I really like all of the presentations so far. It teaches me about other poets and their poetry in a more interesting way than just reading about poets in Koch's books. I also wish I planned my presentation better. I was really surprised by how fast 10minutes goes by. At first I thought I would be under time and in the end I was way over. All in all I like the presentations from my classmates and I look forward to watching and listening to more.

I feel that I am not doing so well with revising my poems. I think it might do with the fact that some of them are a bit on the cliche side. I am taking everyone's suggestions into consideration. I think that the most difficult poem that I am revising is about the gay marriage. I was trying to make it seem more satirical but, I am not sure I really achieved that. I tried writing it from a priests or God's point of view but, it really didn't work out the way I wanted it to.  Other than that I have really enjoyed the class and have learned quite a bit from it and I am hoping to take another poetry class sometime in the future.

In all, I can sincerely say I appreciate the workshop process. The feedback from my classmates often allowed me to take my poems to the level I wanted them to go. At firs it is nerve-racking because if anybody is like me, putting your writing out there for others to see is a huge milestone. Usually I use my writing as an escape since I'm not too fond of expressing myself in general, so my poetry is usually raw and personal. My writing is almost like a baby.

Hearing people critique my work wasn't as bad as I thought, usually people understood where I was trying to go, and mostt of the time if there was something not everyone agreed with in my poetry, they always followed it up with something that they liked, or something they noticed within the poem that they felt I could enhance. However, as I listened to other people critique writing other than my own I sometimes people were reading too far into a poem that didn't necessarily have a deep message, it was just meant to be simple. I also felt that too often, people wanted the poet to spell everything out for them with concrete details,which can take away from the poem sometimes, and I felt like people don't know the difference between a poem that needs to be elaborated and poem that doesn't i.e. a poem that is meant to open the eyes of its audience.

I really enjoyed this class for the most part. It's true the mass amounts of writing has been pretty strenuous, but combined with the reading and the workshops, it's also given me a chance to practice a lot of different techniques and tricks that I might never have thought of on my own. All in all I can honestly say I'll treasure the input from here and from the workshops, even if some ideas were hammered home with exaggeration to make an easily recognized point to start working from. I guess I'll just leave off with one of my favorites of the poems I've been working on lately.

False Fit

One of the poets I chose for the Oral Presentation was Claude McKay and I seriously dislike the majority of the poems in the book I choose. The majority of his poems are more like songs than actual poems and are lacking in concrete language. EVERY SINGLE ONE of these poems has almost exactly the same rhyme scheme too and it seems like nearly all his poetry is about the same or a similar topic. There was very little variation from poem to poem and it made the book incredibly annoying to read. Even his poems that actually had concrete language weren't very good and were still mostly abstraction. Usually I can enjoy just about any poem, even those that I don't understand, because the concrete language gives it imagery and substance, but these poems... Check it out: "In de evenin' we went walkin' / An' de sweet sound of his voice / as we laughed or kept a-talkin'".. The entire poem is like that, and it spans 3 pages of the book. The language alone makes it almost impossible to derive any meaning out of them. I got absolutely nothing from the majority of these "poems".

Wow, I'm so glad work shops are all done.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Hopefully I can get all my re-writes done soon.  I'll try to look at everyones critical responses to see how I should I improve them.  It suck that we only got to get three poems in, when the portfolio is four poems.  How lame is that right?  And some people got to sneak in an extra poem by default.  That didn't seem fair at all.  Is anyone else having trouble getting all this done.  I have so many other classes asking for so many other assignments all in this last week.  So very crazy right.  I am almost done with my power point presentation  for tuesday.  I hope I am under 10 but above 8 min.  I guess i'll have to time myself when it's all done.  I think it was too much asking for 250 words for each 15 pages.  Trying to think about what to say in all that was in my opinion a big waste of time when i could have just been working on the presentation.  Or other work from other classes.  And on top of that, I had to remember to get this blog in too.  There are too many thing to think about getting in on these last weeks to worry about extra little knit picky stuff like this blog.  but here it is.   In my honest opinion, I didn't think the blog aspect of the class was effective at all, but more so distracting.  Most people are just commenting their two comments they need , writing some quick blog in the same way on pretty much the same topics.  Muse writes, workshops, presentations, and such.  all the same.  I doubt anyone other than the teacher is reading these except skimming to respond quickly to someones post just get it done.  This was my hardest class this semester and it was a gen-ed for me.  Why was this my hardest class???  It shouldn't have been.  But all these little extra things made me really hate poetry and not enjoy this class that much at all.  And that's the Double TRUTH RUTH!!

