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.

So the first workshop for me went.....okay. I'm not really sure exactly how I feel yet. I'm still recovering :) no one was mean at all it's just something I am not comfortable with yet. But I did get alot of helpful tips and if I do choose to continue writing poetry I will really appreciate them and take them all into account

Thanks everyone!

I was always more on an english and history mind than a math and science. I have always done quite well in my english classes and always had slight difficulty when learning mathematical type things, yet I find poetry one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do. Poetry being an art form yet also having a side that needs structure and clarity, in a lot of cases, makes it very hard for me to accomplish up to my own standards. Sometimes  I feel so lost in what makes a good poem that its impossible to know where to begin (I suppose thats when muse writes come into play) or how to recognize what is right. People's opinions are so different and to please multiple perspectives using only one mind, seems to be a challenge I had never recognized coming into this class. I feel like reading Kenneth Koch's books helped and hopefully reading everyone else's  poems during work shop will help me figure out what it means to write well. I hope I am able to come further in writing instead of staying stuck on this plateau of self doubt of language.

-I decided to post this poem by Kit Schluter, he was the winner of last years glascock poetry prize. I picked to talk about this poem because when Kit won this award he was in college, the contest is for college students only, so he was around our ages. This poem was good and very descriptive with very original diction; although it was hard for me to find a central message. We talked about clarity a lot today in class and I feel like his concrete metaphors and similes are very advanced and unique but I thought his clarity was a little foggy. However I found this poem very interesting and was wondering what everyone else thought of the poem and if you got what he was ultimately trying to say through the poem or if you just thought it sounded nice with no real message. Feel free to comment your thoughts.   

