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I completely forgot about last weeks post. I don’t know exactly if this would be considered late though. Because we have not had next weeks class yet. But I am just saying that because I don’t want this to be considered late. I am excited to see how the second round of work shopping goes. I really liked the poem I wrote for it this time. I also think what we did in last class was really cool. When we cut up the magazines and tried to make up words was interesting. I thought it was really fun. Although my poem I was able to make was real bad. But I think it was a very creative way to expand ways of making poems. Some of the poems we looked at during class too were really strange. Some I don’t find to be too appealing. Or for that matter even a poem. Although I really liked the way Remy Peignot’s Univers’s poem with all the cool “U”s, I think that looks really cool. But I don’t know if I think it is much of a poem.

Concrete poems, assignment 4, and the third floor

Dear All,
Assignment four was frustrating. In my last class on Tuesday, we were given an assignment to create a poem 'recipe' that included all the elements we thought should be in a Gothic novel. My roommate, with whom I share everything about classes, decided we should do a concrete poem. We did, it wasn't very good and her picture was....lopsided. When I got home from class I chose to take our initial thought and expand on it, adding a lot more detail both in words and form. It took FOREVER! Then, I re-read assignment four and realized we needed to have 42-84 lines. Poop.
I had no clue if a concrete poem counted for 42 lines...there are not that many lines but it was tricky coming up with words that fit the exact curve that I wanted and getting the line to format correctly. It bothers me just to have a bunch of letters as a poem...that is just the way I am. I appreciate it but I wouldn't be completely happy to have published it, so, I used full words.
Afterward, I was tuckered out. I didn't really have an idea where I wanted to go with a new poem (and I was sorely tempted to re-submit assignment 3). In the end I continued a little with the Gothic horror theme and also played around a little with spellings and to a much lesser extent, syntax.
In conclusion, (and yes I know you are not supposed to end things with that phrase) concrete poetry, on a computer, is a tricky Mother....
Have a stupendous weekend and practice safe partying habits!

Assignment 4

I thought it was really difficult coming up with another idea. Before it was easier when we were given a theme, such as tension, in order to come up with other ideas, using tension as an inspiration. I didn't have an inspiration this time; probably because I was really tired, I didn't have much on my mind. But I think this should make it interesting-- the fact that I had nothing to work with and just came up with a vague idea and tried to make it personal. I hope it doesn't show that I was tired when I wrote this poem. I think that after working with tension for a while now, writing a poem that doesn't use it, out of choice, was different for me-- the last 2 poems I wrote involved tension as an underlying appeal.

The magazine project in class on Tuesday really inspired me, now that I look back on this last poem I wrote. My poem is composed of sporadic lines and elements, which I think the magazine cut-out inspired me to do. It's not like something I'm used to doing -- there's no strategy involved, which could make this both more profound and more interesting; I'm not quite sure.

Concrete Poetry, Review

Similar to the sentiments below, I also found that I was strangely attracted to the concrete form, although I could not determine the purpose of a few of them. The "" Red"" poem was an example. I stared at it for awhile, crafted formulas for the patterns, and squinted my eyes to see if I was missing something. Yet, after such effort, I failed to comprehend the poem, and I have sneaking feeling that the intent was obvious.
"Offense-defense" was one I certainly enjoyed, for it captured motion and tension through the spacial arrangements of single letters. I admire the control, the precision that certain poets have over the tension they can provoke. Football formation I was static, lifeless, and uninteresting if it was left alone. However, the progression of the play through the movement of letters captured the tension of the actual game -- athletes running amok, chasing each other. I wish I could view this poem on four large canvases on a wall.
The readings we have completed from Rhyme's Reason has been incredibly helpful. When I entered the class, I had an incredibly limited perception of poetry. By reading the work of others, and studying variations of form, meter, and syllable, I am gathering tools for the improvement, and creation of my own poems. It is similar to having a tool chest with one wrench and a screwdriver, than acquiring a bounty of new tools -- potential for creation and destruction!

Week 6 Post

Our discussion on concrete poetry has definitely stirred some mixed emotions in me. I'm not sure that I can entirely stand behind the fact that one word with it's letters repeated out in a certain structure (the forsythia) can be referred to as poetry. I agree with Kurt in the sense that the line between concrete poetry and visual art needs to be looked at closely. Poetry does many things for me and among those are telling a story or delivering a message. A concrete poem of that sort doesn't fulfill that idea for me. I feel a bit hypocritical in a sense because I am the first to say that poetry has flexible boundaries, that inspiration should be able to take a person anywhere they want to go. However with that said, there are certain paths that inspiration will take you down that do fall outside the boundaries of poetry and land among other forms of art. I've been going back and forth on my feelings about this and the only conclusion I've come to is that I cannot stand firmly on any specific stand point. Perhaps I can write a poem about that?

I'm looking forward to another week of work shopping and reading everyone's work. There is so much to learn from our peers writing and it is an opportunity that we should fully grasp!

