Final Homework

This class taught me about how the structure of poetry was often indicative and evocative of the art world surrounding it at the time. As the focus of art shifted, ebbed, and flowed, so too did the way people formed their poems on paper or how they arranged images to create a ‘text’ to present their message. 

What I took away from the course the most, however, was a sense of personal release. A majority of my work this semester, while it had certainly started as personal, eventually felt like it had been taken away; the connection I once had with my pieces was no longer present, instead removed by outside influence or axed by critique. While this is certainly a good thing for visual works, I felt I was being dishonest with myself and catering towards others to service a grade rather than express something I wanted to because of the basic need to emote. 

This didn’t apply to this class. My poems were innately personal, and the message was intimately tied to the composition and wording of each one that it would fundamentally change the piece as a whole to remove or edit them. Slight things could change, yes, but the meaning was always there, and it was often unapologetic. I wrote many of these works out of desperation, looking back on the experiences in my past for inspiration, and I wanted to voice things I couldn’t in my other art. 

This relationship I had with poetry is what I think the ultimate lesson of the course is. To leave a message, immutable, open, and with dignity, and to let others see and have it challenge them.

That being said, the goal of most art today is seemingly impersonal. Many people come to this school in particular to get hired; art is a commodity, it’s commercial, and it’s everywhere. There hasn’t been too much of a spotlight on art as an overarching narrative or media like there has been in the past, but that’s because our lives are so busy and intertwined with so much that we don’t necessarily see what’s around us. 

The job of the artist today is based more in the realm of what is practical for them to compete and survive in today’s society, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not the typical narrative many would expect. People provide for the world around them, they create, inspire, and build, but they do so with motivation to also support themselves. I think that the romanticism of being an artist is the only thing that’s really changed overall; there will always be more creative and inventive people, but now there’s a strong industry and commercialization for them to enter into like most other fields. 

Art can still be challenging, there’s still cartoons and satire, and commentary being made and that will stay consistent as well; art is just ‘no longer naked,’ there’s a uniformity and practicality to it now. It’s being channeled into new paths and directions so that it has more of a global impact, and it’s recorded far more accurately and in real time so that it’s chronicled more effectively as well. 

Artists today may be workers, but they still have the same purpose they always have: say something. Make others notice. Leave your own monolith. 

Final Project: Candle

Individual Frames

https://giphy.com/gifs/fire-tiger-poetry-cPJUbn9OQV6IFcLPDc

Candle

Have you ever been so hungry, that you swallowed a candle?

Devour it whole.

Praying the wax would melt

Fill in the hidden fissures

Like a bastard’s kintsugi

Were you so cold that you swallowed a match?

Let the small flame sear its way down

And burn a trail of pain

Of useless pain

But of warmth nonetheless

This timid light a hearth

Then a burgeoning forge  

A roaring beacon

Hunting shadows 

Homework 13: Visual Poetry

Homework 12: Concrete Poetry

Homework 11: Collage/Found Poem

Thoughts During Winter in New England; Filled Woods and Empty Hearth

Some say the world will end in fire

I have been one acquainted with the night

The hard snow held me, save where now and then

Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars

Of easy wind and downy flake

Some say in ice.

The dust of snow

If that was your idea, against the breeze

I went to show you how to make it stay

Who was so foolish as to think what he thought

I think I know enough of hate

But ‘twas no make-believe with you to-day, 

Something interposed between our sight

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Without so much as wishing him good-night.

To say that for destruction ice

One man can’t fill a house

Consigned to the moon,—such as she was

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

I outwalked the furthest city light.

Is also great

And miles to go before I sleep

Nothing gold can stay

Icicles along the wall to keep

At last to learn to use their wings

And would suffice.

Robert Frost Poems Used and Edited:

The Wood Pile (1912)
An Old Man's Winter Night (1916)
The Exposed Nest (1920)
Fire and Ice (1920)
Dust of Snow (1920)
Nothing Gold Can Stay (1923)
Stopping by Woods on a Snow Evening (1923)
Acquainted with the Night (1928)

Homework 10: Narrative Poem

Pride||Silence

When the heat roils in the summer

The asphalt shimmering and singing

A congestive cluster of rainbow drunken Pride

Rolls into the city like a July thunderstorm

Thick, sweltering, electric

Promising an unrelenting and percussive

Release of static and tension

Batten down the hatches

Reinforce your foundations

You cannot weather this storm

For a part of it lives in your house

Rattling your roof from within

Pride breaking down archaic walls

Thunder on their breath

Every year when I see this happening

I seek to ride the air 

Get swept into that intoxicating throng 

Chanting, marching, celebrating

Freedom, freedom, we will not be ignored!

Freedom, freedom, we’re worth so much more!

