Classmate Response Week #6

Jami Lynn's Poem:

Fishing in the same old pond,
catching the same old fish,
and always throwing most of them back
because their taste never feeds my craving.
Having moved all around this pond,
leaving no spot left to fish,
I keep expecting to catch a new fish,
a new flavor,
something known will not come out of this water.
It’s time to fish in the deep blue sea,
where the fish are rare, and hard to find,
even harder to catch,
but have the most delectable taste in every bite.
I am capable of fishing with the best of them,
I’m just comfortable in this little pond.
I am ready to go to the deep blue sea,
cast out a line with the finest bait on the hook
and take on the challenge of catching something worth while.

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 The first thing that popped out at me about Jami Lynn's poem is that it has one meaning, but it can be related to so many different things: life, love, work, etc. Everyone is scared to leave what they are comfortable and familiar with but if you are scared to leave the "little pond" than you'll never experience the rare fish the unknown has to offer. I also really like how she used fish as the subject... Every time I see fish in poetry I automatically think about the Jesus Fish and the I think that train of thought works well with this poem. The improvements I suggest... Towards the end you have three lines in a row that starts with "I'm" or "I am"... I would suggest changing up the language to moving the lines so it's not so repetitious and I would also suggest not bouncing back and forth between "I'm" and "I am." Also, I see a lot of room for expansion (this coming from the woman would has been able to successfully expand a poem... yet). I want to know what it is about the little pond fish that doesn't satisfy? What finally pushed you to go to the sea? How long have you been unsatisfied with the little pond? I want to see the transition from the little pond to the sea and see if the rare fish is worth leaving the comfortable little pond for... 

Random Impulse

Antoine Dodson / Bed Intruder Poem

My animal instincts consumed

Me. I was no longer master

Of my un-evolved intentions

As I rolled that helpful trash can

Under the dimly lit ledge.

Who will ever know-

Besides my own eager conscious?

No one, I told myself.

As fingers gripped the ledge

While my feet balanced

On the strategically place can.

A swift pull and finally,

I could see her through the window.

When my hand gripped the glass

Instantly it fogged with my

Unsatisfied passions. Slowly,

The window opened - 

Silence consumed the air. 

Thickening the air with the impending moments.

My feet hit the floor - in a moment 

All my limbs extended

To the ebony trophy I had waited for.

My hands were so close to their destination

When all I heard was

“Hey, homeboy! You’re not

Parking that Lincoln in this park.”

So you see, Officer, nothing really happened.

The ghetto doesn't have a hero in a red cape

It had a red, gender-confused do-rag.

Random Impulse

Revision of my Unholy Clergy poem:


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The Episcopacy blesses their victims before partaking in the feasts -

A papacy measured by severed limbs.

Cadaverous Bishops count the shrieks of the horde with tainted rosary beads,

As they hungrily devour the blood and body

Of their crucified Christ –

A cannibalistic ritual that paints the Sistine with Protestants,

Bathing Michelangelo’s Genesis in a putrid red. 

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... I totally blame the Battle Pope comics for all the recent religious references.

Reading Response Week #6

Of Flesh & Spirits:

When I opened the book and looked at the poem the first though the crossed my mind was "what the hell is this, this does not look like a poem." But after reading the first stanza my grudge about the format poofed into oblivion. From the first line Wang Ping captured me. Ever stanza subject is different but it all ties together is a profane, sexual way that is very unique. The poem circles around her own experiences with sex and relationships. But instead of writing a sappy emo poem about her first sex partner being married to a woman he wouldn't leave or how her first married only lasted a week she uses Chinese traditions and "twisted" (no foot pun intended) society morals to make it into something creative and humorous (yes, I have strange sense of humor). Also, the visuals in the poem are amazing.   The rotten fish feet viewed as "erotic objects," relating a moonlit ditch to menstruation, and a greedy man walking around "with a penis hanging from his forehead" are all extremely brilliant! She took a common writing topic, sex, and morphed it into something I've never seen before using her heritage to fuel it.

Junkyard Quotes Week #6

1. "loludummuchbra?" ..."nabraumadlawls?" - Friends on facebook.
        - After Lucas' "winky face" poem thing I figured it would be a waste to cut this out of my junkyard quote.


2. "So for my writing class I need to have "junkyard" quotes... Say something funny so I can quote you."... "Vaginaboob."... "That's technically not a sentence."... "Technically, Junkyards don't have quotes." -A friend and I      - Maybe this isn't appropriate but it I just loved the way this conversation played out and I would love for my work to take dramatic turns like this. It just isn't expected and I love it!

