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.