Kurt Malkames - Week 6

Another week down and I still am interested in poetry. The visual stuff we looked at this week was very enjoyable. I've seen some out there sort of art and whatnot but the idea of making it from words is really cool. I guess the question comes up – where do you draw the line between a piece of visual art and a piece of poetry. I think it's hard to tell sometimes. Certainly some of the poems from the readings this week seemed much closer to the visual end than the poem end. As someone mentioned – how could you read some of these? The best way might just be to hang them on a wall – which is what I would call visual art. The assignment for this week was interesting as well. I tried to play off of the magazine idea for one of the poems and it turned out ok. I also did a re-edit of my previous poems and I think I corrected some pretty obvious things that were unclear to the reader. I look forward to the work shopping of it again next week to get some feedback on it. The prose poem reading for Thursday was a bit dry I'm my mind compared to some of the other stuff but, as always, I'm sure once we get to class it will come alive a bit more.

New blog

I'm mad I missed the class on Tuesday, I read about. or got too look at some, examples of concrete poetry. Its definitely think that concrete poetry is an artistic way to look at poetry and people who can really make the words, sentences and images all work together can use concrete poetry really effectively. I'm not sure how great I would be at concrete poetry because I've neveer been one to make good collages or anything, but I would defintley give concrete poetry a try. One of the pieces that I looked at and thought was really well done was the one with the football set up. The offense and defense slowly mixing showed the organization of football slowly turning to mayhem. We have surely seen that how your order of words can effect the outcome or outlook on a poem. When lines end but a sentence has not it and a person takes the time to think about that line they can really be thrown for a loop as to the plot of the peom or the feelings of the characters in the poem. Concrete poetry makes you think right off the bat. First, you need to lookat the actual seperate pieces and then see what they make when they come together, both in shape and in wording. Then putting these words and images together and analyzing them helps you see what the poet is really trying to say. This formulaic breakdown of concrete poetry shows that a lot of thought must go into each piece.

Concrete poetry

I found the class about concrete poetry to be very helpful in thinking about the function that shape can provide in poetry. It made me think about creating poetry from a different angle. Instead of trying to get a message across only through my words/metaphors/imagery, I realized that altering how a poem looks can often times say a lot more. Until this point I have done the free verse style, which is now quite expected from contemporary poets so I think I should try to step outside the box a bit with my poems. One thing that prevents me from doing this however is the fact that our poems must be submitted online. I feel like this restricts my the amount of creativity I can have in terms of playing around with the shape. I also f0und that some of the poems in the "concrete" packet to take this idea a bit too far. For example, the poem with only U's did not really seem like a poem to me. Even though it still has a certain message I think it is too abstract for me to appreciate as actual poetry, as I still like something that I can actually read. So in certain extremes I find it hard to appreciate concrete poetry as poetry rather than a form of abstract art.

Week 6 Blog

I found the packet with the concrete poems really helpful in showing me different ways to create a poem. I have usually always thought of poems as being written in stanzas or paragraphs but in these concrete poems I was able to see people write there poems through different shapes and images that most of the time apply to the subject of their poem. One of my favorite ones in the packet was the football poem about offense and defense. I thought it was very clever to arrange the letters in a football formation and throughout the four different parts it seemed the game was happening and the letters were getting more scrambled. I had trouble in class though on Tuesday when we were asked to place our own work in a certain style that went a long with my poem. I am still having trouble thinking about unique ways to make concrete poems but hopefully as the semester goes on and I write more poems, I will get more ideas. Two of my poems that I wrote this week for our workshop assignment ended up having a kind of similar feel to them. When I decide to write my poems in one sitting I seem to come up with similar themes for my poems so it might be more helpful to space out the time when I decide write poetry.

Weekly Post

This last weekend I went to the Saul Williams performance in the Winston Room and I can’t even begin to tell you how great it was. Saul Williams, for those of you that don’t know, is an African American author, actor, musician, and poet and he performed a lot of his poetry for us and it was really interesting. It was especially interesting because he grew up wanting to be a hip-hop artist/emcee, but after attending a poetry reading in college he realized he could use his love for hip-hop and his writing ability to create a really unique kind of poetry that could reach people on a new level. He wanted to inspire people the way hip-hop has throughout history. His book The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop is a great example of the kind of poet he is. He’s brutally honest and he has the ability to relate with readers across many different backgrounds even though he uses a very inner-city kind of language. I really enjoyed his poetry reading and his book was a great read. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in expanding their idea of what poetry is because his work is very different than what we’ve been reading in class so far. If any of you have a chance to see him perform his work I also highly recommend you go because he’s so great to watch. It really opened my eyes to how different someone can read a poem they haven’t composed versus how the author intended it to be read. Saul Williams definitely is a great writer, but he’s also a very great performer and seeing him live was really awesome. So… You guys should definitely check him out!

Weekly Blog

Learning about the different ways in which a poem in the shape of a picture can have an effect on a reader was nice. I like reading the packet on concrete poetry and being exposed to many different styles poets used to help them convey the idea of their poem. Seeing the piece about offense and defense of football was the first piece I have encountered about sports and I was quite surprised to see it.Sports seems to be a topic not discussed in the poetry or at least in none of the resources I have been exposed to recently.
I also liked how in class on Tuesday we had the exercise of cutting out sentences or phrases and putting them together in a way to tell a story or convey a message. Many of the topics that seemed to be discussed from other people were about politics or government, but that might just have been because of the types of magazines we were using. regardless of this, I really enjoyed exploring this new techniques in class and I will take the advice given to us and write down phrases that stick into my head and apply them to my writing.

new week blog

for me, the tension poem assignment was the most difficult assignment we've had yet. I normally write in a rhythm pattern and try to tell a story that people can picture. with the addition of needing rising and falling instances of tension, i was forced to carefully structure my poem with contrasting lines either with tension or without. i chose to write about a guy who has a crush on a girl and faces the dilemma of whether or not to approach her and talk to her. i tried to incorporate the tension of a close game that wasn't about a game, and i've had an idea for a poem like this for a while. the terminology is easy to understand and it flows like a song. I usually listen to instrumental music when i do school work, and I was listening to a particular beat when i wrote this poem. so the words in the poem fit to a beat and it flows nicely. this is how i like do many of my poems, as i see much of acapella hip-hop music as spoken word/poetry.

