Maps To Anywhere

This week in creative writing we discussed the characteristics of essays. Short essays contain very detailed vocabulary. It seems that every word within an essay has extensive meaning and purpose. Creating an essay requires a great deal of intellegence and verbal dexterity. After reading the first couple sections of Maps To Anywhere I was intrigued by the detailed vocabulary.

The first reading I analyized from "Maps To Anywhere" was "Foreward". A lot of the language that is used reminds me of poetry. There are a lot of metaphors and analogies used while Cooper tries to convey the meaning of his writing to his readers in this introduction. A lot of this introduction seems very detailed as if Cooper used personal experiences to describe his writing. I feel that essays are a way for a writer to reveal their true identity. My favorite line from "Foreward" is when Cooper states... "We are everywhere on the surface of the self-sphere, and not permitted to sink to the metaphoric center, to rise into the heaven of release from identity." I feel that this line illustrates how essay writing can allow a writer to release inner emotions.

Goldberg

"Use Loneliness"
I never looked at the feeling of being lonely as a motivator for creative thinking. For me, being lonely creates a lot of anxiety but I am a firm believer that what does not kill you only makes you stronger. My favorite part of the story is from the last paragraph where the writer states..."Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world." This is a very powerful statement. I belive that creative minds are developed from past experinces of emotional rollarcoasters. Life is not only about experiencing happy emotions but bad ones as well. I feel that in order for a writer/artist to reach a maturity they must experience an abunance of emotions, both good and bad.

"Writing Marathons"
This whole idea of a writing marathon sounds very interesting. I like the part where all of the writings are read by individuals from around the room without anyone making a comment. I feel that this is a great exercise to help individuals expand their creative thinkings skills and build confidence in their writing abilities. I feel that this type of an exercise helps a person figure out who they really are as a person, which I feel is essential for creative writing. I believe that the emotions that this exercise instills in its participants helps build their character. I like how the writer describes this feeling of confidence as a feeling of being "naked." I feel that the word "naked" is used as a metaphor for letting inner feelings and emotions hang out. Being open with your thoughts and ideas carries the same emotions as being naked infront of a group of people.... Very interesting reading.

"I Dont Want to Die"
This writing helped me realize that no matter the challenges that life may throw at me always say how I feel. it is very important to be yourself and be accepting of who we are. Do not hide behind stereotypes of how you think you are supposed to act or how you think things should be percieved. To me this writing is all about being true to yourself and all internal emotions. we as writers need to understand the simplicity of saying what we feel.

Lamott Polaroid-Character-Plot

Something that I found to be interesting from reading the Lamott Polaroid-Character-Plot readings was his description of a polaroid picture and how its development relates to the process a writer goes through when composing a short story. I found it interesting that he mentioned that you realy do not know what the picture is going to look like until it is fully developed. It is only then that the true fine details can be recognized. I feel that this holds true for composing a short story. A writer may go through periods where they incorporate anything that may come to mind into their writings. I feel he is trying to explain that writers do not always have a specific outline of what they want to write about. I feel that he is trying to convey to the reader that creative writing can be very spiratic and often has no residual strucrure.

Another thing that I found to be interesting from the readings was when the author mentioned, in the plot reading, that in order to more details about the plot it is important to focus on what each character cares most about in the world. Figuring out what matters to each character will help determine what types of situations and scenarios the characters may get into throughout the story. Being able t identify these character qualities will also help determine specifics about the dialog. Specifying what each character cares about can help determine how the character will communicate throughout the story (dialogue).

Fiction Packet 3

The fisrt story that I would like to comment on is The Singing Fish. The language in the story almost seems like the narrator is speaking with a southern accent. He makes refernce to the character by saying "us brothers" rather than saying me and my brothers. He uses this language throught the story. I feel he uses this language to help the reader form animage of the plot. Also, the story describes the brothers playing in mud and talking about fish which seems like activities of children that were raised in the south or in the country. The author also makes reference to the word "Girl" many times throughout the story. I noticed that the word often appeared with a capital letter as if the author was refering to a specific individual when using that word. Although I never did figure out the significance of the word "girl". The last four or five sentences were very confusing. I noticed a lot of metaphors but could never make sense of the message that the author was trying to convey.

The second story that I would like to comment on is "The Fith Story". I feel that the whole purpose of this story is to show the reader how many different ways a story can be told. I feel that the author was trying to show the reader how many different stories could be told using a single set of information. I feel that maybe the author is trying to illustrate the thought process that goes into writing a story. I feel he is trying to show the reader how the mind is functioning when a writer is trying to writing a story. I feel that the author is trying to show how hard it is for a writer to make up their mind about how to write a story. This includes language, detail and imagery.

