Writer's Series

These two poets invigorated my love for spoken word.  Both were starkly different in their style, both reading and writing.  It was refreshing, to say the least.
Dillard's attention to sound and image struck a chord with me.  When she said that she hears a voice I thought she was talking about a character, and she was in a way.  But then she said that it repeats and reverberates and this is how I feel about my process with poetry.  Sometimes I hear a few words or a line that's great and it will just reverberate, or to use her phrase she said after when I got my book signed: "Like a bell ringing."  These voices could definitely be heard through her work.  However, since the poems from The Lost Alphabet had an extended voice that she worked with for so long they felt stronger when she read them aloud.  Like she was again putting on the mask of the lepidopterist.  Very comforting, too, her voice--it did not grate with her poems.
Daniel's energy with his works was something I need to steal.  My poetry does not move very fast (but it does so in a nice, turtle-esque manner).  His work was fast-paced and charged with terrific imagery and sounds like "You dig and you wait in the dark heart of the Earth."  He wove hugely different experiences into one delicious ball of verse.  The braid of literature and musical culture was done splendidly and while I feel that I weave experience into my poems, Daniel's level is one to strive for--one of complete mixture.
I can steal a lot from these poets and will definitely be looking back at the lines and snippets I jotted down for future poems.

Haiku

Here are the haiku I wrote in class from last night's found poetry exercise.

A stone falls--A heart
Alone with two children close
incessant water beats

Ancient kisses and
the same road will sustain me
Sincerely, the earth

And there is a series of haiku that I wrote about waiting--mostly about waiting for the T (buses or trains)

Absentmindedly,
Minutes are lost to waiting.
Wonder where it all goes.

People on the T
are bronze-armored barbarians
Vying for a seat.

I play Tetris with
Thoughtless thumbs--filling in gaps
with L-shaped pieces.

I often forget
that the world whispers to me--
Earphones block it all.

Words burn into my eyes--
my hand stiffens with cold.
Never felt so good.




would love to hear what you all think!

Bird

I was quite a fan of Zhang Er.  However, I think she and I suffer from the same vagueness.  Her verse is gorgeous and the images she sets are pleasing to the mind's eye.  However, I felt like I could not connect to her poetry as well as I could connect with others because of the vagueness.  Also her lines seemed to be clunky and not so smooth.  There were times when this clunkiness made the line stand out.  It mostly served to distract me, though.  I can't say there is much I would steal from Er after perusing her poetry.

Darwishian Assumption

Could not help myself with that Darwishian.  Sounds squishy.

Here is my assumptions/thoughts on poetry

The tingle on the back of my neck--
needles down my back.

Never the word. Always the
image as first seen by the eye

What's lost from brain to wrist.  Jolts at the
scarred bone in my wrist

An inexplicable need to write--energized
from that first tingle.

Images.  Images.  Images.  Flashes.
Never one color.

Infinite? Infiinty.

~~
Keep in mind this is an sandy-rough draft.

Stricken

With awe.  Drawish's collection forcibly grabs me and takes me for quite the spin in his prose and verse poems.  I have only ever written a few prose poems and seem to struggle with being able to walk that high-wire with skill.  Darwish skips along that line giddily! He is specific enough to have me, a Western reader totally removed from the plight of the East, be able to fit into his skin and words.  I often have the problem where my poetry is too abstract for my readers--something goes missing from my head to my wrist.  Darwish has this quality to a degree, but it's endearing and I never once felt myself wishing he were more clear.  He was perfectly abstract.  Left plenty to the reader--a skill which must be worked on in my case.  Specific language--Darwish punches you in the gut just the right ways to get his beautiful vision across.  Where I feel like I'm wonderful with words and how they sound pretty together, Darwish combines that with meaning.  In retrospect, I feel as if my techniques sacrifice meaning.  I'd like to be able to combine both with finesse. 

CNF

This is the prompt I wrote in class.  Critiques appreciated!

A kiss, hurried in the front seat.  A kiss, moist and dry--dragging with one lip, skating with the other.  A kiss with one eye open to peek and shiver.  A kiss for the other drivers anxious for green.  A kiss, colon-asterisk.  A kiss with tongue coating lips--electrifying yet wonderfully gross.  A kiss, gradually falling into breathing and smacking.  A kiss missed when saying good-bye.  A kiss forgotten because there is so much.  A kiss to forget there is so much.  A kiss that blooms from pecking seeds into moist blossoms into nibbling petals.  A kiss so hard teeth clang.  A kiss of remembrance--A kiss to never forget that this electricity, this skating and gliding, this man is peeking, too.

Shurin

I'm going to post this anyway even though it is very much affected by tonight's conversations regarding the book and Shurin's style.  I must say that, at first, I was not that into Shurin's use of language.  Scratch that.  I wasn't a huge fan of his syntax.  His language was beautiful--his syntax complicated. I think it was the complex syntax that made me scrunch my nose at him.  After talking in class, though, I realize that this is his style, just like simple sentences are mine.  Like everyone else I was shocked and awed by his brutal honesty and succinct language/descriptions.  One that comes to mind is the hilarious comparison of the football player's face to a penis.  Daring!  It's a subtle hilarity that he weaves into his sentences.  I think what I would want most to take away from Shurin is his ability to remove himself from the situations he is writing and his way of weaving such elegant descriptions.