3. "Lindsey Lohan is going to be charged with a felony tomorrow. In other news, restaurants serve food." - A different friend.
        - This is just a thousand flavors of awesome. After hearing this I had about a dozen Lohan poem ideas turning in my head. 


4.  "Maybe that's what happens when a tornado meets a volcano." - Love the Way You Lie song
      - There are so many great visuals in this song but this is my favorite. Every time I hear the song all I can imagine is what it would actually look and feel like.


5. "A silly idea is that good people do not know what temptation means.  This is an obvious lie.  Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is....  A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.  That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness.  They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in." - C.S. Lewis
    - Leave it to C. S. Lewis to get the wheels in my head turning double time. I like this quote for the reason, it makes me think and a way I never had before.

Reading Response Week #6

Subject:

Any chapter that starts with Bigfoot is bound by the Law of Awesome to be awesome... But anyways, I really did enjoy this chapter. I try to stay away from the typical (like Parasitic Sushi) but this chapter discusses things I'd never thought of... like Death looking like a professional wrestler. This chapter really got the wheels turning. I like focusing on unusual, gross and disturbing things and making them even more so but now I have the urge to do things with my work in the same way Ashley Warner did. She took something simple like laundry and twisted into something unusual. Somehow she was about to take a line like "Thank God I stopped liking myself the day before." and make it work for a poem titled "Laundry"... somehow she turns doing the laundry into a gateway for the reader to see the narrators self-hatred. The read gets to much more from the poem than what they originally expected from the title.  But moving on... This chapter really opened my eyes to the way a poet can "[adopt] the opposite linguistic and rhetorical registers... about [their] chosen subject." It makes me feel like possibilities are endless if I can tweak the language and make the right connections.

Random Impulse

Second Impulse of Week #5

So I was eating sushi yesterday and then I saw something online about intestinal parasites... this is the outcome. I flip in the word usage in the middle is intentional. I tried to make the first half sound harsh  and the second half more mellow. I don't know if playing with sound is good when talking about parasites but I tried it on for size. I hope I don't ruin sushi for you.

Parasitic Sushi:

I ate too much sushi – now

Every burp is slimy with putrid order

Like the eel I just consumed

Festering in my gut

An untreated parasite

Now feasting upon me

I ate too much sushi – now

With every turn of my stomach

I feel their slithering presence

Snacking on my internal systems

Robbing the nourishment

I paid good money for

I ate too much sushi – now

I am never lonely

May companions never leave

They all have Victorian names

And are alphabetically tucked away

Flourishing throughout my body

I ate too much sushi – now

Doctors come with their pink pills

But they do not understand

I could never make that kill

Passionately bloating with utter content

Classmate Response Week #5

When Things Thrum in the Depth of Night

By: David Mathis

You’ll find it if you seek it—that place that wells up deep within us all. That presence that will take a person’s head, sink it beneath the black waves and hold it. You’ll find you can see it—that place where no light can reach; where the depths enfold you in loving arms and as you spiral, you can feel your senses tingle in anticipation. It gores you like a knife between the ribs. Fast. Hard. Jagged—but you like it. You might manage a cough— possibly you hiss as your flesh is flayed. Coals, hot and red heat your eyes and you spread shredded wings to fly. You plummet, though you once soared and should you plummet far, you’ll find the frozen dread of a depthless ocean. It will whisper to you. 

Inhale, it will say. It will repeat it time and time again—inhale. You will freeze. Tumbling in the deepest waters, your will tear your mask off and struggle, bear. What happens next, I cannot say, for I am not you, but remember to paddle. 

It will find you if you seek it. That light that shines, burns the brine from your back, sears off the coral. It glows with a faint warmth, though to touch it is to sting—only at first though. Take heart, you can embrace it. It will envelop you and you will rise as the water boils away from you, churning in tremendous bubbles. You will rise above the surface and from your perch, you will see that the sea was a lake. Every sea is only just a lake. 

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I really like this... I think this piece is extremely well written and I like the entire concept of it. It's hard to continuously write in second person  (at least for me) and keep everything gender neutral but I think David does it very well. It targets everyone that reads it and keeps them hooked till the end… which I have to say, the ending is pretty awesome. Also, I like his use of language. It's simple and harsh but I think that adds to the mysterious feel of it. In all honestly, I would strongly urge David to not change anything about this but that is just my opinion.