Sign Analysis for the first week.

I have selected Electric Girls to analytize this week, mostly because Meitner's work is so damn poignant. Such wonderful language I exert here. At any rate, I love her work because it is so incredibly genius--it strikes daggers into one's heart while at the same time, seems to say something deeply morbid about life. Sweeping generalizations aside, I'll pick this all apart. 

Line 1-- Translucent letters could mean a number of things, but in the context of the poem, I feel like it is probably trying to say that the letters don't really matter.

Lines 4/5-- The ad is an interesting piece, and seems to be part of a unique part of the poem--the two line span that encompasses the ad. It suggests that if it is not an ad for summer, then it is a message from the deities. it refers to the empty letters above, so obviously it might be from the deities because the words are written in the sky. Imagine if the Wicked Witch happened to be a goddess. 

Lines 6-8 -- obviously the goddesses are references to goddesses, but, why those two? Mithra might make sense, because the writing in the sky--sky+Sun, ect. However, Hathor is a bit more problematic. Perhaps supplication to a goddess to look over women which would foreshadow the events to come--where there isn't necessarily anyone watching over women--raises the question: is it feminist in nature? The poem that is.

Lines 7-9 -- More evidence for feminism with guys left simply duct taped in lover's lane. interesting, the use of the word "bound" because generally that comes with "gagged" but she doesn't give us "gagged," because it is men. Men tend not to be bound and gagged nearly as much as women do. Also, the boyfriends are left intact. Generally meaning that something is whole--so the boys are unaffected by the entire ordeal. I am beginning to see more feminism.

Lines 10-13 -- Honestly, I don't have much here...

Lines 14-18 -- Anonymity is the main theme here in this stanza. The girls are raped, and then become worthless after that. The act of the rape is what makes them worth less--removes their names as well as their dignity because their names have already been spread all across America. 

Lines 19-24 -- This part is sudden. I am not entirely sure what to do with it. Women suddenly become empowered in an old society where women were more undervalued than they are today--or perhaps this is meant to make the reader ask if women really are valued more now. 

Lines 25-28 -- Emphasis on the word "Peasant" and her authenticity had to be established. 

Lines 29-32 --Remarks about a testament to the peasant's strength, but discredits her ability as an electric girl. Strips the power and leaves her simply strong--still not the normal trait of a woman.

Lines 33-34 -- Equates the woman to the writing in the sky and therefore the girls. Nothing lasts forever. Everything is temporary. There is nothing that matters.

Peer review--Now bigger, better, and in a part 2 format!

Today, Dee totally came up to me and asked if I could give her poem a review, which is always a wonderful question to ask me: I love reviewing work from other people, and I am always happy to review something. I actually had skimmed her blog before, but hadn't settled down and really dug into any of it before, but her first impulse about New Orleans is quite fantastic, and I would highly suggest you check her out. I'll put the poem down here for you to see:

Home

By: Dee Dugar

The city where Grandma splashes spices 

In her vessel. 3 tablespoons of flour and oil, 1/2 pound smoked

Sausage, sliced to fit, 1 pound boneless chicken thighs

Cut in bite-size pieces, and 2 cups of frozen cut okra,

The creation is almost finished.

Poured in a plastic wrap the soup

Flows like a flush,

Until the white grain is added.

Yum!

The city where the different cultures had intercourse,

 Birthing a child later named jazz.

Where on every corner instruments told a story,

A story we second lined to, to celebrate death, marriage,

And birth.

The city that’s stuck in a bowl with oceans crowded around for miles,

Until the water embraced it

Cleansing the sins away, creating a new beginning,

This is my city, the city I call home.

------------------------------------------------------------------

What I liked: The recipe for one. I thought the recipe added a lot of interest to the beginning of the poem--both because you bring in a grandma figure, and because you refer to the recipe as a "creation," before you equate it to a flush. Of course, the flush makes the entire ordeal sound utterly disgusting, but it is followed up by "Yum!" which did throw me off at first. I usually don't put exclamations in my poems, or in my writing, and I have always thought that it really must serve a purpose when used. As for this, it could work as a kind of backlash against the recipe, which sets up questions about the rest of the poem: is it all an illusion to the city, or are you trying to juggle two pieces?

Improvements: I am not sure I like how many fragments there are--I understand this is poetry, and you are allowed to play around with language a lot more freely than with prose, but I just don't think the fragments do anything for me. The opening line is a fragment, and then the first line of the second stanza mirrors that with another fragment. I am not saying that it has to be a complete sentence but, as a reader, I feel like it could be better if those were formed into complete thoughts. In the second stanza, you mirror yourself in a different way: you use the phrase "a story" back-to-back, and it is obviously done on purpose. I think in a way, the same phrase back-to-back idea is a little bit on the cliche side. I know it is supposed to have a bit of a dramatic effect, but I just don't know that it works in the poem right now. Another thing is that right after that, you say "A story we second lined to, to celebrate death, marriage, / and birth." but, I don't know what that even means. It seems like a sentence fragment that maybe you mistyped and it was supposed to say something else. As it stands, I get lost there.

