Critical Commentary (Week 9)

This week's critical commentary might as well be the focus of Wednesday's Class. Looking at more at the oratorical sense of writing I realize how much of it is generalized. People like Adrian Matejka and Camille Dungy who write then recite, that gives their writing a deeper context because some words lose their mobility on the page; but on the flip side a lot of the mobility in performance pieces can't stand up to the form on the page. There's a tension that is lost between a performance poet and his audience because they are used to hearing the inflections in voice and stance, the actual person showing his emotion and with respect to writing (for me anyway) its harder to channel that because I'm used to distancing myself away from my written material. As part of a class whose history and basis for writing is books of poetry, I think seeing how some of the people I look at as lyrical giants versus the masters of the forms really adds dimension to my studies.

Junkyard Quote 2 (Week 9)

 This is actually a rare condition known as Synechia. Part of the iris attaches to the cornea or adheres to the lens to where upon looking at a person's eye, It literally looks like their eye is falling apart. Its a beautiful way of looking at the world because you wonder if what you see isnt really real, but because the iris isnt fully developed it causes cranial pressure and frequent headache. Yet, with all of that the image in itself, "I have no way of truly knowing if I'm in your eyes"

Junkyard Quote 1 (Week 9)

• "Bullets do know what the color of your skin is"- I was listening to an interview from Carver              Lissaint from the Striver's Row
• "I only go to church on leap years" - This happened by accident, a sort of crash collision of revising while someone was talking.

Improv. 5 (Week 8)

Improv. off of "Reading Plato" by Jorie Graham. More than anything i wanted to wrestle with the format of her piece and see how it would affect the shape of my draft.
                  

Do remember
             To fall
out of love the
          way fingers
print hopes on
          pages. That

Sisyphys carried
          the sun on
 His brow. Writing
          is as simple
as finding night in
         eyes.

Measure love by
        burning it at
sea and watch the
        flame flicker
lower, remember it
       Can't be. Skin,
a knit work of Mother's
       flaws. A collasped
lung is still a lung
       worth stitching.
         

Improv. 4 (Week 8)

I decided to take an image that nothing to do with a piece and unravel it slowly. Well practice at it anyway.

Did you know, that an elephant is one of the only animals that cann recognize itself in the mirror, and it smiles.

Somewhere,
there is a aged veteran nursing
her wrinkles in the mirror and see stage lights
pirouetting over the arch of her toes,
wrestling with the slink of her back.
Her back now, a beautiful decay.

That man he's polishing his glasses.
The bores of his knuckles, small flutes,
make measures of him. Body misaligned
,each joint its own set of keys.
He thumbs his skin as a nurse
asks "did you misplace your saxophone?"

Critical Commentary (Week 8)

This critical commentary is focused on today's class. Today's visit was an eye opener, I learned more about what it means to have an image, if that makes sense. The idea of unraveling an image further into the piece, A gateway of sorts to understanding how deep a draft can get because of these gate's Mr vine illustrated for us. I guess it comes with understanding and more of a practiced hand at writing, not just the poetry, but at many different types of genre's so that the writer has a better foundation from which to craft a draft from.

Improv. 3 (Week 8)

Hmmm decided to go deeper into my draft creating process by finishing my free write from earlier.

If ever my chest knocks
dry beats against my lungs,
Crack a brew of oxygen and
raise the glass to my nose. The
sound of caps snapping across
my ears is easier than Iv's stabbing
pounds of sonic outbursts through
forearms. Makes you feel good tho,
right arm look like a tree, eyes sliding
through my sockets like a revolving globe.