Learning about poetry is something that I have found to be very fulfilling so far, but at the same time it can be very frustrating for me. One of my big issues is with muse writing. I think muse writing is a very interesting approach to writing, but sometimes I get the impression that I'm not getting everything I can out of it. I'm very structured when I write, and usually have a pretty clear idea when it comes to writing. Muse writing is very foreign to me, and I feel like a lot of the time I'm not utilizing it to the fullest. I don't know if anyone else feels about this, but in terms of writing a full poem, I don't think I use muse writing. I more or less think that I have been using my muse to come up with ideas, and then elaborating on those ideas, as opposed to writing whatever comes to my head. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing wacky stuff down that comes to my head, and perhaps I just need to work more at it. I've been getting anxious over this lately. I get the idea in my head that I'm not doing it right, and I've also been lacking some inspiration lately. I intend to continue writing over the summer, and the addition of assignments in every class probably has caused this lack of inspiration. I think everything I've learned so far has been beneficial to my development as a writer.

I've read many posts from everybody else on the blog and I noticed how mostly everyone said after doing workshop they weren't as nervous as they thought they were going to be when it came to sharing poems. For me, after workshop I still hate sharing poems that I write. I'm not sure why I disliked it so much because my poems weren't even too personal or anything but every time I shared my poems I was so nervous. Even after I read my poem out loud I just wanted to move on to the next person presenting. I understand the point of workshop and the criticism everyone gave me did really help when it came to revising my poems, but I still did not like reading my poems in class and I don't know if I ever will like sharing my poems. The suggestions I received on my poems were helpful and I think everyone in class really tried to help each other out. I also really enjoyed hearing all the other poems that students wrote and I think this even helped me to notice things i should change in my poems. This aspect of workshop was really helpful and I have learned a lot throughout this experience. It was also interesting to see how each person gave poems their own personal twist even though we all were assigned to do the same muse writes throughout the semester. This was really cool because every poem that was shared was really unique and has the potential to be amazing with revisions.

Much like with my fiction writing, inspiration comes when I least expect it. It's so fun when I listen to music and suddenly get an idea for a character or story. I think what helps me get through poetry, one of my weakest genres, is the fact that while listening to music I can think of a subject to write about. It helps to create a persona of a poem that will be or has been written. I think that aspect of it is a lot of fun. If I tackle poetry the way I do fiction, then perhaps I can jump over the hurdles my mind deem as difficult. I appreciate the critiques, but what I like most is hearing othe peoples poems out loud. It reminds me of storytellying which I fin intriging.

c:

I find my best inspiration for writing is nature. Nature and the natural world. The wind, the rain, trees blowing in that wind and their leaves freckled with water.
The muse can come from anywhere but I feel that the best influences are those that are not contrived forced or human made. The best things in the world are those which just are. Trees rocks grass dirt, emotions, snow thunder, touching... these are all influences which move me to write. I get elated when I am surrounded by trees. I am evan more elated when surrounded by trees and with people. People who can leave behind technology and media influenced gunk. To be truly free is to have no ties to culture and media.
As humans we seem to need these ties though. We have become addicted to the rush of lights and sounds. All too much our minds are turned into zombified electronic drones. We are parasites feeding off of the grid, leeching the power and life from nature.
That Rant aside, I get the most fulfillment from the things that were here before and will be here after (hopefully).

I really enjoyed workshop-And i liked the different types of poetry we got to read this semester. I also thought it would be important to not that all the different type pf poetry was beautiful in it's own way. I thought a certain type of poetry may have been favored in this class-like the really confusing, flowery poems, were the only poetry that received the best complements and praise-but I really enjoyed reading them all this semester!

It also seemed to me that some students may have thought very highly of their own opinions on the poetry being read in class, and mainly focused on what was wrong-in lue or in addition to what was right about the poems. I feel that this may make people feel bad about the poetry, and discourage them-so possibly being a little more thoughtful in their criticisms would have been extremely helpful, and made my personal experience in this class-a better one...

I don't think my class is getting enough out of the workshop. Written comments do help, but discussion about what works and what doesn't is a huge thing. In my screenwriting workshops we really dissect the piece and pick away at it making sure it can be smoothly polished over. In here there is either some issue of talking about other's work or maybe the 8 am start time hinders progress. Anyway, when you are in workshops always voice some sort of opinion, even if it's just something you like. Criticism is key, if you can't take criticism you are going to have a terrible time as a writer, and if you can't help others with their own writing then you may lose them as an outlet for workshops and revisions. And you need other writers for diversity, it will help you dive deeper into styles/inclinations you would like to use but wouldn't figure out without that person's perspective.