All Around: I like it--especially the beginning. I think the idea to mix the recipe with the beginning of a poem was nice, but from the flush on, it all seems to kind of go down a level or two--which could have been intentional. If I was going to say anything to that effect, it is that you could capitalize on the flush being an image of descent, and then focusing the rest of the poem into a downward spiral. However, there is a sentence I don't know what to do with, and places where the fragments become a bit much in terms of the inner workings of the poem itself. I would suggest looking at everything past the first stanza, stepping back, asking what you want to do with the piece, and then fleshing it out some more. Maybe by doing the downward spiral idea that I suggested, or perhaps by giving a bit more poetic background about New Orleans--filling it with the color of the city. I've been to New Orleans--after the floods--and I've never encountered a city as unique as that place. You've lived there. Show us how you see it. For me, it was a wonderful sensory experience--sights, colors, sounds I'd never heard, a unique city that felt at once ancient and new. Pack all of it into a poem when you talk about home--especially one that's been destroyed. Don't hold back. 

Improv theatre. Let's rip off another better poet I like today. Week 1.

Still not entirely sure I am totally comfortable with just ganking someone's work since academic honesty has been drilled in my head ever since I went to SCAD, but let's give this a crack. I was reading the list of poets we will need to know, and a poem caught my attention--Robin Redbreast by Stanley kunitz. I was having a fangirl moment for the whole poem, so, I had to steal part of it. What better part than the first line? Prepare to IMPROV!!!

WARNING: this is a lengthy post. Ignore it if you want to.

This is the block that I have decided to steal specifically:
-------------------------------

It was the dingiest bird

you ever saw, all the color

washed from him, as if

he had been standing in the rain,

friendless and stiff and cold,

since Eden went wrong. 

--------------------------------
I am very interested in colors as they pertain to a poem, and how they are important in the poem itself, so I stole this very first line that I liked. So, now it is time to get something else going from this. maybe not the whole thing though--maybe just a line or two, and I'll mix it with some of my own. I'll take this line:
[All the color washed from him as if he had been standing in the rain, Friendless.]

First, I've compressed it into one line to see if that's an alright transformation. I like it well enough, but I think I'll apply my slap-chop and make this into a salad:
[Friendless, he had been standing in the rain, all the color washed from him]

I actually like that above line a bit better for my own style, so I'll use that as the line I start from. It now actually sounds like an alright starting line, and I've gone from the idea of being colorless that the poem sets up to the color of rain, which always seems to either be grey, or maybe blue. I like that color scheme--I write entirely too much about the sea, and it always ends up with a green or blue tint in my mind--If I make absolutely no sense, pay me no mind at this point. I am just typing as I think, which can be a very dangerous tactic. Literally I am improving as I go. Time to riff this thing to death:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spring up as a Typhoon in Heat
By: David Mathis
with help from: Stanley Kunitz

Friendless, he had been standing in the rain, all the color washed from him.
Streets, paled to grey under a relentless horde of callous raindrops,
Steamed indignantly. With each crashing wave, fueled by internal combustion,
He felt more and more like a wet newspaper, water-streaked and running.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what I have for a first stanza, but I don't like it at all. So, I have to smash it, because smashing things is the greatest way to reform them. First, I have decided that I don't at all like the end of the second line, and it feels like some sort of horribly thought-out enjambment. For that matter, I am not sure I like the image of the wave, and I really was just grabbing for straws by the time I hit newspaper, because I was much too focused on getting that color I wanted. Even though the original idea was to emphasize the color, I will step off, and crack open my Queen of Hearts girl's diary which I have bought to write down my thoughts, and steal some random ideas out of that:

I am a huge Regina Spektor fangirl, and I recently came across somebody asserting that the Russian part of "Appres Moi" is actually a poem, and one of the lines is supposedly:
[While the slush in thunder / is burning in the great darkness of Spring]

I can't even describe how much I love the phrase "while the slush in thunder is burning in the great darkness of Spring." Furthermore, it seems applicable to add this phrase to something about rain. I just need the thunder, and also to reduce the things I hate about this poem so far. If I could, I would like to steal from two sources. A quick search has netted me a poet by the name of  Boris Pasternak--the man supposedly responsible for that new piece of poetry--and I find I love just about the whole poem. Seems to have been translated from Russian, which confirms the report. Now, if that is actually what she sings, cool. If not, I still love it. A different piece from that same poem has now also grabbed me:
[Beneath--the Earth is black in puddles]

This also gives me a frame to work within. However, I have a contradiction: the first line is talking about colorlessness, and the next two lines are talking about darkness. Black isn't colorless, unless I find a way to twist the language to make that happen--a feat I may as well attempt:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twice now, I've Lost a Child
By: David Mathis
With help from: Stanley Kunitz and Boris Pasternak

[Friendless, he had been standing in the rain, all the color washed from him]
as he glared silently into a roaring storm cloud which leaked its grime-encrusted
underbelly all over the street. [Beneath that storm cloud, the Earth was black
in puddles], blotched with corrosion--a budding season taped over by
reruns of trashy soap operas.

