Week #9--My Response to Tim's Free Write

Tim,

The phrase, "to sky into the granite awning
of midday smog" paints a clear picture, as does "his frame hunched in the ochre telescope of age." Very nice imagery. Describing T-ball players as birds with party hats aiming for pinatas stretches my imagination but 'shows' much better than 'tells.'

Problematic for me is "baby teeth" on a "beer bottle." I can see them on the cap but fail to grasp "teeth" on the bottle itself.

The meaning of the "brown drop" escapes me and perhaps that's my ignorance showing. I enjoy, however, all the alliterations and think some expansion on the father-son relationship could only make it more interesting to read. Also, the form could be broken into stanzas to make it read less vertically. I think it's a great draft to experiment with in that sense. Nice work!

Week #9--My Response to MacKanzie's Free Entry

MacKenzie,

I am fascinated by the sheer oddity of this draft and enjoy its poke at 'reptilian-like romance.' The first sentence makes me laugh, although "touch of a feather" seems irrelevant, if relevance is an issue. Phrases like "your shapely mouth cannot soothe the beast of your raging skin" and "All bodies clamp the same throats" work nicely to augment the theme of sexual aggression and could even stand alone. The last two lines, for some reason, make me think of Miss Piggy, for the speaker's tone seems to emulate her narcissistic personality. What a fun read!

Week #9--Junkyard Quotes

“If y’all got together and you dropped the linen and started grinnin’, that’s an affair.”

Dr. Phil on trailer advertising his show.

“winter cluster” and “cleansing flight”: terms used in Stanley Tate’s newspaper article on bees.

“It’s a ménage à whale.” Kelli Ripa talking about a male beluga whale being air transported cross country to mate with two female balugas.

“He can’t be boring like a box of rocks.”

Snooki describing her ideal man.

Week #9--Improv #2

Here's another attempt in response to last week's critique by Jenna.

The Tree and the Sky

                                    by Tomas Tranströmer

There’s a tree walking around in the rain,

it rushes past us in the pouring grey.

It has an errand. It gathers life

out of the rain like blackbird in an orchard.

When the rain stops so does the tree.

There it is, quiet on clear nights

waiting as we do for the moment

when the snowflakes blossom in space.

The Elephant and I

An elephant occupies our living space.

No one can see it but it has a mission.

It keeps us from killing each other

but not from destroying ourselves. When

one of us commits a kindness it seems

to disappear, but it usually comes back

to rear its flap-eared head whenever I speak.

Tomorrow I will take it to some other zoo.

Week #9—Improv #1

Morning Coffee

                                    by Gyorgi Petri

I like the cold rooms of autumn, sitting

early in the morning at an open window,

or on the roof, dressing-gown drawn close,

the valley and the morning coffee glowing—

this cooling, that warming.

Red and yellow multiply, but the green

wanes, and into the mud the leaves

fall—fall in heaps,

the devalued currency of summer:

so much of it! so worthless!

Gradually the sky’s

downy grey turns blue, the slight

chill dies down. The tide

of day comes rolling in—

in waves, gigantic, patient, barreling.

I can start to carry on. I give myself up

to an impersonal imperative.

Morning Cough

I hate the darkness of fall mornings, rising

late from sleep to raise the blinds and find

the day has yet to start, lagging behind the moon,

the streetlights and headlights still shining—

some blinking, some flashing.

Time begins its work day, but I

delay, stumbling into the bathroom

cold—foggy,

like frost evaporating from the fading grass,

appreciated only by the air.

Eventually it makes itself known—

my morning cough, more a clearing

of my throat’s inattention to sinus drainage

during the fast of the slow night.

It can escalate until I medicate at breakfast.

After that, the sun is up. We travel

together through the day, burning fiercely.

Week #9—Sign Inventory

Miroslav Holub's "Man Cursing the Sea":

Narrative style in third person voice

“just” specifies the immediate past tense

Six stanzas with second as largest and third as smallest

Other than the repetition of “sea” no end rhymes appear

“water” appears four times

lots of water imagery and personification in different metaphors like “peddler,” “pawnbroker,” and “gorgon.” Animal association in “loud-mouthed bull” and “dog”

Repetition of “in vain” comprises its own line

Alliteration in first stanza of hard “c” and “s”

Alliteration and assonance of “sl” in line five

Alliteration of “p” in lines six and seven and later in “patted”

Alliteration of “h” in lines eleven and twelve

Alliteration of “w” in last two lines

Assonance of “s” throughout poem

Juxtaposition of imagery in “tiny immense”

“footprints in the sand” could be considered cliché

mostly standard punctuation but seven lines of enjambment

Strong verbs except for “went” in last line.