I guess what I am saying is loosen up, this is just for the fun of expression and playing with words. If you can't enjoy yourself and really get into the piece or comment on it then you are not fully utilizing the workshop.

I really enjoy revising my poetry. Learning the tactics of revision really helped me because withoutit, I would have probably continued to write the same cliches over and over again. I am now able to take poems that I wrote when I began writing poetry and make them better with more concrete details and visual words to show the reader as opposed to telling them. I really think that learning this as well as doing workshops benefits me a lot as a poet. I am glad that I chose this course.

I am surprised how much I enjoyed workshop! Honestly, I did not think I would and felt that I would have a hard time allowing people to critique my poems along with critiquing other people's poems. I think we have a great diverse class that is not afraid to give their opinions or thoughts, so this always gives us a lot  of feedback with the poems. And like any workshopping session, the class always helps you see things that you were not able to see in your own writing. However, along with helping each other make the poems the best they can be. I also think workshopping other people's work has helped me become a better poet as well. I always have written poetry, but I was nervous to take a class on it and have my work  critiqued. But, now I am very glad I did and definitely think I am going to stick with it as a concentration in my creative writing major. Now time for revision, we will see how this goes!

        So I started revising the second poem that I read in class and I'm having a lot of trouble. I've gotten so many great ideas from the critiques and the problem is trying to incorporate them all in my piece. And let's not forget the rules of revision given to us in class. It's just all so much to do in a poem in my opinion. In fact, the main thing that is making revisions so difficult is trying to transform a muse write in a solid piece (Well at least in my opinion).I guess I just got to let it come to me and not try to rush it. Hopefully it'll get better as I move on to piece to piece. I honestly didn't know that revising would of been so hard! This may in fact be the hardest part in creating a great piece.

Personally, for me, workshop has been very helpful in helping me revise my poems. Being able to see others perspectives on how they view my work, what needs improvement, where I can tweak my poems, and even bring outside ideas in that I hadn’t thought of myself, all help bring together a more complete and enjoyable poem. I am really impressed with some of my other classmates’ poetry. Some of their work has incredible detail and a great story behind the poems and being able to read and critique theirs as well is a nice, helpful process. The poems I like best are the unique poems that make it enjoyable to see everyone’s own personal style to writing. Thanks for all of the helpful reviews, especially those who have given me very descriptive and useful tips that I can tell they took the time to write. I really appreciate the help!

Hey guys,
My last two posts I've put up some of my poems, but now that we're doing workshop I want to talk about something that I've been struggling with.  How do you create titles for your poems?  Sometimes, an idea will stick out to me, or other times I'll use a significant line from my poem, but often times I have trouble coming up with an idea so I usually leave them without titles.  A lot of you seem to have a good grasp on it from seeing them during workshop so I guess I'm just looking for some help.  You would think the title would be the least of your worries while writing, but it usually brings me the most stress!  If anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it!  I can't even think of what to title this blog as! Ugh.  As an ending note, everyone has been writing really fantastic poems!  Although I get very nervous when it's my turn for workshop, I love reading everyone else's poems!  I enjoy reading a lot of them more than the poems we read from our book earlier in the semester!  

Before we started doing workshop, the idea made me feel very nervous and I never wanted to share any of my poems with anyone. After going a couple times though, it is not nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. I received good feedback and made me feel a little more confident with my poem writing. I always think everything I write is terrible so it is nice to hear positive comments! I always tend to take criticism the wrong way but all the comments seem to be really helpful and it is nice to know that some of you enjoy my writing. Everyone's comments have either been very positive and help me feel more comfortable or have given me great ideas on how to expand my poetry and make them even better. So thank you and I appreciate you all not being cruel and bashing all  my poems like I thought all of you were going to and I look forward to my last workshop day!