And every time I’m stopped

The last time I did something like this

I had a stalker follow me home

Tell me about all the things he wanted to do to me 

Talk about wanting to murder his father

About how I was item 1-9 on the list

Of people in the world he wouldn't kill

And he was number 10

I remember the time I was told

“You can’t be ace, you’re not a plant”

“You just haven’t rode my dick yet”

“When I’m done with you,

You’ll need chapstick on both sets of lips”

As if that weren’t already my biggest fear

And the reason I stayed in the closet up until college

I remember the time my best friend’s father 

Tried to molest me, so I told him I’d call the police

I remember the time someone grabbed me 

On the school bus in eighth grade and I was frozen

Now, I wish I’d turned around 

And slapped him so hard I’d have broken

His stupid Rayban glasses 

I remember the time I was called a faggot

For wearing a boy’s shirt

For not wearing makeup

For cutting my hair

For having a girlfriend

For being gender fluid 

For being a tomboy

What have I learned from my pride 

Except shame

“Go back into the closet 

Because you don’t look gay

You’re just a bitch

You’re not butch

And you’re not a good femme either.”

I have a boyfriend

So that obviously means I’m not queer

Not like pano-romanticism is a thing

Where you can just love people

Not caring what they identify as 

Because you’re so drunk on the security 

Of being wrapped in their arms

My queerness is weird

But it’s real regardless of a lack of label 

It’s stayed with me, in me, as me

And I keep crawling back to it

Scared and hiding

My mom doesn’t believe it

My brothers don’t think it’s true

So I sit in the darkness

Confined in a closet 21 years too small

And watch as another thunderstorm

Overtakes our city

Rainbow lightning flashing and flying

Sparking and arching and screeching 

Joyous release

One day

I will

Join them

For I

Am of

Cloud and

Lighting, too

Homework 9: Beat Poem

Brother Dearest


When mom was trying to convince you not to smoke marijuana
Because you were fourteen
Already kicked out of one school
For being a troubled kid
You screamed so loud the house shook
Windows reverberating
Walls shuddering
Doors rattling

A sudden, swollen swarm of insults unleashed like a plague
A pestilence so determined to overtake everything
Your tongue the same fire they warn us about
In catechism
In mass
In the fucking bible
In that moment
You were Hell

And she started weeping,
Locking herself in my room with me
Scooping me up in her arms
Recreating the Madonna and Child
And crying into my hair
Lips reciting prayers
Listing Latin and Psalm
Into my scalp

As your storm pounded on my door
Until Dad came home
And with a single exchange
The tempest ceased
Waters calmed
Plagues undone
The house a home again
But cracked

You had kicked holes in the wall
In defiance
In desperation
I don't know
But the holes were there
And you patched them later
But it was sloppy
And we always knew what was under the paint

We lived like this for years
You shouting at mom
For her asking you to turn down your guitar
For her asking you to pull up your grades
For her asking you to be nicer with your words
For her asking you to be nicer to us
For her asking you to do anything
For her just being there

I will never believe you've changed
Even though you've gone to college
Even though you graduated
Even though you've got a house you share
Even though you've got a job
Even though you keep insisting
Even though you keep saying all these things
It's always just talk

Your name means 'traitor of God'
I will always remember the fights
I will always remember the shouting
I will always remember the sobbing
I will always remember what you've done
I will take it with me to my grave
And you will to yours
For the wicked do not go unpunished

Homework 8: Cubist Poem

Loves Lost

Take me please take me and don't let me go
Whisper let me go and whisper don't and whisper let go and whisper please
Let go and let go for freedom is free and freedom is let go
Freedom is let me go and freedom is without you
But let go is lonely and lonely is forgotten and forgotten is let go too much
Forgotten is whispering and whispering and pleading and let go
Take me please take me
Before I am forgotten and let go
Yet I am forgotten
Let go
I am forgotten
Like waves upon shore
Let go
Into sand
Let go

Homework 7: List Poem

Prayers 

Pray to me
When you ache from hollowness
When you almost miss conflict because then at least you'll feel something
When you feel as though you've been rent asunder
When you can't seem to find anyone who'd help
When you're weary of carrying burdens you still don't understand yet are still expected to shoulder
When you're scared
When you feel ashamed for that same fear
When you're twenty-one and still terrified of the dark
When you're scared of what could possibly be stalking you in it
When you feel much smaller than your brothers
When you feel much bigger than those who nurtured your anorexia
When you want to beat the bastard who mocked you on the day your dog died
When you want to scream at your roommate for saying 'owning a cat is a huge responsibility'
When you're the one who regularly cleans up after the cat in the first place
When you're the one cleaning the house alone again
When you have no patience and want the world to burn
When you wish you could just fade away like a dream
When you wish that maybe you had killed yourself
When you wonder if living was really worth it