Tension blog

This assignment seemed tricky to me at first. I jumbled ideas around in my head for a while and nothing seemed to appeal to me. Then I tried to think of it almost like a sports announcer. I tied to watch an everyday event with a voice like John Madden's going on in my head. That seems a little too much though since I can't help but laugh when doing that. I guess I decided to just look at nature like a sports game. As if a campus squirrel was going to score a touchdown with a half eaten pizza crust. Not only does it seem funny, you can make it seem like so much more is at stake. I like taking the simple things and making them absurd somtimes.

blog

I found it fun creating a poem dealing with tension. I played the game call of duty last night, then suddenly it hit me that it would work perfectly in creating tension. Playing the game sometimes really deals with a lot of tension. It’s sometimes the most frustrating thing I deal with which is really sad actually. It was fun creating a poem that incorporated a game I like into a poem. I don’t expect many people in the class to understand most of the terms in the poem because they are strait out of the game. I feel like there is a lot of potential creating poems that deal with this game. Maybe that’s just me thinking that because I love the game. I am sure I will be writing another poem in the not so far future dealing with call of duty. Don’t know if this deals with poetry but for those beer drinkers in the class I recommend trying magic hat’s Vinyl lager. I am sipping on one right now, it has so much flavor and taste. For some reason it tastes like chocolate to me. I love chocolate so I think a beer that sort of reminds me of chocolate is pretty cool. I recommend anyone else who is also 21 to pick up a pack and try some.

Tension, Energy, et all

Going with the theme of finding a topic for this third assignment, I didn't even choose a topic before I began writing. I began with a sentence and went from there...of course my first line didn't end up fitting with the rest of the poem and in the end I didn't even like the poem but instead stuck with my topic.
In the end I was very pleased with my poem but I was worried that it was not following the assignment. I think the analogy of using a sporting event is what tripped me up. I kept thinking 'there is only one person so where is the tension?' or, 'nothing truly physical is happening, so where is the energy?' In the end, after reading the poem over and over and having a friend look it over I decided the internal tension was fine and my topic was suitably energetic.
So, I didn't have that much trouble in the beginning. I just began writing and was amusing myself until I realized the poem itself wasn't so good. I loved my topic and like the new poem, the one I submitted but getting there was tough.

tension blog

I also found it difficult to complete the tension assignment, because in being asked to create that much push and pull tension I felt like it becoming obvious where the poem was actually going next. I perhaps took the concept of the close competition too literally, and I should have worked on doing slight variations in tension, rather than the focusing on "reversing" what was going on.
I would also like to work on using a specific form in my poetry, instead of always using the modern technique of free verse. I think it would be good to challenge myself to try to mimic a poet's work with my own topic, as I have not yet ventured into a more strict style. I also really enjoyed the "Bluebeard" class, because I thought it was interesting how many different versions of that story exist. I think the creepiness of the story made it extremely captivating, and I can see why many poets would want to take pieces and themes from it. I hope that in one of our next assignments we are asked to re-create a theme or fairy tale like the exercise we started to do in class, as we could work on developing our own twist and style into some of our favorite childhood tails.

Week 5 Blog

Similar to the previous comments, I also had initial difficulties with the assignment. I found myself searching for topics that I was sure of, struggling for a situation that would be easily described in verse. However, I decided to look into my own life, and search through by database of memories to find a particular topic that cause anxiety at one time. I completed most of the poem when I realized that every line and every stanza was "high tension," which would effectively convince the reader that I was not being true to the situation (thereby causing them to lose interest). Realistically, most situations that provoke tension or anxiety are in fluctuation between "high tension" and "modest tension". I struggled to convey this cycle in my poem, but came to the conclusion (after reading the handout once again) that detail is an effective utility for managing tension. In my poem, I used details to instigate and abate tension, which assisted with the "ebb and flow" I wished to create.

I also found the blue beard poems to be very interesting. I enjoy conducting research for the sake of understanding the poem; I see it as a challenge. I am uncomfortable if I leave a poem unresolved, incompletely appreciated, and I often conduct research on the topic (if it is necessary)to acquire a complete understanding. Wikipedia is an incredible tool for background research!

Weekly Post

So… This last assignment was really an interesting one for me. At first I couldn’t seem to figure out what I wanted to write about! I felt like I had a really hard time picking a situation that I cared enough about to write about as well as balancing the assignment requirements. I finally chose a topic, but I still don’t know how I feel about it exactly. I kind of worry that I didn’t quite hit the points Professor Hummer wanted us to hit on. I always struggle with our assignments because I never really know if I’m executing the project completely correctly. I find writing with believable tension to be really hard for some reason. I wish I knew some ways to make writing with effective tension easier and better in my pieces. Any suggestions?