To enter the chamber through which one must pass, the skin should be
soft and appropriate to be fashioned into leather. Remove the hair in
waxed strands and lace the body’s enclosures shut with this twine.
We say the same of the sky, its patchwork of amorphous signatures—to
find oneself beneath this sky is to close it with its own appendages,
its thumbs of rain that extend from the center of its palm, to
recognize a voice but see a different body.
*
That I am willing to gather for you living flowers, and yet bathe
In a tea of others dead—plunge in their statements, again and again…
Let us look at the sky we once had, but tentatively, where yellow
fingers meet, and
Strange, wet slits rain down rain down until the trees, when sawed,
collapse
Like dollops of rice pudding—and let us regard this sky,
We its product, and follow each other’s glances as one follows
The eyes of a cat stalking a dragonfly caught between two
windowpanes…
*
Empty rays sent out as feelers come to a new ground, illuminate the air
that hangs in swabs above the grass—these we call salutations,
Each a day horizontally extended over sleeping bodies that move in
sync with their dreams,
A fate of high-casted words packed down in a canon that, someday, will
no longer respond to this gunpowder.*
Your willingness is the hammer that breaks me. In sudden arcs it
hurtles like a birth. A ration of this body, cut out from its beliefs,
burns in making a signal of objection. The clouds toll seven.
Above the hills of a cemetery in the morning, a second body, as a flare,
hangs in a silent recess of time in the foliage. The clouds toll seven.
Beside the tomb of Abélard and Héloïse condoms are distributed to
mourners from a hot dog cart. The clouds toll seven.
To arrive as a body, to renew the tensions that alert us of our undeniable
misplacement. The clouds toll seven, and there is the shock of
having endured the passage from light into a darkness that is in no
way permanent.
The clouds toll seven, and we count the tolls aloud. The clouds toll
seven.
In recounting a dream, do we integrate the matters recounted? May I
promise to you these histories the voice has never before shared?
The clouds toll seven.
It was written on a grave, a grave, it was written on a grave: consigned
to perpetuity. It was written on a grave, a grave, it was written on a
grave: consigned to perpetuity.
The clouds toll seven, and we wait for the eighth strike which does not
come, and it might well be about to rain.
*
The hours surge away. By the force of an unforeseen gravity, they
retract into their turbid centers. We alone are responsible for this
recession, and thus we find ourselves in its midst; it attracts us into
a space of untruth when we speak.
In this silence, we lay our gratitude down gently.
There is an earth we cannot walk upon, for it is covered with our
descriptions of it, from which blooms a distracting foliage.
There are truths you do not believe.
There are angles of passing time that house you and cause you to
retract like the hours.One smells the infinite here in the morning before one has awoken,
where one must deny what one believes in light of what one knows
to be true.
Must this series be resolved, or may I wait here to be dispersed again
by the concerns of the sleeping?
Perhaps our frailties, as opposite extremes, must converge, and thus
would we ignore the long periods of silence endured, and ascribe
them to the faults of the days in which we remained together and
surpassed each other’s edges.
Without regret live those who would burn for the lies of a stranger.
From these heights it is unclear that it is us whom we are watching.
*
And our shadows that accompany us unwittingly? The thoughts that
thrust us into thought in the first place like palms from behind that
cover their own shadows?…
And does a shadow age as it grows longer, as when, for example,
beneath a setting sun or a waxed moon, the head elongates to the
size of the chest, and the legs, to the length of the entire body, and
beneath each planted foot there forms a darkness the very size of the
fetus from which they, eventually, sprung? The shadow ages
Beneath a source of light, but rejuvenates with each step toward the
source, never quite extinguished, but thrust instead upon some
surface that fades away for a moment in waning light. And this
blind companion
Who assures us we are never exactly alone, that we may always define
ourselves in relation to the negativity of our body, is brought into
the world through the spaces we occupy.
I weep for this body creating its own company,
For then, when the body is touched by light and there behind casts a
shadow, somehow it is then that I find my most faithful companion.
*
In front of these voices in chorus that rise from underneath the spokenwords as if these words were a song, nothing moves, ashamed of its
plaintive outlook when much more could be at hand.
Continue pulling those bows across your throats and I will follow you
into these new attitudes that speak from morning and break through
the darkness of their sources like the shoots of a crocus.
That is breath, what breath is, felt, coming on from a face.
I extend to you the crescent of the spine, and attend this body that
hangs like lightning glass from angles of conversation. I hear a
voice from the well; the reflection below in the pool is not mine, but
a thread strung around her neck that extends between two trees
fallen into wells of their own bark.
And may a reunion be the daring entrance into a space once shared that
one must become reacquainted with, or, more, that one must
entirely reinvent

Although I did not get to join in on the workshop today I did enjoy seeing what others brought to the table.  I was kind of pissed off actually because I wanted to get critiqued.  Sharing my poetry with others isn't something that bothers me.  I have shared my poems with many different people.  I have to say that "ThunderBeast" was a pretty good poem overall.  The one that Emily wrote.  It was original and that's what I liked about it most.  She said she was watching a documentary about Buffalo and that was the inspiration.  I think that if we learned about what inspires famous poets' poems we would laugh.  It's interesting to say the least.  I think that since people didn't see my poem today that I should present one now.  I actually believe that I am possessed because even if I don't write well.  There's a passion or some type of demon that's driving me to write.  Even if I don't have an impact on anyone with my writing, I have to write like a heroin addict needs their fix.  It's just the way it is.  However, I really like thinking about this "So What" that has been stressed to us again and again after focusing on revisions.  At first thought "So What" made me think of the Miles Davis song "So What" with Coltrane.  However, after thinking about the song and the statement I began to realize that no matter WHAT you're creating it needs to be something that stands out.  I play drums and every beat has been played, but I have to create something new in order for the bassist in my band to be satisfied.  I used to have many abstract poems.  I'm now learning how to write concrete poems that aren't cliche.  The singer in my band is glad that I'm a creative writing major because I can feed him lines and we can balance ideas off of one another.  Whenever I share poems, I usually don't have to read them out aloud.  When I do read them out loud I'm usually with my band- members or friends.  Therefore, I think that's one thing that makes me nervous- reading a poem in front of an entire class.  Now i'll share a poem.  I won't share the one that I will use for workshop, because that'd be lame.