Pray to me
For the strength to not cry
For the strength to let the tears flow
For the ability to glimpse beyond the current turmoil and see a world waiting for you
For assurance
For assisstance
For whatever I can give
For as much love as you need
For you know my name
For you have taken my name
For I have always been with you
For I know you
For you know me
For we have always been entwined
For I am a protector
For you are my charge
For we are together

One

Homework 6: Ezra Pound, Imagist Poems

"The Image is the poet's pigment; the image is not an idea, it is a radiant node or cluster. A vortex through which, and from which, and into which ideas are constantly rushing. It is as true for painting and sculpture as it is poetry." -Ezra Pound


When writing a poem, I break my lines and stanzas up similar to musical phrasing; I treat my lineation the same way triplets, clusters of eighth and sixteenth notes make up a larger word and grouping of syllables. End-stopped lines are whole rests, an entire measure's worth of silence is to be observed whereas commas or larger spaces without marking are usually indicative of half-rests, or only half the length of a full pause. I like to keep my stanzas small, concise, yet filled with prose or flowery language as a way to convey a musical undercurrent or bring attention to words that are fun to let slip through one's teeth. Words are an oath and testament to language, so acknowledging the forgotten or more ornate ones is like remembering the old inscriptions of house mottos left upon the aging walls of a once great palace.

I agree with the reading that lines that are end-stopped are rather easy to predict and break up into smaller, more predictable pieces. Following what has been clearly marked out in the ink of the poem is usually the path of least resistance and it's likely that the poem had been written and structured in that specific way for a reason. However, I disagree with the idea that poetic phrases without punctuation should be ready through as if they carry on like a traditional sentence until completion. If there's a break in a poem, I think that means that there should be a pause. If lines are broken into stanzas, there should be a moment to cushion them, ponder them, then add them back together into the whole.



Imagist Poems

Kitten

I

Kitten crouches at the door
A javelin readied before release
To split the air 

II

Kitten yowls at thunder
Determined that her rancor 
Should be the loudest

III

The night draws long
Kitten awakes with open jaws
And screams the sun into the sky

IV

Kitten does not like the silence
She shudders with memories 
Being forgotten

Homework 5: Realist Poem

Calico Contentment


You wake up to slumber again
After scratching at my door
Until I yield and let you inside
Where you leap up onto my bed
And curl up in the sunshine

You blink slow and start to rumble
A soft, chaffing motor
As you settle down and smile
Lips curved with satisfaction
And paws tucked in underneath your belly

You yawn and rest your head
Lids coming down
And eyes shutting in the warm sunlight
Drinking in the moment
Humming along with your purr

Bit by bit you drift alseep
First your rumble hitches
Then stops
Replaced by a slow, even breathing
And quiet snores

Occasionally your whiskers twitch
And I wonder
Are you hunting in your dreams
Are you following in the pawprints
Of some greater ancestor

Are you running in your dreamscape
Are you the lioness you think you are
When you stalk the laser pointer
Like predators do on the great plains
Of the sun-beaten savannah

Are you a cougar
Scaling trees and shale
Over canyons and forests
And leaping through underbrush
On the trail of deer

Whatever the case
In the waking world
You are sweet
As is the confection
That is your namesake

Sundae

Homework 4: What is poetry good for?

Poetry has always been a means of expressing the most human feelings in transformative, brutal, or lyrical wording. It is trying to encapsulate emotion in it's most base, distilled, and complex forms, layering their meaning into phrases so as to subvert, draw attention to, or lead the reader to their own conclusion. While it often makes the point very clear, some forms of poetry shroud the intent or object of their muse in ambiguity or anonymity out of necessity or whim -something I do often.

Poetry is, to me at least, making magic and soul that's audible, like music or how nature finds it's own rhythm.

In this way, I find that symbolist poetry is one of my favorite types, alongside  romantic poetry or epics. For me, I think finding the correct symbol to match up with the ideal is the hardest part, and then depending on whether or not I'm trying to use a rhyme scheme, fitting them into that specific format.

Admittedly, I don't think my latest poem was by any means my best, but mostly out of my forced ambiguity. I did not want to be too forward with the underlying message, and I think that this makes the entire piece crumble. O Hallowed Beasts is actually about the United States of America, and how 9/11 has forever changed our national discourse, mostly by giving some with savage ideals and hate a guise by which to 'defend' our country and feeding into the war-mongers whom idolize conflict.

