Reading Assignment and Classwork

During class we went over a book titled “Fluorescence” a bunch short-stories/poems.  A lot of the poems took place in France, or at least inspired by it.  A poem that I read is called “Sage” though I’m not sure where the author was trying to go with it.  I can tell it’s about a lady and the poem is talking about what she looks like and the creepiness about her.  A line in the poem is “Juice ran dark dryness in a next room, shuffles her index, ring land of Aztec.”  Reading this blog you’re probably thinking, “hey he know what he’s talking about” but honestly I’m still lost reading this stuff.  A lot of the poems, aside from being inspired with the location of France also go with paintings.  A poem I read in class was about a man walking with a red rusty lantern, with skeletons and bodies.  I really liked the eerie feelings of the poems. 

For the reading assignment I read “Bird by Bird”.  The areas that really jumped out at me was about developing your character.  The author talks about how you can’t be over-protective.  “As soon as you start protecting your characters from the ramifications of their less-than-lofty behavior, your story will start to feel flat and pointless,…”  From my brief time writing fiction, I think this is a trait I need to work on.  Just letting my characters to their thing and let the chips fall into place.  Some characters I think about in books are Hannibal Lector, Frankenstein, and some others.  Overall I really like the author’s point of view on this.

Set Design was another chapter that the author went over.  Thinking about the characters as actors on a stage that you the author is setting up are pretty different.  “So you sit there at your desk trying to see what the set looks like that your characters will be entering in a moment.”  I think that Tolkien and other authors probably went through the same thinking.  If I were going to make a story about a character that mimicked myself, I wonder what type of stage I would set up.  

Class, Stories, and dialogue

As the class gets deeper into the fiction portion of the class, the assignments we get are geared to reading and writing a greater number of fiction short stories.  One of the books we are assigned to read is call “Wreckage of Reason”, a book I mentioned in a past blog.  During class, the class talked about the different stories we were assigned to read.  Divided into groups, the group I was a part of went into a discussion about a short story titled “The Blue Girl”.  The short story was about a group of teenagers and their mothers enjoying a day at the beach by a lake.  While they were at the beach, the family notices a girl drowning.  After saving the girl, the group takes the blue girl back to her house.  The author of the story does an amazing job at using descriptions, instead of just stating an emotion or sequences of events.  We talked about our theories on what the blue girl was and what the author was trying to convey to the reader.  At the end of the chapter, the author mentions about integrating fairy tales into her stories, so as a group we thought maybe the blue girl had something to do with fairies, which explains the “moon” pie the character likes so much.  One of my group members also talked about the ending of the story and how it didn’t have a clear resolution.  Overall the story was pretty confusing half the time, at least for me. 

For assignment about dialogues, I decided to remember a time when I was in the army.  In the army we had a lot of memorable talks and so choosing from the many number of dialogues was pretty easy.  I decided on writing about going to the NBC gas chamber because I thought of the dumbest things to get attention from my platoon mates.  I joked about some things others may consider offensive, but in basic training are considered appropriate.  Being in an all-male platoon also helped to develop colorful dialogue, that society would frown upon.  The short story I wrote was one of the milder dialogues I had with the other guys, so I thought it would be a good opportunity. 

Reading the book “Bird by Bird” kind of went along with my short story (dialogue) since the book talked about character and plot development.  Writing about a character is all about letting them do their own things and developing a personality.  Even though the short is about me, writing the story has to incorporate my “character’s” personality, in order to engage the reader.  The author of “Bird by Bird” goes into great detail in getting the reader to understand how to write a story.  Getting to know each character is important since they are the ones creating the plot.  For me, whose never written a book, this concept really help to allow me to focus on the important things, instead of how I normally though you write a short story. 

In class we also got to read fiction packets, which have several different types of short stories.  Though I initially didn’t understand the stories, as we talked about them during class, the discussions helped to open up my thinking process on fiction.  An interesting story was about an intern working at a mental health clinic.  The story starts off with the intern working with the patients, but as you read through the short story you begin to wonder whether the intern is a patient or will become one as his sanity goes down the drain.  The professor helped to show how the author had opposing concepts like scientific reasoning, but illogical train of thought.  For the assignment in the syllabus, we needed to finish off the 3^rd fiction packet and be ready to talk about the stories during class.  One of the short stories is called “The Falling Girl”, a girl at some fancy party that falls off the building, while people are asking “Where are you going? Why so fast? Who are you?” Reading the story, the author is probably wondering what people thinking about as they are falling off a skyscraper or even why they would in the first place.  