Kurt Malkames - week 4

Once again, another surprisingly enjoyable week of poetry. It’s always a nice break from organic chemistry readings that’s for sure. It’s almost like being able to take a break and relax a bit when I sit down with some of these poems – although not all of them. Some are pretty easy to comprehend while others I think someone could think about for their entire life and come up with a multitude of potential meanings for it – none of which are necessarily right or wrong. I liked the bluebeard comparisons on Monday – it’s amazing how one story can have so many takes. Some of them follow the plot very explicitly – while others simply use its main themes as a basis for their writing. As for this week’s assignment I wrote about the game between the teachers and the students in class. I think part of being successful in college is “playing the game”. Knowing what a professor likes and dislikes – and where and what a professor tests on. Although this class doesn’t have any exams there is certainly going to be things the professor is going to be looking for in papers and whatnot. Maybe the game isn’t quite as intense as my poem made it out to be – but I had to create tension somehow.

Week 5 Blog

It was really interesting to read the different poems about the Blackbeard story in class on Tuesday. It opened my eyes to ways that one can take a certain part of a story and focus intensely on it or decide to drag it out. While the different versions of the Blackbeard poems all tell the story, they still use vivid details and emotions that make each poem stand out in different ways. Sylvia Plath was able to do this in her poem by just taking one part of the story, about giving back the key, to really portray how this wife could feel inside. When writing the poem for our assignment this week I thought closely about the themes and plots of stories and how they can be used in poetry. It was challenging but interesting to think of a non sporting event that could really portray that kind of tension. I also looked back at some of the poems we read a couple weeks ago that used a lot of tension in certain parts of the story. This helped me to try and create certain areas of tension in my poem but also letting it die down at other points as well. I am having a little trouble though picking out certain words that will really help increase tension in certain areas.

Assignment 3

Assignment 3 has proven to be one of the most difficult yet. I find failing at creating any sort of dynamic change in tension; every line seems to related to the prior to shock the reader or create real tension. Following the workshop week also makes writing a bit more difficult because I want to improve on some of the criticisms of my peers, but that only complicates my writing even more, making me feel like I'm overcompensating too much. Its nice to see that other people had similar difficulties creating tension, and also had some advice regarding how to get through it. Someone wrote about using intensely visual writing in order to create the type of tension needed for this assignment -- I think that ill try that.

Reading Rhyme & Reason will prove very important. I have a limited knowledge about technical aspects of poetry, and I think that exploring the different types of poems and such is essential to becoming a good poetry writer.

Blog week 5

This most recent assigment that we had to do was interesting for me in a variety of ways. I thought the concept of a sporting event type scene with a different situation actually foing on would be a fun thing to write about. When I thought about what I would do for a situation that feels almost like a "game" is when you are trying to talk to a girl and you really can;t tell if she is sticking around talking to you just becasue she is being nice or if she is actually interested in what you have to say. I think that most guys, and girls, can agree that socializing with someone who you may have premature feelings about is tough. You're not sure if you really like each other but you are definitley interested in trying. When I thought about this situation all I could imagine is the ups and downs a person has to face in this case. First you have to get the courage to start the conversation and then you have to have the ability to keep the conversation genuinely interesting. A conversation can turn bad with one lengthy interruption or even a short break of silence that gives a big enough window for the person you are pursuing to exit. I think conversations like these provide for a perfect stage for poetry. The highs and lows of feeling like you are making positive progress or shooting yourself in the foot are things that everyone can relate to, no matter how suave you may think you are. I sure people wrote about all sorts of different things but I think that relationships between people can always be used for a poem like this because they are so eratic sometimes and can be so unpredictable. I liked this poem, and the challenge of making it tough for your reader to figure who is going to win in this certain situation.

Week 5 Post

Assignment 3 was a really interesting one for me to write this week. Having an assignment like this, based on the different levels of tension, is useful to have coming off of a week of workshopping. Workshops are always inspirational; it gives you a chance to read other peoples works, critique them, and in the same voice that you critique their work you can critique your own. The indefinite space that poetry encompasses is so encouraging to me and seeing all the different forms that people used in their pieces last week fueled all kinds of ideas for this weeks assignment. Before actually writing the poem, I sat starring at my computer for a while trying to decide between the different ideas I had rolling around my brain. The format of the poem can literally go anywhere you want to take it, or rather, where it takes you. If you pay close attention, you can find tension in the most mundane matters. While writing my poem i focused a lot on the different levels of tension and "adjusting the temperature." I found this was the easiest way to really show what the theme of the poem is and what matters most to the speaker. I liked being able to raise and lower the stakes just by altering my use of punctuation. The simplest things, like punctuation or line formatting, can help to adjust the levels of your tension.

Assignment 3

In class on Tuesday, I found it helpful that we discussed themes and elements of a poem. Judging from constructive criticism on my last poem, I think I could work more on concrete structure, by using images and a lot more visual stimulation in my writing. Themes and elements would put me on the right path. I want to let my reader know what sort of prolonged metaphors or images I want to convey, as does Emily Dickinson in her writing. She so vividly demonstrates philosophical and spiritual ideas through her concrete images and descriptions, and I don't think I successfully emulated that as much as I wanted to through Assignment 2. For Assignment 3, I plan to use that tension while also clearly using concrete examples for those themes. I'm thinking of providing many elements through images that make the theme so explicit. Sometimes it's hard when you want to say so much in a poem, though. But this should be a pretty interesting turn of events. I'm intrigued to find what sort of elements I brainstorm and how I go about developing a theme.

