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.