Wreckage of Reason

For class I needed to read a book titled “Wreckage of Reason”, a compilation of short fiction from female authors.  When I first read the title I thought how I wouldn’t be able to relate to any of the stories, but as I continued to read I got into some of them.  Some of the stories I had a “oh that’s nice” kind of response, while others I was thinking “this is amazing.”  The story that spoke the most to me was “New York/LA Whirlwind of Romance.”  The story is divided into two parts, the first being “Things you told me on the phone before I met you” and the second part was “Things you told me once I got to Los Angeles.”  Each part is composed of sentences you would hear from the other party, in relation to whether you were talking on the phone or meeting each other for the first time.  Some of the lines in the first part I thought were same for anyone was “I could talk to you all night.”  Each of these sentences could be taken verbatim from the reader’s own past experience with relationships.  Aside from being something you could easily hear in a relationship, each sentence also seemed to speak of attributes about the other person as being amazing, but in reality be really shallow.  An example of this is in the sentence “I love your voice”.  As you get closer to part 2, the sentences begin talking about how excited or about counting down the seconds like “Four days ‘til you get here.  Three more days.  Two more days. In twenty six hours.”  When you get to part 2 the sentence change since pedestals break and fantasies are ruined about the other person, “Yeah, I’ll talk to you sometime.  You need to build your upper body strength.  You’ve got a lot of baggage.”  I enjoyed reading this story because no matter what your personal experience was you’ll find a sentence you either said or heard.

A story that I found confusing but enjoyable was “The Blue Girl”, by Laurie Foos.  The story is about several mothers and daughters who help out a “blue girl” who was drowning and their experience.  At the end of the story, the author mentions how there was some fairy tale attributes incorporated into the story, after reading that a lot of the story began to make a little more sense.  When remembering about fairy tales and myths the one thing that came to mind is about children being stolen away, which appears a lot in this story as fears from the mother.  “I feared infection, a spreading of the girl’s odd blue skin into my daughter’s flesh, soaking it with poison.”  This sentence and throughout the story is used to incorporate fairy tale myths into the story while making it seem more realistic.  In the book, the “blue girl” also seems to enjoy moon pies, which I thought of as the relationship between fairies and the moon.  Overall the way the author seems to create a serious mood and gets the reader to wonder “what’s going to happen next” made the story even better.

“More Than Winter or Spring”, by Jessica treat, was a story that help to take me back to the days when I was a kid.  The way the two girls interact and play around in a realistic way is something I enjoyed reading about.  I felt that Jenny’s character was very dark because of the way she kept pushing issues, like “Jenny’s voice, icicle winter voice, sticks to my throat.  She leans against me, her face in mine.”  I remember as a kid having friends like that who made you say things and push you into scenarios that you didn’t feel comfortable doing.  The various things that the two girls talk about had a feeling of trying to cement the future, where they debate what would happen if their parents died or playing the game “Which would you rather”.  A part of me wondered, as I was reading the story, if one of their games was going to go too far and cross a line, mainly due to Jenny.   

Short Stories and my thoughts

Reading the short stories was fun and interesting especially since they crossed so many different ideas.  A short story that I really enjoyed reading was “Walking the baby to the liquor store”.  The story is about a father taking his baby to a nearby liquor store and just enjoying each other’s company.  “The baby adores going to the liquor store” is a line in the story and gives the feeling of bonding and development in life.  As you’re reading the story, you read a line saying, “Believe me, I wouldn’t miss these excursions for the world.”  This line by itself just helps to picture the love a father has for his baby and the bond they have together.  This short story did a great job in taking an ordinary event and using it to describe the relationship of a parent and child. 

Though I have had no experience with combat and going off to fight a war, reading the short story “The Colonel” helped to describe the pain a person has coming back from war.  The story paints a picture of an evening meal of a family and a guest who is new to the scene.  In the beginning, the guest describes the awkward family dinner and does this by describing everything around him like, “the moon swung bare on its black cord over the house.  On the television was a cop show.”  Just reading the first paragraph made you want to walk away because it was so awkward and uncomfortable.  Then the story starts to incorporate the family members and finally the Colonel.  A disturbing image was the scene with the Colonel and the ears, “the Colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home.  He spilled many human ears on the table.  They were like dried peach halves.”  This scene just helped to further describe the relationship between the family members toward the Colonel especially with, “My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing.” 