Weekly Blog

In reading Rhyme's Reason Book by Hollander, I really enjoyed how it covered the many different types of poems as well as explained what the mechanics are for them as well. It was unique and interesting how they explained the mechanics and the layout of each poem in an example in the form of the given poem. I never thought about the shape of a poem adding to the tension or suspense of someones work but the more we read poems/pieces in different forms and shapes, I see that certain shapes increase or decrease the tension of the poem.
In Tuesdays class I really enjoyed going over the different poems and how they all related back to a single story, but retold certain parts of the story in the different styles that were conducive to each writer. I also liked how we took a common nursery rhyme, kept common themes and ideas, but made it into our own version of the same story.

Trials and Tribulations (aka workshop)

Someone asked on, though I can't recall who, when these are considered late...I have been creatively interpreting that as well. I'm going to say as long as each blog is done before the next weeks class...so Tuesday to Tuesday...it makes sense to me and makes me feel better knowing my posts really aren't that late.

I enjoy workshop. I like reading others' poetry more than I like reading my own. And I agree with everyone else's assessment. It is nice to hear what others are thinking and, in some instances, pretend that what you were thinking about really was as deep and meaningful as it was interpreted. I do that a lot. Write something frivolous or choose words for the meter and someone will come up with a complex deep meaning that connects to the philosophical or political world...I just smile and nod...

In future, if workshop is to run as smoothly as possible, I believe everyone should print copies of the poems, including their own. That way the poem is in front of you for reference and you can write comments on the paper instead of having to ask if someone has the poem and forcing the same people to read the works aloud.

Workshopping

I have never taken a college level english course, and have therefore never engaged in any short of workshopping, so this weeks classes were particularly interesting to me. Having other people analyze my poem, and come up with ideas that were so foreign to the thoughts I had while I was writing it was both a confusing and awesome experience. The fact that other people were reading my work, and seeing a picture, an idea, or an argument that had not even crossed my mind while I was writing it made be realize the absolute sublimity of using poetry as a medium for expression. I even found myself enjoying other people's interpretations more than my original idea -- giving me incentive to change the poem to fit my peer's interpretations.

new blog

When are these blogs each week due. I mean is this blog for this week now considered late?? Or is it alright to send in a blog like Monday through Friday? Alright so this writing workshop is pretty cool. Although I messed up the first day where I only work shopped the 3 kids in my group that was going the today. I thought It was real cool getting half the classes input on what they think about my poems. I felt like all the kids in my group had some real in depth poems. I felt like I was slacking with my silly bee poem and fish story. I need to write some better more creative poems I feel like. With the help of this work shop business I feel like I will be able to fine tone my poems. I also think answering all the questions for the sheet given to us for work shopping others is overkill. When I work shopped other peoples poems I really took what I thought was important for the writer to hear. I feel like that is more useful than writing like a page of nonsense. I hope I am correct in doing that, if people don’t like it tell me so I will change.

Although this post is slightly late, I realized it would be a good idea to do it anyways. I thought the first week of work shopping went smoothly. I have never work shopped in this style, the only other workshop classes I have taken are Creative Non-Fiction and Enviromental Writing, and both were with the same teacher. We would always read a handful of papers for class and talk about them with everybody in the class, including our teacher. Both ways are definitley effective because I felt like everyone is not afraid to say what they mean and also do it in a respectful manner. I like that in a class when people are able to be real and make some constructive criticism and nobody gets offended. This week not only did I get some good feedback from classmates, I also had a fun time with the workshops. Sometimes it is tough to be wide awake at 830 in the morning, but with active things like work shopping, it is easier to be engulfed by the class.
I think what I learned from work shopping this week was to make my poems a little deeper. I enjoyed the poetry I wrote this past week but I did feel like it was a little shallow at times because although I was trying to be descriptive and a little mysterious with my lines, there was not always a real story behind the poem. I don't think this is a big problem to have a hidden message in your poem, but I did think that that could be something I could play around with.

Kurt Malkames - week 3

I enjoyed the workshopping this week. The comments that I received from other people helped me and I hope that others got something from what I had to offer them. The discussions were respectful yet to the point and didn’t include opinions – rather kept to the point. I could definitely see how my writing could improve over time as a result of doing this sort of thing on a regular basis. Since there were no readings the main focus of the week was exclusively the workshopping. The poem that I had analyzed was sort of a free form style of mine. I tried to capture the tension that a pro cyclist may have before starting an event such as a Tour de France time trial. The comments my peers gave were insightful. In the future it would have been more effective if I had been clearer with some of the technical terms such as tri-spoke (three spoked wheel) and disc wheels (solid carbon fiber disc). Also the poem could have been clearer if I didn’t transition so much between the rider’s personal feelings and purely observational moments. Including something about how the rider felt alien in his French environment may have also been a nice twist.

workshop blog

I missed Tuesday's workshop class so I wasn't really sure what to expect today. I think it went really smooth though. From reading some previous posts, I see that there was some confusion as to how the workshop was going to run, but it seemed that everyone was on the same page today. I feel like peer reviewing and taking criticism, both positive and negative, is the best way to revise your work. You get feedback from fellow students who have different viewpoints and come from different walks of life, and being willing to make changes and being open to their advice will make your end product be much more well rounded. I like the process of having someone read your poem first, and then having the speaker read the poem the way they intended it to be read. You can notice differences and ultimately, the delivery can give the words a different feel. I got some great feedback from the people in my group and I plan on using that to enhance the quality of my poems and be more creative with delivering my intended message. I hope everyone benefited from the exercise as much as I did.