To board a ship-
Sail away tomorrow

To board a plane-
Live the high life

Where are your dreams from--
Is what seems to be real making you numb?

Do you ever fall instead instead in ebb---
Rather than in the present?

Do you ever get pulled out to sea?
Does erosion cause inexpressible emotion?

Let the moments of perfection
Drown in the time of reflection--

At this point in the semester I believe I have somewhat of a hold on what poetry is. I understand all the aspects of it and what makes a good poem, but, I'm not too sure if I am writing poems well. I find myself drifting off sometimes and not even understanding what I am writing. I attempt to use concrete language but my work always seems to come out very abstract. Maybe it is my subconscious writing these dark and mysterious poems and they are the way I had initially intended to write them without purposely doing so. Is there anybody else that feels their poems are very odd and abstract without intending to do so? Hopefully the workshop will help me with writing my poems more like I intended them to...

After the first day of workshop, I've gained some good knowledge. It was a good feeling to actually let a group of people hear my work. It was also great to know how people feel about it and to hear their recommendations on how to get better. I also enjoyed hearing my classmates work very much, I thought most of the poems written by my peers were great and the workshop is really going to benefit all of us in our future works. At first I was apprehensive about putting my work out there, but the setting in the workshop today seemed very relaxed and it seemed as if my classmates genuinely wanted to help me. I am very excited to read and hear more poems by my classmates and to get into the workshop environment again. I am looking forward to my next opportunity to share my work and hear what everyone has to say!

First off, I'd like to point out the rather unsettling video above. It was pretty mach the inspiration for "Stick Men". Originally I had written it as a creepy poem about someone our age being stalked by a thin man (which is comparable to the popularized Slender Man), which has been a huge fear of mine since I was a kid. Just an abnormally slender person or group of slender people standing at the other end of a dark street from you. Anyway, that's the origin of the poem's horror element.

There were two common threads I saw in the comments I received back on "Stick Men", at least from what was discussed in class because the comments on the pages I received went into a lot more depth, and those were the fact that the last line was awful and there was too much attention paid to setting. Well, I'll elaborate on the setting bit first. A dark forest, as scary and mysterious as it can be to people, is a very big setting in most of my writing. For some reason, no matter how hard I try, if I put a dark forest in a piece I can't elaborate on it enough. For a poem, I can see how other imagery would be important, but the forest served as the main focus of "Stick Men" because it, in its own right, is the main antagonist and the Stick Men are merely agents.
As far as the last line goes, I got the resounding feeling that most people interpreted the narrator as a child. However, when I was writing "Stick Men", I pictured someone more my age or older who is still completely seized by his fear of the Stick Men. That's why I added that line; because I felt like he just wouldn't be able to help the poor child. Perhaps I was trying to hint at the speaker's past, but that might be a stretch.

Hey guys, I am horrible with this blog! And never can seem to always find everything right away! Anyways, I am nervous for workshopping, like I have been in other creative classes. While I can appreciate the awesome feeling you have when someone reads your work and compliments and loves it, I think with poetry it is different. I feel like it is easier to get to the point and criticize, jutting right in about what is weak in your poem. And while this is helpful it is also scary. But, I know it will develop and help me be a better writer so we will see. The subjects in my poems always seem to circulate back to the same issue and topic too, so I am not sure how great my poetry will actually be. I also feel because of the fewer words poetry uses to describe things and since it is muse work, that in some ways it is more personal than other types of creative writing. Just because you are jutting into those emotions straight away. Although some poets don't "wear their hearts on sleeves" you are still very much able to feel their emotional self through their writing. Making it even scarier for workshopping! Never the less, I still look forward to it. This is my favorite part of a creative writing class!