The funniest short story was “Wallet” and how it described a father and son getting into trouble, but in a good way.  Starting off, the story describes the boy’s father planning to trick pickpocketers into stealing a fake wallet filled with useless junk.  “It hangs out fat with desire.  “All oyster,” he says to me, “no pearl.” This line did a great job in expressing the silliness of the father, in his attempt to be a trickster.  At the mall the father tries to bait someone into stealing his wallet by “trying to act feeble and childlike”.  When you read this story, you’re thinking to yourself how you hope they succeed at catching a criminal.  At the end of the story when the salesclerk returns the wallet, after someone tried to steal it, and all the junk “floats to the floor”, you can’t help but laugh.  The ending to the story is great and hilarious when the father runs to the car shouting “drive fast, drive fast”.  Overall I enjoyed this story immensely.

Response to poem and Writing

Escape Training: Instructor’s Flying Rappel (pg.121)

I jump backwards off the cliff

To show how it’s done:

One two footsteps taps on the face

Of the rock and then I rest

In the blink of an eye I’m at the bottom

Sounds of music that the rope makes

Whistling as the rope flows through the hand

One to stop the other to flow

Feelings of joy how does one express

To those who I teach

In dire situations is this movement useful

But done right it’ll sound like a melody

Measuring out the line is important

All lines eventually end just like a song

Down the rope I fly but as the rope ends

I look down with just a little to go

                                                The flames

Instead of rescue

This task is able to be done without the use of rope

I complete in silence the maneuver

I jump off the burning floors.

In class last week, the class went through the end part of “City Eclogue” and wrote a response.  This was a difficult task at least for me since I’m not sure how Ed Roberson wrote these poems.  When the professor asked us to write the response I read the poems and thought about which one jumped out.  After reading the poem, I thought about how Ed Robinson styled the poem and what message he was trying to convey.  Since I lack experience writing poetry I tried to look for patterns and spaces.  After writing the response we went around the class and talked about the poems we chose and read our response.  Hearing the different interpretations helped me to understand the writing style better.  I also enjoyed hearing how people thought about the various poems. 

The response for this week’s blog is on the poem Escape training.  Reading the poem jumped out at me because of my own experience rappelling down towers.  Ed Roberson did a great job in describing the experience of rappelling and the excitement it brings.  Feeling the rope whistling through my hands and tapping off the face are two things that I can picture while reading the poem.  The only part I had difficulty visualizing was the end of the poem since I’m not sure what situation would require you to rappel off the side of a burning building.  I’m thinking that either the poem is about his experience or if it’s through the experience of someone else.  While writing the poem I tried to convey my own experiences rappelling and also Ed Robinson’s feeling of the burning building. 

After reading the Poems, we talked about what we read in “Bird by Bird”.  The author does a great job in describing the highs and lows of writing.  In the beginning of the book, the author talks about her own experience with her father and how he inspired her to write.  A classmate talked about how talking about how “real” her father was is a brave act and I would have to agree with that.  Writing about one’s father is generally done in a manner that exaggerates or draws one’s father in the best of light.  Anne instead writes about how her father wrote about her neighborhood in a negative light, which caused difficulties for her.  Also Anne talks about interacting with her students and how difficult writing can be.  “I don’t even know where to start,’ one will wail” is how I used to act towards my writing teacher in high school and when I read that part of the book I laughed.  Anne does a great job to encourage writing with “Remember that you own what happened to you.”  Reading this really put into perspective how easy writing can be.  I’m really looking forward to reading more of this book and learning the ins and outs of writing.

(In-Class)  The "State as Body" Aspects of Eunuch Rule (pg. 113)

To hate or love                by killing to feel

Simple sense

Interacting with people                     cutting away at my self

Sharing of blood                    what is

                       Knowing others

Losing myself in others                    inner turmoil of the mantel

Earth            Eyes on me

Looking into a mirror                             watching myself

                      Longing for self

Feeling alone                             always alone            

To avoid loneliness even if        

Companion with death 

Bird by Bird and Poetry

Last Tuesday in class I talked about a book we read called “City Eclogue”.  The book was a compilation of poems about a city, probably a city the author grew up in.  I didn’t know about what an Eclogue was, so like usual I went to Wikipedia, where I learned that Eclogue is part of Pastoral literature where topics are described in simple format.  Poems in the book would go over simple subjects like a road, the title “as it crested the hill”.  A line from the poem, “The street as it crested the hill, the buildings on each side of a moon bridge”.  The poems were also set up in an interesting way with lots of “white space” in what I thought was a way where the author wanted the reader to focus on specific concepts.  An example of this is how on page 26, the author writes “someone may want” and then the next line down continue with “to know one day how many steps we took”.  At first looking at the poem was confusing, but after talking about them in class I got a better idea of what the author was trying to get at.