[The Slush in thunder is burning in the great darkness of Spring]
like phosphorus ignited and splashed in ragged chisel lines down
icy mountain tops. All the while, the rain dribbles down walls,
collecting in basins to form puddles. They simply reflect the ebon sky like malformed eyes,
staring straight into the underbelly of a storm--unmoving, undeterred, unfaltering.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I am much happier with this version of the poem. It is a bit darker, and it has a lot of sections from other poems, but I think that this is a start. And with this, I will stop torturing you. get on with your life and go read someone else's blog.

Check you around.

P.S. I've only lost one child--not two.

Kaptain Kalisthenics! Calisthenics for the first week--AND BEYOND!

I am assuming this is what counts for some good old fashioned Calisthenics when I decide to write about the smell of peanut butter. We were in class when this assignment happened to me, and I found myself in a tough spot--I suppose I've never written a poem dedicated to a single smell, and I was a bit confused at first. I don't honestly know what drew me to the smell of peanut butter, but I found that I busted out a couple lines on peanut butter. I ended up actually building on each one progressively until I ended up with some strange preschool smell which I didn't really want to go any further with--mostly because urine and playdough were bound to happen next, and I didn't want the earthy, warm smell of peanut butter to remind me of urine. Here are the many variations for you--I'll not make you guess the ridiculousness that I jotted down for peanut butter:

PEANUT BUTTER FROM VARIOUS NOSES
an amalgamation by: David Mathis and his many noses

Smells appealing in the way a surge protector does--solid. Stout like the Earth.
Smells of clods of dirt, moist, but processed into something better--Earth meat.
Scented vaguely like a lion napping in a canyon of obsidian--it slopes gently against the nose.
Precisely the smell of sandwiches served to small mouths and uncoordinated fingers, groping.
It's like cinder blocks whitewashed, overlooking tiny tables which feature fractured goldfish with apple juice.

Review time--week 1 and part 1 and this is all about Queenie!

This part of the review is brought to you by the letter Q. As in Queenie. I read over her shorter piece earlier in the week and I liked it well enough--especially after the explanation, but I chose this one to review because it was longer and had more substance to review. The piece is:


CARNIVAL MENU
By: Queenie

          I smell the death of poetry
through a boil-infested nose of a snickering witch with
eyes teetering up and down salivating sockets.
    A rainbow bubbling. Swirling. Mixed with feathered tar.
Carousels decorated with decapitating rotting babies
in their white baptismal dresses.
    White dogs whimpering by the pink curtains,
    Emaciated brains bathing atop ivory plates ,
    Crooked tarnished forks laughed with rusted knives,
    Wrinkled warts embraced by asian wives.

A poetic abracadabra lit up candles without wax.

    Lisping leprechauns clad with left over fairy wings
Whistling songs from the catholic’s last pages.

          Fiddled frogs and processed possums
          Giggling down debutante’s bosoms.

Breakfast is served.


Review time:

What I liked: I enjoyed the imagery that you've laid out with all the different pieces of the carnival and with the witch. It was interesting the way you kept referencing Christianity and then contrasting that with the grotesque. There was some interesting page breaks and line spacings going on throughout the poem, and that did add a bit of visual variety to your work. It all seems very concerned with white verses corruption, almost a pure against vile.

Improvements: Much like a lot of my work, it's a bit heavy in the description--almost to the point of being overbearing. I often have to go back through and tone back a lot of my work because of how much sensory detail I cram into the damn things. It can be good, or it can be bad, and in this case, I would suggest toning it back, perhaps trying to be a little more subtle in the descriptions. As it stands, it seems to be more interested in shock value than anything else, and while the odd spacings and line breaks do add a lot of visual diversity, I am not sure it really works to strengthen the work.

All together: You're heavy in the description throughout the piece, which creates an interesting texture--one that evokes something wholly disgusting and wretched--but at times, it seems over done. I would suggest toning it back a bit, maybe working on hard enjambment over stand-alone lines if you are wanting to jar the reader. It has wonderful moments of contrast which could all be potentially more powerful. You continuously focus on white objects and Christianity and then layer that with frighteningly horrible imagery. while the images are certainly stark and hard-formed in my mind, I think not completely giving it to the reader will allow two things--expanding the poem, and making the reader form the images in his or her own mind, which can often be just as powerful--if not more powerful--than being handed an image. I think if you work this poem a bit harder, it could really pop.

Finishing out the Junkyard for Week 1

BLA-AAM! FUCKIN' BLAM! I can't even begin to know where to start--this week has been so damn frantic already, but I have some cool Junkyard quotes for you kiddos. Here goes:

[3] "This is my Marry Poppins bag--I pull dead bodies out of it."
  --Professor McFarland
     This was probably the best thing I heard all day, and certainly goes at the top of professor quotes for the week. I hope she doesn't honestly have any dead bodies in there...

[4] "Her boobs were just about the only thing keeping her from being stiffed, ironically."
  --Me
     I have said nicer things about people before, but it was in reference to one of the other servers at pizza hut.


This should do cool shit like flesh out all [4] Junkyardicals for the week--tune in next week for more funz!