All semester long I've been fearing the revising aspect of the class.  Especially since some of what I think is my better work is in Iamb pen. or in rhyme, or other limiting forms of constriction.  It took me so long while writing them to find what I thought were the best words to fit the structure I was using, that if I try to change things would either destroy the poem as a whole or prove to be too difficult to find anything else that would fit.  I feel like regardless, he wants to see big revision and I fear that I might only be able to change a line or a word here and there.  I guess I shouldn't have been such a perfectionist in my muse writings.  I would take hours and sometimes days writing one poem.  I did a lot of revisions while creating them where now I think maybe I should have not put so much heart and effort into it and just wrote a bunch of crap.   At least then it wouldn't prove so difficult.  But we'll see how it goes.  It kinda sucks though, because I feel like I should bring my weakest poems to the workshops and portfolio where as before I wanted to put in what I thought was my better work.  Maybe, (and I don't know for sure) it won't be so hard to revise something once I get feedback from my fellow classmates.  Because I look at my poems now and I don't know what is weak or what doesn't work or needs changing.  And this is just because I'm too close to the work.  Plus being an "artist", I find that what pleases me in my own personal work is all that matters to me regardless if someone doesn't get it or like it.  I don't really care.  It's not really for anyone but me.  And it's not like I have plans to publish a poetry book or anything.  I enjoy what I create for the soul purpose of my own enjoyment.  Take it or leave it at that.

After reading everybody's thoughts on workshop coming up, I am relieved to see that some people feel the same way as I do. I like some of my muse writes a lot and others of them not so much. I think because of this I feel about 50/50 on workshop. I am very interested in seeing what other students have been writing because it will be different than what we have currently been doing in class. On the other hand, I am nervous to share my poems which are basically just working with my muse based on the exercises in Sleeping On The Wing. I know that criticism will help me a lot but it still makes me nervous since I barely ever wrote poetry before this class. This being my first true poetry class, I feel like I have learned a lot but I know I need to learn a lot more and maybe workshop will help me.

I'm always a little hot/cold when to comes to workshoping. Especially with poetry. With prose, its much easier to quanitify things, where as in poetry - things don't have to always make sense (sometimes it is even better when its a little crazy). In prose, you can look for plot, characters, characterizing, and others things that don't have to be in poetry, or at least don't have to be well defined. So there is always a technical roadblock to critiquing poetry over other forms of writing. But probably more than that, is that while I love for people to critique my work, I am always a little wary of critiquing other poets work. I love it when people really tackle my work and tear it apart, because even if I don't use their suggestions, it always helps in one way or another, if only to give me another point of view to revise from. No, my real problem is reviewing other poets. I'm always a little uncomfortable deconstucting other people's poetry and putting a critical eye on it. I shy a bit becase I don't want to hurt feelings (not that I am a big jerk about it or anything - i don't attack people - its just hard to guage how open people are to it) or even worse - discourage people from writing more. So i admit that my workshopping skills are suspect at time. But like I said in one of the other blog posts, once we get comfortable with each other, the workshop really probably get rolling. Tomorrow should be interesting!

After going though some examples in class of how to take abstract language and change it to concrete, I am having issues in my own poems. I feel like when we went step by step I could see the variety of concrete words I could use for vague words like "everything" and "reality". I was surprised as to how many different ways you change simple words. But as soon as I tried to do it myself I feel as though none of my words fit with my poems and it all seems to be crazy and all over the place. It is very weird because I always thought of abstract language would be better because it is very vague and could have many different meanings. I do see now why it is better to use concrete language because even though it might be talking about something specific you can see or hear, it can still mean so many different things to different readers. Still none of mine seem to really fit well. I suppose it is just something you have to practice and will eventually become more natural when writing.

Can I Take You Out For Dinner?

Carry my body as a rat with the plague,
no longer do I seem a natural thing.
Devoid of life, I am the mummy in motion,
But what motive can move an absent heart?
Drag me down to hell like New Orleans
waiting for the flood, my all is lost.
Run free, leaping,
without forgotten wings.
This cratered space revealing chasmic feeling,
Plummet within, feel the rush
of sorrow’s wind upon a face unworthy.