Workshopping

It was a good experience the first few days of work-shopping our poems. Granted there was a lot of confusion to start off with I feel it went really well. All the comments were constructive criticism. It was also interesting to see how others interpreted your poems as well. It was great the many different ideas and concepts that people thought of while reading the poem. Everyone was really positive in their comments and in general I feel that most people liked all the poems for one reason or another. The first few days of workshop were good and I'm interested to see where the workshops go as we learn more techniques and develop of writing skills.

Jon Piccirillo

The first poetry workshop on Tuesday was a reasonable success in my opinion and I believe that without the confusion it would have been a great success. I personally misunderstood the directions and reviewed the Thursday poems rather than the Tuesday poems. Despite my own and many other peoples’ confusion the workshop went fairly smoothly. I was very impressed by many of the poems that my peers wrote and I found it very interesting to learn about everybody’s writing styles. I am looking forward to tomorrow when my poems will be critiqued. By listening to the variety of styles, topics, and structures that were used by various people, I have become inspired to try and take my own poetry to the next level. In the future I look forward to creating more complex poems that utilize structure to a greater degree than in my previous poems.

Week three: Workshopping

I was impressed with the quality of our first work shop session. I was a bit skeptical at first, for students are typically hesitant to share their criticism or suggestions. Such a comment could appear to be a personal affront, and as a result, most people avoid it. I must admit, I am well acquainted with the typical high school critique sessions: "oh, it was beautiful", or "I really liked how you expressed your emotion". Not only were these comments thoughtless, they did not help the writer at all with the revision process. I am impressed that our work shop groups are comfortable with expressing their thoughts and suggestions - It will certainly benefit the progress of the class.
I enjoy the workshops, for it gives me a chance to read the work of my peers. In the English classes I have taken, papers tend to be “confidential”, and the students never have the chance to review the ideas or accomplishments of their peers. It seemed like my classes were always developed on a one way tract: Student produces work for professor. Although class discussions were helpful, I always felt removed from everyone else. However, in our workshops, I have the opportunity to read the ideas and expressions of others, and in doing so, I learn more about the writer and the poem. Such discoveries seem to improve the overall communicative dynamics of the class.

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It was interesting to see how the first poetry workshop went. Although there seemed to be some confusion in the beginning about who was supposed to talk and what issues to address first, it seemed to flow nicely once we got the hang of it. I found that it was much easier to express my ideas about the poem verbally to the person, rather than on the paper I had when I was reading it them for homework. I think a lot of the students found the feedback to be helpful towards their poetry, as it?s hard to be objective when looking at your own work. Hearing where people got tripped up allows the writer to really step back and look at their work from a new perspective, which is crucial to improving ones work. I thought it was very interesting as the author to be able to sit back and listen to what others thought about my poem, even if their ideas were not exactly what I intended the reader to take away from it. The fact that there is some confusion about the message makes me feel like I was successful in the sense that the poem was not too straight forward but actually made the group members think. I am glad I got the first workshop out of the way because it was truly a learning process for me and I think I can be even more helpful in my critiques for next class.

Workshop and Poetry

Before I read over my group members' poems for Tuesday's workshop, I was intrigued about what they would write. I didn't know what kind of ideas or themes people would want to write about, and I was curious as to how other people went about writing them: which style they would use. When I read some of them, I thought that my ideas were a little similar to theirs, in that people seemed to want to write about a specific problem they were having in that moment. I liked that students didn't just praise something, but instead they added a lot of tension to their poem's argument or theme. This made it enjoyable to ascertain the meaning behind the words and language. I am curious as to whether some of these poems were true to the writers' life or if they were fictional in some sort of aspect... but either way they were based on something real. I'm interested to find out what other people have written about for Thursday's workshop; the ideas and style of verse are kind of important in deciding how to go about writing poetry, and I think it's great that the class is working on that, as well as hearing what other people have written.

This week it has been both challenging and helpful to critique all of the poems in my group and have my own critiqued as well. It is definitely helpful to read my classmates poems and I have gotten some inspiration from them and have seen different ways that they like to write poetry. By workshopping some of these other poems in our class, I think it will help me more in the future to go over my own poem more thoroughly before I hand it in. All of the poems that I have read for this week have been of very diverse content and it was cool to see what inspiration they drew from other poems we have read in class. A lot of the critique and insight that I received about my poem on Tuesday helped me to think of ways to make my writing a little clearer and more cohesive and has given me ideas of new topics that I can write about.

