Krinsky and it's under "Mystery Stories" titled "Poetry". I started reading these and was confused because I didn't understand the point the author was trying to make but the poem, "poetry" made a lot more sense to me. I love the ending where she sums it up with, "I think they should be in a china cup" implying that what she has to say is important and valuable. He threw her thoughts into a plastic cup and would have never thought that was an offensive action but with girls and their over analyzing brains, it was a big deal to her because it meant he did not value or care what she had to say. These poems were written in different styles, patterns, diction, and lengths but they all come together to create a diverse short fiction packet that creates a name for itself through the imagination in the poetry and the way different people take fiction in completely new ways. 

City Eclogue Response

In my last blog response I spoke briefly about the purpose of Ed Roberson's book "The City Eclogue" and about the confusion I had. I struggled with understanding many of the poems, it seemed as if his general topic was nature and his city but he often times went away from that and I had a difficult time analyzing the poems collectively. A book of poems should all be similar or at least have a common message and I personally felt as if Ed Roberson did not portray his message clearly.

The style of his writings are one of the consistencies he has throughout the book. He puts large spaces in between words and that catches the audiences attention. The spaces were distracting to me and unnecessary, It looked to me as if Roberson did not have many similarities in the book so he made an easy but noticeable pattern to follow throughout his poems, to me it looked forced.

Although Ed Roberson's book is not my favorite, the poem I was able to enjoy the most was "The Distant Stars as Paparazzi" (Page 21). It was simply his thoughts as he admired to the stars and how big the universe actually is. He breaks down the universe into a self destructing feedback loop in this poem through his visuals and examples he uses in the beginning. He starts the poem out with "The News cattle birds of paper fly around thinking a movie shot" (Page 21) and I found this interesting because it caught my attention immediately. Due to media and our advancements in technology, news travels fast and movie shots flip back and forth between scenes so quick yet smooth, this poem describes the way we are all interconnected and I found it very enjoyable.