Internet and God

Database connection error!
How the hell am I supposed to goof off
when I have no good internet.
This is some sick
twisted joke.
I need my homepage
because I am
an addict.
I know whose fault this is
and I don't think it is funny.

GOD I KNOW YOUR DOING THIS JUST TO SCREW WITH ME!

I Think Frank Took Over My Brain.

God I hate writing.
Everything I write has to be smart.
I'm caving under the pressure.
and my Dad wants to know what I am going to do with my life.
He tells me I should start driving again.
But there is no one to help me and god damn it I am not driving with him ever again!
He mumbles everything.
I'm like a deer in headlights my hands grasping the wheel I'll kill everyone on the road.
What would happen if I told him all I wanted to do was be a face character
in Disneyland?
I'm the right height for Snow White.
I got the round face
and the squeaky voice
and big eyes.
Little kids like me.
I would rather hug a zillion boys and girls
and call them "little Prince" and "little Princess"
then be stuck here writing a damn essay about Frankenstein.
Which by the way I haven't started yet.
I'm thinking of getting another iced tea.
It would be my second today and that would make it four servings.
Sometimes I wonder if I am hiding behind my weight.
As I write this I realize I am only stalling for time.
I have to write that damn essay.
God I hate writing.

I Celebrate It!

photo by me

I have a comfort zone
and I am not afraid to use it.
Think I am some sort of freak?
Well fuck frick that!
Just deal with it.
I celebrate it.
I own it.

Whatcha going to do?
Try to change me?
You already tried, don't you remember?
That was a delicious disaster.
So chock full of absolutely wonderful failure.
I felt joy from the demise.
I jumped around the fire pit
watching the deep complete burning
of the corrupted corruption.


I praise my comfort zone
I pet it, and it purrs.
It is mine and not yours.

Poem Edit 3

poem I read in class:

Secretary.
Waitress.
Girl in blue,orange,brown.
Walks by Stage Right.
Runs Stage Left.
never stops.
Wings
warts
gray hair
burns
blood
mask.
She points and laughs and cries.
Cue the music.
It's a simple dance.

edited poem:

Secretary.
Waitress.
Girl in blue,orange,brown.
Walks by Stage Right.
Runs Stage Left.
never stops.
Wings
gray hair
masks.
She points and laughs and cries.
Cue the music.
It's a simple dance.

Poem Edit 2

poem I read in class:


Here comes the beat
count it ...one two three
silence.
Gasp for air
and just continue
don't worry
keep going
it's bound to happen
here comes the second beat
count it...one two three
Don't slow down
keep the momentum
wait for the next one
here we go
you know the routine
stick to the plan
don't let the silence, silence.

and edited poem:

The beat
count it...one two three
gasp for air
and continue
here comes the second beat
slow down
but keep the momentum
wait
know your lines.

Poem Edit

Poem red in class:

Dancing Dancer dances
Plié Plié Plié
On the top
Tippy top of her tippy toes
Dancing Dancer Dance
Fire in the dance
Dancing Dancer Fire Dance
Fire Dancer dances
Plié Plié Plié
Dancing for the Phantom
Phantom Dancer
Phantom Dancer Dancing Dancer
Phantom Dancer Fire Dancer dance
On the top of the tippy top of their tippy toes
Phantom Dancer done dancing
Fire Dancer Dancing Dancer dances
Plié Plié Plié
No Phantom Dancer but Fire Dancer Dancing Dancer dances on
On the top of the tippy top of her tippy top toes.

Edited poem:

Dancing Dancer dances.
On the top
tippy top of her tippy toes.
Dancing Dancer Dance.
Dancing for the Phantom.
The Phantom Dancer.
Phantom Dancer, Dancing Dancer,
on the top of the tippy top of their tippy toes

It just keeps coming!

photo by me

Oppen: I like Oppen. I like him because he reminds me of...me. In the way I write poetry for the most part. There seems to be a meaning, it seems pretty "put together" and the poems that in our anthology are pretty short. As for a specific poem that I like I have to say I really enjoyed Pedestrian espceically the line

In a soil of pavement, a mesh of wires she walks/In the new winter among enormous buildings.

I get it yet I don't get it. It is intriguing in the sense that I like the sound of it, like the way it looks, and like what it says. It has simplicity and ambiguity without turning the reader off.

Niedecker: yeah... I like somewhat abstract poetry and I like short poetry but Niedecker's poetry was too abstract and too short. In the collection we got from our anthology I felt like I missing something and not given the chance to read more of it. In her poems I was denied the hypnotic tendencies of long abstract poetry which for some odd reason bothered the crap outta me. Not enough just not enough...

Next!

photo by me

Moore: A lot of poems having to do with, or mentioning nature. I don't have too much of a problem with that, in fact I love nature (hence the pictures I have been posting) except every single poem I read had to do with nature and after a while it got kind of boring to me. Maybe if I have time to read one of her longer poems I might think differently of her. But for now I was not a big fan of her nature poetry.

... I said next was T. S. Eliot...but I lied. Next is-

Louis Zukofsky: I read To My Wash-Stand. I enjoyed it, I liked how a poem was dedicated to an object rather then a person or nature. The way it is formatted too is really neat. It reminds me of water, water waves running down through the faucet of the wash-stand. I love the beginning lines they are really great because it is such a strange beginning yet pulls the reader in.