Week #9—Free Entry

Salt

I watch a glass of water with its fine fuzz of ice, silvery colors touched with sky—

yet if I shift slightly, a tiny wooden tower appears, walnut-stained and cylindrical,

handmade by some underpaid artisan. It contains my father’s favorite seasoning.

Salt improved the tack when he was a sailor on a merchant ship, and after that,

when my mother would dish up her bland dinners. “Big eats!” he would exclaim,

clapping his hands together and rubbing them as if he were sanding down his callouses.

Then we would sit at the kitchen table, the four of us, and begin to eat, waiting for him

to initiate his nightly game of Q & A so we could see how self-educated he was.
Invariably, he would flummox us with a difficult question and scold us when we could
not answer it correctly. My older brother would cry and be sent to his room while I
would remain, exempt, because girls didn’t need to be too smart back then. I reach
for the salt but keep my eyes fixed on the glass, observing the distortions of people
moving by my table in the waves of water. The intermingling of their darkened forms
as they drown in the icy sweat conjures up images of the Titanic, when the brackish swirl
of the Atlantic swallowed all the fathers first, followed by their wives, sons,
and daughters. I witness a metamorphosis of the anonymous forms as they disintegrate
into particles of dust, browning the water with a solemn air. By now, my father’s ashes
have washed up onto foreign sands, perhaps a beach in South Africa or an island
off Central America. I wonder, as I season my soup, if they could change into salt.

Week #8--My Response to and Bryan's Free Write

Bryan,

"Braids of brick" may refer to buildings but I see no real point of reference to know for certain. "Warbled inward" sounds birdlike, bringing nature into the register, as does "humming." I'm not sure "fractilated" satisfies as much as 'fractious' but I love the reference to the speaker as a "bit of singularity." The film metaphor for the "shadows" of his life works really well. The repetitions of "I" reinforce the subjective focus of the speaker yet contrast his ambiguity of who he really is.
Nice draft!

Week #8--My Response to Brandy's Free Entry #1

Brandy,

I think you have created some really nice imagery in "the alphabet soup throw back" and "impregnated me with bound paper." I also really like "subconscious school" and "apple eyes of my teachers," too. A "single quarter" sounds redundant, however, and "suicide" reoccurs too soon.

Two motifs seem to emerge: a master-slave relationship for teacher-student and an allusion to orgasm ("waiting for the contraction"). The latter may be way off base but there you have it.

I think so many metaphors in two short stanzas may be overkill, but maybe not. I just found the first read confusing but it got easier on the rereads. I'm not sure the ending packs enough punch and may just need some rephrasing. Otherwise, I think you have done some nice work!

Week #8—Sign Inventory

They Hanged Him, I Said Dismissively

                                    by Dennis Brutus

They hanged him, I said dismissively

having no other way to say he died

or that he was a dear friend

or that work wove us most intimately

in common tasks, ambitions, desires.

Now he is dead: and I dare not think

of the anguish that drove him to where he was

or the pain at their hands he must have faced

or how much he was racked by my distress:

now, it is still easier to say, they hanged him,

dismissively.

Confessional style narrative using first and third person voice

One stanza

Slight slant rhyme in “died,” “desires,” “distress,” and “dismissively.”

Internal rhyme in “way to say”

Use of two colons.

“Dismissively” does triple duty, applying to mood of the speaker in the first and last line

as well as the attitude of the executors in the last.

Alliteration or assonance of “d” sound in every line but #4; also in “work wove”; also in “hanged” and “having”

First line reiterates title

Strong verbs in “wove,” “dare,” “drove,” “faced,” “racked,” and “hanged.”

Intimations of violent treatment toward his friend in same verbs, along with “pain” and “anguish”

Repetition of “say”

Sensational subject discussed in relational tone

Odd coincidence of author’s last name and brutal theme of poem