My two poems for this week

Poem 1:

The bling trilobites rest tain from beneath,
onhow such poised position with pleasent belief,
livid palisides blurb as they sleep,
foundered villanelles lay restless and steep,
cambrian, silvvian, carboniferous, unpacific,
nape wisdom as they meet.

Poem 2:

I foundered through the unpacific, livid strata,
poised by the serif palisades,
onhow of the tain bling in their appearance,
with the blurb verbena of the villanelles,
I wonder anywhen and belater by the question of their existence,
 cambrian, silvrian, and carboniferous seas nape me wonder.

"Fluorescence"

    The first observation that I made from studying the peoms in Fluorescence, written by Jennifer K. Dick, was the format and vocabulary. Most of the poems in the first fourty pages of Fluorescence had a lot of unusual spacing. There were a lot of excessive indentations and spacing between each line. When I read through the poems this unique and unusual formating made me think and evaluate every line that I read. I feel that Jennifer did this intentionally to help the reader better undersatand the message that she was trying to convey. All of her poems had a lot of deep meaning to them and I feel that her formating helps the reader to better understand her message.
    The section that I found to be most interesting was section two, pages 17- 27. Throughout this section Jennifer makes reference to an explosion. At first I thought that this had to do with a personal experience she had in years past possibly during a war, which I thought to be be World War 2. On the last page she had mentioned that before the explosion she had grabbed for her phone in the street and thought to herself, "who should I call?" This line attracted my attention because it was written in italics. After re-evaluating what was said and wondering the significance of this line, I realized that the line gave the poem a specific time period. After reading this line on pg. 27, I knew that what ever message she was trying to deliver had to of taken place during a period where there were portable telephones, which would not be very likely during the time period of  WW 2. After determining the time period I began to think that she was talking about some type of terroirst attack. The peom also give information of a bomb squad evaluating the scene where the explosion happend. This caught my attention because people do not usually conduct minute investigations during a time of war. If an investigation had occurred over this event then there had to be a significance to it. My final conclusion of the poem was that Jennifer had experienced, or was describing someone elses experience, of a recent terrorist attack such as the one on 9-11.
    Overall I feel that these poems were very interesting. I found the peoms in Fluorescence to have deeper meaning than any of the poems we have read so far. I found a lot of these poems to have more of a clear and defined message. Because I could make sense of a lot of the readings I was more motivated to keep reading. I become very discouraged from reading poetry when i cannot dtermine what message the writer is trying to deliver. For this reason, I enjoyed reading the first fourty pages of Fluorescence.
    

     This week in Creative Writing we analyzed many different styles of poetry. Poetry has a lot of hidden meaning which can vary depending on the characteristics of the reader. The meaning of a poem can be delivered by using various writing styles including format and selective vocabulary. Some poems are long with multiple sonnets and others are short with very unique formating and wording.
      After evaluating the first packet of poems I noticed a lot of strange vocabulary. There are also a lot of analogies and metophors within the poems in the first packet. My favorite poem was still life from Seibutsu. This poem illustrates the image of death through the description of what I interoperated as a fruit bowl. I found this analogy to be very unique because when I think of death I think of bland colors such as black and grey, not bright colors that would displayed in fruit bowl. I feel the author is trying to send the message that death can be a beautiful stage of life.
     The second packet contains a lot of poems with many sonnets. The Shakespeare sonnets struck me as very unique becuase all of them have 14 lines. For the most part the sonnets seem very standard with no unique formating. With a closer examination I began to notice that most of the sonnets consisted of very strange vocabulary. The sonnets consisted of many words that appeared to be made up. I feel that Shakespeare uses these made up words to help add rhythm to his sonnets. The second set of sonnets that we focused on were from Berrigan. I found his format to be very different because he had random spacing throughout all of his sonnets. To me this seems like he is trying to instill certain thoughts in the reader by making them pause everytime they encounter a space. I feel by puting these spaces in strategic locations throughout his sonnets influences his readers to think a certain way. I also noticed that all of his sonnets referred to love or romance. A few lines in his sonnets gave me the indication that he may have just experienced a break up of a relationship.
    Overall I felt that all of the poems so far really gave me a broad understanding of the different types of poetry that exist. Poetry is composed from personal feelings and experiences of the writer. Poets use certain styles of language and format to portay their emotions to their readers.