After going over the eclogues, the groups went over poems we wrote.  The poems I wrote were set as a sonnet and a journey poem.  Writing out the poems was a lot harder than I originally thought.  I first had to look up for sonnets were written out and learned that Shakespearean sonnets went in a pattern of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.  Each section had alternating lines that rhyme and the last two summarizes.  The journey poem was based on what we listened to in class about a city in the Ukraine.  In order to not use “cliché” words used in poetry, I looked up different words from a thesaurus.  Some of the words I wasn’t sure if I was using them properly, so I needed to look up the word in the dictionary.  In our groups during class, we handed a copy to the professor and the other we passed to our group members for critique.  I’m pretty sure my poems were crap and so getting critiqued by my classmates was very helpful and informative since they have more experience writing poems than I do. 

Writing poems really helped to tie in with the book “Bird by Bird” where the author talks about just getting your thoughts on paper and the way her students asked her what to write.  In the book the author says, “You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day”.  Reading the chapters really got me to understand that writing was just a simple process.  The author provides interesting examples about how she uses her childhood experiences and just different memories being used as inspiration.  The way she talks about interacting with her students is interesting too.  Reading the book is very engaging and getting me to get interested in learning how to write.   

Poetry Packets and trying to understand

During class we went through and read a packet full of poetry.  The one thing about poetry is how it rarely makes any sense to me.  An example of just how confusing poetry can be is with the poem on page 6 of the PDF packet.  Firstly, I don’t get why the author designed the poem in that manner.  If I was to take a shot in the dark about the purpose of the poem, I would say that a singularity pulls in everything and jumbles matter up.  Maybe the author put the poem in that manner to represent ideas getting sucked into a singularity (black hole).  I do admit that there are times that poetry does make sense, especially when it’s talking about a politics and social injustice.   

Dream Boogie really drove its point in the way Dream Boogie was structured.  I figure there is a hidden meaning in the way the author chose the words like “ain’t you heard” or a “dream deferred”, but since I don’t really know anything about the author I can only make connection on my own experiences.  The author probably used the word “ain’t” to show a socio-economic background of the kid talking to his dad.  The kid in the poem is probably from a neighborhood that has seen better times.  Using the term “a dream deferred” was a really interesting combination since the term “deferred” means to postpone, but since the author later uses the word “ain’t” the use of the word “deferred” in interesting and seems to put more emphasis on how this kids dreams are postponed.  When I read this poem I wonder what dream the kid had and why is it getting “deferred”. 

Now when I read poetry, usually for a class, I imagine that not all have some political agenda but are written just for a “food for thought” manner.  Food for thought is what I got when I read the poem “And What Do You Get”.  The poem goes through and switches a bunch of words around to demonstrate how easily a words meaning can change if certain letters were removed.  For example, the author takes the word “therapist” and asks you to remove the “the” and when you look at the end result you get “rapist”.  The author even drives the point by talking about the “id”, which is the instinctual part of a person’s mind (in Freudian psychology).  When I finished reading the poem, there wasn’t any feeling of “wow that sucks or we need to change society” but instead I had the feeling of “that’s interesting or yeah I knew that”.  The reaction I had to the poem is probably what the author wanted but since I don’t know the author I’m just guessing.

During class, we talked about what is a poem and the different structure that go into making a poem.  While the class was listing off the various “things” that go into a poem, I was trying to absorb all the different ideas since my major is completely on the opposite end of writing poetry.  The reading with Goldberg though really helped to put into perspective the ideas of writing.  The author mentions “Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important.” When I read this, the pass discussions in class started to make a little more sense.  Just because poetry doesn’t make sense to everyone, including me, doesn’t make it any less important.  Writing in general is about trying to understand or even record what’s happening around us and poems like “And What Do You Get” kind of help emphasize that point.  Though in my defense, the understanding of where the various authors are coming from, when writing poetry, would help immensely.  The reason knowing about the author is important (for me) is that by knowing the history, I can then put the poem into context (or at least attempt to).