Week 2

Continuing with the theme of the second assignment (late though it may be).... I had less trouble with this assignment than the first. I also chose to submit two poems rather than one very long one but I find it easier to write longer poems than two or three liners. Of course, last week's assignment did inspire me to write a few haiku (of course I didn't submit them). Back to the second assignment, I was inspired here to continue writing a poem that I had started in high school. I wrote one stanza and was told by my classmates that I should extend the poem as it did not sound finished. Two years ago I added a stanza on a random night (probably while I should have been packing up to move out for the semester). Then, I added a third and final stanza for this class. I am still not sure it is finished or if I have 'ruined' the poem by attempting to edit it on multi-year basis. Which is why I have chosen to submit it--maybe I will finally be able to finish it instead of waiting two more years :-)


On a completely different note, does anyone else have issues with posting blogs and comments? I can usually do a new post properly but I cannot submit comments from my computer...anyone know if that is a flashplayer/archaic laptop issue or just something I am doing wrong?

new blog post

For our second assignment, I found that having such an free choice on what to write was both a good thing and a bad thing for me. The unlimited range on what we could write was a challenge for me because there's so much that ran through my mind and it was difficult to choose, but at the same time, it allowed to pick something that I love and could easily write about. Music and basketball are what I breathe eat and sleep, so I chose those as topics. I also chose to do a shorter poem on time and try a different, more metaphorical approach. Because hip-hop is such a big influence in my writing, I always find myself rhyming and using word play with ebonics and obscure references. Rappers like Brother Ali, Rakim, Supastition, Talib Kweli and many other artists always influence what I speak or write about and how I view things because I grew up on their music and my paradigm of life reflects their lyrics. With the basketball poem, I just tried to capture what it would be like for a child prodigy to have these great expectations to live up to, and knowing that there is a bright future ahead of you but so many possible roadblocks on the way. With the time poem, it was kind of scattered and I didn't really have a main idea I wanted to establish, so it does seem kind of random. But I think will all of the feedback I get from both Professors and students alike, I can edit it and bring out what I really want to say. The feedback I got from the first assignment was on point. I understood everything that was said, both positive and negative, and I can already tell that the feedback is going to continue to make my writing better.

Week 3 Blog

I know that this is a few days late, however, I figure it is better late than never. I initially had a lot of trouble deciding what to right about for assignment number two, so I decided to experiment with the Oulipo form of poetry that we briefly discussed in class. I took the poem “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” by Emily Dickinson. Although I did not follow the form N+7 perfectly I did try to stay as close to the rules as possible. In the end the poem changed from being about a snake in the grass to a dead person in a grave. Surprisingly, the transition between the two was relatively easy and the adjectives in the poem made sense with the new nouns. For my other poem I chose to revise my poem from assignment number one, Jet Stream Art. Although I believe that this poem still needs a lot of work and is far from complete I think that is a good beginning, especially since it was the first poem I have ever written. I am looking forward to hear what all of you think of these two poems and to learn where I need improvement.

Third Blog Post

Similar to the comments I have viewed so far, I am also going to share my sentiments regarding the second assignment. I was relieved that we could break the assignment into separate poems, for I doubt I could effectively develop a message throughout a fifty line poem. I do not think my creativity has that much stamina presently. In addition, by pursuing different topics, I found the assignment to be more enjoyable, for it allowed me to experiment. For instance, "Sleeping with the Dictionary" inspired me to look for outside influence in the development of form. I am usually controlling when I compose, so I decided to let the dictionary speak. I wrote a poem with all of the lines in alphabetical order, and a randomly chosen word to begin each line. Although this method introduced some chaos, I enjoyed the challenge of unifying all of the words into a single statement. Ironically, the first word I selected was "American", which ultimately influenced the tone of the remaining lines. This experiment broadened my perspective of form. For another poem, I was struggling for a topic, so I decided to write about what was in front of me: a box of ginger snaps. Unfortunately, I have a habit of consuming everything that is edible and within my line of sight, so I personified the box of ginger snaps as a mistress, and elaborated on my struggle to resist her. I had fun, but I am not sure how "valuable" the poem is to the literary world.

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Second blog post, it’s going to be hard I think to keep thinking of stuff to talk about every week. Its about 11:20, I am not all that tired, probably going to be up for awhile. I have the worst sleeping schedule ever. Most nights I fall asleep around 3 or 4 am. Then I wake up and feel like crap all day long, until I take my nap. I feel like if I were to not take that nap I would fall asleep earlier that night and fix my sleeping problem. But I like staying up late, I feel like the days are just not long enough. I am very interested to see how I did on my first poem I sent in. I spent a long time on it because it was hard to get started. The second poem assignment was much easier. I liked how we could write it about anything we wanted, with no restrictions. That made it much easier to write. I picked to write about a bee, where in it I rhymed. I really like poems that rhyme, they sound so cool when it’s a good rhyme. If we got an assignment were we can write about anything again I will for sure have my poem rhyme. Unless I get frustrated, then I will change my mind.

Week 2 Blog

I thought last class was really interesting. I never really considered tension to be such a big aspect to writing poetry before. It definitely makes sense why it is, but I guess I just never really considered it before. I thought the graphs we drew in class were really helpful in establishing what exactly Professor Hummer was getting at as well. I think I'll definitely be using that technique in the future to be able to visualize what I'm doing with tension in my own poems. Speaking of writing our own poems, this weeks assignment (2) was a lot of fun, but more difficult than last weeks. I thought that I definitely was struggling to find topics I felt passionate enough to write about. I struggle a lot with knowing what I should/shouldn't write about even when I know there isn't really a right or wrong answer to that. I guess for me I'm finding I'm still somewhat self-conscious about my poetry. When I compare my poems to the one's we're reading in class I just feel they're poetry is so much farther advanced than mine. The formats they use and the language they play with are just a few examples of how complex I consider they're work to be in comparison to mine. I also think I could use tension to make my previous pieces much stronger if I were to re-write and edit them a little bit. It's definitely something I'll be really interested to get feedback on in workshop and them ultimately improve my pieces for the better. Well... That's all for now. See you all in class tomorrow!