Justice, Vengeance, and Truth, represented as lionesses, ideas that we should all aspire to uphold and revere, are now a hollow disguise and are left unfed and chained. They wither, scream and cry as they watch what their following has become, no longer walking on the path they had forged for them. Don't get me wrong, this country has always done horrid things both domestic and abroad, but with political vitriol at an all-time high, I did not want to make this message abundantly clear, although I hope its intent still shines through.

Homework 3: Is Meaning Important - Symbolist Poem

Is Meaning Important?

While reading, it is important to understand the authoritative intent behind the symbols and overall structure of the poem for without this knowledge, one risks completely missing the point or intention behind the work. If one is properly aware of all the important context, then it is far easier to relate, distill, and comprehend the precise reasoning for all the words, symbols, and devices used. This comprehension can assist in discerning important social, religious, or historical details of the era, writing styles used by contemporaries of the time period, as well as clue in any personal beliefs or themes that the author typically used.  

This is not to say that interpretation is not to be completely disregarded, as assigning new meaning to a written work is something inherent to reading. This transformative process often helps the reader take away significance and relate their own perspective and experiences to the written work; this dialogue engages the audience far more than just taking away the author’s original intent, for the participation allows them to almost become a secondary author. We create in equal turn, a give and take process, and we share what we can in order to impress our own identity and ideologies onto the world around us. 

O Hallowed Beasts

A triumvirate of moral beasts

We have our lives aligned;

To uphold, crusade, and sunder those 

Who refuse their rule benign

Yet in our darkest, cruelest hour

We affixed them to a tower

And now we abuse their holy power

Still bearing their ensign

Justice roars her mighty thunder, 

Struggling now in vain;

Alas she cannot break her bonds

And cease the false campaign

So she watches, screaming

At bloodied corpses teeming 

As others remain scheming

To ne’er release their reign

Vengeance snarls and rallies

Against her leaded weights;

She will not abandon those 

Who deserve her dire straits

So she watches, screaming

At bloodied corpses teeming 

As others remain scheming

Rendering their fates

Sweet Truth, she lay defeated

On the broken ground;

Yet she refuses to yield 

Until her voice resounds

So she watches, screaming

At bloodied corpses teeming 

As others remain scheming

And seize upon their crowns

Homework 2: Personal Writing Process

Academic writing, for me at least, is relatively simple. Inspiration is not too difficult for me to find in most things, and once I have a general topic or theme I need to discuss, I immediately begin to try and divide it into sub-topics to make the process of streamlining my thoughts and creating a cohesive piece go even more smoothly. It's something I just internalized from my third-grade 'power thinking' notation lesson; the format is usually goes as follows:

-Theme/Topic

--Sub-topic #1
---Evidence in support of topic #1
---Evidence in support of topic #2
---Evidence in support of topic #3

--Sub-topic #2
---Evidence in support of topic #1
---Evidence in support of topic #2
---Evidence in support of topic #3

--Sub-topic #3
---Evidence in support of topic #1
---Evidence in support of topic #2
---Evidence in support of topic #3

--How all the sub-topics tie together

---Evidence

--Conclusion

(If anyone struggles with organizing academic papers, I highly suggest this format.)

However I find that writing fiction or poetry is a completely different process that tends to have no specific structure whatsoever. The best way to describe it is that I just sit down and start writing because an image or phrase really stuck out in my mind, thus I want to try and transcribe it into a more permanent, communicative form. Ink and word, graphite and paper, scribbles and stanzas, all of them are part of the free-form mess that transpires once I have an idea. 

As long as I am comfortable in a space, whether that means a quiet area where I can hear my thoughts clearly or otherwise in a place I won't be intruded upon or interrupted, I can sit down and start writing rather quickly. I have to, lest I lose the muse I'm chasing at that moment. Due to all of this, I have no particular time of day that I favor or assign as 'designated writing time'; it'd be like trying to capture the breeze and stick the gales in a sealed room. What are winds without motion and endless space to fly? Stale, dead air. The same principle applies itself to my thoughts: either I run with the wind at that moment or I lose it altogether. 

Writing is fickle, complicated, and sometimes antagonistic, but for the most part I find it to be immensely satisfying at the end. 

Homework 1: Ekphrastic Poetry

'Woman in Front of a Mirror' by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1841)


Visage of Obloquy

Eyes lingering like water running down my spine,
Pooling in the curves of my flesh
As uninvited as drops of cold rain.
I take no pleasure in knowing you are here,
With me,
Where I am supposed to be only myself.

A hunger left un-sated is only partially satisfied
As you feast upon me; I did not agree to this
When I first said yes.
But I was a fool to think that wolves could love,
Or that men like you
Were supposed to keep me safe.

You call this vanity,
I insist it is only changing my dress.
You do not move,
And I no longer convince you to leave.
Your bites are not worth the effort,
And I am tired from our last clash.