Critical Commentary (Week 11)

This weeks commentary is delving further in the use of oratory aspect of poetry in written format instead of performance. The biggest focus would be the use of the refrain in poetry, Last week I referenced Lucille Clifton as someone I've noticed whose poetry has an oratorical context as well. The use of the repeating word "Move" in the poem we were assigned by her shows a good example of this; Reading it actually makes me question why isn't the refrain used in performance poetry more. Wondering if the reason is because the refrain requires a use of repeating the same word or phrase would it get tiring to the audience or trying to keep the phrase from sounding repetitive in the context of the poem. Something to start thinking about with more poems.

Improv. 2 (Week 11)

               Decided to run an improv. of  “Spring and All,” William Carlos William.

 

Clovers

Stationed at the foot of the mountain,

With the stench of Gettysburg bathing their petals.

The last gurgle of “Our American Cousin”

While Lincoln’s corpse was the canvas of a used Derringer.

Cats,

Witch’s familiars quartered,

Hung, and gathered during the Black Plague.

Gerald De Borch displayed

During the Peace of Munster.

Cremated humans

Christening wilted graves and rubbed stone.

Moon rocks swirling towards Armstrong’s suit

While brushing windows of the Apollo 11.

Graffiti layered over cracks

Jutting out of the Berlin Wall.

While limping hands

on watches continue to be crafted by William Cowan.

Improv. 1 (Week 11)

Decided to give my workshop piece one more try before I sit on it.

Ink

I hate it—smell of pigment, drops

running through my fingers. Anyway,

My bed, was a guest room stuck between

my grandfather’s music collection in a closet

and the bathroom. Every spring we talked.

I called it “cutting,” since words tended to relieve.

But this is a poem about ink. My mother,

she used to cut with her voice along. 

“Writing is your past time,” she’d say.

My notebook was a water pail in a hole.

“Never let your tongue drench your words,”

my grandfather said. Another cut. Another

when he barged in my room, and the door

hit my ink pot. Black splotches on my bedspread.

His tongue, black as the ink on my quill, ready

to spit. “Why the hell you want to waste your life?”

The last day he cut, he lacquered over the porch.

It’s still there, I bet, just waiting to be cut.

Junkyard Quote 2 (Week 11)

"The minute hands be walkin' and you missin your steps"- Skyzoo

Junkyard Quote 1 (Week 11)

"Your eyes are like a disk rotating on record players." Me and my friend Gabriel

Critical Commentary (Week 10)

This week's commentary I decided to focus on the idea of poetry as an everyday language. Often times we overlook the fanciful "poetry" in everyday language because it tends to shy away from the grittiness we've come to expect by drafting in class. The "Girl i love you more than life itself, rather than the couple that argues about which movie to watch everyday." I wonder if we shy away from this because its obvious or if its just too available, or possibly a mix of both. Using that logic however, can we not say that the language that we're using in class has become the everyday due the fact that instead of using a high lexicon we rely on the everyday language mix in unexpected ways, almost a madgab game of sorts. Just a thought though.

Improv. 5 (Week 10)

Practice with “Loss,” C.K. Williams. The Piece in itself fascinated me with this idea about loss so i wanted to try to coax the idea out of an elegy for further drafting.                      

To the once was piece of flesh    

tinged with singed coat tails 

you aren’t in vain.Your cod scales

are immersed in worms and soiled 

manure. Created with caked blood,

silent death your names are etched in.

The true gravestone that never withers.   

There is a gravesite in all of us that cleaning