Blog week 3

I have to agree with what most people are saying about the assignment two being enjoyable as well as surprising. I like having an assignment that is more or less open ended and we are allowed to see where you minds take us. I think for me being able to write without too many "rules" or guidelines is what allows me to really find what I am interested in or what I happen to be feeling/thinking at the time. Assignments like two allow us to not only explore what we are capable of as writers, but explore a little bit about our selves in the sense that being able to free write can tell a lot out who we are or the experiences we have had and that shows through in our work. Also referring to the recent activities in class, learning about tension and where it creates for an interesting story I think will help us to point out conflicts within what we are reading as well as make what we read more exciting as well. I also like how we have been reading pieces that are similar to each other. This way we can compare how different authors go about things when writing as well as use different pieces that are similar to help us in clarifying something else if it is not clear in one piece.

blog-week 3

I agree that the Temperature handout in class was very helpful to me in order to understand how to create interesting poems. Having the different tensions spelled out like that made it clear that there is a reason that we are drawn to certain poems. Its not the perfect metaphors and predictable endings that keep readers engaged in a piece, which shapes how I will approach my own works of poetry. Although I did try to utilize some of these techniques in creating my poems for assignment 2, I am sure there are plenty of alterations that can be made and I think it will be very helpful to get other classmate opinions about my work. I am also excited for others to read my work because I may think my message is clear in the piece, but my close relation to the piece makes me completely biased. I am curious to see if readers will be able to pull out the inner message in my work or if they come up with something entirely unintended. Although I want readers to be able to eventually understand what my message is, I will feel like a poetic failure if they are able to pull it out too easily.

Poetry

I thought Assignment 2 was pretty fun. As I have mentioned in my previous blog regarding poetry class, I was looking forward to developing my poetry writing skills. This assignment was actually perfect for that because it was an open-ended assignment as far as technique and topic go. I really enjoyed coming up with my own topic to begin with, because there has been something on my mind for a while and I wanted to express it freely. Also, when we read a handout due for class on Monday- the one about tension and contrast-, I thought that was pretty clutch in terms of coming up with a style of some sort. I ended up following many of the techniques on that Temperature handout, and I thought it was great that most of the next class time was spent discussing those techniques. I looked at my poem after that class and thought it followed many of the techniques we talked about... some were also kind of coincidental. I also re-read the poem and thought of other ideas that some lines could have meant, and I think that's what makes a piece of work interesting... when there are little things that a reader can pick up on every time he or she reads it over again. I look forward to hearing or reading other people's work on Thursday for the workshop.

Week 2 Blog

I read the two blogs before mine by Kurt and Kim and started to think about how I came up with the poem that I wrote for the second assignment. The first poem I had written was about the summit of a mountain and the view I get when atop of one. In my second poem, I ended up writing about city life and was interested in the outcome of how both of my poems kind of contrasted with eachother because of the different environments I wrote about. I enjoy when the assignments are open ended like this and we can choose to write about what we wish, but I still have a hard time narrowing down topics and thinking about something that will be worthwhile to write about.

It was interesting going over the poems about tension in class this week. I had never before really thought about how a poet can increase and decrease tension and now when I am reading other poems, I keep this thought in my mind. I was expecting most of the poems to have the tension be the greatest at the end but examples of poems we read in class showed that sometimes the tension can decrease instead. Tension is something that I will have to think about more and how I should use it when writing my next poem.

Kim Cooper-Week 2

I can relate to Kurt's post about his inspiration for the second assignment. Because it was so open-ended, it really forced you to zoom in on the aspects of life that really stand out to you and those that you are passionate about. Kurt talks about finding the mechanical things about cycling so interesting and working out their different rhythms on the paper. One of the poems I wrote was based on an instrumental song called 'No trains to Kibera." I heard this while I was studying abroad in Kenya last semester. Kibera is the largest slum in Africa and one of the largest in the world. The man who wrote this particular song was born and raised in Kibera. The rhyme scheme that I chose for the poem was one that I thought resembled his strumming pattern in the song. One of my favorite things about poetry is that you can put even the most remote details of something on a page and you can give it new shape. The Wrath of the Bees does this very well and it was my favorite poems this week. I had to read it a few times over, and I still don't really understand it, but I like the little pieces of the lines I can understand. The diction and the syntax is crafty and gives life to the most lifeless aspects of it. This is the kind of poetry that I admire most.

Kurt Malkames - week 2

Writing assignment number 2 this week was once again a surprisingly enjoyable one. I wrote about one of the things that I think is highly beautiful and that is the Tour de France. The writing was inspired by a somewhat well known set of songs by the German electronic artist Kraftwerk. Since there were very few restrictions on this writing assignment it was easy to describe in detail what I think is fascinating about this cycling event. The preparation and dedication of the riders is machine-like. The bikes themselves are radical. Every aspect of a time trial bike is built to get to the finish line in as little time as possible. The riders even forgo a seat cushion for carbon fiber. I tried to capture this sense of perfection in my poem. As for the readings this week I think my favorite would have to be “The Colonel” by Carolyn Forche. It is very realistic and you can almost put yourself in the main characters shoes. Near the end of the poem there is a line “there is no other way to put this”. It really does a great job of convincing the reader that you are experiencing exactly what she was experiencing.