To my wash-stand
in which I wash
my left hand
and my right hand


I really wish it could be formatted here the way it looks on the page



also what I liked about this poem was even though it was dedicated to a wash-stand you could totally see it being more then about a wash-stand although it isn't clear exactly what the deeper message is and I have to admit I don't know...maybe I am reading to much into it and it really is just about a wash-stand. But what makes it stand out to me (because I usually dislike poems that are about one object but have some deep universal more then meets the eye theme) is that one can read it, like it for a wash-stand poem, or decide it has a greater meaning but not feel stupid for not getting it. A lot of the poems that are about one thing and really about something else tend to make me personally feel inadequate and stupid for not getting the deeper message. Even the way the authors right makes me feel like they expect one to get it right away. This poem had a relaxed feeling about it...where it felt like I could enjoy it and if I didn't get it, that it was ok with Zukofsky.

I also listened to Zukofsky on PennSound. I like his voice. It reminds me of a story book narrator- someone who would read classic fairy tales. He has that cool classic laid back story book voice.

I also read Zukofsky article "An Objective"... now I can give you some B.S to make me look smart... But I won't do that. I got maybe one or two lines but for the most part I have no idea what the heck I just read was. This really makes my first initial reaction with the wash-stand poem seem contradicting. I thought Zukofsky was a chillax kind of guy but I just didn't get what he wrote at all and I didn't get a laid back vibe from it at all. I felt like I had to get it-which made me very sad.

Can anybody tell me what they got from it?

I need to read his other article, and my next post will have Oppen, Niedecker, and just maybe T. S. Eliot.

photo by me.

Pound- Like Whitman, Pound's poems (well especially so in our anthology) are insanely epic (even when they are his shorter poems) and seem to jump from one idea to the other. Except with Pound he puts into his work a lot more abscure characters. Where (except for Lilacs)Whitman's many characters are for the most part normal everyday people, (like the man in the carrige or the boys in the river) Pounds are references to historic, and Greek or Roman mythological characters. (Like Homer, Circe, and Hermes) Pound challenges the reader almost to what seems like a battle of wits, where he tells the reader (in a sense) go look it up. I think Pound's poems would be a lot more challenging without given the anthology notes at the bottom of the page (especially if one was not familar with mythology...even I had trouble understanding Pound and I love mythology...though it also has been a while since I last studied Greek Mythology (Holy crap, it's been since Middle School!) But, I digress.

H. D.- I noticed H. D. also uses mythology in some of her poems which is interesting being she was friends with Pound. Unlike Pound H. D. seems to cut to the "mythological" chase. Her poems are relativity short and they still have the epic-ness of a "myth" based poems. Helen being a clear example, especially the first stanza:

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the luster as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

for me it has the epic language, the mythical-ness-ness, and its easy to read.

I really like her Sea Violet Poem. Something about it. The beauty in the ugliness...the strength of delicacy...the uniqueness of the violet by the sea, standing out from all the blue violets on the hillside. This poem stood out for me the most.

Williams- Definitely has a...style. The poems I read were not clear, but not "abstract" They seem to be tied into a theme even if the theme is slightly odd. Especially Sympathetic Portrait of a Child. I read it, and re-read it and I am still confused...Is the narrator going to kill her because she is a murderer's daughter? Or is that how the murderer picks the victims he lets the daughter pick them?

Next Post... Moore and T. S.

Word Disassociation

So after yesterday's class (after seeing the seeing the Warhol video, and also talking about Dada) I remembered a video...and decided I would share.

Word Disassociation: by Neil Cicierega

NeilCicierega

Her Mouth Is Two Steps Ahead Of Her Brain

Because I was totally "cool" and had written on Loy "back in the day"...ok so last term.... I'll sum up what I wrote.

I read some of Mina Loy....Her work is interesting. To me she seems to be on the verge of being modern and post-modern. She has some great lines from each of her poems; but they tend to get buried in some longer-more hard to understand -“high brow” –“poet-y” lines. This is really clear when it’s a longer poem and not so clear (or maybe it works better) when the poem is shorter.

I'm pretty much saying that I get Loy better then I do Stein. Reading Stein for me is like swimming through a pool full of mud. Though I would like to say that God Made Dirt and Dirt Don't Hurt. So what am I saying? I guess I'm saying that if I had a choice, Stein wouldn't be in my top 3. Maybe top 20.

I had a hard time with the repeating words...I wanted the poems to go somewhere. Where? I dunno...It doesn't have to be a place, or a theme, or whatever but just needs to get there. I felt stuck.

I think it was harder listening to the reading of the poem- it seemed like the reading was a broken record.
But then I heard her language in a voice I could understand. Nope, it wasn't Stein's voice...and probably not Stein's intentional voice for her poems...but it was the voice that made her poems make sense TO ME.
I was listening to a teacher this morning, and as she was talking- trying to get her ideas out- she kept repeating the last word till she remembered what it was she wanted to say after it.

It made everything (in my world) make sense. Now, every time I read Stein I will picture her being a person whose mouth is two steps ahead of her brain.
That makes perfect sense.

Feel Like Rocking!

So, I went into Stevenson Union today and there was a live band! Made me feel like rocking out :D

Right now I'm listening to Queen YEAH!

anywhose... so, I thought that we might have to read something in class today...But we didn't. So I decided that I would share it here; and ask for comments, I really want to flesh this out a little more.

I don't have a title for it yet.

I’ve lost them

these strangers.

One was odd to me;

the other,

I thought a hero.

They both vanished.

With one there was hope;

And with the other

nothing remains.

Oh how odd that he

was a hero.

Any thoughts?