I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but I find it really hard to critique poems.  I am, as I've stated in earlier posts, mainly a fiction/nonfiction/screenwriting focus, and every time I go to critique a poem, I always want to think of it like a short story or essay, but it's not.  I know we went over all the musical stuff and poetry language and such, but I still don't know what to say or how to suggest things to people.  I usually wind up saying that I like it but don't know what to suggest, or I say stuff like, "...like how this sounds... good repetition here... awesome onomatopoeia..." etc, etc...  Is anyone else having this same problem as me?  I mean, I know we have to focus on two specific issues in our critiques, but I wish we had more formal guidelines, like a list of things to talk about.  In other workshop classes, my professors gave us a sheet listing different things we COULD POSSIBLY chose to talk about in our critiques: character development, sentence structure, etc, etc...  I think something like that in this class would help a lot.  Maybe even if McCoy put up an example good critique on the projector...it would all really help a lot, because I want to give all you guys a really good critique, but I feel like I let you all down when all I say is... "good repetition... like the pace and tone of this..." and then I say nothing else substantial.  If anyone else is having this issue, let me know.  Or if you have a solution on what you do to give people good critiques, also let me know.  Thanks!!!

Workshop is not what i thought it would be. Don't get me wrong i really enjoy reading poetry from my classmates, but I thought it was going to be more of what workshop was like in my poetry club in high school was. In high school, workshop was the group got a topic, we all write on that broad topic and share it. Looking on this now i guess that is what the muse writes were focused on. Anyway its was different than my expectations but i still like it a lot. It allows me to see the diversity that we all write with.

:D Now that things have been figured out,

It's interesting to me. Some of my friends who are African-American end up showing me spoken word as a form of poetry. To be honest, I never heard it before they showed it to me and I went to predominately Black schools, and being Black myself, I still never heard spoken word. One that I was shown is called Bi-racial Hair

c: Here's the link to it if you're interested in seeing it for yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTnxJdxhU7o

I think spoken word is only different because of the way a person or author presents it. Much like the poetry we have read in class or the poems that we write, we can relate to it in some way. Perhaps it is the passion of the poem that is relatable. Perhaps it is the passion of forgotten history that is relatable. When I first heard this, I was able to relate with not only the texture of hair, the breaking of the comb, and being judged whether I was Black or if I was White based on skintone, but in the way the girl's poem spoke with pride in her heritage and who she truly was.

I started on this topic in an earlier post.. and I figured I could probably expand on it. For me the pleasing part of poetry is the sounds poems create and the specific words. Not the phrases and lines that are used or even the message. It's nice to understand what you're reading but sometimes I honestly just don't. Or I'll roughly get it but not exactly. Anyway I more appreciate the music of poetry. Back to my point now.. Sometimes throughout the day I might get a certain few words in my head that I think sound cool together. I might even get a few different lines going together in my head.. And I'll be honest it sucks if I'm nowhere that I can put these on paper or on a computer and I lose them. But I've actually put lines into my phone for a later time before. I don't really know where these ideas come from but it doesn't really matter. Perhaps my... Muse? Well anyway I was wondering what people do when they're randomly struck with a good thought. Maybe you punch random things into your phone like I do.

Although I am not always a fan of criticism-I feel that there is a diamond embedded in the coal. I feel that one has to know what suggestions to take and which will ones will simply not work for you. I am excited-yet a bit nervous to go and see what everyone else thinks. My worst fear is being told that my poetry completely sucks-but we shall on see on Tuesday. I have really enjoyed the poems thus far and cant wait to hear more!

Hey Everyone,

After seeing how smoothly everything went yesterday in workshop, I actually can't wait to go. I really think the criticism given to the poets yesterday were really helpful in most cases. I feel like I need criticism like that in order to make my poetry better. Seeing how one person reads it compared to the actually poet showed me that everyone will view your work differently. Now I know that I have to be sure to make my poetry come across to others the way I want it to. One problem I'm having now is the fact that I do not know what poem I want to use in workshop. Picking a poem out of almost 30 works is really hard. I'm going to really sit down and think about what poems I would like to use for my three workshop days. Hopefully everyone in the class will see and understand why I chose the poems that I decide to do. Anyway, like i said in the first line, I can't wait.

I think what has been seemingly difficult for me when learning about revising this week has to be the idea of turning you works into something more concrete and less abstract. When I think of poetry I think of writing for oneself and being able to voice what ever you may be feeling. When the point was made that poetry is about feelings but you have to write for the reader to understand, it made a little more sense. I just feel like whenever I attempt to make something more concrete it just seems so forced, it doesn’t sound as pretty as the adjectives and emotions that I initially displayed, but I guess that all comes with practice. I know this is random from my tangent but I just wanted to note how much I hated the reaction responses. I hated that the word limit was 250 words, it made the reactions less genuine and I felt as if I had to pull something out of thin air to meet the requirement.