February 11, 2013

*Make a list of four qualities/characteristics that describe a character real or imagined. Place that character in a scene and write the scene so that the qualities are conveyed through significant detail. Use no generalizations and no judgments. No word on your list should appear in the scene. Use detail and description to SHOW the qualities through the scene and the actions of the character.

• Handsome

• Greedy

• Consumer

• Proud

Bronson flowed through the gallows of clothing, brushing his sides and shoulders against tailored suits and silk vests.  Clouds of overpriced cloaked devils opened up like fleshy gates and allowed the neo-celeb to make his rounds.  Rummaging through the finest of clothing, he was an aimless animal among prey.  That's all he was, really.  Longing for the new; branching out from the norm; trying desperately to impress the onlookers.  Bronson craved the attention, the praises.  He made it known that he refused to fall victim to trends' attractive grasps, though he was the one true fiend.

Currency; income--the absurd idea of even having an overhead wasn't a mere thought to the forty-five year-old walking billboard of glasses and cologne.  He wasn't about to leave his fellow money-grubbers without at least making a purchase--he made an appearance, now for the main attraction.  Bronson feverishly picked out a few refined shirts he already had duplicates of and made his way to the checkout.  Sifting through his many plastic cards, that were somehow a relic of himself, he soon paid for the clothing, and ushered himself out the door from whence he came.

Nose high, fists wrapped in bags stern, posture elegant, Bronson flowed through the gallows of the grieving and groveling; smirking from the side of his mouth; not even accidentally brushing the lesser with the bags.

February 7, 2013

"Fluorescence" wasn't my favorite book, but I enjoyed parts of it nonetheless.

Along with finishing the book, I had to make a poetry portfolio including poems I've written in class.  I thoroughly enjoyed writing and arranging my poems on the pages in an ergodic manner.  Writing, let alone creative writing, has always been a major interest of mine, and I enjoy spending copious amounts of time studying the world in both macro and micro views, and, in the most literal sense, reporting what I find.

My notebook is not with me at the moment, so I'll post one of my poems once I get it back.

January 24, 2013

For starters, "Fluorescence" is an easy read, but its content can be somewhat vague at times.  As I see it, every student in the class reads each page differently.  Poetry can only connect to the willing.  People who want no part of poetry will forever cast aside simple haikus and proclaim them to be simple gibberish.  But those who aspire to read into poems; those who go out of their way to dissect and analyze poems are the ones who find meaning in them.  They find themselves living throughout the author's words, and everyone relates to poems differently.

Some pages in "Fluorescence" are difficult to understand until I take a double-take.  For instance, the first page, page 37, of FOUR, I read the section as a woman who is paranoid and skeptical, and is at ease once her lover's hand simply grazes her cheek.  She leans back and "a sense, not totally foreign" washes over her. She loses balance with the tightrope (problems, fears, complaints) and falls into a sort of relaxation.

I'm not sure I like this book so far.

She seems like an amateur in some instances.

But I'll see to it that I finish the book with an open mind soon enough.

January 22, 2013

In class, we had to assemble into separate groups and pick two sonnets; one of Shakespeare's and one of Berrigan's.  As a team, my group hardly uttered a word to each other, so we each kind of sought out our own interests.  I'm not a real fan of Shakespeare--not because I cannot understand him, but because I cannot fathom as to why he is held to such high regard.  I saved his poems for last.

For my Berrigan sonnet, I picked XV.  I like that it's not about Berrigan's love life, but Joe Brainard; the artist he mentions in the sonnet.  In the poem, Brainard creates a collage of sixteen pictures of Marilyn Monroe as a homage to her--a tribute.  I think the artist truly loved Monroe in every sense of the word, but not necessarily like an obsession.  Berrigan states in XV "and the sonnet is not dead."  To me, it means the love Brainard has for Monroe has not died, even though she has.

As for Shakespeare, I picked 130.  Much of the class proclaimed that in the sonnet, Shakespeare is insulting his love, but he's not.  He's merely stating how he has a strong love for his significant other; different from anyone else's.  Much like how Harryette Mullen did in her sonnet, "Dim Lady" years later.

January 9, 2013

I've taken writing classes before, along with writing-intensive English classes that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Writing has always been one of my few hobbies; though the quality of my work varies.  It's all dependent on the time I have alone and the effort I put into my pieces.  I'm much more familiar with works of fiction and poetry than I am with non-fiction.  I find it easier to create than to reiterate.  And when it comes to poetry, it's rare that I can produce somewhat thought provoking words.

I look forward to this class in the upcoming semester.  I hope that I can show my professor and audience that I take writing very seriously, and that I hold it very dear to me.